The Goat Pen

Yes, if you call sacrificing your life to a monotonous robot-like job "free". But most people do, and think they've gotten the better end of the deal...

hedge wrote:Yes, if you call sacrificing your life to a monotonous robot-like job "free". But most people do, and think they've gotten the better end of the deal...

well they're free to live a bohemian lifestyle but if we implement a living wage for even the most basic jobs, then the bar should be very high to qualify for any of the government safety net.

However in theory it should be easier to live that kind of life if you so choose in a country where everyone working is making a living wage

I think the minimum wage from 1960, adjusted for inflation, is roughly $11 today. People have two jobs and are on government assistance. We've kept the slogans of the American Dream, but we've changed the game of how to realize that dream. Now, if you're poor it's because you didn't work hard enough. That's not quite the case.

Kinda related, a long read, but interesting story about the wife of an Iraq War vet...and the mental, substance and financial struggles of those involved.

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-sold ... .htmlstory

1968 was the high.

Nice, basic page:


http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth484/minwage.html

I think its inevitable change is coming.

1. The disparity between the 1% and the 99% is pretty wide and its not going to get better under the current circumstances
2. The voting public that is growing believes in government intervention and assistance - its a fact of life for many of them
3. The boomers are going on fixed income and leaving the payrolls.
4. The majority of jobs being created are part time and low wage

This means in the near future you're going to hear politicians more in tune with the tax the rich mantra

unless they address the living wage - which moves everyone off the government assistance except the truly needy, increases the tax rolls of income coming in - or least makes people tax neutral AND at the same time pumps money into the social security and medicare programs.

Too many tie some emotional value to a living wage - as to pass judgement whether these people have earned it or not. We're way past that and just have to address what economically makes sense for this country long term. I really don't care how much a guy flipping burgers makes as long as the burger doesn't cost me $20 - which I'm confident it won't because of efficiencies in the workplace, but I'd be especially satisfied knowing that guy is a taxpayer and isn't getting food stamps, isn't forced to fence or sell drugs on the side to make a living and generally is contributing to the financial stability of his local community.

The problem is not the wage of a burger flipper. The problem is that a head of household is working as a burger flipper. A burger flipper has never been a good paying job. Go ahead and raise it to $11. It ain't going to make a difference. People's livelihoods would still be awful. By overpaying them for meaningless jobs doesn't solve anything. They need to acquire skills to handle those jobs that are in demand. You need to direct young people to those jobs that are plentiful and have them prepare for it.

sardis wrote:The problem is not the wage of a burger flipper. The problem is that a head of household is working as a burger flipper. A burger flipper has never been a good paying job. Go ahead and raise it to $11. It ain't going to make a difference. People's livelihoods would still be awful. By overpaying them for meaningless jobs doesn't solve anything. They need to acquire skills to handle those jobs that are in demand. You need to direct young people to those jobs that are plentiful and have them prepare for it.

how would people's livelihoods still be awful by guaranteeing that every job pays a living wage? The jobs that are plentiful don't currently pay a living wage. You're simply not going to educate the 30 or 40% of Americans to work in Information Systems, Health Care, etc that will pay them. It would be different if we had 30 million hi tech jobs or whatever that were going unfilled.

Before the advent of unions and workers laws, most manual labor jobs, and many that were not were never a good paying job. This idea that a burger flipper or shelf stocker or whatever is less of a job than a guy screwing lug nuts onto a car at an assembly line in Detroit needs to change.

And why did the advent of unions and workers laws come into play? Because of a huge disparity between the working class and the wealthy.

NUMBERS:

Poverty rate: for a family of 4: 23, 550.

To receive SNAP food stamps (http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/applicant_ ... #Resources), you must not have more than 130% of the poverty rate, or $31,322 (http://www.familiesusa.org/resources/to ... lines.html). If 45% of the U.S. is on food stamps, then that's a whole lot making very little.

its actually 1 in 7, and about 30% of American households receive some means based assistance from the government.

The 47% number of American receiving government assistance includes social security which really isn't an accurate depiction of the needs.

in 2010, 60% of Americans received more in government benefits than they paid in taxes.

