What a $15 Minimum Wage Looks Like

Belz... said:
But it's not funneling public funds, it forces private employers to pay up.
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Perhaps. There's room for considerable debate about where the costs actually fall in either case. It isn't a case of the first is all taxpayers and the second is all shareholders.

It's not clear that the member I quoted had that as a rationale.
 
Francesca R said:
Kind of the same thing in economic speak. And it's not the value of them but of their labour. And of course the market value (price) of their labour, not what any individual soul thinks.
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Sure, but I've noticed a tendency for arguers on this topic to conflate pure economic value (price as you point out) and a more ephemeral and moralistic concept of value (the value of human life kind of thing).

In this case, however, I was trying to take it that teensy step further, and emphasize the nature of fungibility.

It's entirely possible for something to have a high price, but still be easily replaced. Consider prescription drugs. Once a drug comes off of patent, there are often many manufacturers within a short period of time. That drops the aggregate price level down from where it was, due to competition. The generic drugs are very fungible. Yet some generic drugs have very high prices, due to manufacturing complications or the cost of ingredients.

:D I know you don't need this 'splainin. I'm just clarifying my point for anyone else who is reading.
 
Francesca R said:
Maybe. But enforcing a minimum wage isn't really clearing government assistance out of the way. It's replacing one kind with another. Clean air and roads don't really feature in that consideration.

I don't actually see any merit in being able to say (by any definition really) "You should not need government assistance"
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It would perhaps be more accurate to say "The only government assistance you need is the government forcing someone else to see to your needs". That's more or less what minimum wage is.
 
Francesca R said:
Maybe. But enforcing a minimum wage isn't really clearing government assistance out of the way. It's replacing one kind with another. Clean air and roads don't really feature in that consideration.

I don't actually see any merit in being able to say (by any definition really) "You should not need government assistance"
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No. Because we earn our pay.
 
Emily's Cat said:
It would perhaps be more accurate to say "The only government assistance you need is the government forcing someone else to see to your needs". That's more or less what minimum wage is.
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Wrong. The minimum wage assigns a minimum value for an hour of human labor performed on behalf of an employer. It's intended to prevent employers from engaging in virtual slavery by finding the most desperate people who will accept any wage in the interest of not dying from hunger or exposure.

Someone living in a temperate climate could, in theory, live on less than $20 per day of work. They'd have enough money to buy food and pretty much nothing else...maybe a tarpaulin to keep them dry. But that would be okay because free market, and they can save a dollar a day for 10-15 years in order to pay for an education to perhaps make themselves worth $30-40 per day.

Maybe it's not a bad idea. If we also end mandatory emergency medical care, the population reduction could be useful, and it's not like poor people have real value anyway.
 
Babbylonian said:
Someone living in a temperate climate could, in theory, live on less than $20 per day of work. They'd have enough money to buy food and pretty much nothing else...maybe a tarpaulin to keep them dry. But that would be okay because free market, and they can save a dollar a day for 10-15 years in order to pay for an education to perhaps make themselves worth $30-40 per day.
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That's nonsense. The magic of the free market will always keep things like sweatshops and collusion and price fixing from happening. No need for things like government intervention at all. We know that corporations always have the best interests of their workers at heart, and would never consider them disposable in any way.
 
thaiboxerken said:
Because in the minds of conservatives, reducing the quality of life of poor people motivates them to become harder, better workers.
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I think there is some truth in that. I know it was true for me. When we first got married after her getting pregnant at 17, my first job paid me about $7,000 per year. We lived in crappy section 8 housing and got food stamps -the actual coupons, not the nice hidden credit-card-like thing people get now. It was embarrassing to pull those out. People look at us like moochers. That quality of life was miserable and motivated us to finish school as quickly as possible. We used every resource available to us, welfare, Pell grants, loans, family help, etc. I ended up working two jobs just so my wife could focus on finishing school quicker (she was the smart one!) and we could provide our kid with everything she needed.

The motivator was always improving our quality of life. So yeah, I believe that having a crappy QOL is a huge motivator. The question is: why are some people not that way? Instead of bitching about how unfair MW is, they should be working their asses off -whatever it takes to improve. Unless they are mentally ill or severely disabled, I see no barriers for the people who actually do work hard.
 
Babbylonian said:
It's intended to prevent employers from engaging in virtual slavery by finding the most desperate people who will accept any wage in the interest of not dying from hunger or exposure.
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It's intended to force employers to pay more to employ someone than they are worth, and to force into long term joblessness would-be employees whose contribution is well below the government's decreed level.

What fun saying things with extreme ideological passion.

And how completely useless!
 
Emily's Cat said:
It would perhaps be more accurate to say "The only government assistance you need is the government forcing someone else to see to your needs". That's more or less what minimum wage is.
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Yes.

What is amusing is to see people advocate for minimum wage laws and then pretend it is not at all government assistance/intervention. Folks who are embarrassed by their own position.
 
Francesca R said:
What is amusing is to see people advocate for minimum wage laws and then pretend it is not at all government assistance/intervention.
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Not sure how it went where you live, but in my little corner of the world minimum wages came about as follows. In Liege (city in Belgium) in 1936 a strike broke out for, amongst other things, minimum wages. After heavy police repression, strikers raiding arms depots, the city put under occupation, and subsequently the strikes quickly spreading throughout the country towards the capital, a mutual agreement was reached between representatives of the working class and representatives of employers to implement, amongst other things, minimum wages.

After looking closely, the only government intervention I can see there is the police repression and putting the city of Liege under occupation. Hardly what I'd call assistance.
 
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caveman1917 said:
Not sure how it went where you live, but in my little corner of the world minimum wages came about as follows. In Liege (city in Belgium) in 1936 a strike broke out for, amongst other things, minimum wages. After heavy police repression, strikers raiding arms depots, the city put under occupation, and subsequently the strikes quickly spreading throughout the country towards the capital, a mutual agreement was reached between representatives of the working class and representatives of employers to implement, amongst other things, minimum wages.

After looking closely, the only government intervention I can see there is the police repression and putting the city of Liege under occupation. Hardly what I'd call assistance.
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If the minimum wage is enforced by a law, then the government is forcing employers to a MW. Doesnt matter what the reasoning is or how it came about.
 
caveman1917 said:
Not sure how it went where you live
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Act of parliament in 1998, called--wait for it--National Minumum Wage Act.

a mutual agreement was reached between representatives of the working class and representatives of employers to implement, amongst other things, minimum wages.
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If it isn't law I would not consider it a minimum wage. But I think it is law in Belgium too, so your story is rather irrelevant.
 
Francesca R said:
....... I don't see any philosophical merit in replacing income support with minimum wage.
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One is a cost to the taxpayer while the other is a cost to the employer.

The latter case assumes that there is no benefit whatsoever to a higher MW. However, increasing demand means increasing revenue which could more than offset the increased wage bill. This was the case with Henry Ford that I alluded to earlier.
 
Not necessarily. See fifth post down on this page.

Also philosophically it could be argued that the taxpayer should pay. After all it is society's preference that people have a minimum income it is little to do with what work they do still less their employer.

PS you can't "more than offset the wage bill" via increased sales to the employees you have just hiked the wage of. That is perpetual motion fantasy.
 
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Francesca R said:
Not necessarily. See fifth post down on this page.
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Post number?

Francesca R said:
Also philosophically it could be argued that the taxpayer should pay. After all it is society's preference that people have a minimum income it is little to do with what work they do still less their employer.
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It is not a pure philosophical argument.

Francesca R said:
PS you can't "more than offset the wage bill" via increased sales to the employees you have just hiked the wage of. That is perpetual motion fantasy.
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That is a strawman argument. If you really think the the lower the wages the better then why aren't businesses in third world countries more prosperous?
 
psionl0 said:
Post number?
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Francesca R said:
There's room for considerable debate about where the costs actually fall in either case. It isn't a case of the first is all taxpayers and the second is all shareholders.
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(which you have just signalled you agree with anyway)

psionl0 said:
It is not a pure philosophical argument.
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See: "I don't see any philosophical merit in replacing income support with minimum wage."
That is a strawman argument.
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Where does extra revenue come from? You can't "more than offset the wage bill" via increased sales to the employees you have just hiked the wage of.
If you really think the the lower the wages the better then why aren't businesses in third world countries more prosperous?
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That is a strawlady.
 
xjx388 said:
I think there is some truth in that. I know it was true for me. When we first got married after her getting pregnant at 17, my first job paid me about $7,000 per year. We lived in crappy section 8 housing and got food stamps -the actual coupons, not the nice hidden credit-card-like thing people get now. It was embarrassing to pull those out. People look at us like moochers. That quality of life was miserable and motivated us to finish school as quickly as possible. We used every resource available to us, welfare, Pell grants, loans, family help, etc. I ended up working two jobs just so my wife could focus on finishing school quicker (she was the smart one!) and we could provide our kid with everything she needed.

The motivator was always improving our quality of life. So yeah, I believe that having a crappy QOL is a huge motivator. The question is: why are some people not that way? Instead of bitching about how unfair MW is, they should be working their asses off -whatever it takes to improve. Unless they are mentally ill or severely disabled, I see no barriers for the people who actually do work hard.
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That's fine for you, however there are plenty of people who can't do that - suppose you were black and in Ferguson (as it is a place with a good DoJ report on it). The municipal authorities were trying to maximise the revenue generated by the police through fines, and the police were sometimes arresting people with no valid reason (documented as the people arrested and charged solely for "resisting arrest" with no other charges, and undocumented in the "manner of walking" charges and others that relied on subjective assessments by officers who were far from impartial).

If you were in that situation and wrongly got a fine, you might have got lucky and paid off the fine in one go, otherwise it could knock you back for a long time and hang around (as the court clerk was unwilling to take partial payments and made no concessions for inability to pay).

There is little reason to suppose that Ferguson is vastly different from many municipalities - just that there has been a public investigation into the running of the police and courts there.

Some people are able to get out of poverty, but many are hindered.
 
Let me try this again. :)

Francesca R said:
Also philosophically it could be argued that the taxpayer should pay. After all it is society's preference that people have a minimum income it is little to do with what work they do still less their employer.
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Not just a minimum income, though. It's also society's preference that people get paid for their work period. Your philosophical argument can be used against paying wages at all, because, "Hey, if society wants people to get paid for their work, let society pay all workers."

I don't think that's any less acceptable than letting society pay, even partially, for the low-skill work done in service to a private business. That is to say, not acceptable at all.
 
Francesca R said:
But I think it is law in Belgium too
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No it isn't. Every 4 years representatives of the working class and representatives of employers make a mutual agreement on the wages in the economy.

, so your story is rather irrelevant.
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I don't think you quite understood the point of the story and its relevance to some people's claims of "government intervention".
 
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caveman1917 said:
Every 4 years representatives of the working class and representatives of employers make a mutual agreement on the wages in the economy.
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To be clear, these agreements (called CAO's) are considered legally binding. In as much as the government comes into it, it is in making sure everyone sticks to the agreement.
 
Francesca R said:
See: "I don't see any philosophical merit in replacing income support with minimum wage."
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The merits or otherwise of minimum wages vs income support were discussed early in this thread. See post #88 and post #96 for a couple of examples.


Francesca R said:
Where does extra revenue come from? You can't "more than offset the wage bill" via increased sales to the employees you have just hiked the wage of.
That is a strawlady.
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Are you trying to argue that a population with increased spending power would not provide increased demand (and therefore increased revenue) to businesses?

Arguments that a business would only be able to increase "sales to the employees you have just hiked the wage of" are a strawman - especially in the context of across the board wage rises. However, Henry Ford demonstrated that just increasing the wages of his own employees did increase demand for his motor vehicles (and obviously not just from his own workers). I posted about his experience in post #930. In case you don't want to click on the link to the post, I will repeat the quote from http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/...t-perspective/ford-doubles-minimum-wage.html:
“We increased the buying power of our own people, and they increased the buying power of other people, and so on and on,” Ford wrote. “It is this thought of enlarging buying power by paying high wages and selling at low prices that is behind the prosperity of this country.”
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When you responded to sir drinks a lot's $50 wage question I assumed that you had read more than just that one post. However, you appear to have missed post #1068 where I discussed "the law of diminishing returns".

As you can see from the numerous links to past posts in this thread, you are not raising any new questions.
 
Cl1mh4224rd said:
Not just a minimum income, though. It's also society's preference that people get paid for their work period. Your philosophical argument can be used against paying wages at all, because, "Hey, if society wants people to get paid for their work, let society pay all workers."

I don't think that's any less acceptable than letting society pay, even partially, for the low-skill work done in service to a private business. That is to say, not acceptable at all.
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I made a distinction between society desiring something to happen and paying for it so that it does, over society desiring something to happen by magic or by some subset over there paying for it.

Society believing everyone should have minimum income, and society believing employers who pay lower than a certain wage are rotters, are different beliefs. The first can exist in the absence of the second.
 
psionl0 said:
When you responded to sir drinks a lot's $50 wage question I assumed that you had read more than just that one post. However, you appear to have missed post #1068 where I discussed "the law of diminishing returns".
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I think you're on a sticky wicket arguing that raising wages is even positive return. That is not why it is done in the case of minimum wage laws. Bit like arguing that raising consumer prices (by law) is positive return, or raising the cost of non-wage inputs.

It also suggests that if you were stripped of your belief that raising minimum wage increased output, you would no longer support raising minimum wage.
 
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Fudbucker said:
We, as a country, have decided that a social safety net for poor people must exist. Businesses, by not paying a wage that is possible to live on, are taking advantage of society's largess.
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We, as a country, have decided that a social safety net for poor people must exist. Individuals, by not finding employment that pays a wage that is possible to live on, are taking advantage of society's largess.

What's the difference here?
 
But increasing consumer prices increases the earning power of businesses. They will then be able to invest more in expansion and raise wages, both of which would increase demand. What's not to like?

If you think there is a mathematical flaw in that, why don't you see the same flaw in the idea of raising wages by law?
 
Francesca R said:
But increasing consumer prices increases the earning power of businesses. They will then be able to invest more in expansion and raise wages, both of which would increase demand. What's not to like?
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That argues that businesses don't set prices that maximize profit already. If higher prices would increase the bottom line then they would already have done so.

Francesca R said:
If you think there is a mathematical flaw in that, why don't you see the same flaw in the idea of raising wages by law?
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Because of perpetual unemployment, job applicants are not in a position to hold out for an equitable wage. They are often forced to take what is on offer or starve.

That may be good news in the short term for individual employers but lower spending power overall does not help their cause in the longer term.
 
You have not made a case why your argument only applies where you say it does.

Because of perpetual competition, firms are not in a position to hold out for an equitable selling price. They are often forced to take prices set in the market or go bust.

That may be good news in the short term for individual consumers but lower business profitability overall does not help their cause in the longer term.
 
Francesca R said:
You have not made a case why your argument only applies where you say it does.

Because of perpetual competition, firms are not in a position to hold out for an equitable selling price. They are often forced to take prices set in the market or go bust.

That may be good news in the short term for individual consumers but lower business profitability overall does not help their cause in the longer term.
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Firms are in a position to hold out for an inequitable deal on labour in a market with perpetual unemployment, though, aren't they?

You're trying to conjure up a false contradiction out of the simple fact that firms have more bargaining power than individual workers, because the individual worker suffers much more from not having any job than the firm suffers from not having that individual worker instead of a replacement. Not every difference is evidence of a contradiction.
 
Francesca R said:
You have not made a case why your argument only applies where you say it does.

Because of perpetual competition .......
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Competition and unemployment are two entirely different things.

Anybody who can't run their business at a profit can always fold their business (or have it folded for them). However, individuals don't have the option of saying, "I'm not taking a job because the pay is too poor". They would starve if they said that.

Take away the life or death aspect to job seeking by way of a negative income tax or welfare payment which is not contingent on job seeking and your comparisons between businesses and employees would be more valid. Otherwise, without some wage regulation, it will always be possible for wages to be too low to support a prosperous economy.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
Firms are in a position to hold out for an inequitable deal on labour in a market with perpetual unemployment, though, aren't they?
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They are able to hold out for the market level of wages. Just as consumers are able to hold out for the market level of prices.

Whether either of those is inequitable is not about economic efficiency. And the argument being advanced was that hiking minimum wages increased economic efficiency.
 
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