$15/hr minimum wage

[SunsetBengal]

(08-07-2018, 10:28 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: I was subtly implying that this person, who I see frequently writes OpEd's critical of CA and favoring TX, had an agenda to promote business in TX over CA. No actual hate for the state itself. 





Kiosks seem to be the wave of the future unrelated to this law. A lot of places in MD have been shifting away from cashiers to kiosks for years now. It's the natural order of things.

Thanks for the insight, as I was unfamiliar with the author.  Though, with just a minute or ten's research time, it's not hard to see why Texas is a soft landing spot for businesses looking to exodus over taxation.  

[BmorePat87]

In 1967, minimum wage was $1.00 which is about $7.66 in 2018 dollars (current federal is $7.25).

In 1970 it was $1.60 or about $10.67

In 1980 it was 3.10, or about $10.04

In 1990 it was only $3.80, which is $7.52 today.

In 2000 it was $5.15 or $7.69 today

In 2009 it was set to $7.25

I think $11 is a fair minimum wage adjusted for inflation, but there needs to be an effort to keep adjusting.

[*michaelsean*]

(08-07-2018, 10:39 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: In 1967, minimum wage was $1.00 which is about $7.66 in 2018 dollars (current federal is $7.25).

In 1970 it was $1.60 or about $10.67

In 1980 it was 3.10, or about $10.04

In 1990 it was only $3.80, which is $7.52 today.

In 2000 it was $5.15 or $7.69 today

In 2009 it was set to $7.25

I think $11 is a fair minimum wage adjusted for inflation, but there needs to be an effort to keep adjusting.

I believe Ohio is $8.15. Not sure how many states are higher than fed and too lazy to look.

[*Nately120*]

(08-07-2018, 10:08 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Seems like they're already "directing" people toward professions, just most of them they have no chance of being successful at, or earning a satisfactory living...  Perhaps, if they changed their ways just a tad, they might benefit someone besides the student loan lending institutions?




I'm all for guidance counselors and educators encouraging young folks to follow their dreams, but perhaps they need to look closer at the entire individual.  Just because someone can achieve a certain score on a standardized test, does not mean they are cut out for the university path.  Just the same as everyone that doesn't achieve a certain score on a standardized test isn't destined to work lowest common denominator jobs their entire life.  

I haven't looked at any actual employment data, but everyone I know who went to college has a job and I also know plenty of people who didn't go to college who also have jobs.  And there have been daytime TV ads running for trade schools for decades, so I'm not sure where you get the notion that this country is full of great trade jobs that people are trying to scare teens away from pursuing.

I will say one thing I've noticed is that my pseudo-nephew (yeah, I'll marry my gf eventually...get off my back) is 19 and he went to trade school and everyone else in his class was around my age.  People my age could get jobs out of high school and make enough money to support themselves and a family and have some insurance and so on.  Now that isn't true, so people are having to go back to get skills in order to earn a life that "just plain old working" no longer provides.

What I'm saying is that if going to college these days is tantamount to paying $250,0000 for a degree that will leave you working 16 hours a week at Wal Mart and going to trade school or driving a truck will get you $100k per year then kids will wise up soon enough and the market will right itself.  You can joke that getting a 4-year college degree is "following your dreams" but the real dream is making $80k+ per year when you are 19 years old, so I don't see why arms need to be twisted to lead teens towards those jobs.

Anywho, this thread is about minimum wage and I don't think that is something that applies to people who go to college or go to trade school. But honestly I'm not deep enough into either side of the political coin to laugh about those dumb dumb conservatives who didn't go to college and work at the local dirt farm for peanuts as they lack the critical thinking skills required to understand why they "ain't rich like Trump." Nor do I laugh about those smug liberal millennials who spend a quarter of a million dollars on their lesbian interpretive dance dream weaving degrees and then sling Starbucks for a pittance while they smugly burn the American flag.

[BmorePat87]

(08-07-2018, 10:35 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Thanks for the insight, as I was unfamiliar with the author.  Though, with just a minute or ten's research time, it's not hard to see why Texas is a soft landing spot for businesses looking to exodus over taxation.  

Rick Perry was known to parrot the claim that Texas steals business from California, but I remember reading some articles that said that wasn't very accurate. At the time, taxes on businesses were actually lower in California than Texas and more start ups were forming in California.

Texas has more manufacturing of things like cars, but more tech is made in California. Texas throws out a lot of cash for businesses to move there, with the goal of having the economic growth outweigh the corporate welfare, but economists were finding that these businesses were not the ones leading growth in Texas and many were going to move to Texas regardless. California enacted a similar policy, but they gave out tax breaks instead of upfront money, requiring the businesses to actually do what they said they're going to do. California was finding that, even as they were leading the nation in jobs moving to other states, it was less than 1% of their total jobs

I think the interesting thing is that as you court more businesses reliant on highly educated employees, your politics begin to shift towards the left and the culture begins to change. This funny article noted the adoption of Californian culture in Texas:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/05/29/its-no-contest-california-really-is-better-than-texas/?utm_term=.a5e2e86b0c2a

[BmorePat87]

(08-07-2018, 10:54 PM)michaelsean Wrote: I believe Ohio is $8.15. Not sure how many states are higher than fed and too lazy to look.

22 states have the federal min wage. 8 states, including Ohio, currently have their min wage tied to inflation. 15 states have a min wage of $10+  Washington state is the highest at $11.50

[BmorePat87]

(08-07-2018, 11:10 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: 22 states have the federal min wage. 8 states, including Ohio, currently have their min wage tied to inflation. 15 states have a min wage of $10+  Washington state is the highest at $11.50

21* and 13* according to this map


Some states choose to have a lower or no minimum wage, which means certain businesses not covered by the federal law can pay lower.

