The $15 minimum wage...

[Elegiac]

raising the minimum wage has become a placeholder for inequality issues. I'm a huge advocate of doing something about inequality, but I think raising the minimum wage is bad policy. If you increase costs on businesses, they will pass them on to consumers. This will actually hurt the unemployed even more...

I think channeling government policy through the private sector is not always a good idea (the argument that we should make employers pay more, or rely on them to solve unemployment by cutting their taxes. They have no obligation to actually do that).

Government policy should target the problem directly. how about a direct living wage from the government? human labor is becoming obsolete.

in any case, raising the minimum wage won't help the poor.

False, myth, and false. Minimum wage increases do not result in proportional price increases (either practically or theoretically).

[Itisamuh]

Said it before, saying it again ...THE MINIMUM WAGE IS NOT A LIVING WAGE AND ITS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: you're wrong. That's exactly what the minimum wage is ideally supposed to be, and that's exactly what it was in the past. It simply hasn't kept up with the times, and that's a problem.

[Elegiac]

Are you really upset because I want to keep an open mind. Those with closed minds who refuse to review facts and make changes when necessary are the perfect puppets of whatever side they take. The only question is which group those people have chosen to allow to stick their hands up their rear ends and control them.

I will continue to keep an open mind and will come to a conclusion after actual facts are available and not random "facts" that someone has fed you without actual proof.

And we have reviewed the facts, and it doesn't support any argument against raising the minimum wage.

[Nostop it]

Another minimum wage thread that won't bring up Inflation. The keynesians will not allow it.

[arandomuser]

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/fyi-gu...ty-in-the-u-s/ youd think already the highest minimum wage in the nation that their must be a mass exodus! all of the economicly ignorant conservatives must of been right!Wait?? Thats false according to the data? must be a distraction from benghazi

[Elegiac]

Another minimum wage thread that won't bring up Inflation. The keynesians will not allow it.

Basic mathematics won't allow it.

[skatblast]

Aaannnd false.

Minimum wage increases have always lead to an upward push amongst lower and middle class wages simply because they have a better platform to negotiate from.

If your statement were true doctors and lawyers would be making minimum wage at the moment.

Yes because doctors and lawyers are concerned about the minimum wage increase. I'm done arguing with you i can already tell you are one of those people that will never admit to being wrong. You think differently than i do, good thing we can both voice our opinions.

[Elegiac]

Yes because doctors and lawyers are concerned about the minimum wage increase. I'm done arguing with you i can already tell you are one of those people that will never admit to being wrong. You think differently than i do, good thing we can both voice our opinions.

No, it's actually rather more simple than that. The current minimum wage is higher than the salaries of doctors and lawyers sixty years ago; if wages didn't adjust upwards then everyone would be making $7.50 an hour.

[arandomuser]

Yes because doctors and lawyers are concerned about the minimum wage increase. I'm done arguing with you i can already tell you are one of those people that will never admit to being wrong. You think differently than i do, good thing we can both voice our opinions.

Would be nice if you could post a single source of an actualy ivy school educated economist saying that min wage will be negative at a city level, instead of a politican who thinks its a road to decreasing profits for his big business, of course which you wont

[Elegiac]

uhh yes ah they do ah. either that or products become smaller and lower quality. same difference brah

No, they don't. This has never happened in the US or any other country with a higher minimum wage; for the dual reasons that a) production cost does not determine price and b) wages do not constitute 100% of production costs.

[arandomuser]

uhh yes ah they do ah. either that or products become smaller and lower quality. same difference brah

yeahh brahhh i is knows ims right cuz min wage be bads likes uh you know all them jobs in seattle/san frasico/NY maaan their just made up maaan totally duuude brah

[Deleted]

I kept hearing about youth unemployment and decided to make a test: How long would I search for a job with a fake CV showing close to zero relevant competence. I spent about four hours just walking around the city and handling out the CVs ('Hello, I wanted to ask if you are looking for new colleagues?'). I would have spend less time, but twice I was actually interviewed on the spot. And I recieved a lot of calls (cca 10% of the CVs handed out).

Getting a job is easy. Not being picky is the hard part.

And the higher the minimum wage is, the harder it will be to find a job, therefore it will be harder to get experience, therefore it will be harder to get better-paid job.

[gamingmuscle]

Another minimum wage thread that won't bring up Inflation. The keynesians will not allow it.

But it was brought up....maybe not to the extent you want. But it has been mentioned =P

[Elegiac]

And the higher the minimum wage is, the harder it will be to find a job, therefore it will be harder to get experience, therefore it will be harder to get better-paid job.

