minimum wage

[livendive 8]

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edited to add
For the people that are satisfied to be McWorkers for their entire life (not managers, but working the drive thru window) and not better themselves, it is alright that they can not afford to buy a house, drive a fancy car, have a big screen TV and Cable. That is was public transportation is for, and the other things, while we think they are necessities, are really luxuries that not everyone NEEDS to live. If you want those things, get an education (High School, College, Trade School, Internship, Mentorship, Apprenticeship) and earn these things.

Agreed. I think minimum wage should be whatever is necessary for a full-time worker to keep reasonably fed, with a roof over his head, and heat near his bed. Corporate sponsored housing (apartments) with a corresponding cut in minimum wage might be a viable alternative, as long as the poor saps living in it retain the ability to work their way out of it.

Edit to add: I'm not sure I've seen an employer other than McDonald's who hires more handicapped employees. Remember, it's not always a lack of motivation that keeps people at the bottom of employment ladder, sometimes it's a lack of intellect or ability. I don't feel like toasting those people with a shot of haterade while telling them they don't deserve a reasonably comfortable, if minimalist, lifestyle.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[billvon 3,108]

>I guess I'm having trouble envisioning how this sytem would work on
>a mass scale for the broad range of "lower-class" jobs, and the personal
>skill level, ability, and performance of those employees for those lower
>end jobs.

It would actually be easiest for low level jobs, because they're pretty standardized. The guy who works the window at McDonald's has a very specific and well understood skill set. The guy who designs Yagi antennas for AT+T doesn't have as well defined job.

>Also...maybe there could be a way to make sure that companies
>don't over-pay their executives . . . .

Simple answer there. Require that executives salaries are made public. That way the stockholders (the people who own the company) can decide if they want to spend their own money on his salary.

> leaving more money to ensure that the little guy's worth is respected
>and not "stolen" by the big shot.....

'cept if you save money by getting a lousy CEO, the little guy isn't going to have a job at all.

[Coreece 190]

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'cept if you save money by getting a lousy CEO, the little guy isn't going to have a job at all.

You like to rub that GM stuff in my face don't you...

Your secrets are the true reflection of who you really are...

[Thanatos340 1]

I had once head of a Company (Ben and Jerry Ice Cream I Think) that had a policy that the CEO could make no more than 100x the salary of the lowest paid person in the company or something like that.

It may be urban legend but it sounds to like a pretty good policy.

Even better would be to base Executive pay off Average salary of all Company employees. If the CEO wants a Raise, The Janitor gets a raise. Stock Options and Bonuses should be subject to the same scale. CEO gets a Million Dollar Bonus only if all Employees get a Bonus relative in size to the CEO`s bonus.

[BDashe 0]

All CEOs of public companies salaries, contracts, and options are available to the public

In nor cal here they list in the paper every year the top 25 highest paid execs in the bay area, broken down by market, and then overall as well. They also rank if they are under or overpaid.

Nice comfy feeling having your picture and 7 figure salary posted in the paper...

So there I was...

Making friends and playing nice since 1983

[dreamdancer 0]

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I think there should BE no minimum wage. Let people be paid what they are worth.

that makes no sense. as smith says...

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Adam Smith discusses the relationship between workers and owners, or labor and masters, respectively, stating “It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must . . . have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen.” This statement describes the legal environment which has dominated US labor history, where the courts repeatedly sided against labor both in the enactment of workplace protection and through the issuance of injunctions to break strikes.

The U.S. labor movement struggled for over a century to obtain the right to collectively bargain. Smith anticipates the vigor with which the masters would oppose the workers, noting that in labor disputes, the masters “never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combinations of servants, labourers, and journeymen.” Smith tells us that it is, in fact, the masters who enjoy a favorable bias in the public arena. “We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject.” Smith explains the goal of such “combinations,” and their frequency: “Masters are always and every where in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate.” But sometimes, the masters determine that even the actual prevailing wage is too high, meaning, “Masters too sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy, till the moment of execution, and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do, without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people,” issuing another reminder that the hardships inflicted by masters on workers seldom receive public attention.

