Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Almost Everything You Have Been Told About The Minimum Wage Is False
Forbes ^ | 1-30-13 | Jeffrey Dorfman

Posted on 02/04/2014 6:36:13 AM PST by ThethoughtsofGreg

The Democrats, their union supporters, and liberals in general are making a hard and concerted push for an increase in the minimum wage. President Obama mentioned the subject prominently in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night and even promised to take executive action to increase the minimum wage federal contractors must pay their workers starting in 2015. While Republicans and small business owners are sure to resist this push, it is important that everyone on both sides debates the issue with the correct facts. Much of what you hear about the minimum wage is completely untrue.

First, people should acknowledge that this rather heated policy discussion is over a very small group of people. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there are about 3.6 million workers at or below the minimum wage (you can be below legally under certain conditions). That is 2.5 percent of all workers and 1.5 percent of the population of potential workers. Within that small group, 31 percent are teenagers and 55 percent are 25 years old or younger. That leaves only about 1.1 percent of all workers over 25 and 0.8 percent of all Americans over 25 earning the minimum wage.

(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: liberals; obama; unions; wages
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-24 next last

1 posted on 02/04/2014 6:36:13 AM PST by ThethoughtsofGreg
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: ThethoughtsofGreg
Without profit a business provides no jobs, minimum-wage or otherwise.

If you are going to have a minimum wage law for employees, you need to have a minimum profit law for the employers of those employees.

Any company that doesn't earn a minimum profit gets a supplement from the feral government to bring it up to the minimum-profit level.

Profit inequality must end!

2 posted on 02/04/2014 6:39:25 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (The only way women can "have it all" is if men aren't allowed to have anything.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ThethoughtsofGreg

Those are COMPELLING statistics.

It seems that ALL we can ever expect from this administration are falsehoods, fabrications, misdirections, mendacity, prevarications, ruses, hoaxes, and, of course, LIES!


3 posted on 02/04/2014 6:41:32 AM PST by left that other site
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ThethoughtsofGreg

Now is completely the opposite, wrong time, to raise the minimum wage.

Absolutely not. No.

Bring back American jobs.

Jobs. Jobs. Jobs.


4 posted on 02/04/2014 6:41:55 AM PST by Cringing Negativism Network ( http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html#2013)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ThethoughtsofGreg

Let’s see...40% of black youth are unemployed, can’t even find a job flipping burgers at $7/hr..but they’re gonna ALL get hired at $10.hr..


5 posted on 02/04/2014 6:49:14 AM PST by ken5050 (This space available cheap...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ThethoughtsofGreg
...except that it is an economy killer.

Anybody who has taken Economics 101 knows that forced economic floors like minimum wages and ceilings like price controls send shock waves throughout the economy, severely disrupting supply and demand. In this case, minimum wages drives up a company's costs forcing price increases or forces the company to hire fewer people to keep the costs and prices the same. Either way, entry-level workers like teenagers and those with little education are denied work.

Minimum wage is just one of many examples of how the results of Socialist government programs do exactly the opposite of its stated intentions.

6 posted on 02/04/2014 6:52:09 AM PST by PapaNew
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ThethoughtsofGreg
This policy is not based upon facts. It is based upon emotions. Raising the minimum wage sounds compassionate. And that is all that matters, because that is the objective. To sound compassionate while portraying opponents as heartless, cold, and cruel.
7 posted on 02/04/2014 6:56:01 AM PST by Obadiah (I Like Ted.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum

Minimum wage = $0.00 per hour.

The value of ANYBODY’S wage is only equal to the amount of increase in value that results from work product. This may be either goods or service, but the only reason anybody is ever hired, is because the person who is adding value to a product or service, has more than he or she can personally handle.

The concept of productivity, that is, increasing the margin of value due to the effort and concentration of the worker over a given period of time, is what drives an actual increase in wages. Automation, which augments, but does not entirely replace the worker, can at times vastly increase this production of goods or services over a given period of time. Fewer workers producing more goods and services, means each worker has justified an increase in hourly wage.

The attitude of the union organizers has been, “If we weren’t here, nothing would get made!” But this has been overturned in recent years with the increased automation of repetitive tasks, which results in far fewer live persons being on the factory floor, and their duties are largely confined to maintaining the smooth function of the machinery, not laboriously handing one part up and placing it on one of a string of identical units passing by a given point.

Because the one person tending the machines is vastly more productive than all the dozens of individuals who are handling only one small part of the overall assembly of the product, the one individual is very well paid. The dozens remain unemployed.

