Minimum wage (split from, "Humbling and Hofstra")

[swansont]

3. Hilary Clinton pi***d me off whe she talked about minimum wage, which is why I created this thread. I've studied economics and equilibrium dynamics. From a hard stance, no, there is nothing that can be changed. From a soft stance, raising the minimum wage is going to simply create a lag, whereby it will take price setters time to re-adjust their prices a proportional amount that minimum wage was increased. So, it's really a moot point that creates annoyances for price setters and a quick luxury for those able to take advantage of the lag time. Donald Trump didn't appear to say anything about minimum wage.

 

 

I don't think that's how it works. Minimum-wage labor costs are not 100% of the cost of any product. Take someone flipping burgers or making subs getting an extra dollar or two per hour. They make dozens of that product in that time, so the cost is spread out.

 

If you're serving 50 customers per hour in your fast-food restaurant and they're each spending an average of $20, that's $1000 in gross income. If your 7 person crew each gets an extra $2 for that hour, the owner is out an extra $14. Passing that on to the customer is 28 cents added to the bill. Meanwhile, the employees are making and extra $4000 a year (e.g. a whopping $20k instead of $16k) and maybe don't have to work a second job, or pull as many shifts, to make ends meet.

 

This does not jibe with your implication. So maybe you can explain the economics and equilibrium dynamics.

 

There's a place that already did this. started at $12 per hour and then went to $15. They waste less money on employee turnover. They make money.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/12/04/368442087/a-burger-joint-pays-15-an-hour-and-yes-its-making-money

 

 

 

The news media is ridiculously biased in the fact checking. When they say "Yes and No" as to whether or not something was true as to whether or not something Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump said, the media ought to provide a source. The station I watched, whichever it was, totally failed at that. It was an annoyance and one more reason I hate watching the news unless it's about politicians or members of the government going to jail or getting caught doing crime.

How are you supposed to do that in something approaching real time? But npr has many links in their fact check

http://www.npr.org/2016/09/26/495115346/fact-check-first-presidential-debate

[DrmDoc]

I've been a Hilary Clinton supported until I saw the presidential debate, whereby each candidate may as well have been wearing party colors.

 

I've only got a few issues:

 

 

1. I agree with Donald Trump on his argument for keeping businesses in the U.S. and understand his view against what Hilary is doing. From my critical thinking stand point, if we argue that work gives meaning or a sense of fulfillment to a person's life, then I guess I will side with Trump. The downside of that, however, is that the pay will more than likely not be great. So, I assume that means that pay will decrease and cost of living will increase. With Hilary Clinton's view on this, she's going to cost the U.S. jobs.. How do I say that? Because if I was rich, I wouldn't live in the U.S.A.. There are too many laws, thus an elaborate schizoaffective network of free-will argumentists spouting crazy B.S. throughout positions of power. I would live in the U.S. if it made me money more money than elsewhere (but it'd have to be a lot more). I'd have companies in the U.S. if it made me more money than elsewhere. And that's just about getting rich. But if she wants to keep raising taxes on the rich to the point they want to leave the country because it's more profitable elsewhere, then that's not useful.

 

There has to be an economic trade-off, and it appears that both candidates were not explaining the intricate aspects of how markets work. If the trade-off for Hilary Clinton is that Americans increase their wealth while not having jobs, thus the cost of living decreases yet you don't have to work as hard in life for the cost of living as you previously did, then I understand how some people would be accepting of that. If the trade-off for Donald Trump is an increase in the work demand yet you don't have to supply as much work for the cost of living you previously had, I understand how some people would be accepting of that.

 

However, I like to believe people are best kept busy in life rather than moping around on the streets trying to figure out what they want to do next in life or trolling on the Internet, so I reason I'm going with Donald Trump. Otherwise, we'd have like an Animatrix situation eventually.

 

If I could tell both parties something, it would be to use the words "supply" and "demand" a lot more often.

 

 

You've raised several issues here that appear to favor Trump's position on US jobs...whatever that may truly be. You should understand that Trump's brand and sole interest until his political bid was big business. He himself have boasted about various deals and business ventures he negotiated and pursued beyond our shores. Those foreign deals and businesses certainly weren't for the benefit of American workers and small business. Therefore, he is hardly a credible champion for jobs and small business owners in America.

