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tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 5093
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 13, 2006 - 6:44 pm: | 
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Down in Hell, they're reaching for their sweaters. That's because a House subcommittee approved a hike in the minimum wage today. That would be the first in a decade, now that adjusted for inflation it's at its lowest point in 50 years.
But it's expected to be stripped out of the final version.
Quote:But Republicans counter that raising the wage would provoke inflation and lead to job losses, especially for young people just entering the job market.
At $5.15 per hour, a worker who works 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year earns $10,712 per year.
Let me get this straight: In the last three years housing prices have doubled, and gasoline prices have tripled. But hiking the minimum wage is going to cause inflation?
It's one thing to be a zealous pro-business ideologue, but how about a little honesty for a change of pace? Most reasonably sane people would conclude that it will help people keep up with inflation.
and I thought a rising tide was supposed to lift all the boats |
MichaelaM
Citizen
Username: Mayquene
Post Number: 194
Registered: 1-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 13, 2006 - 7:35 pm: |
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I think the reluctance to raise the minimum wage is pretty much an attempt to undermine it entirely. Maybe if it's never raised, it'll go away thanks to -- you guessed it -- INFLATION.
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notehead
Supporter
Username: Notehead
Post Number: 3428
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 11:02 am: |
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This is one result of the expanding gap between rich and poor in a high-tech age. The poor, in spite of their numbers, no longer have the power to demand a decent wage because far fewer tasks are performed manually compared to a few decades ago, and some of those that are can also be done overseas. The rich can afford to wait them out and sooner or later there will be people who are desperate enough to work for $5.15/hr even though that is simply not enough for them to take care of themselves. |
LilLB
Citizen
Username: Lillb
Post Number: 1788
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 11:18 am: |
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Is anyone actually making minimum wage? According the the Bureau of Labor Stats, only 2.5 percent of all hourly-paid workers are earning at or below minimum wage, and it looks like they're mostly teenagers working in the food service industry (about 1/2 are under 25 years old and 1/4 of them between the ages of 16-19 and only 2 percent of hourly workers over the age of 25 earned minimum wage or less).
http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2005.htm |
tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 5096
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 11:29 am: |
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The proposal would raise it about $2, so it would help everyone in that range. If you've worked at McDonald's successfully for a couple of months they might have given you a 25-cent-an-hour raise. Would you be included in those statistics, or do they only include workers exactly at the minimum wage? |
LilLB
Citizen
Username: Lillb
Post Number: 1789
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 11:51 am: |
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I think most places, even McDonalds can't pay minimum wage because they can't get anyone to work for that. I just looked at their website and at may NJ locations, they're starting day shift crews at $8.00 an hour - some are $6.75 or thereabouts. So, yes, I suppose if minimum wage goes up, even their above minimum wage earnings would rise. Good news for all.
I'm certainly not against raising minimum wage, but it seems that often times, the argument to raise minimum wage is that it will help poor working families who are earning minimum wage, when they don't seem to be the ones earning minimum wage at all. |
Brett
Citizen
Username: Bmalibashksa
Post Number: 2457
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 12:20 pm: |
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The current minimum wage rate in New Jersey is $6.15 per hour (effective October 1, 2005). The next increase will be effective October 1, 2006 (increase to $7.15 per hour).
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Duncan
Supporter
Username: Duncanrogers
Post Number: 6518
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 12:34 pm: |
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LilLB remember we live in a highly conflated area for those sorts of statistics. In Alabama they are making minimum wage. In Louisiana they are making minimum wage. In NJ, NY, CT, MA they make the higher wages you cite because of the economics of the area. That particular piece is not a representitve sample of the country. |
red
Citizen
Username: Redy67
Post Number: 5800
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 12:37 pm: |
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Duncan you took the words out of my mouth. Moving here from Arizona it is very different. Minimum wage is common at most fast food restaurants and retail stores. The housing prices are extremely different. In AZ I could purchase my house for $50,000. |
LilLB
Citizen
Username: Lillb
Post Number: 1790
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 1:29 pm: |
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Yes, this is definitely true. Just couldn't help but notice what a low percentage (2.5) are actually earning minimum wage and the ages of those workers. |
S.L.K. 2.0
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 1694
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 2:45 pm: |
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I guess I kinda sorts don't have any problems raising the MW but shouldn't we also promote education (high school, secondary,trade)?
It is hard for me to have sympathy for a high school dropout (who freely chooses to do so) making MW.
He/she made their life choices and now have to live with the consequences.
-SLK |
mrmaplewood
Citizen
Username: Mrmaplewood
Post Number: 354
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 4:43 pm: |
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Let's tie two concepts together.
First: Suppose you are a young single person on your own, making minimum wage. At the end of the week you have a choice: 1) You can either have a roof over your head, or 2) You can eat and wear clothes. (I exaggerate a tad.)
Second concept: Why do you suppose that it is reported that many "Americans" do not want to work for minimum wage, and thus immigrants pour into the country do do just that?
My point is that our immigration problems have been aggrevated by our government's reluctance to raise the minimum wage so that a family can live in respectable comfort. Many immigrants are fleeing abject poverty and do not have the same problems living in squallor, while our citizens seem to feel a decent living is their right. But that is the intent of a minimum wage law, right?
So who to blame, Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, Conservatives, or some other group/s? This minimum wage problem has worked a long time to our diservice. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 14705
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 5:22 pm: |
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SLK, yes we should promote education. You're not suggesting -- are you? -- that increasing minimum wage is done at the cost of promoting education.
If trickle down economics really work, then how could raising minimum wage possibly affect the people above those at the bottom of the economic food chain?  |
dougw
Citizen
Username: Dougw
Post Number: 843
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006 - 4:37 pm: |
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I think it is great for a few people in D.C. to set wages for thousands of people all over the country. They are our elected leaders and they know best.
