CA: The Minimum Wage Calamity

CaliforniaRepublic.org ^ | 1/5/06 | Ray Haynes

[ThinkDifferent]

Have any of you, anywhere, ever seen a store lay off people because the minimum wage went up and they couldn't afford to keep everyone?

Not being privy to the details of every hiring and firing decision made by every store in my area, I can't answer that, and I doubt you can either. Nor can you account for stores that might have existed but don't because the minimum wage would have made them unprofitable.

Could we raise the minimum wage to $20/hour with no effect on employment? If not, what is the magic number at which the laws of supply and demand do kick in?

[cpprfld]

If you are that pissed off about your workplace, find a new job, or go to a tech school and learn a skilled trade that is in demand. The problem with the current education system is that there is to much emphasis in high school, on going to a 4 year university, when a technical school education would be a better choice for most people.

[justt bloomin]

The minimum wage should be exactly $0.00

I second that.

[ThinkDifferent]

Minimum wage is not living wage these days.

"Living wage" is a meaningless term.

Offering LESS money than minimum wage is not going to enable any of the poor to dig out of their hole.

By my math, $5/hour is better than $0/hour.

He can't 'compete' because nobody WANTS him to compete. Nobody WANTS to see the guy with the ugly shoes and badly fitting suit in their office.

Again, you're negating your own argument. In your scenario where the poor guy is so repellent that nobody will hire him at any wage, then he's screwed regardless of the minimum wage. In the more likely case where he does actually have some value, he still can't get hired if that value is less than the minimum wage.

[justt bloomin]

Market forces are not manipulated by the wealthy. That's why they are called market forces. McDonald's and Wal-Mart are price takers, not price makers. Ronald McDonald and Sam Walton didn't decide to make their prices the way they are becuase they wanted to; they set their prices based on the knowledge that at any higher or lower price the consumers would demand either not enough of the product or too little of the product, resulting in either a surplus or a shortage.

Minimum wage is a floor above the equilibrium price of labor, and total welfare is lost to our society. Sure, the providers of labor (you and me) get a little bit more, but the people buying the labor get a lot less. And, unarguably, a lot less outweighs a little more.

Economics 101.

Of course McDonald's and Wal-Mart can afford to pay their workers more. But then again, you can afford to pay 8 bucks a gallon for gas. In that case, though, you might not be able to afford anything else, and you'd be in debt, just like these companies would be making negative profits and going out of business.

For every minimum wage hike, there should be a hike in gas prices twice as much just to illustrate this point and make people feel how firms feel with an increase in labor costs.

[Conservative Goddess]

ROFLMAO......living wage.........

He belongs on DU.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

"Have any of you, anywhere, ever seen a store lay off people because the minimum wage went up and they couldn't afford to keep everyone?"

Hell, I've DONE just that as a business owner.

[hybrid]

Again, you're negating your own argument. In your scenario where the poor guy is so repellent that nobody will hire him at any wage, then he's screwed regardless of the minimum wage. In the more likely case where he does actually have some value, he still can't get hired if that value is less than the minimum wage.

He's not 'repellent' actually, just 'underfunded'. :) What I'm actually trying to do is point out the classic catch-22 of wealth: it generally TAKES money to MAKE money. If you have none, it becomes CONSIDERABLY harder to get any. A poor person has no/bad credit, 'cause when you live on minimum wage, sometimes the bills go in late (if you don't get paid till Friday, they go in then); they have cheap/used clothing; they have less education (this is just a simple fact); they have, often, no car and/or no insurance and/or no registration; they have, generally, no way of learning new skills.

I'm not saying you are wrong; I'm saying you are partially right.

[OldPossum]

Re: hybrid

Your naivete is stunning.So is just about everything else about this young man. Note that he keeps talking about "wages" never "salary". I'll bet that if we were able to project ourselves 30 to 40 years into the future, he'll still be moaning and groaning about the "unfairness" of it all. And stuck in some wage-paid job with no future.

I too was young but I never thought that my superiors at work were "unfair"; not only did I not see them as "unfair" I saw them as an opportunity to show what I could do. Today, I am retired on a nice pension and I have considerable investments and savings; also I own two properties.

About hybrid, my father would have said, "He'd complain if you hung him with a new rope."

[Conservative Goddess]

My father would have said: "If you gave him gold bricks, he'd complain about how heavy they were." Sounds as if our fathers were wise men.

My best to you.....

[Hardastarboard]

Looting is what happens when you pay a worker too little to live on and expect the taxpayer to pick up the difference.

Stupid is what happens when you allow an employer to do that to you. How about a person taking responsibility for themselves and getting another job? You don't have to work for someone who's under-paying you.

You don't stand for someone over-charging you for a service, why would you stand for someone under-paying you for your services? It's just the opposite side of the same coin.