Ontario raising minimum wage to $15

[Loren Pechtel]

You're describing exactly why I don't support increasing the minimum wage.

I don't think it's time yet for a universal basic income but I would like to see the government supplement low wage work--something along the lines of our earned income tax credit but larger.

They already do supplement low wage work via housing support, heating support, food support, health care support. And that still isn't enough!

How about instead of corporations getting all of this subsidization for their employees from the taxpayer, the corporations pay their workers a wage that no longer requires all these taxpayer supplied subsidies.

I know, I know, costs will go up (and baby Jesus will be bawling). But we are already paying more in taxes because of this, to subsidize corporation pay to their employees!

In other words, off the books welfare. If we are going to provide welfare it should be done openly, not by such subterfuge. Doing it this way just means you pay it through higher prices rather than higher taxes. It's easier to stick your head in the sand about the former but the lack of accounting actually makes it worse.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It is unethical to compromise the financial security of a person to benefit something that is NOT a person. So if a company is not paying a fair price for an employee's labor, the company should be compelled to pay a higher wage.

So businesses should go bankrupt in order to provide for the workers. Good luck in your socialist utopia with no employers left!

Companies do not suffer or starve.

A company that starves goes bankrupt--and hires zero workers.

Because the employees fucking said so.

Well, they can go fuck themselves. Want good pay? Offer good work and good skills!

Most of them ALREADY DO. The minimum wage is such a laughably low level right now that any person desperate enough to accept minimum wage is probably unqualified for any job that requires any training or expertise whatsoever. They're likely to be replaced by automation no matter what.

Reality: Most minimum wage jobs are filled by those just starting out and are acquiring those skills (students).

OTOH, there are some skilled professions (paramedics, fire fighters, nurses, caregivers, etc) that are paying between 15 and $20 an hour that would indirectly benefit from a minimum wage. It becomes harder to attract the most qualified workers in those fields if your opening salary offer is just 50 cents more than the lowest rate you can legally pay someone; most of your applicants will be high school dropouts with no skills and no experience, while the candidates you REALLY want with 5+ years of experience will all work for your competitor who is offering $25 to start with yearly raises and bonuses.

Which is the real reason behind the minimum wage movement. It's not about helping those it's supposed to help, it's about helping those who make more--but as always at the expense of those at the bottom.

Which means the companies that pay much higher than the minimum wage will be more productive while companies that try to short-change their employees will suffer a marked reduction in the quality of their workforce and, therefore, the quality of their products. The rise in the minimum wage simply forces companies to actually pay a good price for good service.

Except you see a lot of businesses fail and the remainder can pay minimum wage because the workers are desperate for any job.

Your side has this farcical notion that you can help the worker by destroying the bad jobs. All you'll actually accomplish is helping them into unemployment. In the real world good jobs destroy bad jobs, if there are enough good jobs the issue becomes moot.

As many people have pointed out, this would also have the secondary effect of raising wages EVERYWHERE, which means more customers now have disposable income enough to buy more products and services. That means your business has more customers, which means you can either hire more workers to keep up with demand or raise your prices to reduce demand to something your existing workforce can handle. Either way, everybody wins.

Actually, it would have the opposite effect.

 

[LordKiran]

My boyfriend is on disability. He gets roughly 600-ish from the government every month, 550 of that used to go right to rent. I dont think taxes are the problem.

Which is an issue with our disability system, not with taxes or minimum wage.

Point is, even if he was taxed, it wouldn't come close to his biggest expenditure. that 550 rate was only with knowing the property owner and having an understanding that made it cheaper.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Because all of society isn't the cause of that particular problem. Just penny-pinching companies that do everything they can to fuck their workers. The solution should be targeted at the cause of the problem, not at the entire society in which the problem broadly exists.

The primary cause is people having children before they have built their careers up. Blame the parents, not society.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Paying $x for an employee to to y doesn't bring better profits than buying a machine for $x to do y.

Automation doesn't work that way.

A high precision CNC machine might cost $24,000 as a one-time buy and then run up $8,000 worth of maintenance and repairs over a five year period. That's $32,000 over five years, or $6,400 a year. Maybe this machine replaces a machinist who used to make $40,000 a year... except now, you have to hire a technician and a specialist in CAD design who makes $45,000 a year to operate this same machine. Plus, the old machines you used to have -- metal benders, lathes, saws, etc -- also weren't cheap to purchase.

