Minimum Wage - Living Wage - What Wage?

[Vanoi]

Hard work is for suckers. Hard work gets you tired, broken down, beaten up, worn up, used up, washed out.

No . And yet even you know all of our parents told us was that hard work pays off. That's was a lie.

A ditch-digger works hard, it is just nobody cares because he has no skills other than digging ditches.

Until you need a ditch dug.

Telling somebody to "work hard" is rather bland and cliche.

Glad we can agree on that.

If you want to write my post off as trash it is probably because it hits close to home and you take it as a personal indictment and it is easier to blame people such as me, or elusive uninvolved "rich people" or "boomers" for your own failings and shortcomings.

You have been on this website for 11 years and have found the time to make 16,377 posts on this site as of today. Rounded to the nearest whole number that is 1,489 posts per year, which works out to 4 posts per day. This suggests you are likely wasting the most precious asset ever, that being, time, and a significant amount at that.

This is why your post was trash. You just make giant sweeping assumptions about people and how they work or what their ambitions are. You base this all of your own personal experience which is biased at best.

The very fact you brought up my post count shows how out of touch you are. 4 posts a day is equal to mere minutes a day. And like many others I post on TWC with my phone allowing me to post on TWC and do another task at the very same time.

Should I also stop putting avacado on my toast and stop buying Starbucks coffee?

Suppose you had only made 10% of those posts for a total of 1637 posts over the same time frame, and you had used the rest of the time you would have spent making the other 90% to instead engage in productive worthwhile ventures. Voila, you've learned another language, you've gained a proficiency in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, you've accumulated another $300,000 from working a part-time job, you've invested in a small business and went from 50% owner/co-owner to buying out the founder and now you have a small business you pay a hired manager to run. You could have done any number of things with your time but you elected to make almost 16,400 posts on this forum, which is probably just one of a few forums you post on.

This is so hilariously out of touch. Please keep it up.

[antaeus]

Until you need a ditch dug.

The irony of Covid lockdowns, is that it turns out that white collar work can be done from anywhere remotely. Which means that when the dust settles, creative, financial and administrative industries that were seen as wealth generating are moving offshore, and their top tier tax bracket wages are going to turn into exploitative third world wages.

Industries that have shown how important they are during Covid? digging ditches. You can't yet dig a ditch from Bangalore.

[Gaidin]

The irony of Covid lockdowns, is that it turns out that white collar work can be done from anywhere remotely. Which means that when the dust settles, creative, financial and administrative industries that were seen as wealth generating are moving offshore, and their top tier tax bracket wages are going to turn into exploitative third world wages.

The white collar offices may not have liked spinning up the servers that they needed to keep off-site working steady. But they liked getting their contracts done and making their money I'll guarantee you that. We're not really going anywhere. Or, at least, the number of jobs aren't.

Unlike say, the restaurants having to think of totally new business models to sell food on the fly given no matter the model, they're typically month to month, and all of a sudden they can't fill their tables and can't have any more than their cooks in the back. And a lot of them are still wondering if they're going to pay their rent with even half the tables full and the relative monstrous amount of carryout being done compared to January of last year.

[chilon]

Uh no. The prices increases were the direct result of minimum wage or pension point value increases. It got so bad during the 2015 minimum wage raise the government had to pass an emergency ordinance fining companies with 90% of the price difference if they increased prices for the vat readjustment or the next raise. See my previous post with a bunch of examples. I mean there were supermarkets using "the government increased minimum wage but we won't increase prices, unlike our competitor" as a marketing slogan ffs.

Market research is inconsequential. The results will always say what the person sponsoring the research wants them to say.

Maybe, maybe not. I can't speak to your country nor do I know enough to fact check your comments about your country.

However, the current proposals are about the USA and here, there is very clearly room room for minimum wage increases that won't impact inflation. The price of everything in the US goes up anyway pretty much disconnected from the mild minimum wage increases that have happened and are being proposed. After all, we already have things like this:

[EmperorBatman999]

To personally weigh-in as a US job-seeker: do not raise the minimum wage, at least not yet.