That makes sense. I suspect that includes TANF (which replaced AFDC with a work requirement in the late 90's), Section 8, farm subsidies, WIC. It may also include school grants and pell grants. Perhaps state support as well. Medicaid, and medicare

By raising poorer people's wages, don't you just move the poverty line? Won't market forces raise prices to go up with the wages? Are you suggesting price freezes to offset it?

sardis wrote:By raising poorer people's wages, don't you just move the poverty line? Won't market forces raise prices to go up with the wages? Are you suggesting price freezes to offset it?

I don't think so because all the poverty line is , is an arbitrary number - whether those people are on food stamps or making $22K a year, they still have the same necessities - diapers, milk, bread, rent, insurance, etc

At the end of the day I suspect they'll pretty much be at the same place financially if you combine income and good/services purchased. So demand won't increase by some huge number, plus with the kind of wage increases we are really talking about, this doesn't mean these people are going to move into $1500 a month housing or purchase that $180K home, it means they'll get to eat out at Olive Garden once a pay check, have pork chops a couple of more times a month. This is really about transferring income from the government to the private sector and the responsibilities that go with it. They now have to pay for their kids lunches, they have to pay rent, not subsidized housing. The whole point would be to keep the poverty line number at X, and provide a living wage that gets them only slightly above it.

You don't get inflation by people getting pay increases - inflation is brought about by decreasing the value of the dollar. Now there would be some incremental ripple effect - mainly to the people that are making, for example, $10 an hour because their bosses felt they deserved to be paid $2 or $3 above the minimum wage to retain them. Employers would have to handle that on a case by case basis. Do they want to retain the guy they had making $10 an hour by bumping him to $14 or do they risk him staying with the $1 an hour increase provided by minimum wage?

There is no question that there would be a huge increase in the payrolls but that would be offset by the huge decrease in government programs (at not just welfare - elderly would work longer as entry level jobs they can do now compete with social security income), a huge bump in tax dollars coming in and an overall quality of life improvement from not only these people have some disposable income but the communities as well from increased tax revenues.

Yes, there would be some costs passed on to the consumer, and small business employers would do everything they could to minimize the number of employees and hours worked, but in the end, they aren't hiring people to stand around now, and there is always going to be someone out there that can deliver the same or better product at a smaller margin. Capitalism would prevent the consumer from getting hit hard from this.

But the hidden benefit from this is they aren't dependent on the government - they are going to see the government in the same eyes as the working class. They will ultimately want less government in their lives - or at least be more sensitive to the government they now tolerate as a means to an end for their survival. In effect, they will start expecting the government to be fiscally responsible as they want more of their share of the pie to take home. They'll be dipping their toes into conservatism 101. And at the same time , the working class, along with our government can look any able bodied person in the eye and tell them that there is work out there for them ...right now, not with 2 years of school or whatever so they will not be getting any income security /benefits.

I don't think the correlation is one on that. A raise in the minimum wage is not a definite predictor in the inflation rate. If so, inflation would be even lower than it is now...because pay hasn't moved.

Larger global forces will impact inflation. A change in the minimum wage will hit profit margins and (like we talked about here in the past) the biggest issue is how do you set the wage when a living wage in Wichita is much different than New York. Those items make any real changes in the min wage very difficult to execute.

(eCat posted before I hit send...but I'm gonna post this anyway)

Bklyn wrote:I don't think the correlation is one on that. A raise in the minimum wage is not a definite predictor in the inflation rate. If so, inflation would be even lower than it is now...because pay hasn't moved.

Larger global forces will impact inflation. A change in the minimum wage will hit profit margins and (like we talked about here in the past) the biggest issue is how do you set the wage when a living wage in Wichita is much different than New York. Those items make any real changes in the min wage very difficult to execute.