Smith notes that workmen sometimes “combine of their own accord to raise the price of their labour.” While the reasons for forming such combinations may vary, “whether their combinations be offensive or defensive, they are always abundantly heard of.” Smith’s description of the overall situation is one where any real or perceived imposition on the masters is abundantly publicized, whereas the hardships imposed by the masters on the workers receives little attention. While it is true that the workmen “have always recourse to the loudest clamour, and sometimes to the most shocking violence and outrage,” Smith explains, “They are desperate, and act with the folly and extravagance of desperate men, who must either starve, or frighten their masters into an immediate compliance with their demands.” In spite of such antagonism, however, “The workmen, accordingly, very seldom derive any advantage from the violence of those tumultuous combinations, which . . . generally end in nothing, but the punishment or ruin of the ring-leaders.” Smith comments on what he thinks a fair wage might be: “It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, cloathed and lodged.” Such a statement dispenses with current notions that workers only deserve what the “free market” happens to provide.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_499.shtml

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[beowulf 1]

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>just that the minimum wage should be increased to a 'fair' level

I think there should BE no minimum wage. Let people be paid what they are worth. If there is someone out there who is not capable of anything beyond pushing a broom, it's better to hire him for low $$ than to get a Roomba (because a Roomba is cheaper than a guy making $30,000 a year) and leave him unemployed.

>have you put any thought into the macro economic results i outline in my op?

Yes.

Increasing minimum wage will result in fewer people having jobs, thus increasing the load on the unemployment system.

Increasing minimum wage will require companies to either move offshore or raise their prices and therefore become uncompetitive. In both cases americans lose jobs.

Increasing minimum wage will encourage landscaping companies to use more migrant labor, since they can't afford to pay even starting level "real" wages. (Migrant labor is not paid minimum wage.)

Overall it's a very bad idea.

I agree with you billvon, there shouldn't be any minimum wage.

Increasing minimum wage just makes everything more expensive and companies look for new ways to reduce their expenses either by out sourcing labor or cutting employees. All companies do everything they can to maintain their margins.

[georgerussia 0]

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I know life isn't fair, but some things just aren't right...like 50 bucks a day to rent a human life....

If you look on this using holier-than-thou moral-grounds approach, then even ten time minimal wage increase won't help. "Is it right to rent a HUMAN LIFE for miserable 500 bucks a day?" - pronounce with dignity and self-righteousness.

But realistically there are several places in this world where you could "rent a human life" much cheaper than 50 bucks a day.

* Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

[georgerussia 0]

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I had once head of a Company (Ben and Jerry Ice Cream I Think) that had a policy that the CEO could make no more than 100x the salary of the lowest paid person in the company or something like that.
It may be urban legend but it sounds to like a pretty good policy.

The problem with such a policy that a company limits their ability to hire a really good CEO. And I do not see what they are getting in exchange. It's not "fairness" feeling, as the fairness question would relate to multiplier - like why 100x and not 50x?

But I suspect such a policy doesn't really matter, as CEOs have a lot of other ways to get compensated besides salary.

* Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

[livendive 8]

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Nice comfy feeling having your picture and 7 figure salary posted in the paper...

I bet it opens up some options in their sex life.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[rehmwa 2]

The only good comment I've seen in the whole thread is the suggestion that "typical" pay for various job categories be published for various regions.

I like that because it makes it apparent to those looking for work, or "choosing" to improve their situation can research where they want to live, or what they'd like to do to accomplish it.

forcing a 'minimum' wage is interesting, but it's really detrimental to allowing people to improve their lot through choice

though well intentioned, the whole concept of "these people deserve more" to be 'fair' is goofy - everybody works hard, it's always supply and demand. artificial manipulation of the baseline just cause inflation but doesn't create a net gain of overall skill set.

So let's say we educated everybody in the country to increase the skill set. net net? the country improves their standard of living, at the cost of other countries. Someone goes up? it's at the cost of another. everybody goes up, it just devalues the currency.

I'd love to get a couple hundred thousand to go and play in a wind tunnel all day, to count swim suit models on the beach - that sounds fair. I mean, a guy has to eat and needs a place to sleep.

Edit: frankly, every single debate with the word "Fair" in it is based on someone wanting something at the expense of another

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[mnealtx 0]

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Set up a system where workers offer employers a set of skills. Have the market value those skills against some scale (say, how much money they will make the company) and propose salaries. Independent organizations could then collect this data and post it for everyone to see, so that they could know (for example) that trash collectors in Seattle make $X an hour, but architects, on average, make $Y an hour. What they are actually worth, in other words.

You mean something like this?

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[dreamdancer 0]

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frankly, every single debate with the word "Fair" in it is based on someone wanting something at the expense of another

'fairness' is such a basic concept that even monkeys can understand it...

