Minimum Wage?

[priest_of_syrinx]

Minimum Wage - Video

 

[emazur]

Illegal aliens work for $25-30 for a 10 hour day. Some of them a very skilled. Otherwise, I don't know how you would get someone at $5.00 an hour unless you paid them a salary.

Nearby where I live, there's a part time employment office called Labor Ready. Workers are supposed to show up at 5:30 AM, sign in, then be on call for several hours until a construction company or whatever calls up the company and says they need somebody. I know this because I went there one time earlier this year (after getting fired from another job and needing rent money) and waited 3 hours for work before saying "fuck it" and leaving (and never showing up again), but plenty of others continued to sit and wait.

Min. wage where I live is $8.40. Let's say somebody got a gig for the day after hour 3 and did 4 a four hour job (I believe you'd get paid for a minimum a four hours as jobs can sometimes be done more quickly - such as a moving job). For simplicity's sake, we'll say someone actually did work 4 hours after waiting for 3, so that's a total of 7 hours of your time (not counting transportation). 4 hr x 8.40 = 33.60. 33.60/7 hr = $4.80 per hour of your time (and that's assuming you didn't wait more than 3 hours).

If someone else was offering $5 hr and said you wouldn't have to wait around for work but agreed to pay a minimum of 4 hrs/day, you'd only be making $20 a day instead of 33.60, but you'd be making more per hour, so suddenly $5 hr doesn't sound so bad. And let's say there was an employer who sweetened this $5 an hour pot by offering a fixed location every day (which you'd be more likely to accept if it was near your home) and a 40 hour week with a fixed schedule. No more jackassing to the employment office as 5:30 AM every day and then jackassing over to wherever the hell it is that they send you (and that's IF they have somewhere to send you at all that particular day). No more waiting around every for work. Suddenly $5/hour is starting to sound pretty damn palatable.

So in summary, yes I do think you'd likely be able to find a legal resident resident ready and eager to work for $5.

 

[NaturalMystic]

I hate to say it but, we could leave everyone at the current min wage alone, but any new employees would be subject to the lower min wage, just to soften the public perception. Or would that be discrimination of some sort.

 

[mediahasyou]

The product being produced at the new costs for labor will not hit the market until after the labor costs have been reduced.

That makes sense as long as businesses don't anticipate the reduced income of buyers. If the wages were lowered, a good business man would know that reduced income reduces demand which reduces the price. Then he would reduce the price accordingly to maximize his profit.

 

[nate895]

That makes sense as long as businesses don't anticipate the reduced income of buyers. If the wages were lowered, a good business man would know that reduced income reduces demand which reduces the price.

However, a reduction in the minimum wage would not necessarily reduce demand or income. As someone pointed out earlier, all the minimum wage does is eliminate the jobs for those whose labor is worth less than minimum wage. So, in theory at least, everyone who was working before will get to keep their previous wage (however, they may work somewhere else), and only new people/jobs will get added into the labor market, thus creating a higher average income. This will eventually force prices down because of a lower cost of a factor of production, but it will not happen instantaneously.

 

[Kregisen]

For anyone who hasn't even taken an intro-econ class, here's a totally different way of viewing it:

Wealth is simply work done by people. People will only do work and thus create wealth if they get paid i.e. wash dishes at a restaurant if they get a check every 2 weeks.

With a minimum wage, businesses will hire less people, because it costs more to hire them. It's like if you see chocolate bars at the store on sale for 2 cents each, you'll buy 100....but if they're 50 cents each, you might buy 2. Same thing goes for businesses, they'll hire less people AND give each person less hours to work, because it's more expensive.


So in the end you have less people working, and those people not working are instead sitting at home applying for jobs and NOT creating wealth by working.

End result is less wealth for everyone.



This is 1 way to prove minimum wage stops wealth from being created.


I didn't mention the literally millions more jobs available and way lower prices for consumers.

Everything is much more efficient and it benefits the vast majority.

 

[djdellisanti4]

Minimum wage has always been one of my personal pet peeves. I hate the damn thing. The effects it has on the people, the implications implied by it and the principles behind it. BUT we cannot lower/abolish minimum wage without first lowering welfare/unemployment benefits. If we do one, but not the other, people will stay on welfare instead of seekign a job.

Thats just my theory though.
Minimum wage has been a proven deterent to employment for teenagers and other unskilled workers, espeically in the black community. The original minimum wage law was created to keep blacks from being employed because they were willing to work less than whites. By forcing them to take higher wages and be paid the same, many business owners just hired whites instead of blacks.

 

[Wolverine302]

can the crash just happen tomorrow, today's government just sucks. lets expedite the process, have our fat govt get a heart attack and stroke, and start all over.

 

[low preference guy]

can the crash just happen tomorrow, today's government just sucks. lets expedite the process, have our fat govt get a heart attack and stroke, and start all over.

Wanting the system to collapse... doesn't seem smart.

If the awful set of beliefs most Americans hold drove us to this situation... why would they magically change once the whole social/economic system collapses? What will most likely happen is that the United States as a whole will ingloriously become a third world country. And stay like that.

A few states will implement smart policies and become successful, just like most third world countries have nice/successful cities to live in. But there won't be massive improvement in the country as a whole, and you might die in the transition.

 

[jsu718]

Just remember that a repeal of the federal minimum wage won't affect most states that have their own state minimum wage set at near the same level or above.

 

[MelissaWV]

I hate to say it but, we could leave everyone at the current min wage alone, but any new employees would be subject to the lower min wage, just to soften the public perception. Or would that be discrimination of some sort.

That would keep the cost of products high, meaning that new workers wouldn't be able to afford to live. In other words, the widget that's now $7.00 might go down to $6.75. Currently the average widget-assembly worker takes one hour to make enough to buy their own widget. New workers, then, are going to be paid $4.00/hour. That will mean the average widget-assembly worker who's already employed can buy one widget after an hour's work (and it actually costs them a little less), but the new employee has to work two hours to buy a widget.

 

[Wolverine302]

Wanting the system to collapse... doesn't seem smart.

If the awful set of beliefs most Americans held drove us to this situation... why would they magically change once the whole social/economic system collapses? What will most likely happen is that the United States as a whole will ingloriously become a third world country. And stay like that.

A few states will implement smart policies and become successful, just like most third world countries have nice/successful cities to live in. But there won't be massive improvement in the country as a whole, and you might die in the transition.

i dont recall massive deaths when the soviets fell..

 

[low preference guy]

i dont recall massive deaths when the soviets fell..

the main point was that the U.S. will likely end as a third world country.

i said "might" die because we don't know what will happen for sure, but hyperinflation in an extremely advanced society (from a div. of labor p.o.v.), that doesn't rely on local consumption as germany did when it went through hyperinflation, will be unprecedented. so yeah, we can't know for sure as it never happened, but it won't be a surprise if during the first few days in which a new monetary system is being developed, food won't be able to move well and reach many cities, and lots of people will not eat at least for a few days.