 

Unfortunately, there are good reasons why certain businesses shift jobs and manufacturing to other nations, which has nothing to do with the prominently touted infrastructure issues Trump mentioned during the debate. The bottom line issues for most businesses are profits, taxes, and regulation. Lower wages and benefits with longer work hours, tax forgiveness or reciprocal agreements, and less manufacturing regulations that protect workers and the environment offer huge financial incentives for American businesses to move their operations to other nations. To keep those jobs here, our government would have to make it more expensive for businesses to operate elsewhere or less expensive to operate here It's a catch-22, one alternative hurts businesses bottom line while the other harms employees and the environment. Although neither candidate has proposed a suitable alternative, one candidate appears to be the clearer choice for champion American jobs and the working class as she doesn't appear to come from big business.

 

 

3. Hilary Clinton pi***d me off whe she talked about minimum wage, which is why I created this thread. I've studied economics and equilibrium dynamics. From a hard stance, no, there is nothing that can be changed. From a soft stance, raising the minimum wage is going to simply create a lag, whereby it will take price setters time to re-adjust their prices a proportional amount that minimum wage was increased. So, it's really a moot point that creates annoyances for price setters and a quick luxury for those able to take advantage of the lag time. Donald Trump didn't appear to say anything about minimum wage..

 

This issue of minimum wage increasing to a standard of $15/hr. will not have quite the impact those who oppose it want us to believe. The opposition believes small businesses will suffer the most under this wage increase; however, those businesses employ relatively few employees and have greater flexibility in making minor price adjustments to remain competitive and maintain their bottom line. With a universal minimum wage increase, all affected small businesses will have to make similar adjustments essentially resulting in no change to their competitiveness or profit margin. Small businesses may also benefit from higher consumerism as an effect of higher wages paid to employees. This whole issue of raising the minimum wage is about businesses believing that paying workers more will somehow diminish their profits margin, which just isn't true. It will simply make more money available to the economy.

[Genecks]

I don't like the thread title.

 

This is in relation to Hillary Clinton saying she wanted to raise the minimum wage and response to my economic views from what was said in the debate.

 

Anyway, my view is like this:

 

Let's imagine that federal minimum wage is $7.50 and hour and the price of a Little Debbie Zebra Cake that you can buy in a convenience store is $0.50 USD. This is the actual case, at least as I observe in Illinois. Let's futher assume that the price of a Little Debbie Zebra Cake is actually $0.50 anywhere you go in the nation. When you buy it at a store, it costs $0.50 to buy it.

 

Now, let's imagine that the federal government works together to raise the minimum wage to $15.00. IF the United States of America is the setter of the international price floor of a standard minimum wage throughout the world, then the price of a Little Debbie Zebra Cake ought to cost to $1.00 USD. That would be a proportional adjustment. Any convenience store selling it still at $0.50 would be in the lag period, whereby they have yet to change the price of Zebra Cakes accordingly to the change in federal minimum wage.

 

If the world governments had their stuff together, even if the U.S. were to change the federal minimum wage, ideally they too would up the price floor of their "minimum wage" a proportional amount. They ought to, anyway. It's not good financial sense not to.

 

And if you don't know what a Little Debbie Zebra Cake is, you're missing out.

 

I use Little Debbies as an economic indicator for myself. Zebra cakes used to cost about $0.25 in 2009 (last federal minimum wage change?) but now they're $0.50 and the federal minimum wage hasn't changed. Something has changed, and I'm determined to eventually figure it out. The Illinois wage is surely a dollar more than federal minimum wage: Illinois has $8.25 an hour. But I don't think that has been the biggest factor. And considering the Malthusian crisis that could happen to food, it appears that investment has off-set any troublesome food shortage issues.

Edited September 29, 2016 by Genecks

[Strange]

Now, let's imagine that the federal government works together to raise the minimum wage to $15.00. IF the United States of America is the setter of the international price floor of a standard minimum wage throughout the world, then the price of a Little Debbie Zebra Cake ought to cost to $1.00 USD.

 

 

That makes approximately zero sense.

 

1. The USA doesn't determine wages internationally.

2. Why would international minimum wages be relevant anyway

3. Your calculation could only be correct if the only cost of production were labour. I can't think of a single product that is true for.

4. You are ignoring margins (as well as costs of raw materials, distribution, sales and marketing, and many other fixed and variable costs).