The highest economic priority should be to give people work period, and to only discuss raising wages later. I side with Thomas Sowell in this regard: raising the minimum wage tends to prompt unemployment as low-wage workers are priced out of their own labor (he discusses this often, whether in his Hoover Institution's Uncommon Knowledge interviews with Peter Robinson, or in his books Basic Economics and Intellectuals and Liberals); without finding work, they fall behind further as they develop the dreaded "Resume Gap" while trying to find work, making them even less employable. As the United States is currently suffering from an employment drought prompted by the pandemic and lockdown measures, raising the minimum wage in a time like this would only worsen the job crisis my country is currently experiencing.

Unlike Sowell, I think we should address the minimum wage at some point, but it is a matter of timing. Wait for the economy to recover and for joblessness to subside, and then consider creating the conditions to increase the wage. Perhaps this may require a more thorough effort than simply raising the wage: specifically, we probably need some kind of subsidized work training program to make sure those $7.25 workers are worth the full $15 or more in the labor market.

[Lord Thesaurian]

To personally weigh-in as a US job-seeker: do not raise the minimum wage, at least not yet.

The highest economic priority should be to give people work period, and to only discuss raising wages later. I side with Thomas Sowell in this regard: raising the minimum wage tends to prompt unemployment as low-wage workers are priced out of their own labor (he discusses this often, whether in his Hoover Institution's Uncommon Knowledge interviews with Peter Robinson, or in his books Basic Economics and Intellectuals and Liberals); without finding work, they fall behind further as they develop the dreaded "Resume Gap" while trying to find work, making them even less employable. As the United States is currently suffering from an employment drought prompted by the pandemic and lockdown measures, raising the minimum wage in a time like this would only worsen the job crisis my country is currently experiencing.

Unlike Sowell, I think we should address the minimum wage at some point, but it is a matter of timing. Wait for the economy to recover and for joblessness to subside, and then consider creating the conditions to increase the wage. Perhaps this may require a more thorough effort than simply raising the wage: specifically, we probably need some kind of subsidized work training program to make sure those $7.25 workers are worth the full $15 or more in the labor market.

I agree with alot of this. The number of full time, hourly paid workers over 25 earning the federal minimum wage is less than 1%. By contrast, around 40% of all workers earn less than 15 dollars an hour, the vast majority of them in low-skill service occupations (retail, fast food, warehouse laborers, etc). The current minimum wage is lower than the overall market rate, clearly, and is essentially a bar against slavery, rather than a significant market distortion. A 15 dollar minimum wage, by contrast, is a wage floor, and an extremely high one at that, lending that much more magnitude to the negative impacts heretofore discussed.

Therefore, Im not sure federal job training would make a significant positive difference overall, given the sheer volume we’d be talking about, and also the incentives businesses would face to substitute away from workers in the first place. At a minimum, I’d imagine you’d need to grant a myriad of exceptions to businesses to avoid serious externalities. As is, federal jobs training programs fail to produce higher employment or earnings after nearly a year and a half. Not a great investment in the average case, and multiplying those impacts (mainly, decreased earnings while training due to time away from work) by up to 40% of the entire workforce for necessarily extended periods of time seems extremely adverse.

[Prodromos]

Looks like the effective nationwide minimum wage is closer to $12 now. Only 1-2% of workers made at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25, most of whom weren't full-time workers.

[PointOfViewGun]

I agree with alot of this. The number of full time, hourly paid workers over 25 earning the federal minimum wage is less than 1%. By contrast, around 40% of all workers earn less than 15 dollars an hour, the vast majority of them in low-skill service occupations (retail, fast food, warehouse laborers, etc). The current minimum wage is lower than the overall market rate, clearly, and is essentially a bar against slavery, rather than a significant market distortion. A 15 dollar minimum wage, by contrast, is a wage floor, and an extremely high one at that, lending that much more magnitude to the negative impacts heretofore discussed.

Therefore, Im not sure federal job training would make a significant positive difference overall, given the sheer volume we’d be talking about, and also the incentives businesses would face to substitute away from workers in the first place. At a minimum, I’d imagine you’d need to grant a myriad of exceptions to businesses to avoid serious externalities. As is, federal jobs training programs fail to produce higher employment or earnings after nearly a year and a half. Not a great investment in the average case, and multiplying those impacts (mainly, decreased earnings while training due to time away from work) by up to 40% of the entire workforce for necessarily extended periods of time seems extremely adverse.

What makes a 15 dollars minimum wage too high?

