The Federal Minimum Wage?

[SteveA]

Quote by: Pooeypants What's to stop these companies working together to keep the average wage low? And if they did, what can you do about it?

Let's say everyone in the U.S. earned 1/10th of what they do now. What difference does it make? Everything you bought would be 1/10th the price and we'd all be paying lower taxes to boot! So who cares what the pay is as long as we have stuff to buy with the money.

It used to be gasoline was 50 cents a gallon and houses were $40K etc. The paper doesn't mean much, it's how productive people are that makes life better or worse.

Look at it this way, if companies wanted to throttle people for cash, they can do it already by increasing prices. Whether you lower pay or increase prices, it's the same thing. The real issue is monopolization, not pay scales.

There are people who can't get a College Education, and I am not refering to a simple financial problem, they can't do it. College is not possible for them, so then how do we as a country make it possible for our fellow citizens to support themselves? Please don't say more federal handouts, there are way to many of those now, the only way to make people self sufficient without college (and that doesn't always do it either) is to raise the minimum wage, because the notion suggested previously that it was never intended as a means for people to support themselves is ridiculous. That was exactly the reason it was enacted.

Most people I know started at a low wage and worked their way up. I started at a minimum wage job, so did my wife and best friend etc.

If you expect everyone to already have the skills to command a pay rate that allows them to live solely off it, then you're expecting too much from people entering the workforce and these already show up as large numbers of young minorities that can't easily find work and turn to other less desirable avenues for support.

I don't have to worry about minimum wage. I already passed it by a long time ago (and I was even a child laborer earning less than minimum wage at one point, and I'm glad they didn't raid the place and put people in jail), but there are other people who are working for cash under the table for less than minimum, simply because minimum wage laws make it illegal for them to work. How does that help people move up the economic ladder, if they have a hard time even getting their foot in the door?

[shield772]

Quote by: SteveA Let's say everyone in the U.S. earned 1/10th of what they do now. What difference does it make? Everything you bought would be 1/10th the price and we'd all be paying lower taxes to boot! So who cares what the pay is as long as we have stuff to buy with the money. It used to be gasoline was 50 cents a gallon and houses were $40K etc. The paper doesn't mean much, it's how productive people are that makes life better or worse. Look at it this way, if companies wanted to throttle people for cash, they can do it already by increasing prices. Whether you lower pay or increase prices, it's the same thing. The real issue is monopolization, not pay scales. Most people I know started at a low wage and worked their way up. I started at a minimum wage job, so did my wife and best friend etc. If you expect everyone to already have the skills to command a pay rate that allows them to live solely off it, then you're expecting too much from people entering the workforce and these already show up as large numbers of young minorities that can't easily find work and turn to other less desirable avenues for support. I don't have to worry about minimum wage. I already passed it by a long time ago (and I was even a child laborer earning less than minimum wage at one point, and I'm glad they didn't raid the place and put people in jail), but there are other people who are working for cash under the table for less than minimum, simply because minimum wage laws make it illegal for them to work. How does that help people move up the economic ladder, if they have a hard time even getting their foot in the door?

Nothing would cost less, how do you justify this opinion, the Minimum wage does not effect inflation. It hasn't been raised in 8 years, an prices have significantly raised in 8 years.

[SteveA]

Quote by: shield772 Nothing would cost less, how do you justify this opinion, the Minimum wage does not effect inflation. It hasn't been raised in 8 years, an prices have significantly raised in 8 years.

There are other sources to inflation. Primarily money supply.

The only reason why things don't cost 1/10th as much is because we have a lot more money in the system than we used to, and wages have risen along with this even though minimum wage hasn't.

So how do you explain the rise in wages without an increase in minimum wage? Could it be that market proponents are correct in saying that companies can't ignore competition in the labor markets?

[shield772]

Quote by: SteveA There are other sources to inflation. Primarily money supply. The only reason why things don't cost 1/10th as much is because we have a lot more money in the system than we used to, and wages have risen along with this even though minimum wage hasn't. So how do you explain the rise in wages without an increase in minimum wage? Could it be that market proponents are correct in saying that companies can't ignore competition in the labor markets?

Do you have a job? I do and I make $ 7.10 an hour, nearly $2.00 over Minimum wage, but it would have to be $8.70 to have kept up with inflation, which is $1.60 more than I make. so where is the rise in wages.

[tman_ndsu08]

Quote by: shield772 Corporations ONLY care about profits, they will increase their bottom line in any way they can. Corpoorations move their operations over seas because they can get labor at 30 cents an hour in countries where there is no minimum wage government regulation, or taxes.

Good for them.

The sooner the US business policy makers learn that former US companies have an easier time going around the US than dealing with them, the sooner we can erase our anti business policies.

[tman_ndsu08]

Quote by: Pooeypants What's to stop these companies working together to keep the average wage low? And if they did, what can you do about it?

The unregulated market autmatically keeps companies from working together to gain any artificial advantage.


A group of companies paying below market price for labor is no different than one big company paying below market price for labor: those companies will lose their employees competitors who are willing to pay market price.

[Pooeypants]

Quote by: SteveA Let's say everyone in the U.S. earned 1/10th of what they do now. What difference does it make? Everything you bought would be 1/10th the price and we'd all be paying lower taxes to boot! So who cares what the pay is as long as we have stuff to buy with the money.

This argument only works if America didn't trade with the rest of the world...

[SteveA]

Quote by: Pooeypants This argument only works if America didn't trade with the rest of the world...

I recognize it's not going to happen because there're too many dollars floating around. The days of a $30,000 house are gone and even if employers wanted to lower wages, they couldn't do it without someone else offering more pay but the point is still the same that it doesn't matter what the average wage is. It's the average real buying power that matters, and that's largely affected by the overall economy - how many people are working and how efficient their work is. Distribution is a factor but minimum wage doesn't address that well - it simply takes everyone on the lower end of the income and basically tosses them out of the workforce. That's not really a solution.