You mean minimum wage hikes come out of *our* pockets?

im with matty here? any of you guys try to live on 10.00 an hour?

I have a friend who does, he refuses to better himself with an education, smokes pot and is a Bernie supporter. no lie. He's passed up multiple opportunities with decent jobs. A couple years ago he got a job which put him in a position of authority and autonomy running store. I told him don't fuck this up...he had the ability to learn about how to run a small business, sales, manage books, etc. I told him to be a sponge, soak up the opportunity...he was lazy and screwed it up. naturally it wasn't his fault, the man keeping him down....right? it always is. He got Obama care and then complained that it wasn't completely free. typical

and CRedskinsRule, if its not made to be a livable wage, why hasnt congress passed ANY jobs bills?

Simple, Government isn't the answer to economic questions. It amazes me at the stupidity of the US electorate. Government's job ISN'T to provide a lifetime of work for people (unless we were living in a worker's paradise") it is to provide a stable ecosystem that allows businesses to compete and thrive. It's job is to create a nation that is safe from external threats, and create physical safety for the population.

Nobody is arguing that 7.25-9.50 is livable, BUT for a HS student living with their parent(s), it's a starting point to understand what work ethic is and how earnings correspond to work. Minimum wage is just that a minimum, living wage is not the same, and people who have to live off their income need to work harder than doing just a minimum. That goes for every single person in this country. IF you make the minimum wage equal to the current living wage, a very likely outcome would be rapid inflation and unemployment, not really a good economic outcome.

Simple, Government isn't the answer to economic questions. It amazes me at the stupidity of the US electorate. Government's job ISN'T to provide a lifetime of work for people (unless we were living in a worker's paradise") it is to provide a stable ecosystem that allows businesses to compete and thrive. It's job is to create a nation that is safe from external threats, and create physical safety for the population.

Nobody is arguing that 7.25-9.50 is livable, BUT for a HS student living with their parent(s), it's a starting point to understand what work ethic is and how earnings correspond to work. Minimum wage is just that a minimum, living wage is not the same, and people who have to live off their income need to work harder than doing just a minimum. That goes for every single person in this country. IF you make the minimum wage equal to the current living wage, a very likely outcome would be rapid inflation and unemployment, not really a good economic outcome.

Yeah, the minimum wage type jobs should not be primary income jobs. They aren't meant to be. These jobs are mainly for the youth who don't have the debt burdens, elderly who want to supplement retirement income, or part timer who want supplement bread winners household income. If primary household income is minimum wage job, then I have to ask the individual(s) whats going on?

You cant solve poverty with minimum wage jobs...it wont happen and never has.

I'm calling bullshit to above

http://prospect.org/article/confronting-parasite-economy

Again the problem with the foundation of this is to say that all who are working at minimum wage are using it as a sole support of a living wage, and the only way to make a minimum wage person have a living wage is to have government step in. That's wrong. After the military, I went back to college, while in college I worked a 12 hour 3-4 day a week job, and also a part-time fast food job. The fast food job wasn't meant to be my living wage job, instead it and the 2nd job were the living wage while I worked to get a college degree in Comp Sci.

I know some people fall through the cracks and we need a safety net, but we have to be careful about trying to make the safety net larger than can be carried by those supporting it.

I apologize for the use of the word stupidity. There are tons of highly intelligent people who choose to see a world based on their thoughts and feelings rather than economic reality. It's similar to a Neville Chamberlin or Woodrow Wilson who lived in the idealized world where even bad people just want peace, or Boxer in Animal farm who is shocked that the pigs would betray the cause.

Wanting everyone to have a living wage is an awesome ideal, but putting it as a generalized law is a bad practice.

I wouldn't exactly say this thread is full of economic scholars, but I'll throw my two cents in.

First some facts. When the federal minimum wage was instituted in 1938, it was set at 25 cents per hour, which if adjusted to inflation would be worth $4.19 today. It was adjusted many times since, in 1968 it was $1.60, which would be worth $10.86 today. In 1981 it was set at $3.35, which would be worth $8.71 today.

So it is not at all unreasonable to say that minimum wage should be set at $10. Now, $15? That's completely unreasonable and out of line with history, at no time has the inflation-adjusted minimum wage been worth more than it was in 1968 when it was worth $10.86 in today's dollars.

Now, those saying corporations will innovate to find labor savings, that's absolutely true. And it's only natural that as labor costs increase, the incentive to find those savings increases. More people will definitely find themselves out of work, but to a large extent that will happen anyway. The ROI on a capital investment like kiosk order entry may be outstanding when labor is $10 per hour, but it's still good when it's $7 per hour. So innovation and automation will continue, regardless.

Philosophically, I agree with CRedskins in his assertion that the minimum wage should not be a wage anyone aspires to. Everyone should aspire to much more than that. But the problem is the skills of our workforce are not to the level where many can reasonably aspire to more than the minimum wage. Right now there are 5.4 million job openings in the United States. Why don't they get filled? Because most require significant skill, particularly STEM skills. Unfortunately, too many of our workers are minimally productive, with minimal skills.