I think they should also decide other things, like prices of key items like gas and concrete, like how much steel should be allocated to the automobile industry, I think they should set the prices for the planes the Boeing makes. I don't think you should be allowed to work with a permit from the federal governement. They should also take 90% of your income and provide your housing for you. How great would that be if we all could live in free federal housing!!
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tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 5110
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006 - 4:46 pm: |
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Funny how you should pick gas and steel as emblems of the free market, when they're generally pumped or mined from public lands at giveaway lease prices. If the Feds stopped giving away the public's assets and charged what these commodities were really worth, you'd be begging for price caps!
As for concrete, the current regulatory system is probably just fine; the price is set by the mob. |
dougw
Citizen
Username: Dougw
Post Number: 844
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006 - 4:51 pm: |
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If you think the mob has anything to do with concrete prices anywhere but NY metro you are a fool. Go build a tilt up in Phoenix and see how many bids you get. Build a precast in Dallas same thing.
That is why we need the federal government to help us with this issue. What we need is a huge increase in the federal government's involvement in our economy.
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tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 5112
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006 - 4:57 pm: |
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I can think of about five million things I'd rather do that go to Phoenix or Dallas for anything, let alone building there.
The feds give Exxon huge subsidies so they can pay their outgoing Chairman a half-billion dollar bonus, but they can't insist that the guys at the pump make enough to raise famliies?
I may be a fool, but better that than greedy. |
dougw
Citizen
Username: Dougw
Post Number: 845
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006 - 5:14 pm: |
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I am confused is federal involvement in the economy (subsidies, minimum wage) good or bad? |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 14720
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006 - 5:30 pm: |
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Is that what it comes down to, dougw? Something is either good or bad? To me, it depends on a lot. Some involvement is good, and some is bad.
If you go one tiny step beyond the most basic principal of supply and demand, it's not hard to see that installing a minimum wage raises the value of workers at the bottom. It also raises the value of workers above them.
Most McDonalds customers earn more than minimum wage. If minimum wage went up and caused the price of McDonalds food to increase, most customers could still afford it. And if they couldn't, they could eat rice and beans from the supermarket, which would save them money and provide better health at the same time. I don't buy the notion that higher wages makes things too expensive.
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dougw
Citizen
Username: Dougw
Post Number: 846
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006 - 6:00 pm: |
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I think the government should make people eat rice and beans so they get healthy
I think that you and I know better what to pay people in Maplewood than a bunch of people in D.C. I think the same goes for two smart people in Seattle, or Plano or Las Vegas. The idea of setting one minimum wage for the whole country is absurd.
I worked for minimum wage for one week when I was 14, then I got a raise, then another, then another. I don't think we should pull up the ladder and make it harder to get on that first rung.
But if it helps your bleeding heart feel better...
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Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 14723
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006 - 6:39 pm: |
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dougw, the employer/employee relationship is not symmetrical. The employer has the bulk of the power. Regulation of things such as minimum wage are small forces to equalize it just a little bit. Unskilled workers have pretty no bargaining power.
Without minimum wages, conditions could go back to the way things were before we had a minimum wage. And that's the way it is in some third world countries. All you have to do is look at either history or our contemporaries elsewhere. Why would you presume that these lessons wouldn't apply now?
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anon
Supporter
Username: Anon
Post Number: 2783
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006 - 9:05 pm: |
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I am confused is federal involvement in the economy (subsidies, minimum wage) good or bad?
Yes, but not all the time. |
tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 5113
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006 - 10:33 pm: |
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Quote:I don't think we should pull up the ladder and make it harder to get on that first rung.
That same argument has been trotted out every time a hike has been on the table in my lifetime, and probably going back to the thirties. Yet somehow McDonalds and The Maids hire enough people to get the job done.
Hey, maybe that's what really drives it (he says mockingly). Maybe they hire enough people to actually accomplish the work. If they have too many, they lay them off; if they're understaffed they hire more.
Is Mickey D going to force customers to wait a half hour for a Big Mac because they can't afford another cashier? At their peril! |
Foj
Citizen
Username: Foger
Post Number: 1505
Registered: 9-2004
| | Posted on Friday, June 16, 2006 - 11:47 am: |
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Table 1 shows the characteristics of the workers who would be directly affected by the increase, i.e., those earning between $5.15 and $6.65.1 In states with a minimum wage that exceeds the federal level, affected workers are those earning between their state minimum and $6.65. The majority of affected workers are women (60.6%). Just 31.8% of the affected workers are teens, age 16 to 19, with fully 68.2% being adults. Close to half (45.3%) of the affected workers are employed full time, and another third (34%) work between 20 and 34 hours per week.
From here..
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issuebriefs_ib149
The earnings of minimum wage workers are crucial to their families' well-being. Evidence from the 1996-97 minimum wage increase shows that the average minimum wage worker brings home more than half (54%) of his or her family's weekly earnings.
An estimated 760,000 single mothers with children under 18 would benefit from a minimum wage increase to $7.25 by June 2007. Single mothers would benefit disproportionately from an increase — single mothers are 10.4% of workers affected by an increase, but they make up only 5.3% of the overall workforce. Approximately 1.8 million parents with children under 18 would benefit.
Adults make up the largest share of workers who would benefit from a minimum wage increase: 72% of workers whose wages would be raised by a minimum wage increase to $7.25 by June 2007 are adults (age 20 or older).
Close to half (43.9%) of workers who would benefit from a minimum wage increase work full time and another third (34.5%) work between 20 and 34 hours per week.
From here-
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/issueguides_minwage_minwagefacts
18 states have done it on their own:
http://www.epi.org/issueguides/minwage/table6.gif
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