So in the end, you aren't paying anything less than you used to.

But the advantage of automation isn't the reduction of wages. The advantage of automation is that this one engineer with his one CNC machine is TEN TIMES AS PRODUCTIVE as he used to be, and his products are ten times as good. So while your labor prices actually slightly increase, your REVENUES multiply considerably. Then you buy another CNC machine and another technician, double your revenue. Rinse and repeat.

Of course, a machnist isn't going to earn anything close to minimum wage, so raising the minimum wage to $15 isn't going to even be a blip on that company's radar. It might slightly increase their shipping costs, however, which might make them want to invest in more CNC machines so they can offset the increased cost of shipping with greater volume. But the wage increase won't affect them at all.

Believe when I say that any minimum wage job that can be replaced by automation either has already, or is about to be. Raising wages will not change that, and LOWERING wages certainly won't.

While I agree with your analysis of the economics of automation (I'm one of the guys that does that automation--and I never saw it cutting labor. Rather, I saw it increasing output without increasing the number of employees. The automation assisted the worker by taking over parts of the task that don't require judgment) I disagree about what jobs get automated.

Most jobs could be automated today. It's a matter of the cost of that automation vs the cost of the human. Most non-skilled jobs that exist today do so because the automation would be far too expensive. As time goes on the balance will shift ever more towards the automation but that doesn't mean most of them will soon be replaced. Robotics are far from being able to economically replace the shelf stocker, for example.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

How about both? A basic living income plus a $15/hr minimum wage. And make the basic income apply to every adult rather than per household. That way two-parent families live better than singles. People need to have some hope of improving their lives. In the current system (aka, capitalist ideology) income below some threshold means no hope of ever getting ahead or saving for opportunities when they occur (basic economic sense, like stocking up on food when it's on sale). BLI offers not just a way for individuals and families to get by but, most importantly, as a hope for their children's futures. Higher minumum wage provides that, plus the possibility of advancement through meaningful (aka, creative) effort. Not simply waiting for a machine or offshore worker to eventually confirm one's uselessness.

I do agree UBI should be per person. Living arrangements shouldn't enter into it.

However, in a UBI world there's no reason for a minimum wage. The basics are already covered, if someone make $1/hr they aren't going to starve. Rather, they'll be bettering their life to some degree. (Not that there would be any takers for a $1/hr job in a UBI world.)

 

[DBT]

1) They have training wages that take the place of most of the minimum wage jobs in the US.

2) Purchasing power--Australia's wage isn't that much higher than ours once you look at what things cost.

1 - Training wages in Australia are higher than minimum wage in the US.
2 - When this subject came up a while ago I provided the stats, which show a significantly higher minimum wage in Australia even when adjusted for respective purchasing power.

Plus, the value of labour to a business is often determined according to their business interest of increasing profits and what a business is able to get away with paying rather than what the true value of the work may be or what they can indeed pay quite comfortably.

The sad thing being that workers are often their own worst enemies when it comes to wage negotiation because they approach this critical task individually with little or no bargaining power rather than collectively in strength.
Which is exploited mercilessly by employers because their bottom line is to pay as little as possible and thereby increase their own profits and incomes.

 

[laughing dog]

Because all of society isn't the cause of that particular problem. Just penny-pinching companies that do everything they can to fuck their workers. The solution should be targeted at the cause of the problem, not at the entire society in which the problem broadly exists.

The primary cause is people having children before they have built their careers up. Blame the parents, not society.

How do you come up with such crapola?

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Because all of society isn't the cause of that particular problem. Just penny-pinching companies that do everything they can to fuck their workers. The solution should be targeted at the cause of the problem, not at the entire society in which the problem broadly exists.

The primary cause is people having children before they have built their careers up. Blame the parents, not society.

That's a tough one, as people are having kids later and later, and it is actually causing problems in the pregnancies. Women trying to have kids later in life is dangerous and our economy is pushing them to.

 

[LordKiran]

The primary cause is people having children before they have built their careers up. Blame the parents, not society.