 

I can only assume you know even less about economics than I do (which is close to nothing).

I use Little Debbies as an economic indicator for myself. Zebra cakes used to cost about $0.25 in 2009 (last federal minimum wage change?) but now they're $0.50 and the federal minimum wage hasn't changed.

 

Which confirms that your analysis is totally wrong.

 

Or alternatively, he does know all this and insinuated that Japan doesn't contribute to US military efforts because he didn't think the voters would know he was lying, and thought it would score points?

 

Whether he knows or not (and it hardly matters) this is certainly the motivation.

Edited September 29, 2016 by Strange

[DrmDoc]

I don't like the thread title.

 

This is in relation to Hillary Clinton saying she wanted to raise the minimum wage and response to my economic views from what was said in the debate.

 

Anyway, my view is like this:

 

Let's imagine that federal minimum wage is $7.50 and hour and the price of a Little Debbie Zebra Cake that you can buy in a convenience store is $0.50 USD. This is the actual case, at least as I observe in Illinois. Let's futher assume that the price of a Little Debbie Zebra Cake is actually $0.50 anywhere you go in the nation. When you buy it at a store, it costs $0.50 to buy it.

 

Now, let's imagine that the federal government works together to raise the minimum wage to $15.00. IF the United States of America is the setter of the international price floor of a standard minimum wage throughout the world, then the price of a Little Debbie Zebra Cake ought to cost to $1.00 USD. That would be a proportional adjustment. Any convenience store selling it still at $0.50 would be in the lag period, whereby they have yet to change the price of Zebra Cakes accordingly to the change in federal minimum wage.

 

I disagree. Your calculations assume that labor wages are the sole cost of producing Little Debbie Zebra Cakes, which they are definitively not. Assuming that $0.50 includes a profit margin of 20% that suggests total expenses in cake production is about $0.30 per cake. That $0.30 includes ingredient costs, advertising, transit, utilities, labor, and various other miscellaneous costs. Actual wages, excluding benefits, may not amount to more than 2-3% of the overall cost of producing that Little Debbie cake. Furthermore, that full minimum wage increase would only apply to new hires rather than established workers who likely make higher wages thus requiring a lesser jump to the new minimum. New hires may amount to no more than %10 of the entire work force. Essentially, minimum wage increases for large manufacturers may result in only a fraction of additional production costs leading to fractional increases in sales prices. An increase in the minimum wage is affordable to businesses both big and small. The only obstruction to businesses is the perception of a lower profit margin due to negligible wage increases--businesses would still remain profitable.

 

NOTE: Having just now notices Strange's comments, I agree you should know all this already--if you've truly studied economics.

Edited September 29, 2016 by DrmDoc

[CharonY]

As already noted the calculations do not make any sense. However, the underlying assumption seems to be even worse. It implies that in order to have a competitive product, the US market needs to undercut foreign wages (and again, there are a lot of reasons why it is often not the case). Considering a decrease in buying power (looking e.g. at housing cost vs wage development) that would likely mean that one would support the creation of a permanently impoverished work force as it would become almost impossible to accumulate wealth.

 

Actual economic studies, both theoretical as well as empirical ones (the latter based on states or countries with minimum wage) indicate at best moderate effects on product prices and, at least in newer papers, almost no effect on employment (automation is likely to take care of that at some point). A paper by Neumark (2015) looked closely at the employment data and concluded that, in aggregate there may be a net job loss. However, that one should be carefully weighed against the rise in income. After all, the point of the whole exercise is to address inequality and poverty.

If the only goal is to make companies happy without regard for society we should implement serfdom again.

 

I think it's a bit of both, really, but mostly he's just clueless on policy (and has bad advisers who give him crap advice).

 

You cannot give advice to someone who does not want to take it.

 

Edit: Gosh, Englishing is hard.

 

Edit2: forgot to mention that for fast food (which is one of the largest employer for below-minimum wage workers) the minimum wage was associated with a likely ~4% increase in price. Some estimates go as high as 10% but obviously both are far from the examples provided.

