The Minimum Wage Is No Friend of the Poor

[Denny Crane]

The problem I have with that is it's very easy for you, or the authors of that article, to pay lip service to that idea. Writing it in an article or a post here doesn't mean squat. I don't see any of 'your people' out there actually backing real bills to do that.

Frankly, if such a thing were an actual bill, I'd bet you'd oppose it rather than support it. It just sounds nice right now because it lets you talk about opposing the minimum wage without sounding like you don't give a shit about other people.

barfo

Barfo,

There are already hundreds of agencies to give people welfare benefits of various kinds. Be they cash assistance, tax credits (negative tax!), food stamps, and so on. Why do we need something in addition?

The point is that minimum wage workers are a tiny fraction of the workforce in the first place and a tiny fraction of those are reliant on the income as sole source to live on. We don't need to hike the minimum wage so some high school kid can get more pay while he's working a summer job. Waiters and waitresses might get minimum wage, but they get tips on top of that.

So why not help the people that actually need the help?

 

[barfo]

Barfo,

There are already hundreds of agencies to give people welfare benefits of various kinds. Be they cash assistance, tax credits (negative tax!), food stamps, and so on. Why do we need something in addition?

The point is that minimum wage workers are a tiny fraction of the workforce in the first place and a tiny fraction of those are reliant on the income as sole source to live on. We don't need to hike the minimum wage so some high school kid can get more pay while he's working a summer job. Waiters and waitresses might get minimum wage, but they get tips on top of that.

So why not help the people that actually need the help?

Ok, so now you are backtracking on even your lip service for additional help to the poor. That's a little more honest. Good.

Now, about those child labor laws. Seems to me the parents wouldn't need to make minimum wage if they could just send their kids to work. Hell, some of them have six or eight able bodies just wasting away in school. Get them in the factories where they belong and we could cut everyone's wages!

barfo

 

[blazerboy30]

Ok, so now you are backtracking on even your lip service for additional help to the poor. That's a little more honest. Good.

Now, about those child labor laws. Seems to me the parents wouldn't need to make minimum wage if they could just send their kids to work. Hell, some of them have six or eight able bodies just wasting away in school. Get them in the factories where they belong and we could cut everyone's wages!

barfo

Why are you proposing to treat those making minimum wage like children?

Why do you want to take away voting rights from those making minimum wage? You don't want them to be able to gamble or drink.

You're trying to take away the rights of all those people making minimum wage. You should be ashamed of yourself.

 

[Denny Crane]

Ok, so now you are backtracking on even your lip service for additional help to the poor. That's a little more honest. Good.

Now, about those child labor laws. Seems to me the parents wouldn't need to make minimum wage if they could just send their kids to work. Hell, some of them have six or eight able bodies just wasting away in school. Get them in the factories where they belong and we could cut everyone's wages!

barfo

Reading comprehension problems?

The minimum wage was enacted 25 years before the great society programs. The new programs much better what minimum wage has failed to do. Why do you insist on doing things the worse way.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

Not similar.

It wasn't meant to be. It's a "barfoism".

 

[The_Lillard_King]

Information is from 12/12. But interesting that the minimum wage raise in Oregon affected more people than the fed min wage raise is purported to affect people nationally.

The Oregon Employment Department recently estimated that there were about 130,000 jobs in the state that paid less than $8.95 per hour in the first quarter of 2012 that would be directly affected by the increase. The Employment Department data shows that the leisure and hospitality industry and retail trade account for about four out of 10 of the jobs affected.

The wage increase affects tens of thousands of minimum wage workers and workers with wages just above minimum. The Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute (EPI) recently estimated that 83,000 Oregonians would benefit directly from the minimum wage increase. The institute noted that another 44,000 Oregon workers currently earning just above the new minimum wage would likely see their paychecks increase as employers adjust their overall pay structures to reflect the new minimum wage. Together, those directly and indirectly impacted account for about 8.3 percent of Oregon’s workforce.

EPI found that about 86 percent of workers directly impacted in Oregon are over 20 years old, and three out of five were women.

“Odds are that a minimum wage worker is an adult and a woman,” said Sheketoff. “The image that some may have of minimum-wage workers being primarily teenagers is incorrect.”