[EmperorBatman999]

What makes a 15 dollars minimum wage too high?

As Legio was responding and piggy-backing off my points, I'd like to answer.

Many of the industries which employ workers for under $15 an hour have had serious financial difficulties due to pandemic (such as hospitality and restaurants). One out of six restaurants in the US have closed due to the pandemic, and the surviving restaurants are just barely getting by trying to pay off rent and taxes. Take-out hasn't been effective at recouping lost revenue, and I suspect that many people will likely remain hesitant to go out to eat even when the pandemic subsides; if there is one clear result of the pandemic, it is the fact that authority figures have induced a culture of anxiety and trauma (whether this is justified or not belongs in the main COVID thread) which has scared people from participating in public life.

Suddenly forcing restaurants to hike up their wages might tip many of the remaining businesses over the edge, putting them out of business. Naturally, doubling the minimum wage when low-wage industries are already suffering will further contribute to the economic downturn and mass-unemployment as both employers and their employees are forced onto the street because the cost of business has increased beyond their means of acquiring revenue, meaning that even more people are left jostling for even fewer jobs.

Restaurants are only one aspect, but they are a significant part of America's culture and economy. I can't find a specific source, but this infographic suggests that restaurants contribute 4% of the US GDP and employ almost 10% of Americans; they also serve as the first job for many young Americans, and we can say that they are a formative part of the career development for many Americans. Although many people in my (millennial) generation want the $15 wage, few know how badly this will hurt them when that these measures can and will hurt their employment prospects when it affects the very industry where most of us work -- at a time when we've already been kicked in the nuts by a pandemic-induced economic and societal crash.

Overall, I'm not opposed to a $15 minimum wage at some point, especially considering the rate of inflation. However, forcing a wage increase during an economic downturn does not help the economic recovery and does not help the United States recoup lost jobs. It is better to have a job that pays little, than no work to find at all.

[Gaidin]

As Legio was responding and piggy-backing off my points, I'd like to answer.

<snip>

Suddenly forcing restaurants to hike up their wages might tip many of the remaining businesses over the edge, putting them out of business. Naturally, doubling the minimum wage ---

<snip>

Overall, I'm not opposed to a $15 minimum wage at some point, especially considering the rate of inflation. However, forcing a wage increase during an economic downturn does not help the economic recovery and does not help the United States recoup lost jobs. It is better to have a job that pays little, than no work to find at all.

How 'bout in 2025, like...when the $15 Dollar Minimum Wage hike bill says it would actually happen? Naturally, they don't just double the minimum wage when the President signs the bill. Assuming 10 Republicans can ever vote 'Yes' on anything... But uhh...in phases over years.

Good to know that you(and by extension...Legio...I guess?) know what you're talking about here.

I've yet to hear a decent point about raising the minimum wage causing all prices to raise though. Seems they've been doing that well enough since 2009 without the minimum wage going up. Hence, minimum wage earners having to work 3 jobs instead of 1.

[tgoodenow]

Just out of curiosity, if we were to theoretically raise the minimum wage, could the liberals on the board go ahead and lump the new jobs that will belong in the "Job's Americans won't do category"? I'd like to see what sectors of the economy liberals are planning on surrendering to illegals.

[Gaidin]

Here, this will help:

https://www.quandl.com/data/ECONOMIST/BIGMAC_USA-Big-Mac-Index-United-States

https://www.statista.com/statistics/274326/big-mac-index-global-prices-for-a-big-mac/

Kinda like the Waffle House Index for how bad a natural disaster is.

[tgoodenow]

Here, this will help:

https://www.quandl.com/data/ECONOMIST/BIGMAC_USA-Big-Mac-Index-United-States

https://www.statista.com/statistics/274326/big-mac-index-global-prices-for-a-big-mac/

Kinda like the Waffle House Index for how bad a natural disaster is.

Well I guess you're using this to point out that even at 15 an hour, agricultural jobs will remain on the "jobs Americans wont do list" so we can artificially keep down the price of burgers to keep the fat s in this country fed at an affordable price. Housing prices are going up too, do you think we should give up the construction sector as well? We could totally reduce homelessness by artificially deflating housing prices with illegal labor. Might be tricky with permits and what not.

Side note: won't 15 dollars an hour raise Big Mac prices, considering an input cost for them goes up by 20 percent ?

