Minimum Wage Study - MW Does Not Kill Jobs

[Ford]

The problem I've always seen with minimum wage not being a living wage is this. If people can't make enough to live on, then what little money they do have will only be spent on necessities, and the cheapest ones at that. How can any business survive if people can't actually afford to buy your crap? Now if everyone makes at least enough to live on, and still have a little money left over, then they will spend that, your business will have more customers, more income which offset the slight increase in salaries.

I put a lot of blame for the wage gap on the Regan tax cuts. Before income over a certain point were heavily taxes, so if the company owners wanted to avoid paying those taxes they would reinvest a good portion of the money back into the business, for expansion, upgrades, employing more people, paying them better. When those tax cuts went through and the owners could pocket a bigger portion of the profits, well then increasing profits became priority. And the biggest expense was labor, so fire people, make those left take on the extra work, and make sure no one is paid what they are worth.

You fail to understand that most minimum wage jobs are not held by primary breadwinners.

Who the fuck cares if most are not (and I don't really believe you anyway). If it helps one person who is the primary bread winner, and just happens to help a bunch of people who aren't? Oh well, guess we'll just have to live with helping all those other undeserving people too.

Because that's what it comes down to. You (and a bunch of other socially irresponsible, at best, people) think that people working 'those jobs' don't deserve a living wage because...what? It might hurt some business owners?

Maybe those business owners should just get a job that pays a real wage.

A thousand times that!
On several occasions my partners and I agreed to intervene (financially) in an employee’s problem. NOT because we thought of them as “family” but because we thought of them as PEOPLE who had helped us, and through no fault of their own, had run into troubles that we could help remedy. And of course the cost of that help was weighed against the cost of losing that employee. Not that losing them would have been much more costly, but rather that helping them didn’t cost a lot more than losing them, and it was the right thing to do. I wonder how the current employees would fare …

This reminds me of my dad. He was the manager of a small manufacturing plant when I was growing up, and while he was very conservative he also came at it from a different angle. For example, he kept the union out of his shop for 20 years with this one simple trick: He paid his people well and treated them like...well...people. There was a family of one of his employees that ran into a rough spot one year (through no fault of their own), and he helped them buy Christmas gifts for their kids because he could. One of the reasons he opposed unionization was that it created an adversarial relationship between management and employees. He wanted to be able to talk to them, not go through an intermediary. They simply got a better deal, and every time the union tried to organize the shop, it was the employees who threw them out.

He was fiercely loyal to his people, and they were fiercely loyal to him. A benefit was that the plant ran very well, put out a good product, and made money despite the higher wages. When the other divisions of the company were struggling, my father's plant was humming along just fine. Many years after my dad passed away, my mom went to a retirement party for one of the employees. She was sitting at the table with the "old-timers," and they were sharing stories about all the things my dad did for them. There was one guy at the end of the table who sat silently, seemed to get more agitated after every tale, and finally got up in a huff and walked away. My mom asked "what's his problem?" "Oh, that's the new guy. He doesn't like it when we talk about (my father)."

The manager was hired on after my dad died, and had been running the place for 17 years. Yet he was still "the new guy."

 

[marc]

You fail to understand that most minimum wage jobs are not held by primary breadwinners.

First, is that even true? How is that determined? If a job pays 2 cents over minimum wage is it no longer considered a minimum wage job? If a married couple both have to work to support themselves, and still barely get by does that only count as one breadwinner?

That kind of matters when a living wage is triple the minimum wage. When a person could work three jobs paying above minimum wage and still be struggling to just get by, then the minimum is set way too low. Hell we saw that at a W rally, and he called it 'uniquely American' rather than a disgusting necessity for the woman. There are people with full time jobs who still have to do gig work like Uber driver to get by. There was that Walmart that had a food drive to support its starving worker. Not the poor in the area, its own workers. They would rather set up a charity drive then actually pay their people enough to feed themselves.

 

[Elixir]

And it probably paid for itself to have employees focusing on their job rather than some financial issue at home. It may be hard to value such a thing but it's a bet I'd make.

Absolutely! Being a small Company <25 employees operating in just 10,000 feet of space, everyone is somewhat aware of everyone else’s state of mind. It did not require a manager to come to the owners and notify them of an employee’s state of mind; we would already be aware that they weren’t quite right.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem I've always seen with minimum wage not being a living wage is this. If people can't make enough to live on, then what little money they do have will only be spent on necessities, and the cheapest ones at that. How can any business survive if people can't actually afford to buy your crap? Now if everyone makes at least enough to live on, and still have a little money left over, then they will spend that, your business will have more customers, more income which offset the slight increase in salaries.