Edited September 29, 2016 by CharonY

[swansont]

 

Anyway, my view is like this:

 

Let's imagine that federal minimum wage is $7.50 and hour and the price of a Little Debbie Zebra Cake that you can buy in a convenience store is $0.50 USD. This is the actual case, at least as I observe in Illinois. Let's futher assume that the price of a Little Debbie Zebra Cake is actually $0.50 anywhere you go in the nation. When you buy it at a store, it costs $0.50 to buy it.

 

Now, let's imagine that the federal government works together to raise the minimum wage to $15.00. IF the United States of America is the setter of the international price floor of a standard minimum wage throughout the world, then the price of a Little Debbie Zebra Cake ought to cost to $1.00 USD. That would be a proportional adjustment. Any convenience store selling it still at $0.50 would be in the lag period, whereby they have yet to change the price of Zebra Cakes accordingly to the change in federal minimum wage.

 

If the world governments had their stuff together, even if the U.S. were to change the federal minimum wage, ideally they too would up the price floor of their "minimum wage" a proportional amount. They ought to, anyway. It's not good financial sense not to.

 

And if you don't know what a Little Debbie Zebra Cake is, you're missing out.

 

I use Little Debbies as an economic indicator for myself. Zebra cakes used to cost about $0.25 in 2009 (last federal minimum wage change?) but now they're $0.50 and the federal minimum wage hasn't changed. Something has changed, and I'm determined to eventually figure it out. The Illinois wage is surely a dollar more than federal minimum wage: Illinois has $8.25 an hour. But I don't think that has been the biggest factor. And considering the Malthusian crisis that could happen to food, it appears that investment has off-set any troublesome food shortage issues.

 

 

 

Why is this a reasonable example? Where are you getting the $1.00 value? The only way to arrive at this number is if you assume the entire cost of the snack is the labor. As I stated before, this is not the case. It's not anywhere close to the case. It's ludicrous. IMO it can't even be called an example because it's completely made up.

 

 

What's changed since 2009 is probably inflation and the cost of the ingredients. Ingredients, which probably comprise the bulk of the cost of the product.

———

 

McKee foods, who make Little Debbie products, employs about 5200 people. There are executives and foremen, etc, so for round numbers lets assume 5000 factory workers working 2000 hours. If they all make $7.50 an hour, that's a labor payroll of $75 million.

 

Their annual sales are $1.3 billion.

http://www.mckeefoods.com/downloads/2014Factsheetbrochure_1.pdf

 

They ship more than 900 million packages of the Little Debbie products each year.

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/edge/story/2016/jul/01/brand-little-debbie/372603/

 

The cost of some of these products has to already be over $1.00 for that annual sales number to be true.

 

But, at 900 million packages a year, that would mean an average price bump of 8.3 cents. If this bump is proportional to the existing price, that means the Zebra cakes price will go up by less than a nickel.

 

edit: in reality even less, because they already pay higher than minimum wage

e.g. packaging technician wages are already $12-15 an hour. Process operator $12-$19

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/McKee-Foods-Salaries-E3287.htm

[Genecks]

Minimum wage would make sense if we didn't live in a static universe. Otherwise, the communist manifesto is pretty much on par. It wants the abolishment of all "private" property, thus getting people to lose their delusion that anything can really be independent.

[John Cuthber]

Just a quick observation from "across the pond".

We only adopted a minimum wage relatively recently. When it was proposed, the Right wing opposition at the time said that it would destroy small businesses, cripple the economy and generate plagues of frogs- in the same way they complain always complain about anything that might help people.

Obviously it turned out they were completely wrong.

The interesting point about a minimum wage is that, if you set it low enough, it's actually a way to take money from middle earners and hand it to the rich (at least in most societies) .

 

If the minimum wage isn't enough to live on then people earning it will still need benefits from the state to survive.

So, if I set up a factory that makes widgets, but I sell them at a low price I can only "afford" to pay my staff minimum wage.

If I charged an economically viable price for the widgets (one where i could afford to pay a living wage) I'd go bankrupt.

But, because of the state picking up the difference between a living wage and the minimum wage ( the state pays them benefits of some sort), I can run my business and make an apparent small profit and pay myself a good salary.

 

Why am I in a position to do this?

Because I'm rich enough (or well enough connected-which is often the same thing) to set up a factory.

 

I'm only getting a profit because middle earners are picking up the difference between the living wage and the minimum wage.

 

It's the strangest thing, but since the Right worked this out, they dropped their opposition to a minimum wage- they just made sure it''s not enough to live on.