So what's the logical solution there? Every lefty in the US will say oh we must invest in STEM curriculum for our schools! Problem is no school programs will take if the parents and students in the most challenging communities don't give a shit. And far too many do not give even one shit about improving their skills. Harsh? Yes, but reality.

So you come back to what you do about minimum wage. It's not going to help people aspire to more. It's not going to fix their shortage in skill and work ethic. It's simply a matter of asking corporations to pay them enough to cover the most basic living expenses. If people can work 40 hours a week and still qualify for food stamps, like is the case all over the US currently, then the minimum wage is too low.

Bring it to $10 and index it to inflation. Minimum skill people will continue to lose jobs no matter what as the world continues to automate.

Schneed, but labor cost is not just the minimum wage. With new healthcare and family leave initiatives, labor cost is going up far more than the 1960s or at any other time in the nation's history. 3 years ago, the owner of the company I work at had several positions in the general warehouse section that if their pay hit $10, they were capped there and most often chose to leave. Now the lowest paid employee starts at $9.50, even with min wage at 7.50, or whatever it is. And the company has raised several standing prices twice in the past 3 years, when it hadn't raised them in the first 7 years I worked here, and longer than that actually. It's certainly only one company's story, but we pass our costs on to the hospitals we serve, so their facility costs have gone up and with more government regulation they are actually using our service more which increases their cost another step. Which brings us back to the OP of the thread - Regardless of whether there is a line on a receipt that says Min Wage Fee or not, raising the min wage will be paid for by the consumers in society.

I'm calling bullshit to above

Confronting the Parasite Economy (http://prospect.org/article/confronting-parasite-economy)

The premise that small companies paying low wages are somehow hurtful to our economy is the biggest pile of shit I have ever read. I have a friend who owns a successful photo shop. By successful I mean he can stay in business where many in that market can't. He owned three locations but recently closed one because he simply could not afford to staff it even at the current minimum wage. The business, as many in the low wage area, has miniscule margins. Raising labor is simply not an option. What is it that so many people don't get about many of these jobs? They are low skilled and can be filled by virtually anyone willing to work. Why would any company, especially one that exists on a thin margin, pay more in labor costs?

The premise that small companies paying low wages are somehow hurtful to our economy is the biggest pile of shit I have ever read. I have a friend who owns a successful photo shop. By successful I mean he can stay in business where many in that market can't. He owned three locations but recently closed one because he simply could not afford to staff it even at the current minimum wage. The business, as many in the low wage area, has miniscule margins. Raising labor is simply not an option. What is it that so many people don't get about many of these jobs? They are low skilled and can be filled by virtually anyone willing to work. Why would any company, especially one that exists on a thin margin, pay more in labor costs?


Small companies aren't the issue, large corporations are.

Schneed, but labor cost is not just the minimum wage. With new healthcare and family leave initiatives, labor cost is going up far more than the 1960s or at any other time in the nation's history. 3 years ago, the owner of the company I work at had several positions in the general warehouse section that if their pay hit $10, they were capped there and most often chose to leave. Now the lowest paid employee starts at $9.50, even with min wage at 7.50, or whatever it is. And the company has raised several standing prices twice in the past 3 years, when it hadn't raised them in the first 7 years I worked here, and longer than that actually. It's certainly only one company's story, but we pass our costs on to the hospitals we serve, so their facility costs have gone up and with more government regulation they are actually using our service more which increases their cost another step. Which brings us back to the OP of the thread - Regardless of whether there is a line on a receipt that says Min Wage Fee or not, raising the min wage will be paid for by the consumers in society.

Absolutely. But when poorer or working class workers get a raise from $7 to $10, or from $9.50 to $12 as you're noting, there's a much higher velocity of money with working class folks than there is with higher income folks.

Meaning when a working class person gets a bump from $9.50 to $12, that money gets spent almost immediately, mostly in the communities in which they live. Which helps offset some of the concerns we're talking about here with unemployment and higher costs to consumers. When higher income folks get a raise, it tends to go to savings or get invested, which doesn't directly help the communities in which they live.

There are winners and losers, for sure. But overall minimum wage hikes are not damaging - you can go back and look at unemployment statistics and inflation rates shortly following each minimum wage hike in the past, no significant damage shows in the data. That really is the end all be all to this discussion - if you can't show that unemployment or inflation was impacted by minimum wage hikes, then you have no argument. It's all there on the Bureau of Labor and Statistics' website, have at it.

The bottom line is the minimum wage is there for a reason, to enable a person to get by with the most basic of necessities. The minimum wage has historically been worth anything between $6 and $11, in today's dollars. The current wage is on the low end. It needs to be brought up so that these folks don't have to be subsidized by the government in the form of food assistance.