- See more at: http://www.ocpp.org/2012/12/27/nr20121227-new-year-oregon-minimum-wage-earner/#sthash.U3LygCCF.dpuf

 

[jlprk]

So what is a friend of the poor, Denny?

$5 per hour?

4?
3?
2?
Can you rich guys spare 1?

 

[Denny Crane]

So what is a friend of the poor, Denny?

$5 per hour?

4?
3?
2?
Can you rich guys spare 1?

How about you file your taxes and the govt. pays you the difference between what you made and the poverty line?

 

[barfo]

How about you file your taxes and the govt. pays you the difference between what you made and the poverty line?

Doesn't really work because if you are that poor, getting a lump sum check in April doesn't really buy the groceries back in December.
How about instead of guaranteeing an annual wage, we guarantee an hourly wage instead? Same total cost, but the wage earner can use it to eat regularly.
We could call it the 'minimum wage' or something like that.

barfo

 

[Denny Crane]

Doesn't really work because if you are that poor, getting a lump sum check in April doesn't really buy the groceries back in December.
How about instead of guaranteeing an annual wage, we guarantee an hourly wage instead? Same total cost, but the wage earner can use it to eat regularly.
We could call it the 'minimum wage' or something like that.

barfo

Pay em monthly at the unemployment or welfare office. Already set up to do that.

We could call it 'welfare' or something like that. Or 'food stamps.'

 

[barfo]

Pay em monthly at the unemployment or welfare office. Already set up to do that.

We could call it 'welfare' or something like that. Or 'food stamps.'

Wow, how times have changed. It was just a few years ago when the conservative mantra was "the poor are too lazy to work, they'd rather just collect welfare". Today apparently it's become "let's just pay them welfare so that corporations can save money on labor".

barfo

 

[mook]

Tax credits and government checks to supplement low wages is privatizing reward and socializing cost. Businesses don't have to pay as much to keep an employee because your tax dollars will pick up the rest of the tab.

Doesn't seem very conservative to me.

 

[Denny Crane]

Tax credits and government checks to supplement low wages is privatizing reward and socializing cost. Businesses don't have to pay as much to keep an employee because your tax dollars will pick up the rest of the tab.

Doesn't seem very conservative to me.

Raising the minimum wage will cost between 500K and 1M jobs according to CBO. So you're putting that many people on welfare anyway. If not making them homeless.

Good plan!

Seriously, it's the companies paying low wages that are bailing out the taxpayer. They're paying those 500K to 1M people a good chunk of what would otherwise come from welfare. If you think minimum wage should be $10 and the companies pay $7, then the companies are paying 70% of what would be welfare expense to the rest of us. Plus the people are employed, possibly get training (even at Hamburger University), and maybe they can even afford a shitty ObamaCare policy.

 

[crandc]

Why don't you ask poor people if more earnings would help? Gosh, rich people don't want poor people to earn more! How astonishing.

 

[Denny Crane]

Ironically, Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, an advocate of hiking the minimum wage and critic of the CBO report, sensibly opined in his textbook Economics that "the minimum wage is not a good way of trying to deal with problems of poverty." His point: Since many minimum-wage workers aren't poor, this is yet another case of the government trying to solve a problem with a blunt instrument. The same CBO study he criticized bears him out, estimating minimum-wage workers' median family incomes at $30,000, which shows that most live in families well above the poverty line, given that many have multiple workers.

 

[maxiep]

Sometimes, the best thing the government can do to help is just to get out of the way.

There's a reason businesses have record levels of cash on hand, productivity is at an all-time high, yet firms still aren't hiring. It's because the private sector has no idea what government is going to do to them next.

 

[donkiez]

Sometimes, the best thing the government can do to help is just to get out of the way.

There's a reason businesses have record levels of cash on hand, productivity is at an all-time high, yet firms still aren't hiring. It's because the private sector has no idea what government is going to do to them next.

agreed sort of. I dont the government needs to completely get out of the way, after all they set up the rules for the rest of us to play by and left to complete regulation greed always wins out, despite what you free market purists claim. its not just available jobs, even people with jobs are being squeezed more and more every year, shareholders demands and CEO pay structure tied to short sighted goals are also a major culprit. The distribution of money inside a company is more and more going to shareholders and upper management because average worker pay and benefits are the lowest hanging fruit. Even my great and extremely profitable company has been chipping away at my employee benefits, bit by bit since 2001.

