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White House: "Why We Need to Raise the Minimum Wage, in Less Than Two Minutes": (Video)
The White House ^ | 10/10/14 | White House Staff

Posted on 10/13/2014 8:58:42 AM PDT by babylon_times

You've heard the President call on Congress to raise the national minimum wage to $10.10. Here's why that's so important, and who it would help -- in less than two minutes.

(Excerpt) Read more at whitehouse.gov ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: barackobama; minimumwage; us
This would be devastating for minors, and immigrants....
1 posted on 10/13/2014 8:58:42 AM PDT by babylon_times
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To: babylon_times
Higher minimum wage = Higher unemployment rate, especially for the lower income people who it was supposed to help.

2 posted on 10/13/2014 9:05:12 AM PDT by BitWielder1 (Corporate Profits are better than Government Waste)
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To: babylon_times
Here's why that's so important, and who it would help -- in less than two minutes.

Here's why that's so important, and who it would help -- in less than 10 words: Democrats need to buy some more low information voters.

3 posted on 10/13/2014 9:05:37 AM PDT by Bubba_Leroy (The Obamanation Continues)
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To: babylon_times

I have cut back on my spending. Increase the products even more so, I will not be buying. Some of the pricing now of things that I would like to have, I walk away and keep my money. It would give the politicians more power to pen in for increase taxing. The feds now want us to give more money to prop up millions through higher taxing.


4 posted on 10/13/2014 9:06:21 AM PDT by Christie at the beach
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To: babylon_times

The last time I made anywhere near the minimum wage I was 16. Not to give my age away, but everything was painted red, white & blue that year. If you’re 35 and making the minimum wage, you’ve probably made some poor choices along the way...


5 posted on 10/13/2014 9:08:51 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.)
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To: babylon_times
This is so fraught with errors I don't even know where to begin. The most glaring omission is that prices have to rise, which really is a tax on the consumer. If they are right that 2 million would benefit, how many consumers would lose through higher prices? This is yet another attempt to transfer income from higher income people to lower income people.

Secondly, the video says nothing about the unemployment effects. Work by Parnes, Fliesher, and other shows that increased unemployment always follows an increase in the minimum wage. The idea that the minimum wage helps the young, inexperienced, often minority worker, is a myth. Indeed, the first people laid off after a minimum wage increase are the young, inexperienced, often minority worker. The only reason unions support it is because they use it as an argument for "losing ground" to unskilled workers.

The only sustainable, non-inflationary, way for workers to get higher pay is to be worth that higher pay, and that means being more productive. If you're 35 making minimum wage, you have some serious productivity problems.

6 posted on 10/13/2014 9:11:04 AM PDT by econjack (I'm not bossy...I just know what you should be doing.)
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To: babylon_times

Raise it to whatever, but how much to actually make them WORK?


7 posted on 10/13/2014 9:11:27 AM PDT by annieokie
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To: BitWielder1

Higher minimum wage has a ripple effect throughout union contracts whose pay scales are hitched to it.

Make $42.50 and hour? Up you go to $45.00 an hour. And all it took was a wave of the legislative hand (which the unions paid handsomely)


8 posted on 10/13/2014 9:16:41 AM PDT by plangent
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To: babylon_times

The reason they want a higher minimum wage is to help inflate the tax revenue. It’s a way of taxing companies indirectly.


9 posted on 10/13/2014 9:18:17 AM PDT by raybbr (Obamacare needs a death panel.)
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To: babylon_times

Any minimum wage hike is inflationary in nature unless it is based on an increase in efficiency or productivity.

A minimum wage hike would result in other wages being bumped up.
A more skilled worker will not sit still for a minimum wage unskilled worker making the same wage.

Higher wages would drive up production costs and the cost of doing business making it necessary for businesses to increase prices.

Higher wages (wage inflation) would allow Obama to claim he raised personal income for the nation even though there was no increase in employment and no real increase in purchasing power.

Higher prices (price inflation) would allow Obama to claim he thincreased the GNP even ough actual production remained the same.


10 posted on 10/13/2014 9:29:45 AM PDT by Iron Munro (We can make it work with only one square per restroom visit -- Sheryl Crow)
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To: babylon_times

This video is absurd.

Wages are a calculated cost of production. so if wages go up, so does the cost of everything, which is translated directly to the cash register. Union scale is directly tied to minimum wage, with automatic increases when minimum wage increases. And as a consequence, more real dollars are taken out of the economy in taxes artificially imposed by those increases.

And inevitably, some businesses relying upon low wage workers which cannot compensate for the increased cost will instead cut back (either less hours, or less jobs) in order to make do... Hence the net job creation will decrease, directly effecting those on the bottom who are desperately looking for work.