[MigL]

Yeah, but you guys voted to leave the EU.

Obviously you guys don't know economics from a hole in the ground.

How can we take you seriously ?

[Sensei]

Since September, I am making wine from my black grapes.

It requires cutting branches with fruits.

It's reasonably fast stage, if there is easy access to them.

In my case it's not, and I am doing 3.5 kg of branches with fruits in 10-15 minutes. Mass of fruits on single branch is 95% or so.

So one person doing it, in one hour could cut 14 kg-21 kg.

(I asked one drone making scientist to make drone which will find fruits by camera and cut them, and fly to container with branch and drop it)

 

Then there is the most time consuming step: wash and remove fruits from branches.

I calculated that these 3.5 kg can be processed in 1 hour.

At least it's mine speed..

 

From 1 kg of fruits, there can be extruded 600-650 mL of juice for pink wine,

and slightly more for red wine (because of several days in container fermenting together with fruit mash).

Let's say 750 mL from 1 kg of fruits.

(I was couple times measuring mass of fruits, and then juice)

So from 3.5 kg of fruits there can be 2.6 L of red dry wine which is 3.5 bottles of wine each with 750 mL.

 

Now tell me yours country minimum wage per hour of work.

 

And then confront it with amount of wine one person can make in one hour, in stated above numbers...

 

I have no idea how on the Earth "Thracian Quest" red semi-dry wine from Thracia (now Bulgaria/Greece/Turkey),

can be sold in the shop for $1.5 per 750 mL in promotion, and $2.5 regular price?!

It does not make any sense..

3.5 bottles of wine with price $2.5 is $8.75.. Remind me: what is minimum wage in your country?

If we have minimum wage, it's simply not possible to make this wine, as it should be couple/dozen times more expensive..

Work price is more than cost of ready product.. Even without any taxes or other costs..

(While making ethanol/vodka it's exactly reverse. We have pretty cheap alcohol from west world standards point of view. But the real cost of production is 10% or so from regular price in the shop. ~ $1.25 per 1 L of ethanol 100%)

 

There are jobs which can be easily optimized by automation (and it often leads to even more unemployed people),

and there are jobs which cannot be optimized.

If producer cannot increase price of ready product, because of higher work cost, without drop of sales, has to shutdown entire business, and then nobody will earn, neither minimum wage, nor any wage.

Edited October 20, 2016 by Sensei

[Delta1212]

On the other hand, if a business requires someone to work full time for pay that they can't survive on without government assistance, perhaps that shouldn't be a business.

 

Edit: Or at least not a private sector business.

Edited October 19, 2016 by Delta1212

[Sensei]

On the other hand, if a business requires someone to work full time for pay that they can't survive on without government assistance, perhaps that shouldn't be a business.

Now local business owners have to compete with business owners from around the entire world.

In some areas they can compete by quality of product, in others, only price.

 

(now this thread will turn to discussion about protectionistics custom duties..)

Edited October 19, 2016 by Sensei

[swansont]

Yeah, but you guys voted to leave the EU.

Obviously you guys don't know economics from a hole in the ground.

How can we take you seriously ?

Folks in the US have been voting against their economic interests for ages.

On the other hand, if a business requires someone to work full time for pay that they can't survive on without government assistance, perhaps that shouldn't be a business.

Edit: Or at least not a private sector business.

It was Wal Mart's business plan for a long stretch.

Minimum wage would make sense if we didn't live in a static universe. Otherwise, the communist manifesto is pretty much on par. It wants the abolishment of all "private" property, thus getting people to lose their delusion that anything can really be independent.

Your previoud model of how this works was shown to be horribly wrong, so why should your judgement on it making sense carry any weight?

[Endy0816]

Since September, I am making wine from my black grapes.

It requires cutting branches with fruits.

It's reasonably fast stage, if there is easy access to them.

In my case it's not, and I am doing 3.5 kg of branches with fruits in 10-15 minutes. Mass of fruits on single branch is 95% or so.

So one person doing it, in one hour could cut 14 kg-21 kg.

(I asked one drone making scientist to make drone which will find fruits by camera and cut them, and fly to container with branch and drop it)

 

Then there is the most consuming step: wash and remove fruits from branches.

I calculated that these 3.5 kg can be processed in 1 hour.