 

[Denny Crane]

agreed sort of. I dont the government needs to completely get out of the way, after all they set up the rules for the rest of us to play by and left to complete regulation greed always wins out, despite what you free market purists claim. its not just available jobs, even people with jobs are being squeezed more and more every year, shareholders demands and CEO pay structure tied to short sighted goals are also a major culprit. The distribution of money inside a company is more and more going to shareholders and upper management because average worker pay and benefits are the lowest hanging fruit. Even my great and extremely profitable company has been chipping away at my employee benefits, bit by bit since 2001.

Corporations are heavily regulated and are a product of the government.

I have to wonder when people attack free markets when their gripes are with not free markets.

Why does your company even offer benefits at all?

 

[donkiez]

I never attacked free markets, Im just saying some regulation is necessary.

Give it 10 years and there will be no extra benefits, they will all be "adjusted to meet market demand and to be more in line with competitors".

 

[Denny Crane]

I never attacked free markets, Im just saying some regulation is necessary.

Give it 10 years and there will be no extra benefits, they will all be "adjusted to meet market demand and to be more in line with competitors".

Sorry, you misunderstood.

Why are they offering benefits at all? Those benefits don't make the CEOs more money, yield better returns for the shareholders, etc.

 

[donkiez]

To attract and retain employees? As well as maintain a content, happy, and productive work force? Benefits are a broad term around here, I'm refering to raises, medical, stock purchasing, 401k matching, our company bonus structure, etc. All have been reduced significantly over the years and all effect the over all company bottom line. Shareholders and upper managements pay is directly and indirectly tied to all of this.

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[Denny Crane]

To attract and retain employees? As well as maintain a content, happy, and productive work force? Benefits are a broad term around here, I'm refering to raises, medical, stock purchasing, 401k matching, our company bonus structure, etc. All have been reduced significantly over the years and all effect the over all company bottom line. Shareholders and upper managements pay is directly and indirectly tied to all of this.

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Ah, so there are motives beyond greed/profit.

There naturally is a balance.

Thanks.

 

[maxiep]

agreed sort of. I dont the government needs to completely get out of the way, after all they set up the rules for the rest of us to play by and left to complete regulation greed always wins out, despite what you free market purists claim. its not just available jobs, even people with jobs are being squeezed more and more every year, shareholders demands and CEO pay structure tied to short sighted goals are also a major culprit. The distribution of money inside a company is more and more going to shareholders and upper management because average worker pay and benefits are the lowest hanging fruit. Even my great and extremely profitable company has been chipping away at my employee benefits, bit by bit since 2001.

Do you really think the problem is under-regulation?

 

[maxiep]

To attract and retain employees? As well as maintain a content, happy, and productive work force? Benefits are a broad term around here, I'm refering to raises, medical, stock purchasing, 401k matching, our company bonus structure, etc. All have been reduced significantly over the years and all effect the over all company bottom line. Shareholders and upper managements pay is directly and indirectly tied to all of this.

Sent from my XT603 using Tapatalk 2

When you have a U-6 rate in the high teens, you don't need to attract employees. If you don't want your job, someone else will take it. As for your happiness, your employer doesn't care. You're there to make a profit for the company. It does not exist for you.

If you want more employee power, then embrace pro-growth policies, because right now supply way outstrips demand.

 

[Denny Crane]

When you have a U-6 rate in the high teens, you don't need to attract employees. If you don't want your job, someone else will take it. As for your happiness, your employer doesn't care. You're there to make a profit for the company. It does not exist for you.

If you want more employee power, then embrace pro-growth policies, because right now supply way outstrips demand.

When Clinton was president, we had unemployment about 4%. Burger King in the Bay Area was offering much higher than minimum wage because they had to compete for employees.