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Monkeys invest less energy in a task if they see other monkeys receiving better rewards for the same effort, researchers report. They say that their experiment provides new evidence that non-human primates can feel envy. The findings could also help explain why humans have such a keen sense of fairness, according to experts.

Previous studies have found that monkeys put less effort into a task when they see cage-mates receiving tastier treats for completing the same task. But scientists have not felt confident in saying why the poorly rewarded animals slack off.

Some people have suggested the primates that refuse to repeat the task are simply greedy and therefore only willing to work for a bigger reward. Alternately, it has been proposed that the monkeys stop performing the task because they have received large rewards in the past and feel frustrated by the measly amounts offered in later trials.

To understand the monkeys' reluctance to participate in the task, Frans de Waal at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia, US, and colleagues decided to try several variations on this experiment.

Fruits of labour

They trained 13 capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) to retrieve a small rock and place it in the experimenter's hands. In exchange for completing this task, the animals received a reward.

Pairs of monkeys were seated beside one another in a test booth, separated by a mesh partition. In one trial, the monkeys received the same sized cucumber reward for their efforts and 90% completed the task within 5 seconds.

But then the researchers gave one of the monkeys a grape instead of a cucumber. To a human this may seem like a minor detail, but monkeys go bananas over grapes, which they far prefer to cucumbers.

When the monkeys given cucumber saw their partners receive this grape reward, they invested less effort in future repetitions of the task, and completed it within 5 seconds only 80% of the time.

In a third scenario, the monkeys both received the same cucumber reward, but could see a bowl of grapes just beyond their reach. Under these circumstances, the animals performed the task with the same willingness as when the grapes were hidden. The researchers say that this rules out the possibility that the primates alter their behaviour out of greed.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12913-envious-monkeys-can-spot-a-fair-deal.html

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[Coreece 190]

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"Is it right to rent a HUMAN LIFE for miserable 500 bucks a day?"

that's a pretty interesting angle...thanks.

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But realistically there are several places in this world where you could "rent a human life" much cheaper than 50 bucks a day.

ok....cool...at least we are back to reality now.

Your secrets are the true reflection of who you really are...

[klingeme 1]

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I like that because it makes it apparent to those looking for work, or "choosing" to improve their situation can research where they want to live, or what they'd like to do to accomplish it.

I think you can do this on this new thing called the internet......You can research pay for varioius "careers".....

[billvon 3,108]

> Smith comments on what he thinks a fair wage might be: “It is but
>equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the
>people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be
>themselves tolerably well fed, cloathed and lodged.”

OK, so let's give that a try.

There are plenty of places in the US where you can rent a place for $350 a month. Add $5 a day for food (generous if you cook) and $100 a month for clothing (again, generous if you use Goodwill or other secondhand stores.) That's $600 a month, or $3.75 an hour.

So the new Federal minimum wage should be $3.75 an hour, per Adam Smith.

[loumeinhart 0]

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this isn't a moral debate (you appear to think that everyone working on minimum wage should be sterilized). this is an economic debate. you haven't answered my question about whether government benefits will decrease with an increase in the minimum wage?

You're right. This is an economic debate, thanks for keeping me on track.

I honestly cannot speak to the government benefits part of the debate. I'm sure plenty of people on min wage use gov benefits (medicade/college tuition/section8/ etc. Certainly these 'benefits' are available and used by folks who make more than minimum wage and folks who aren't working at all.

In short, I don't know the % of people on min wage using $ of government 'benefits'. I do know that minimum wage is not a 'living wage' but you think different.

Personally, if minimum wage was $20/hr, I would get an easy job of sweeping floors or bussing tables and would be set for life. I could afford a 200k house and a family of 4... on minimum wage.

I tried to answer your question so please try to answer mine:

What should minimum wage be? 15/hr, 20/hr...?

[loumeinhart 0]

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OK, so let's give that a try.

There are plenty of places in the US where you can rent a place for $350 a month. Add $5 a day for food (generous if you cook) and $100 a month for clothing (again, generous if you use Goodwill or other secondhand stores.) That's $600 a month, or $3.75 an hour.

So the new Federal minimum wage should be $3.75 an hour, per Adam Smith.

Yep. Thank you.

[dreamdancer 0]

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Increasing minimum wage will result in fewer people having jobs, thus increasing the load on the unemployment system.