At least it's mine speed..

 

From 1 kg of fruits, there can be extruded 600-650 mL of juice for pink wine,

and slightly more for red wine (because of several days in container fermenting together with fruit mash).

Let's say 750 mL from 1 kg of fruits.

(I was couple times measuring mass of fruits, and then juice)

So from 3.5 kg of fruits there can be 2.6 L of red dry wine which is 3.5 bottles of wine each with 750 mL.

 

Now tell me yours country minimum wage per hour of work.

 

And then confront it with amount of wine one person can make in one hour, in stated above numbers...

 

I have no idea how on the Earth "Thracian Quest" red semi-dry wine from Thracia (now Bulgaria/Greece/Turkey),

can be sold in the shop for $1.5 per 750 mL in promotion, and $2.5 regular price?!

It does not make any sense..

3.5 bottles of wine with price $2.5 is $8.75.. Remind me: what is minimum wage in your country?

If we have minimum wage, it's simply not possible to make this wine, as it should be couple/dozen times more expensive..

Work price is more than cost of ready product.. Even without any taxes or other costs..

(While making ethanol/vodka it's exactly reverse. We have pretty cheap alcohol from west world standards point of view. But the real cost of production is 10% or so from regular price in the shop. ~ $1.25 per 1 L of ethanol 100%)

 

There are jobs which can be easily optimized with automation (and it often leads to even more unemployed people),

and there are jobs which cannot be optimized.

If producer cannot increase price of ready product, because of higher work cost, without drop of sales, has to shutdown entire business, and then nobody will earn, neither minimum wage, nor any wage.

 

Commercial operations are likely to be using destemmers.

 

Cut the time and cost down considerably.

[Ten oz]

Just a quick observation from "across the pond".

We only adopted a minimum wage relatively recently. When it was proposed, the Right wing opposition at the time said that it would destroy small businesses, cripple the economy and generate plagues of frogs- in the same way they complain always complain about anything that might help people.

Obviously it turned out they were completely wrong.

The interesting point about a minimum wage is that, if you set it low enough, it's actually a way to take money from middle earners and hand it to the rich (at least in most societies) .

 

If the minimum wage isn't enough to live on then people earning it will still need benefits from the state to survive.

So, if I set up a factory that makes widgets, but I sell them at a low price I can only "afford" to pay my staff minimum wage.

If I charged an economically viable price for the widgets (one where i could afford to pay a living wage) I'd go bankrupt.

But, because of the state picking up the difference between a living wage and the minimum wage ( the state pays them benefits of some sort), I can run my business and make an apparent small profit and pay myself a good salary.

 

Why am I in a position to do this?

Because I'm rich enough (or well enough connected-which is often the same thing) to set up a factory.

 

I'm only getting a profit because middle earners are picking up the difference between the living wage and the minimum wage.

 

It's the strangest thing, but since the Right worked this out, they dropped their opposition to a minimum wage- they just made sure it''s not enough to live on.

The gov't picking up the difference is a great point. Back when the gov't didn't industry resorted to slavery, child labor, indentured severants, and etc. It is a built in flaw of capitalism. In theory if I build a better widget than you I will be more successful but the reality is that the quality (better) of my widget is proportional to its price. Keeping costs down is a easier formula for success than keeping quality up. Keeping quality up, making a better widget, requires innovation and skill that isn't easy to come by. Keeping costs don't is simple as cutting wages, reducig quality, and etc. Many would agrue that there is a penalty for poor quality yet many industries thrive on poor quality. Walmart is the number one employer in the U.S. (2.2 million employees) and their a seller of low quality items. The fast food industry employees 3.5 million people selling low quality. Walmart and the fast food industry also pay their employees the lowest possible wages.

 

For living wages to be enforced as a minimum wage the policy must be married to quality standards that come in the form of safety, product warranty, copy right infringement, and etc standards.

On the other hand, if a business requires someone to work full time for pay that they can't survive on without government assistance, perhaps that shouldn't be a business.

 

Edit: Or at least not a private sector business.

Or at least not one which isn't allowed to profit its investors and give bonuses to its board members. Perhaps there should be laws in place that force such companies into a profit nuetral status where their managers and board members earn a federally oulined salary and their shares frozen from public trade until such time the company isn't be supplemented by the tax payers.