Edit: Well,

If the minimum wage were increased to $15 an hour, prices at fast food restaurants would rise by an estimated 4.3 percent, according to a new study. That would mean a McDonald’s Big Mac, which currently goes for $3.99, would cost about 17 cents more, or $4.16.
The study from Purdue University’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management also found that in order to compensate for the higher cost of employee compensation at limited-service restaurants, or those without table service or tipping, if they decided to change food sizes rather than prices, the Big Mac would shrink somewhere between 12 and 70 percent.

https://archive.thinkprogress.org/th...-184b7523b273/

[Gaidin]

Well I guess you're using this to point out that even at 15 an hour, agricultural jobs will remain on the "jobs Americans wont do list" so we can artificially keep down the price of burgers to keep the fat s in this country fed at an affordable price. Housing prices are going up too, do you think we should give up the construction sector as well? We could totally reduce homelessness by artificially deflating housing prices with illegal labor. Might be tricky with permits and what not.

Side note: won't 15 dollars an hour raise Big Mac prices, considering an input cost for them goes up by 20 percent ?

Well no. Look at the years along the bottom. Even without minimum wage going up for the last 11 years, the price of a bigmac all but doubled. And that's the cheap food. Forget if you want to eat healthy or have a decent place to live.

[EmperorBatman999]

How 'bout in 2025, like...when the $15 Dollar Minimum Wage hike bill says it would actually happen? Naturally, they don't just double the minimum wage when the President signs the bill. Assuming 10 Republicans can ever vote 'Yes' on anything... But uhh...in phases over years.

Good to know that you(and by extension...Legio...I guess?) know what you're talking about here.

I've yet to hear a decent point about raising the minimum wage causing all prices to raise though. Seems they've been doing that well enough since 2009 without the minimum wage going up. Hence, minimum wage earners having to work 3 jobs instead of 1.

2025 might not even be enough time, if some economic estimates suggest that it might take a decade for the US to recover economically from the pandemic.

We didn't even quite recover from 2008, 13 years later -- again, look at how off-balance the economy was even prior to the pandemic, despite the euphoria that "Trump created jobs."

[tgoodenow]

Well no. Look at the years along the bottom. Even without minimum wage going up for the last 11 years, the price of a bigmac all but doubled. And that's the cheap food. Forget if you want to eat healthy or have a decent place to live.

Well one great way to ensure low wage jobs continue to be outpaced by bigmac inflation is to increase the labor pool for those jobs, or worse off, allow companies to pay lower than legally established minimum wages by hiring people off the books and not punishing them.

[PointOfViewGun]

As Legio was responding and piggy-backing off my points, I'd like to answer.

Many of the industries which employ workers for under $15 an hour have had serious financial difficulties due to pandemic (such as hospitality and restaurants). One out of six restaurants in the US have closed due to the pandemic, and the surviving restaurants are just barely getting by trying to pay off rent and taxes. Take-out hasn't been effective at recouping lost revenue, and I suspect that many people will likely remain hesitant to go out to eat even when the pandemic subsides; if there is one clear result of the pandemic, it is the fact that authority figures have induced a culture of anxiety and trauma (whether this is justified or not belongs in the main COVID thread) which has scared people from participating in public life.

Suddenly forcing restaurants to hike up their wages might tip many of the remaining businesses over the edge, putting them out of business. Naturally, doubling the minimum wage when low-wage industries are already suffering will further contribute to the economic downturn and mass-unemployment as both employers and their employees are forced onto the street because the cost of business has increased beyond their means of acquiring revenue, meaning that even more people are left jostling for even fewer jobs.

Restaurants are only one aspect, but they are a significant part of America's culture and economy. I can't find a specific source, but this infographic suggests that restaurants contribute 4% of the US GDP and employ almost 10% of Americans; they also serve as the first job for many young Americans, and we can say that they are a formative part of the career development for many Americans. Although many people in my (millennial) generation want the $15 wage, few know how badly this will hurt them when that these measures can and will hurt their employment prospects when it affects the very industry where most of us work -- at a time when we've already been kicked in the nuts by a pandemic-induced economic and societal crash.

Overall, I'm not opposed to a $15 minimum wage at some point, especially considering the rate of inflation. However, forcing a wage increase during an economic downturn does not help the economic recovery and does not help the United States recoup lost jobs. It is better to have a job that pays little, than no work to find at all.