So to recap:

In general, forced wage increase is a wash as retail price will compensate for cost.

More real dollars will be taken out of the economy and given to the government.

Unions get a spiff.

Jobs will be lost.

Watch and see.


11 posted on 10/13/2014 9:32:11 AM PDT by roamer_1 (Globalism is just socialism in a business suit.)
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To: econjack

> This is so fraught with errors I don’t even know where to begin. The most glaring omission is that prices have to rise, which really is a tax on the consumer. If they are right that 2 million would benefit, how many consumers would lose through higher prices? This is yet another attempt to transfer income from higher income people to lower income people.

When you hear phasing like that you know it wasn’t written by the minimum wage workers; it was written by the “unaffected”, the politician whose lifestyle won’t be affected one iota because he doesn’t live on the edge barely able or not able to pay his bills when cost of everything else increases once the minimum wage is increased. I often wonder if liberals can do simple math or understand ecomomic because they don’t seem to get the connection between increasing the cost of labor and the domino effect. They really do seem to live in lalaland.


12 posted on 10/13/2014 9:32:20 AM PDT by jsanders2001
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To: babylon_times

The minimum wage always hurts low and medium wage workers.

Think of it this way. A low skilled person is capable of producing some value, in dollars, per hour. No matter what “she” is paid, “she can’t produce more value than her skills enable “her” to produce.

When “her” employer is forced to pay “her” more than the value “she” produces, one of three things may happen.

First, the other employees may be convinced (or forced) to receive less than that justified by the value they produce, thereby subsidizing the low-value and low-skill employee.

Second, the employer, may out of his own charitable sentiments, choose to earn less profit on operations of the business. This of course has limits. Owners who don’t earn profits close businesses.

Third, the employer may choose to end the employment of the low-value, low-skill employee. The work “she” formerly did must still be done, so it might be distributed among the high-value employees. Or, if possible, the low-value employee might be replaced with capital investments and technology. If the work is distributed, the net value that can be produced by a high-value employee is reduced, and so they ultimately are paid less,too, because they produce less. They are less satisfied at their jobs, due to the requirements of performing menial (oops, less-high-value) tasks.

Does anyone benefit? Possibly the supplier of technological replacements for low-skilled workers.

Can’t we just educate the low-skilled? No. Not everyone is willing to be educated or to to do high skilled work. Some people are barely motivated to work at all. For those, the threat of no work might be a motivator, but the ease of the dole beckons.

It’s true that less damage might be done if the employer were to just force the others to subsidize the low skilled. Pushing them onto the dole increases their net costs, as substantially more tax dollars must be obtained to support its cost, as the government takes its cut to enrich its insiders and friends, and pay for its own minimally skilled employees.

In the end, a minimum wage just outlaws employment of low-value employees, unless they are subsidized through welfare payments or reduction of compensation to all employees.


13 posted on 10/13/2014 9:59:49 AM PDT by motor_racer (Who will bell the cat?)
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To: babylon_times
The purpose of the minimum wage is to drive small business out of business.

The big-government/big-corporate crony-fascist complex doesn't care that the pie will get smaller. They just want the whole pie.

14 posted on 10/13/2014 10:06:26 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum ("The man who damns money obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it earned it." --Ayn Rand)
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To: plangent
You are correct, but it controls more than just unions. Let's say you make $9 an hour now. You aren't on minimum wage, but you will be raised to $10 immediately, the new minimum wage. You go to your boss and say, hey, I've been here 2 years and the new guy makes the same as me. Then the $11 dollar guy says what about me?

About 500,000 would lose their job immediately, and their would be disruption all up and down the line. Instead of just costing the employer another $3 an hour for a couple of workers, everyone will be clamoring for a raise. Many will have to be let go, and many more will be disappointed because Mr. Boss CAN"T PAY. Even if they drag the raises out over 3 years, the boss has to figure out how to raise productivity, cut costs, and possibly raise prices. We end up paying for this somewhere along the way. So if you get a raise from $17 an hour to $20 an hour over a couple of years, Bread goes from $1.35 a loaf to $2 a loaf for cheap bread and phone, electricity, and cable all eats up more than the raise you got.

15 posted on 10/13/2014 10:48:44 AM PDT by chuckles
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To: plangent
Of course.
I never believed the Unions were being altruistic. Not for a second.

16 posted on 10/13/2014 11:16:30 AM PDT by BitWielder1 (Corporate Profits are better than Government Waste)
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To: babylon_times

You can’t pay more in wages than is produced. It’s foolish to think otherwise.


17 posted on 10/13/2014 11:35:32 AM PDT by Dutch Boy
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