That's a tough one, as people are having kids later and later, and it is actually causing problems in the pregnancies. Women trying to have kids later in life is dangerous and our economy is pushing them to.

Out of curiousity: Is there a noticeable effect in children raised by older parents/guardians versus those raised by younger ones?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The primary cause is people having children before they have built their careers up. Blame the parents, not society.

How do you come up with such crapola?

How do you come up with all these personal attacks rather than addressing the issue?

 

[LordKiran]

How do you come up with such crapola?

How do you come up with all these personal attacks rather than addressing the issue?

That's not a personal attack, but a snide rhetorical remark regarding your position.

Some could call it flippancy, but it's not personal.

 

[laughing dog]

How do you come up with such crapola?

How do you come up with all these personal attacks rather than addressing the issue?

As Lord Kiran pointed out, it is not a personal attack. It is a snide way of asking "How do you arrive at such silly positions?"

So, why not actually address the content instead of evading the question?

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

It is a snide way of asking "How do you arrive at such silly positions?"

By calling it "Crapola", you're taking a position that it is wrong and crap. On what basis? By asking what you did in this way you not only show yourself to be an ass, but you also take the onus upon yourself as much as it is on Loren. Had you merely asked how Loren arrived at his conclusion, then the onus would have been on him alone. Now you should both answer.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

That's a tough one, as people are having kids later and later, and it is actually causing problems in the pregnancies. Women trying to have kids later in life is dangerous and our economy is pushing them to.

Out of curiousity: Is there a noticeable effect in children raised by older parents/guardians versus those raised by younger ones?

I think it has more to do with resources, so I don't think you'd see any difference not explained through the differences between rich and poor etc. Having kids too soon means you probably don't have much money to support them. Having kids too late means you are probably wanting to retire just as other parents may be pitching in to put their kids through college.

 

[LordKiran]

It is a snide way of asking "How do you arrive at such silly positions?"

By calling it "Crapola", you're taking a position that it is wrong and crap. On what basis? By asking what you did in this way you take the onus upon yourself as much as it is on Loren. Had you merely asked how Loren arrived at his conclusion, then the onus would have been on him alone. Now you should both answer.

LP also has a history of making wide and broad-reaching assertions at the drop of the hat with no stated basis for coming to that conclusion.

 

[laughing dog]

By calling it "Crapola", you're taking a position that it is wrong and crap. On what basis?

On the basis that any rational human being can see that
1) there is no reason in fact or theory for that claim, and
2) there is no data to support the claim.

LP's well-known history of making claims of fact with no basis is also an additional reason.

By asking what you did in this way you not only show yourself to be an ass, but you also take the onus upon yourself as much as it is on Loren.

I will defer to your demonstrated expertise on being an ass but people who makes claims of fact should be able to substantiate them.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

On the basis that any rational human being can see that
1) there is no reason in fact or theory for that claim, and
2) there is no data to support the claim.

1) You can't see that there is no reason in fact or theory for his claim. You can only see that you don't know of any such reason or theory. Which makes is sensible to point out that he hasn't presented one and ask him for one, rather than declare there isn't one.

2) See point 1

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I will defer to your demonstrated expertise on being an ass but people who makes claims of fact should be able to substantiate them.

You just demonstrated yourself to be an ass with your needlessly and unprovoked snide remark to Loren. Yes, Loren could be asked to back up his claim, as could the person he was responding to, but that is not what you did. You called it false, which puts the onus as much on you as on him.

 

[laughing dog]

On the basis that any rational human being can see that
1) there is no reason in fact or theory for that claim, and
2) there is no data to support the claim.

1) You can't see that there is no reason in fact or theory for his claim.

No one can because he did not present any. Instead of kneejerk whiteknighting, try thinking a bit before you respond.

You can only see that you don't know of any such reason or theory. Which makes is sensible to point out that he hasn't presented one and ask him for one, rather than declare there isn't one.

2) See point 1

Totally irrelevant - see above.

You just demonstrated yourself to be an ass with your needlessly and unprovoked snide remark to Loren. Yes, Loren could be asked to back up his claim, as could the person he was responding to, but that is not what you did. You called it false, which puts the onus as much on you as on him.

I already deferred to your expertise on being an ass.