The pandemic would be an acceptable excuse to postpone raising the minimum wage if the minimum wage was already up to date before the pandemic started. In principle, we're not talking about raising the minimum wage from an acceptable level. We're talking about raising the minimum wage to an acceptable level.

Restaurants have already been shut down regardless of wages. Many others that stayed open let go of their workers regardless of wages. Yes, raising the minimum wage will likely impact restaurant but the impact will likely be minimal. On the other hand, raising the minimum wage will contribute to the economy the most as every little bit of it is likely to be spent on much needed goods and services.

Perhaps, what the governments can do is to introduce tax credits to those that keep their work force intact while increasing wages so that the impact is much more mitigated. The impact would be much more beneficial than giving off stimulus checks.

The $15 minimum wage was supposed end in a restaurant apocalypse. Here's how 5 major cities proved the prophets of doom wrong.

Restaurants employ more minimum-wage workers than any other industry.
With the movement to increase wages across the country, economists worried the policies would kill jobs and raise prices.
So far, five cities that have raised wages had little change in employment after the policies went into effect.

[antaeus]

Here's where the dissonance kicks in...

If minimum wages haven't kept up with inflation, and a business can not be profitable while paying any sort of living wage, then the business is exploitative and shouldn't really survive. But then where do those exploited folk work?

I have a sense that a subsidised basic income might be better for those folk who might otherwise be exploited - either for them to work at what would otherwise be exploitative rates, or for them to walk out the door and become entrepreneurs. But then we're going off on a tangent.

[antaeus]

Oooh look. A double post in the wild. My posts are becoming inflationary.

[EmperorBatman999]

The pandemic would be an acceptable excuse to postpone raising the minimum wage if the minimum wage was already up to date before the pandemic started. In principle, we're not talking about raising the minimum wage from an acceptable level. We're talking about raising the minimum wage to an acceptable level.

Restaurants have already been shut down regardless of wages. Many others that stayed open let go of their workers regardless of wages. Yes, raising the minimum wage will likely impact restaurant but the impact will likely be minimal. On the other hand, raising the minimum wage will contribute to the economy the most as every little bit of it is likely to be spent on much needed goods and services.

Perhaps, what the governments can do is to introduce tax credits to those that keep their work force intact while increasing wages so that the impact is much more mitigated. The impact would be much more beneficial than giving off stimulus checks.

The $15 minimum wage was supposed end in a restaurant apocalypse. Here's how 5 major cities proved the prophets of doom wrong.

Your article is from 2019: it is not relevant to the situation restaurants are facing now. The remaining restaurants which have survived the pandemic-crash up to this point are still hurting badly. I'm not sure how you can write off the impact on restaurant industries being "minimal," especially when they (a. employ a notable percent of the American workforce, and (b. are dependent of disposable incomes (i.e. a well-employed society) to survive.

Any theoretical benefit from more Americans having more money to spend once the $15 wage comes into effect is a moot point if unemployment remains widespread, and as I said, raising the wage on already burdened industries doesn't help Americans regain unemployment. A forced wage increase in the midst of a severe economic downturn will kneecap any recovery effort as more Americans become unemployed without even low-level restaurant work to provide them at least some means of living and an opportunity to rise up some kind of career hierarchy towards better pay. I also don't trust our government to be competent and kind-hearted enough to bother tracking businesses which retain workers in order to bestow tax credits.

Furthermore, I'm not actually convinced that $15 is the acceptable standard, especially when it comes to employment. The minimum wage of European countries like France (10.15 EUR, or $12.06 USD) is frequently used by American wage advocates as a model to aim towards. Now let's look at youth unemployment in those countries, since young people are the people that (A. tend to most likely be working low-wage jobs, and (B. are in most need of work experience to get their careers started.

In 2019, US youth unemployment was at 9.1% according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics in July of that year. In France, with its higher minimum wage, it was at 19.5%, over twice as much, in 2019.

There may be a lot of different factors surrounding it, such as cultural and other economic aspects (for example, American youths have to pay much more for college than their French counterparts do and many American young people work to at least defray tuition costs). However, I do think that minimum wage does play a part in it, in that it does price workers with few skills and little experience out of work, which then in-turn hurts their career prospects later because they can't get started.