The chief economist of Bill Clinton's Dept. Of Labor:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...d37-11e3-bc56-c6ca94801fac_story.html?hpid=z4

There are a few other reasons to be cautious about these increases. Most employees working at or near the minimum wage are not the heads of poor households. They are typically either young (up to about 25) or are second-earners, in which case their households do not rely exclusively on them for income. Although Americans might be happy to see all of these workers get a raise, we should perhaps be concerned that any loss of employment might be most concentrated among the small fraction of these workers who are poor adults and who most need the jobs, as some research suggests.

 

[donkiez]

Ah, so there are motives beyond greed/profit.

There naturally is a balance.

Thanks.

I agree there is a balance.... my point though is that given enough time the bean counters take over any company and good CEO's are replaced with not so good CEO's, and greed will eventually win out when you are trying to maximize profits especially where there selfish motives in play. Employee benefits and employee pay are often just seen as low hanging fruit for them and it gets chipped away at. With zero regulation on minimum wage there would be some companies who would push this as far as they can and they would get away with it, at the expense of the employees they are taking advantage of. I am certainly not being taken advantage of at my job, but we have record profits seemly every other year and still little by little all the extras disappear. If your only extra is $7.50 an hour, what would stop say Walmart from deciding thats to much and since they are plenty of people looking for a job? If there are unlimited unskilled workers, where does the free market bottom out on this?

 

[donkiez]

Do you really think the problem is under-regulation?

No, I think our regulation is out of wack more than it is under regulated. I said some regulation is necessary in response to your point that government needs to just get out.

 

[donkiez]

When you have a U-6 rate in the high teens, you don't need to attract employees. If you don't want your job, someone else will take it. As for your happiness, your employer doesn't care. You're there to make a profit for the company. It does not exist for you.

If you want more employee power, then embrace pro-growth policies, because right now supply way outstrips demand.

I didnt realize my only options were to quit, join your side, or be grateful I have a job. Many successfully companies have embraced employee happiness as a means to boost productivity. So the good companies do care about this and feel that it effects their bottom line. Compare shopping experiences at Walmart vs Winco or Costco for good examples here. Fundamentally our ideas of pro-growth policies are different.

 

[Denny Crane]

I agree there is a balance.... my point though is that given enough time the bean counters take over any company and good CEO's are replaced with not so good CEO's, and greed will eventually win out when you are trying to maximize profits especially where there selfish motives in play. Employee benefits and employee pay are often just seen as low hanging fruit for them and it gets chipped away at. With zero regulation on minimum wage there would be some companies who would push this as far as they can and they would get away with it, at the expense of the employees they are taking advantage of. I am certainly not being taken advantage of at my job, but we have record profits seemly every other year and still little by little all the extras disappear. If your only extra is $7.50 an hour, what would stop say Walmart from deciding thats to much and since they are plenty of people looking for a job? If there are unlimited unskilled workers, where does the free market bottom out on this?

Think supply/demand. If there's a huge supply of labor, then the price employers are willing to pay will go down, along with benefits. If the supply of labor is tight, then companies have to beef up benefits and pay or lose current employees and fail to get new ones to expand.

There just aren't unlimited unskilled workers. The problem is we have economic policies that is stunting employment so there is a lot of labor looking for work, or even giving up looking. Or denying this pipeline and other infrastructure projects funded by corporations that would create a demand for workers at union wages.

At full employment, Walmart will have to pay above minimum wage or lose its workers to some other business that is opening a new store and has to pay more to entice workers to apply.

 

[donkiez]

Think supply/demand. If there's a huge supply of labor, then the price employers are willing to pay will go down, along with benefits. If the supply of labor is tight, then companies have to beef up benefits and pay or lose current employees and fail to get new ones to expand.

There just aren't unlimited unskilled workers. The problem is we have economic policies that is stunting employment so there is a lot of labor looking for work, or even giving up looking. Or denying this pipeline and other infrastructure projects funded by corporations that would create a demand for workers at union wages.

At full employment, Walmart will have to pay above minimum wage or lose its workers to some other business that is opening a new store and has to pay more to entice workers to apply.

In theory I agree but history shows that the job market isnt that simple, if it was there would have been no need for the rise of unions and various other employee protection laws.

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