Minimum Wage

[Nono]

Yes, this making-money-on-money-instead-of-productive-endeavour jag has certainly gone way too far.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: Nono If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that excuse ... it'd be inflationary. There may be a few smaller companies in that position, but there are plenty of ways of keeping them out of trouble.

A classic example would be restaurants. It is amazing how LITTLE the law allows eateries to pay their waitstaff. Sure, they make up for some of it in tips but that is not consistent and doesn't reward productivity.
There are other ways around it, like a state allowing small businesses with fewer than XX employees to avoid certain parts of these laws, etc..

[Nono]

Quote by: Scribs It is amazing how LITTLE the law allows eateries to pay their waitstaff. Sure, they make up for some of it in tips but that is not consistent and doesn't reward productivity.

Right, and in North America you have to remember to tip since if you don't, the person waiting on you is missing out. That's wrong. (This apart from the fact that tipping will inevitably be influenced by prettiness and other extraneous-but-all-too-human factors).

Where I live you tip if you're particularly impressed and if you don't, you know the waiter is making a living wage anyway. Yes, this raises your bill slightly, but somehow the restaurants are generally full. So it works.

[brien]

Quote by: Nono Ensuring people have a decent income is a moral question. In addition, there's an economic benefit: a respectable minumum wage puts money in people's pockets, and unike the rich -- who will buy bonds, take vacations abroad, etc. -- wage-earners can be depended on to spend that money where it counts.

You first sentence can't be argued by anyone who is a moral person. However the devil is in the details.

The minimum wage unfortunately seems to only benefits politicians. It forces the small business owner, of which create more jobs than big business, to cut back on hiring more employees. Furthermore, it forces business to wring out more production from the employees it must pay more money to in their wages. Then politicians decry those busninesses for mistreating their employees due to a situation the politicians created!

I already listed my links on this but I will add some here as well.

The origin of the minimum wage:

http://www.policyalmanac.org/economi...mum_wage.shtml

Some impacts of minimum wage:

http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache...&ct=clnk&cd=10

http://www.phxnews.com/fullstory.php?article=37672

From that link:

David Neumark, an economist at the University of California, Irvine, has found that increasing the minimum wage does not reduce poverty. Rather, for every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, he estimates that the poverty rate increases by 3 percent to 4 percent. Contrary to the rhetoric, therefore, the people harmed the most by minimum-wage legislation are precisely those it is intended to help — the poor.

Increasing the minimum wage may give "liberal" legislators great pride and win them votes, but it does not address the key issue of how to achieve economic growth and thus reduce poverty. Hong Kong has no minimum wage but is one of the most prosperous economies in the world — because it is also the freest.

Economic freedom, not minimum-wage socialism, is the key to reducing poverty, as China is learning. If legislators really want to help the poor, the best thing they can do is abolish, not increase, the minimum wage.

The evidence seems to point that tthe minimum wage hurts the working poor rather than help them.

[Protostar]

The federal minimum wage is a waste of time, and a distractor issue from actual problems. Its just an issue that politicians use to pander for votes and pat themsleves on the back so that they can say they helped poor people. All states (AFAIK) all have their own minimum wage laws so a federal minium wage makes no sense. Second off, no employer actually pays their workers minimum wage as they wish to attract quality employees (this of course excluding workers who thrive off tips).

[Protostar]

Quote by: Nono Quote by: Scribs It is amazing how LITTLE the law allows eateries to pay their waitstaff. Sure, they make up for some of it in tips but that is not consistent and doesn't reward productivity. Right, and in North America you have to remember to tip since if you don't, the person waiting on you is missing out. That's wrong. (This apart from the fact that tipping will inevitably be influenced by prettiness and other extraneous-but-all-too-human factors). Where I live you tip if you're particularly impressed and if you don't, you know the waiter is making a living wage anyway. Yes, this raises your bill slightly, but somehow the restaurants are generally full. So it works.

I agree. It all should be included in the bill. I detest tipping as I feel as though everything should be included in the final tab, instead of a slightly lower bill, and then having people trying to guilt trip you into leaving money.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: Nono Right, and in North America you have to remember to tip since if you don't, the person waiting on you is missing out. That's wrong. (This apart from the fact that tipping will inevitably be influenced by prettiness and other extraneous-but-all-too-human factors).

Cheap people are probably the worst offenders, followed by nitpickers who are critical of every little detail of the meal regardless of whether the waitress is responsible for it or not.
Personally, I have always been a fair tipper. I used to pay $1 for a 50 cent cup of coffee. The service would have to be pretty bad to make me not tip and I always take into consideration who is responsible for my dissatisfaction.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: Protostar I agree. It all should be included in the bill. I detest tipping as I feel as though everything should be included in the final tab, instead of a slightly lower bill, and then having people trying to guilt trip you into leaving money.

Including tips in the bill annoys me, as you don't have the opportunity to express your displeasure if the server does a particularly bad job. And it also means a particularly GOOD job isn't rewarded more than a mediocre performance by a waitress/waiter. Another annoyance is how a lot of places pool all the tips and hand them out evenly. That REALLY rewards a bad job and punishes a good one.

[CliveStaples]

Quote by: IS And while we are toying around with this line of reasoning, let's also line up all the poor people and spit on them and throw rocks at them.

...huh? Wait, you think that people oppose minimum wage increases because they just don't like poor people?

I don't like the minimum wage because it hurts poor people, not because it helps them.

Quote by: IS If you don't think corporate America can shell out a few more dollars to the lowly workers without losing profits, then there is something seriously wrong with you.

That's not what the minimum wage does. It is a price floor on labor, which means that everyone whose labor is not worth minimum wage doesn't get hired, and that people whose labor is already worth minimum wage get...the same wage! Minimum wage increases invariably--INVARIABLY--have a negative impact on the employment rate. I live in Oregon. Our minimum wage is something like $7.50, and surprise, surprise: our economy blows!