(eCat posted before I hit send...but I'm gonna post this anyway)

yea I was thinking about that earlier. We could let the market set the rate given a couple of caveats - for example - business is responsible for paying a wage where their employee is above the poverty line and any employee that requires income security benefits from the government will result in those costs being passed onto the business or we could do the cost of living like many business' do. For example, the cost of being an engineer in Chicago was much higher than being one in South Carolina so my old company had a wage index that determined your pay based on location. Heck, some large cities are doing that now by implementing their own minimum wage- so the minimum wage could be set based on a formula taking into account cost of living, taxes, transportation , etc and then each area assigned a number. If your area is number whatever - say #14 that means the minimum wage is $16, whereas if your number is #7, the minimum wage is $11.75 - you get the idea.

And those costs are passed on to the consumer because I know what I'd pay to get a whopper at Burger King in say Times Square is going to be noticeably more than one I buy in Peoria. Thats built in and expected by the consumer.

of course I don't expect too many libertarians to line up and support my opinion on this.

They'd rather not have a minimum wage at all and let the market decide the rate which I understand but doesn't take into account the safety net provided by the government.

You can't have one and not the other, and they have to be in balance.

"But the hidden benefit from this is they aren't dependent on the government - they are going to see the government in the same eyes as the working class. They will ultimately want less government in their lives"

That's why government doesn't want it...

eCat wrote:

Bklyn wrote:I don't think the correlation is one on that. A raise in the minimum wage is not a definite predictor in the inflation rate. If so, inflation would be even lower than it is now...because pay hasn't moved.

Larger global forces will impact inflation. A change in the minimum wage will hit profit margins and (like we talked about here in the past) the biggest issue is how do you set the wage when a living wage in Wichita is much different than New York. Those items make any real changes in the min wage very difficult to execute.

(eCat posted before I hit send...but I'm gonna post this anyway)

yea I was thinking about that earlier. We could let the market set the rate given a couple of caveats - for example - business is responsible for paying a wage where their employee is above the poverty line and any employee that requires income security benefits from the government will result in those costs being passed onto the business or we could do the cost of living like many business' do. For example, the cost of being an engineer in Chicago was much higher than being one in South Carolina so my old company had a wage index that determined your pay based on location. Heck, some large cities are doing that now by implementing their own minimum wage- so the minimum wage could be set based on a formula taking into account cost of living, taxes, transportation , etc and then each area assigned a number. If your area is number whatever - say #14 that means the minimum wage is $16, whereas if your number is #7, the minimum wage is $11.75 - you get the idea.

And those costs are passed on to the consumer because I know what I'd pay to get a whopper at Burger King in say Times Square is going to be noticeably more than one I buy in Peoria. Thats built in and expected by the consumer.

Isn't this already being done with 14 states who have minimum wages higher than the federal? Seems to trend with states that have a higher cost of living.

our company just announced no HMO after 2014

Congrats!! Get your feet set....they are going in dry.

These types of discussions is why I love this thread.

eCat wrote:

Bklyn wrote:I don't think the correlation is one on that. A raise in the minimum wage is not a definite predictor in the inflation rate. If so, inflation would be even lower than it is now...because pay hasn't moved.

Larger global forces will impact inflation. A change in the minimum wage will hit profit margins and (like we talked about here in the past) the biggest issue is how do you set the wage when a living wage in Wichita is much different than New York. Those items make any real changes in the min wage very difficult to execute.

(eCat posted before I hit send...but I'm gonna post this anyway)

yea I was thinking about that earlier. We could let the market set the rate given a couple of caveats - for example - business is responsible for paying a wage where their employee is above the poverty line and any employee that requires income security benefits from the government will result in those costs being passed onto the business or we could do the cost of living like many business' do. For example, the cost of being an engineer in Chicago was much higher than being one in South Carolina so my old company had a wage index that determined your pay based on location. Heck, some large cities are doing that now by implementing their own minimum wage- so the minimum wage could be set based on a formula taking into account cost of living, taxes, transportation , etc and then each area assigned a number. If your area is number whatever - say #14 that means the minimum wage is $16, whereas if your number is #7, the minimum wage is $11.75 - you get the idea.

And those costs are passed on to the consumer because I know what I'd pay to get a whopper at Burger King in say Times Square is going to be noticeably more than one I buy in Peoria. Thats built in and expected by the consumer.