I put a lot of blame for the wage gap on the Regan tax cuts. Before income over a certain point were heavily taxes, so if the company owners wanted to avoid paying those taxes they would reinvest a good portion of the money back into the business, for expansion, upgrades, employing more people, paying them better. When those tax cuts went through and the owners could pocket a bigger portion of the profits, well then increasing profits became priority. And the biggest expense was labor, so fire people, make those left take on the extra work, and make sure no one is paid what they are worth.

You fail to understand that most minimum wage jobs are not held by primary breadwinners.

Who the fuck cares if most are not (and I don't really believe you anyway). If it helps one person who is the primary bread winner, and just happens to help a bunch of people who aren't? Oh well, guess we'll just have to live with helping all those other undeserving people too.

Because that's what it comes down to. You (and a bunch of other socially irresponsible, at best, people) think that people working 'those jobs' don't deserve a living wage because...what? It might hurt some business owners?

Maybe those business owners should just get a job that pays a real wage.

You continue to ignore the fact that you're trying to chop the bottom off the ladder of success.

 

[Worldtraveller]

I think you got me mixed up with...well...you.

Frankly, I find that insulting.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think you got me mixed up with...well...you.

Frankly, I find that insulting.

I didn't mix you up with someone.

The more you must pay the lowest level workers the harder it is for people to get their first job and the more that will be trapped.

 

[laughing dog]

I think you got me mixed up with...well...you.

Frankly, I find that insulting.

I didn't mix you up with someone.

The more you must pay the lowest level workers the harder it is for people to get their first job and the more that will be trapped.

But if they are not breadwinners (as you assert) what are they supposedly trapped into?

 

[Worldtraveller]

I think you got me mixed up with...well...you.

Frankly, I find that insulting.

I didn't mix you up with someone.

The more you must pay the lowest level workers the harder it is for people to get their first job and the more that will be trapped.

But if they are not breadwinners (as you assert) what are they supposedly trapped into?

Shh...you're not allowed to use logic, or LP's own assertions as evidence against his stupid hot takes.

 

[Elixir]

The more you must pay the lowest level workers the harder it is for people to get their first job and the more that will be trapped.

OMG Loren, you can’t be serious.
Pretending that employment within an economy is a zero sum game, is a way to fool yourself into thinking “it’s just too bad that some people can’t support themselves or their families, but if we made that possible, their kids would starve because daddy took their job”.
That’s bullshit and I think you know it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think you got me mixed up with...well...you.

Frankly, I find that insulting.

I didn't mix you up with someone.

The more you must pay the lowest level workers the harder it is for people to get their first job and the more that will be trapped.

But if they are not breadwinners (as you assert) what are they supposedly trapped into?

Eventually they will become the primary breadwinner--except they are less likely to be hired because they have no employment history.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The more you must pay the lowest level workers the harder it is for people to get their first job and the more that will be trapped.

OMG Loren, you can’t be serious.
Pretending that employment within an economy is a zero sum game, is a way to fool yourself into thinking “it’s just too bad that some people can’t support themselves or their families, but if we made that possible, their kids would starve because daddy took their job”.
That’s bullshit and I think you know it.

Huh? I'm not claiming zero-sum, merely that there is an inverse relationship.

 

[laughing dog]

I think you got me mixed up with...well...you.

Frankly, I find that insulting.

I didn't mix you up with someone.

The more you must pay the lowest level workers the harder it is for people to get their first job and the more that will be trapped.

But if they are not breadwinners (as you assert) what are they supposedly trapped into?

Eventually they will become the primary breadwinner--except they are less likely to be hired because they have no employment history.

You know this because….?

 

[bilby]

I think you got me mixed up with...well...you.

Frankly, I find that insulting.

I didn't mix you up with someone.

The more you must pay the lowest level workers the harder it is for people to get their first job and the more that will be trapped.

But if they are not breadwinners (as you assert) what are they supposedly trapped into?

Eventually they will become the primary breadwinner--except they are less likely to be hired because they have no employment history.

You know this because….?

It's still the 1950s, and Mom, Pop, and their 2.4 kids still fill the various roles assigned to them, with the kids flipping burgers for pocket money; while Pop is the breadwinner, in the career he will work his way up in, at the company he joined at 18 and will retire from at 65; and Mom keeps the housework in order.