False. Higher minimum wages tend to create employment because of the increased demand.

Also, once again presenting an individual solution to a social problem. Stop it.

[Spectral]

food is 300 at the bare minimum (practically fasting most days)

Calling bullshit here. Spending $10/day isn't "fasting" unless you're a spectacular fuckup when it comes to food purchases. Two eggs and an apple for breakfast is ~$1. Red beans and rice with a side of broccoli for lunch is ~$2. A stirfry with snowpeas, chicken thighs, and mushrooms for dinner is ~$2. There's dozens and dozens of examples of perfectly healthy days that can be composed for ~$5, and once you get to $10/day, it's trivially easy to eat well.

Maybe you're broke and have a crummy job because you're not great at basic problem solving.

[Rukentuts]

uhh yes ah they do ah. either that or products become smaller and lower quality. same difference brah

Because you say so right?

[Annoying]

Ya there's been this time tested method to avoiding that, its called getting a better job.

And how do you get a better job?

Well one of the ways is ...you don't become the type of person that walks around convinced you DESERVE $25/hr for flipping burgers.

Said it before, saying it again ...THE MINIMUM WAGE IS NOT A LIVING WAGE AND ITS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE!

See, there's the problem. All wages are supposed to be living wages. It used to be that minimum wage jobs were for teenagers who didn't have to pay rent, thus a part-time, minimum wage job was a living wage. This broke down when moving upward in employment stalled. It's not easy to move up in a field anymore, so more and more adults (who do have rent) are stuck still doing minimum wage jobs. There aren't just "better jobs" lying around.

We had a DSS meeting at work, and the DSS officer giving our security presentation joked about this. How the average age of engineers in this country has been growing. "From 1993 to 2008, the median age of scientists and engineers in the U.S. workforce rose from 37 to 41. The proportion over age 50 increased from 18% to 27%." - a direct quote taken from nsf.gov. People aren't retiring as early, so moving upward in a job sucks to do. He even (jokingly) told one of our older engineers to buy a boat and retire.

Because the people at the top aren't retiring, the people in the middle can't move up. Because the people in the middle can't move up, the people at the bottom can't get above "entry level" employment. Because all the "entry level" jobs are being massively competed for by people with 4 year degrees, anyone that hasn't gone to college can't make the jump from hourly to salary. Because the higher-paying hourly jobs are all filled up, it's extremely difficult to make the jump from what should be temporary, minimum wage jobs to a living wage.

The bare-bones of what it really is: The baby boom portion of the workforce continues to age without retiring. They're 50-68 years old. The early retirement age is 62, with the official age at 65. We can expect another 15ish years of miserable job outlook, and until the age gap is met, we either must consider minimum wage to be a living wage, or we must lower the retirement age.

[Gritches]

I'm not convinced by the "durr they'll cut jobs" argument. Most of the minimum wage jobs are with the big national chains like fast food places. They don't pay minimum wage because it's all they can afford, they pay it because people will still work for the lowest legally required wage. They also don't have tons of extra employees just dicking off in the back, they min/max the hell out of that. Why wouldn't they? It makes perfect sense to keep your labor costs as low as necessary. Anything else is just flushing money down the toilet. These huge corporations, these streamlined money-making machines, can afford to pay higher wages and they will not cut jobs by any appreciable amount. Fear not.

[Elegiac]

dude that's wrong. for employers that pay minimum wage (which is widespread in food service), prices do go up when wages go up.

Not enough to negate the increase in buying power.

Anecdotal evidence

Precisely why the argument is bullshit.

[arandomuser]

I kept hearing about youth unemployment and decided to make a test: How long would I search for a job with a fake CV showing close to zero relevant competence. I spent about four hours just walking around the city and handling out the CVs ('Hello, I wanted to ask if you are looking for new colleagues?'). I would have spend less time, but twice I was actually interviewed on the spot. And I recieved a lot of calls (cca 10% of the CVs handed out).

Getting a job is easy. Not being picky is the hard part.

And the higher the minimum wage is, the harder it will be to find a job, therefore it will be harder to get experience, therefore it will be harder to get better-paid job.

Id like you to go to your nearby Walmart/mcdonalds/ or any min wage service sector and look at the people working their, im not sure if its the same case where you live but most of them are in their 40s/50s because they were never college educated and depended on a strong industrial sector which didnt require education, and now are forced to work min wage+govt assistance to make ends meet, but of course its just a bunch of 15 year olds who think they deserve everything and not an actual economic phenomenon that anyone has a responsibility to address,(which it is) but hey were conservatives we dont believe in these statistical or objective factors