Increasing minimum wage will require companies to either move offshore or raise their prices and therefore become uncompetitive. In both cases americans lose jobs.

Increasing minimum wage will encourage landscaping companies to use more migrant labor, since they can't afford to pay even starting level "real" wages. (Migrant labor is not paid minimum wage.)

you've provided no evidence that increasing the minimum wages leads to fewer people having jobs.

pizza outlets and wal-mart are going to move offshore? are you serious?

not sure that landscaping companies should set the countries economic policy. do they have a big lobby? i believe that is is illegal not to pay any labour - local, or migrant, below the minimum wage.

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[dreamdancer 0]

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What should minimum wage be? 15/hr, 20/hr...?

it should be doubled in real terms (but done over several years so the economy has time to adjust as it increases). this would get it back to its historical value.

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[dreamdancer 0]

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There are plenty of places in the US where you can rent a place for $350 a month. Add $5 a day for food (generous if you cook) and $100 a month for clothing (again, generous if you use Goodwill or other secondhand stores.) That's $600 a month, or $3.75 an hour.

i like it. you think like a master (but you do appear to have conceded the necessity of a minimum wage) ...

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Smith tells us that it is, in fact, the masters who enjoy a favorable bias in the public arena. “We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject.”

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[jclalor 12]

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> Smith comments on what he thinks a fair wage might be: “It is but
>equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the
>people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be
>themselves tolerably well fed, cloathed and lodged.”

Quote

OK, so let's give that a try.

There are plenty of places in the US where you can rent a place for $350 a month. Add $5 a day for food (generous if you cook) and $100 a month for clothing (again, generous if you use Goodwill or other secondhand stores.) That's $600 a month, or $3.75 an hour.

So the new Federal minimum wage should be $3.75 an hour, per Adam Smith.

I guess they have no need for heat , water, health care, medications, soap, bus fare, cleaning supplies, haircuts, sick days, etc etc etc.

Let them eat cake.

[billvon 3,108]

>pizza outlets and wal-mart are going to move offshore? are you serious?

Heck yeah. Go into any Wal-Mart. See if you can find anything made in the US.

Now go into a Home Depot. See if they have all cashiers, or if they are replacing them with foreign made automated checkout systems. These things cost a LOT (on the order of $50K) - but are worth it because they get rid of a worker.

The future of both places involves automated checkout systems (so one person watches 4-8 stations, a loss of 75 to 87% of those jobs) RFID merchandise control (cuts a few security/watcher jobs) price check points (cuts a few more jobs) and automated assistance kiosks (cuts even more jobs.) The kiosks will answer simple questions via an AI system, and refer more complex questions to an operator in (you guessed it) India.

>not sure that landscaping companies should set the countries
>economic policy.

Every company in the US sets the country's economic policy. Heck, taken together, they ARE its economy.

>i believe that is is illegal not to pay any labour - local, or migrant, below
>the minimum wage.

Not true! Take a look at the federal minimum wage laws; there are pages of exceptions where you can legally pay far less. That, of course, is an only an issue if anyone were to actually report those wages or conform to those laws, which they generally don't.

[billvon 3,108]

>I guess they have no need for heat, water . . . .

That rent included heat and water. Here's a few examples:

===============
Room for rent $350 dllrs Utilities Included!!! Close to SPECTRUM MALL between brand new METRO STATION(in walking distance),townhouse/condo secured area,with pool,playground zone available, dryer and washer inside house,Private parking with shade,Telephone Service and Internet!!!
drug free enviroment. Very laid back zone. Interested or any questions please call XXXXXX
===============
I have a room for rent on McCallum Blvd, very close to UTD campus and on DART bus route. The Apts are called Ashwood Park. The original rent is $450 per month, but since I have moved out you just pay $350 all utilities included, I'll pay the rest
===============

>health care . . .

Best choose a job with a health plan if you want that!

>medications

See above.

>soap

Soap is about a buck for more than one person can use in a year. You are really reaching now.

>bus fare

Used bike $20

>cleaning supplies

Used broom $1

>haircuts

Scissors $2

Now, you could go on and on. What about movies? Cable TV? What if they're allergic to cats and the last person had cats? What if it's upstairs and they're too fat to get up the stairs?

Answer to all of that - get a better job.

[billvon 3,108]

>but you do appear to have conceded the necessity of a minimum wage

Nope. I said 'let's go with his approach and see how much minimum wage would be using his criteria.' An interesting exercise.