It would be a damn shame if people stopped fitting into these pigeonholes; We would need to completely restructure the employment environment to avoid massive unfairness, if they didn't.

Oh, wait.

They never did; And the folks in charge just ignored the unfairness.

 

[Elixir]

Huh? I'm not claiming zero-sum, merely that there is an inverse relationship.

Between what and what, exactly?
Inequality and high employment?

Let us stipulate for the sake of argument that such a relationship exists. There would be undesirable extremes and the question is only where in the middle to strike a balance. IOW, how much equality or inequality are we willing to tolerate? Should there be any limits on “ownership” in a society where money is speech? You would tolerate quite a bit more poverty than I would, in favor of more people making hundreds or thousands -or even hundreds of thousands of times the defined poverty level … we should at least eliminate passing on stocks tax free when they croak. Otherwise the dynasty just gathers wealth, as it remains invested while very rich simply borrow millions or billions from willing banks for their personal wants. The whole “operation” ends up almost tax free, from the perspective of owners (major stockholders), at only the cost of the loan.
IOW I would move things quite a way left of your position.

 

[Elixir]

Huh? I'm not claiming zero-sum, merely that there is an inverse relationship.

Between what and what, exactly?
Inequality and high employment?

Let us stipulate for the sake of argument that such a relationship exists. There would be undesirable extremes and the question is only where in the middle to strike a balance. IOW, how much equality or inequality are we willing to tolerate? Should there be any limits on “ownership” in a society where money is speech? You would tolerate quite a bit more poverty than I would, in favor of more people making hundreds or thousands -or even hundreds of thousands of times the defined poverty level … we should at least eliminate passing on stocks tax free when they croak. Otherwise the dynasty just gathers wealth, as it remains invested while very rich simply borrow millions or billions from willing banks for their personal wants. The whole “operation” ends up almost tax free, from the perspective of owners (major stockholders), at only the cost of the loan.
IOW I would move things quite a way left of your position.

I wish Loren would address the bolded question at least. Is he really asserting a fixed inverse relationship between inequality and high employment? Or is there another inverse relationship to which he might be referring?

 

[Toni]

The problem I've always seen with minimum wage not being a living wage is this. If people can't make enough to live on, then what little money they do have will only be spent on necessities, and the cheapest ones at that. How can any business survive if people can't actually afford to buy your crap? Now if everyone makes at least enough to live on, and still have a little money left over, then they will spend that, your business will have more customers, more income which offset the slight increase in salaries.

I put a lot of blame for the wage gap on the Regan tax cuts. Before income over a certain point were heavily taxes, so if the company owners wanted to avoid paying those taxes they would reinvest a good portion of the money back into the business, for expansion, upgrades, employing more people, paying them better. When those tax cuts went through and the owners could pocket a bigger portion of the profits, well then increasing profits became priority. And the biggest expense was labor, so fire people, make those left take on the extra work, and make sure no one is paid what they are worth.

You fail to understand that most minimum wage jobs are not held by primary breadwinners.

Yeah, sometimes they are.

You refuse to comprehend the reality of working poor. Who are actual people with real intrinsic value as human beings and who, aside from that intrinsic value do a lot to keep the society that you enjoy functioning.

 

[Toni]

My job before I retired was by no means my dream job but I liked the company and the mission very much, and was proud to be part of the company. That said, the pay and benefits and being treated like a human being kept me around even when the hours and the commute were brutal.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

BLS article on the working poor. It is dated, but I think useful. In 2019, about 6 million people working 27 hours a week and were in poverty. Around 4% of the work force, so not a huge percentage, but not a tiny overall number. Not graduating high school made someone more likely to in poverty 1 in 6.

 

[Elixir]

In 2019, about 6 million people working 27 hours a week and were in poverty.

Okay, so take the ones earning less than 15k and give them the difference. If they’re working 1000 hours at $7.50 (avg), the cost of guaranteeing those 6m people a “UBI” of 15k would be ~$45b.
A damn far cry from 5 trillion (or whatever the RW strawman would cost).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think you got me mixed up with...well...you.

Frankly, I find that insulting.

I didn't mix you up with someone.

The more you must pay the lowest level workers the harder it is for people to get their first job and the more that will be trapped.

But if they are not breadwinners (as you assert) what are they supposedly trapped into?

Eventually they will become the primary breadwinner--except they are less likely to be hired because they have no employment history.

You know this because….?

Are you not aware that experience counts in getting a job?