Or at least until they have prepared themselves to be one of the persons tending the machines, or go into one of the service industries that otherwise provide the smooth flow of commerce from the point of production to the point of consumption.


8 posted on 02/04/2014 6:58:19 AM PST by alloysteel (Obamacare - Death and Taxes now available online. One-stop shopping at its best!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: ThethoughtsofGreg

But that won’t matter as it continues to poll at least 63% approval every time it comes up.


9 posted on 02/04/2014 7:02:42 AM PST by Buckeye McFrog
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ThethoughtsofGreg

A Federal minimum wage law is patently unjust and unconstitutional government action that needs to be repealed, nullified , or in some way no followed. In that sense many conservatives are on the wrong side of the illegal immigration issue, apparently not realizing that the hiring of illegals to process crops in California UNDER the minimum wage keeps food prices down. Anything anyone can do to get around unjust and unconstitutional laws should do so. Rebellion against government injustice was how our country was formed.


10 posted on 02/04/2014 7:02:56 AM PST by PapaNew
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: PapaNew

If you raise the minimum wage the cost of living rises in response which devalues the new minimum wage. (Not to mention the inevitable loss of jobs)


11 posted on 02/04/2014 7:08:44 AM PST by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum

After much soul searching I have decided that it is totally unfair for me to be six feet and four inches tall when so many men are below average height. Something must be done, I would not relish the idea of having my feet cut off to bring me down to average height so the obvious solution is to have the government pay for special elevator shoes to bring all those guys who are 5’4” up to my height. Of course that presents another problem, some men are far taller than even I myself so that means we need to have the government create some shoes to bring everyone up to seven feet even. Anyone over seven feet will simply have to undergo surgery to bring his height down to seven feet. It would cost too much to rebuild everything from cars to buildings to accomodate people who are eight feet tall.


12 posted on 02/04/2014 7:12:49 AM PST by RipSawyer (The TREE currently falling on you actually IS worse than a Bush.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: cripplecreek

Right - another way of saying that forced economic floors like minimum wage increases prices for the same quantity of the same goods. On a very micro scale, that right there is a basic definition of inflation.


13 posted on 02/04/2014 7:15:31 AM PST by PapaNew
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: ThethoughtsofGreg

“Much of what you hear about the minimum wage is completely untrue”

What I hear from business owners about the minimum wage is mostly true.

It should read what you hear about the minimum wage from politicians and the MSM about the minimum wage is completely untrue.

In fact, you could say what you hear about anything from politicians and the MSM is completely untrue.


14 posted on 02/04/2014 7:22:32 AM PST by detective
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ThethoughtsofGreg

To the government, jobs are social programs.


15 posted on 02/04/2014 7:24:42 AM PST by dfwgator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum

Democrats: Let’s Ban Profits!
Peter Schiff speaks to mainstream DNC delegates who want to see a cap or ban on corporate profits.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2927490/posts


16 posted on 02/04/2014 7:25:34 AM PST by TurboZamboni (Marx smelled bad and lived with his parents .)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: RipSawyer
There is unrest in the forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas

...

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights
'The oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light'
Now there's no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe and saw
17 posted on 02/04/2014 7:27:04 AM PST by Straight Vermonter (Posting from deep behind the Maple Curtain)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: ThethoughtsofGreg

Repeal wage control.

Repeal the minimium wage laws.


18 posted on 02/04/2014 7:36:07 AM PST by joshua c (Please dont feed the liberals)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: alloysteel
Minimum wage = $0.00 per hour.

AMEN. That is plain and solid truth.

19 posted on 02/04/2014 7:49:48 AM PST by Finny (Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. -- Psalm 119:105)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: alloysteel
We don't need harsher border patrol or bigger fences to end the illegal immigration problem in America

All we need to do is end the minimum wage. WATCH as some 30 million illegal immigrants no longer assured of a "minimum" wage in America (a wage that is equal to a very good income in the cardboard villages of Mexico) for entry-level jobs where their only compeititon is dumb teenagers. Then get rid of government welfare, health and education entitlements for "minority" illegals, and watch ... NO NEED for more border control or bigger fences. The minimum wage probably contributes more than any other single factor to our huge illegal immigration problem; all the free government services provided by a "compassionate" nation to poor minority illegals is the second biggest factor.

Fences and harsher border control will only deprive more legal Americans of more of their tax dollars, and will solve zip. They didn't cause the illegal immigration problem, and hence won't solve it. Getting rid of the minimum wage would end many evils in the USA.

20 posted on 02/04/2014 8:00:50 AM PST by Finny (Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. -- Psalm 119:105)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-24 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson