The Reality of Minimum Wages.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Naturally I agree with the OP's linked article.
It does however not remind one of the worst crimes of mininum wage: unemoloyment the minimum wage is causing.

Simple reality: small business owner could use another person and can pay him 13usd. Well, too bad, goverment takes 50%, leaving the funds at 6.5, therefore the person can't be hired. Therefore goverment has denied this person both the wage AND experience wich would help him find better job...

It's too bad that small business owner doesn't live in a society with an elevated minimum wage. Everyone could have the extra spending money to spend at his store and he'd make more money and thus be able to afford the higher wages. Oh but no, he's blaming his lack of success on paying his workers something that even resembles a wage they can live on. He isn't blaming it on the fact that workers are paid shit, and all of their money goes to wal mart for food, and nobody has any money for his specialty store.

Woe is him that he doesn't live in an economy where people have disposable income to buy his crap.

[Chrysia]

Naturally I agree with the OP's linked article.
It does however not remind one of the worst crimes of mininum wage: unemoloyment the minimum wage is causing.

Simple reality: small business owner could use another person and can pay him 13usd. Well, too bad, goverment takes 50%, leaving the funds at 6.5, therefore the person can't be hired. Therefore goverment has denied this person both the wage AND experience wich would help him find better job...

Where do you live that you get taxed 50% of your paycheck? I'm in a decent tax bracket and taxes only account for about 20-25% of mine, with another 5ish% for insurance through my work.

[belron]

minimum wage is not a wage to live on it is for young workers who don't have any skills and if you can learn your job in a day then you are not worth 15$ an hour. all raising minimum wage does is make it so that those who have better jobs make less.

[Chrysia]

minimum wage is not a wage to live on it is for young workers who don't have any skills and if you can learn your job in a day then you are not worth 15$ an hour. all raising minimum wage does is make it so that those who have better jobs make less.

Refuted multiple fucking times.

[belron]

if someone wants to make more then minimum wage then they need to have a skill that they can sell and no flipping burgers is not a skill

[Time Sage]

if someone wants to make more then minimum wage then they need to have a skill that they can sell and no flipping burgers is not a skill

The issue is that minimuam wage doesn't pay enough for the basics. In this day and age the basics are: Power, Gaslines, Food, Water, Transport, Phone, Internet as well as taxes and a few other things. The last one can be cut out if you live near a library but that's not exactly safe for your personal info. (And if you think internet isn't a necessity of living, you haven't been job hunting in the last 5 years everyone assumes you have access to fill out applications)

If you can't pay for all these with your wages then you aren't being paid enough.

[Chrysia]

The issue is that minimuam wage doesn't pay enough for the basics. In this day and age the basics are: Power, Gaslines, Food, Water, Transport, Phone, Internet as well as taxes and a few other things. The last one can be cut out if you live near a library but that's not exactly safe for your personal info. (And if you think internet isn't a necessity of living, you haven't been job hunting in the last 5 years everyone assumes you have access to fill out applications)

If you can't pay for all these with your wages then you aren't being paid enough.

Same with a phone, which is why Reagan started the public support for jobseeker's phone bills, and Bush(pretty sure on this) adapted it to cover basic cell phones.

(I think it was Reagan.)

[Deleted]

You fought tooth and nail? LOL.

The reality is minimum wage is the lowest wage you can make. Why would anyone expect it to be a lucrative affair unless then believe the world owes them a certain level of entitlement just for being born.

then we should drop all assistance to people making on or above the minimum wage.
the big problem is not how much the minimum wage pays, its that even x*40 is less then what the government has already decided is the minimum, consequently every Walmart employee is being subsidised by the government.
so either man up and drop assistance to the ones making minimum wage, or raise it so that companies are forced to pay enough so you don't need support from the government.

as for the final thing, that's the thing thou, that's the point, because before the minimum wage, the minimum wage was the natural minimum wage, I.E enough food and board to survive until tomorrow.

[Numeanor]

the reality of taking a minimum wage job and then complaining about it is silly
no one forced anyone to take any job
i didnt watch the video.....i took economics in school

As no one force you to eat, drink, shit and breathe. Please stop all of those and earth will be happier place!

[Sunseeker]

Naturally I agree with the OP's linked article.
It does however not remind one of the worst crimes of mininum wage: unemoloyment the minimum wage is causing.

Simple reality: small business owner could use another person and can pay him 13usd. Well, too bad, goverment takes 50%, leaving the funds at 6.5, therefore the person can't be hired. Therefore goverment has denied this person both the wage AND experience wich would help him find better job...

Except payroll taxes on minimum wage earners is damn near nothing. The taxes that wage earner pays will most likely be in the negatives. ~$20k (about 10-11 an hour) will still earn you a tax refund of a couple hundred bucks, assuming you don't run any deductions at all.

The idea that there is this massive workforce out there that could suddenly be employed if only minimum wage didn't exist is a crock of shit. Yes, they could be employed, but they couldn't feed themselves, they couldn't clothe themselves, they likely would own no form of transportation (and US public trans is shit), the government would MASSIVELY subsidize them through Medicare/-caid, tax refunds and other low-wage benefits. They would not be able to afford a home in even the poorest areas of the country. Wages for the already-worth-minimum-wage-or-more would NOT increase, the excess funds would NOT be invested, they would simply go to lining the pockets of the ultra-rich while the poor continue their downward spiral into destitution. Eliminating minimum wage has NO benefits for anyone except the wealthy.

If you need slave labor to sustain your market, YOUR MARKET IS BROKEN. /end

[Neinen]

I am truly amazed at the amount of economists on MMO-C, didn't know that :O ...
But to be fair, economy is not as simple as many here seem to think. You can't just say if you do A then B will happen, it doesn't work like that AT ALL!

[Deleted]

I barely scrape by on £50k salary. No idea how people live on minimum wage.

[Deleted]

I barely scrape by on £50k salary. No idea how people live on minimum wage.

you should probably look at how much of your $ you are wasting on pointless shit then

[Deleted]

you should probably look at how much of your $ you are wasting on pointless shit then

True. Damn kids! /shakes fist

[Elian]

NO, NO , NO, he totally gets it wrong
capitalism/ free market functions at best when there is competition. Now there is, correct me if i am wrong, few corporations owning the smaller companies, when ever there is competition available one of them acquires the competition. They work together to set the prices, so each corporation could make more without having to compete. you don't have to raise the minimum wage if there was a REAL competition because the cost for all items and services would be lower.

[Krez]

Actually its not silly at all. Anyone with half a brain working minimum wage should damn well be complaining. The cost of living vs. the minimum wage is absolutely rediculous. Your comment makes no sense, you are ignorant. You think people who are struggling to find work, who accept a job at rock bottom, don't want more?? If labour unions still had any power fast food workers and gas stations attendants nationwide would walk out and refuse to work until the minimum wage was raised to 15.00 an hour. The bare minimum it takes to do anything besides feed, clothe oneself and afford rent.

Hold your horses mate. Did you watch the video? It points out compelling evidence that those working minimum wage are mostly college age and under, and their average median household income is 51k, as the minimum wage earner is oftentimes the 2nd or 3rd earner in the household. Then you seem to suggest that the "labour unions" use their "strike power" to demand, what?, 15 dollars an hour? Even if they are successful at doing something like that, it will raise the prices on the items in those industries. Investors and CEOs will still demand the same profit margins. The extra cost will get picked up by the consumer raising the price of your normally cheaper goods. All that does is screw over the poor and the middle class. Not only that, but it may raise the "poor's" income to the point where their government benefits are lost from wage gain and not compensated by their extra 3 bucks an hour.

So you possibly make life harder on the poor, close the gap even closer between the lower and middle class -as the middle class's wages won't go up (and making it harder to incentivize your workers), and the wealthy get wealthier as they adjust profit margins and collect even more dollars. But someone else benefits too. Government. They'll give out less money to the poor and collect more from the poor in taxes. Granted, a small amount, but does anyone else see what congress is arguing about when it comes to budgets? Trillions for the budget and they get stuck on a couple of percentage points. Ridiculous. Upping the minimum wage is bad. Quit printing money and letting inflation go out of control and (in my opinion) you'll have a better solution.

[Elegiac]

if someone wants to make more then minimum wage then they need to have a skill that they can sell and no flipping burgers is not a skill

A few questions, then. How do you expect people to be able to acquire skills when they can barely afford to live on their earnings as is? And what happens when everyone acquires a "sellable skill"?

The answers:

1) They can't. Education in the US is for-pay.
2) You get people with law degrees flipping burgers.

There is this myth that people in low paying jobs must be deficient in some way, because no person that did the 'correct' thing would ever end up working in one of those jobs. Minimum wage jobs are not 'careers', they're transitory things for young people and people between 'careers'.

Of course, this myth is not merely false, it's also patently stupid. It assumes that people all begin on an even playing field in terms of access to skills as well as ability to acquire those skills (Hint: they don't). It assumes that because there is a high rate of turnover in such positions it must mean that these are transitory positions and, furthermore, this somehow means it deserves a less than living wage. It also ignores the fact that, in a country like the US where the population is aging, there are increasingly fewer young people capable of filling positions which are in increasing demand - they are becoming 'careers'.

Ultimately, what it boils down to is the typical right wing failure to create a distinction between individual circumstances and social circumstances. If there is hardship, according to the right winger, it is a result of personal deficiency, not a systemic or social problem. In reality, the latter tends to be the case more often than not.

- - - Updated - - -

Hold your horses mate. Did you watch the video? It points out compelling evidence that those working minimum wage are mostly college age and under, and their average median household income is 51k, as the minimum wage earner is oftentimes the 2nd or 3rd earner in the household. Then you seem to suggest that the "labour unions" use their "strike power" to demand, what?, 15 dollars an hour? Even if they are successful at doing something like that, it will raise the prices on the items in those industries. Investors and CEOs will still demand the same profit margins. The extra cost will get picked up by the consumer raising the price of your normally cheaper goods. All that does is screw over the poor and the middle class. Not only that, but it may raise the "poor's" income to the point where their government benefits are lost from wage gain and not compensated by their extra 3 bucks an hour.

What it fails to point out is that the population is aging, ergo there are fewer young people to fill positions which are becoming increasingly in demand.

And no, a raise in wages does not mean a raise in prices. Wages are an operating/production cost, which have no relation to the final price save setting a minimum rate at which a good or service can be sold without incurring a loss.

Why is it any less acceptable to demand CEOs and investors learn to curtail their greed than to demand that people in low-end jobs be able to actually live off that job?

So you possibly make life harder on the poor, close the gap even closer between the lower and middle class -as the middle class's wages won't go up (and making it harder to incentivize your workers), and the wealthy get wealthier as they adjust profit margins and collect even more dollars. But someone else benefits too. Government. They'll give out less money to the poor and collect more from the poor in taxes. Granted, a small amount, but does anyone else see what congress is arguing about when it comes to budgets? Trillions for the budget and they get stuck on a couple of percentage points. Ridiculous. Upping the minimum wage is bad. Quit printing money and letting inflation go out of control and (in my opinion) you'll have a better solution.

A shit minimum wage has done nothing to improve the lack of social mobility and wealth disparity in the US, why would you assume raising it wouldn't? There is no correlation between high minimum wages and a lower standard of living - in fact, the inverse would seem to be true if places like Australia and Sweden are any indicator.

Your opinion is worth as much as the present minimum wage, because you're conflating a lot of different things that aren't actually related. Increasing the minimum wage doesn't necessarily mean less expenditure for public assistance (the opposite tends to be true, actually), nor does it mean higher taxes on the poor (because the tax system is unrelated to the minimum wage), nor does monetization have anything to do with it (Fun Fact: Monetization is the only thing keeping the economy afloat at this point).

Nor does Congress have to be the decider when it comes to the minimum wage. It is entirely possible to have an independent commission whose sole responsibility is adjusting the minimum wage, as in Australia.

[Speedlance]

One tip I got is that sending applications is not always enough, you have to follow them up, show them they're not just one of the 100 places you applied for.

[Elegiac]

One tip I got is that sending applications is not always enough, you have to follow them up, show them they're not just one of the 100 places you applied for.

Individual solutions are not the same as social solutions. The minimum wage is a social problem, ergo individual solutions are rather ineffective and irrelevant.

It's like (using the Onion for my example) McCain saying that the solution to America's problems is for poor people to marry beer heiresses.

[Chrysia]

Quit printing money and letting inflation go out of control and (in my opinion) you'll have a better solution.

Didactic did a really great breakdown of the rest of your post, but you do realize that the primary reason we're currently printing money (and keeping inflation going) is to control interest rates so that the banks will actually loan to anyone, right?