[MigL]

I think minimum wage legislation is only a part solution.

I know it sounds like protectionism, but if a company which sells $300 sneakers to a primarily North American market, decides to move their manufacturing to Bangladesh where manufacturing costs are reduced considerably, the differences in wages goes directly into the pockets of the company fat-cats/shareholders.

This can be eliminated by smart consumerism ( which will never happen ) or legislation. The automotive industry already has a measure of this, with companies like Toyota and Honda establishing North American manufacturing plants. These companies provide some return to the North American economy by providing some good paying local jobs.

[CharonY]

The shareholder mentality could also be part of the issue. Realistically, for many products increasing wages has a relatively small impact on product cost. However, it is most beneficial for the company to maximize profits especially for larger ones, as the volume will have a net impact on the profit charts of the company. Talking to some investors it is sometimes weird how obsessed they can be for seeemingly small changes, until you remember that a 0.2% of a multi-billion company is quite a chunk. From the viewpoint of the individual product and for the end consumer the impact may be minimal. But as long as shareholders want to squeeze every possible penny out of their stocks like a game of min/maxing stats, it may be a hard sell.

[waitforufo]

The money to pay higher wages has to come from somewhere. The question is who is paying? The idea that fat-cats and shareholders are paying is a joke. Consumers pay. Since the poor consumers spend all of their money, higher minimum wages is simply a regressive tax on the poor. A mind boggling concept to some.

[John Cuthber]

The money to pay higher wages has to come from somewhere. The question is who is paying? The idea that fat-cats and shareholders are paying is a joke. Consumers pay. Since the poor consumers spend all of their money, higher minimum wages is simply a regressive tax on the poor. A mind boggling concept to some.

Well, maybe.

If you raise the minimum wage then the people in these low wage industries need fewer subsidies from the government.

I can choose to pay them either more dole (via my taxes) , or a better wage (via higher prices).

I know which I'd prefer, and I suspect they would agree.

 

Better yet, set up a genuinely progressive tax system and then get the shareholders to pay.

That idea is only "a joke" because people think it is, and I suspect they think that because they have been essentially lied to by the media (owned by those shareholders an their friends)

[waitforufo]

Well, maybe.

If you raise the minimum wage then the people in these low wage industries need fewer subsidies from the government.

I can choose to pay them either more dole (via my taxes) , or a better wage (via higher prices).

I know which I'd prefer, and I suspect they would agree.

 

Better yet, set up a genuinely progressive tax system and then get the shareholders to pay.

That idea is only "a joke" because people think it is, and I suspect they think that because they have been essentially lied to by the media (owned by those shareholders an their friends)

The poor will simply have the same poverty but with more cash which buys less. You will also have to pay more in taxes for the dole because dole payments will also purchase less. My guess is that you will feel better about yourself however, because you championed higher wages.

 

If increasing minimum wages provides so many benefits, why not set the minimum wage at $100.00 per hour? Won't we all then be fat cats?

Seattle raised it's minimum wage to $15.00 per hour. Now they have these. No minimum wage, no Obamacare, no sick leave.

 

[Endy0816]

We have some here in busier stores and no minimum wage change.

[John Cuthber]

The poor will simply have the same poverty but with more cash which buys less.

 

 

No. In the limit, they will have exactly the same money- but it will have been paid to the as wages, rather than as dole.

It doesn't cost me any more I pay less tax , but more for goods. (BTW, that's a "small government" thing, so I'd expect you to be in favour).

 

"If increasing minimum wages provides so many benefits, why not set the minimum wage at $100.00 per hour? "

Were you not paying attention?

The difference is that the government wouldn't be paying dole to people on $100 an hour.#

Nor would they be topping up anyone's $5 per hour to $100 per hour.

 

The point I am making is about the problem with a minimum wage set below a living wage in a society where people are not allowed to starve in the street. (A model that works quite well in most of the Western world)

[waitforufo]

No. In the limit, they will have exactly the same money- but it will have been paid to the as wages, rather than as dole.

It doesn't cost me any more I pay less tax , but more for goods.

Somehow you will pay more for goods, but minimum wage earners won't? What magic makes that happen?

[Delta1212]

Somehow you will pay more for goods, but minimum wage earners won't? What magic makes that happen?

But the amount they'll be paying more by is less than the amount that their income is raised.