[*bfine32*]

(08-07-2018, 08:21 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: The thing that makes me laugh about the people who want the $15/hr is they either don't understand that it would then increase the cost of their goods, or they naively believe that the wage increase will come straight out of the profits of the business rather than a price increase.

Restaurants are a narrow profit margin business. Say you have 40 minimum wage employees working at a place making $10/hr right now, all working 40 hour weeks. That means the payroll for them would be $64,000 per month.

Now say those people get a raise to $15/hr. That payroll is now $96,000 per month.

That extra $32,000 per month needs to come from somewhere, and maybe McDonalds that are owned by the corporation itself could eat that kind of increase, but what about franchise owners in rural areas? If you own one franchise, there's no way you can eat that cost. So then you need to raise your prices. That $2 double cheeseburger now needs to be $3, your $1 menu now becomes the $1.50 menu.

And who are the people who are most reliant on the dollar menu? That's right, the people who make minimum wage. So suddenly they might be making 50% more, but they're paying 50% more too, so nothing has changed except maybe the small handful of restaurants that COULD afford to absorb the wage increase without increasing prices didn't have to raise their prices 50%, and are now much much more affordable than their competition, which would lead to them crushing the competition and just becoming that much more monolithic.

Raising the minimum is just the first effect. What do you do with the employee that has earned more than the minimum due to seniority ect...? 

You're starting out on fries and make $15/hour. What do you do with the cashier that has been there 1 year and has made a couple extra dollars more than the minimum? 

[Benton]

Personally, I'm not a fan of a high minimum wage. Unfortunately, we've had decades of a market without much control. That results in workers making less, which results in less buying, which means businesses need to cut costs, which means workers are making less, etc.

I'd rather keep the minimum wage low and tie corporate tax rates (if we enforced them) to wages as a percent of net profit. It would take someone far soberer than I to set real rates, but if your company is making hundreds of millions in profits, paying little to no taxes and compensating workers on social aid, then you need to pay a higher tax rate than a company that pays taxes and pays employees enough to live on.

[*Nately120*]

(08-07-2018, 11:13 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: 21* and 13* according to this map


Some states choose to have a lower or no minimum wage, which means certain businesses not covered by the federal law can pay lower.

The first thing I noticed is that there may be a correlation between state minimum wage rates and state disability rates.  At least 3 of those "no minimum wage" states are top 10 in percentage of food stamp recipients, too.  I can't blame people, lord knows if I'm getting $5 an hour before taxes to actually leave the house and work I'm going to find a way to "not be able to work" too.

[SunsetBengal]

(08-07-2018, 10:58 PM)Nately120 Wrote: I haven't looked at any actual employment data, but everyone I know who went to college has a job and I also know plenty of people who didn't go to college who also have jobs.  And there have been daytime TV ads running for trade schools for decades, so I'm not sure where you get the notion that this country is full of great trade jobs that people are trying to scare teens away from pursuing.

I will say one thing I've noticed is that my pseudo-nephew (yeah, I'll marry my gf eventually...get off my back) is 19 and he went to trade school and everyone else in his class was around my age.  People my age could get jobs out of high school and make enough money to support themselves and a family and have some insurance and so on.  Now that isn't true, so people are having to go back to get skills in order to earn a life that "just plain old working" no longer provides.

What I'm saying is that if going to college these days is tantamount to paying $250,0000 for a degree that will leave you working 16 hours a week at Wal Mart and going to trade school or driving a truck will get you $100k per year then kids will wise up soon enough and the market will right itself.  You can joke that getting a 4-year college degree is "following your dreams" but the real dream is making $80k+ per year when you are 19 years old, so I don't see why arms need to be twisted to lead teens towards those jobs.

Anywho, this thread is about minimum wage and I don't think that is something that applies to people who go to college or go to trade school.  But honestly I'm not deep enough into either side of the political coin to laugh about those dumb dumb conservatives who didn't go to college and work at the local dirt farm for peanuts as they lack the critical thinking skills required to understand why they "ain't rich like Trump."  Nor do I laugh about those smug liberal millennials who spend a quarter of a million dollars on their lesbian interpretive dance dream weaving degrees and then sling Starbucks for a pittance while they smugly burn the American flag.

Well, making money in a trade just might require your "nephew" to move to a more populated area, where people are employed, and can afford to hire someone to fix the hvac, etc.

Seriously, I'm familiar with PA.  I was just up there for a week, in April, to go trout fishing.  A lifelong friend of mine is from Western PA, we try to get together and go to his home area every year that we can.  Anyway, we went out every night and were amazed at the low prices at bars for beer, liquor and food.  The reason is simple, no one has much money..  We were talking about how we could live like Kings on our current incomes, around there.  All around the valley where Dave grew up, nothing but ghost towns, sad remembrances of what used to be proud towns that fed ore, coal, or other products to the steel industry. (Pitt is just 50 mi. NE of this area).  

Truth is, it's not a whole lot different that the town I was born to in Ohio.  Used to be a factory town, plants from the automakers, subsidiary industries that fed the automakers.  It's a ghost town there, as well.  Sure, a couple of generations of work places are gone.  You can't just finish school, and go to work where your Dad did, anymore.  (part of this is on the unions, pricing those jobs right out of the country..)  However, people need and will adapt.  They will find either other ways to earn an income, or relocate to an area where there is work.  (there's nuclear power plants all along those rivers, but those jobs take skills)  (fracking crew jobs are paying $34+/hr., but that's really hard, dirty work)  Some of the best sod in the Nation grows well there (again, takes a lot of work), also prime farm land, pretty much anything grows (but again, a lot of hard work).  People dreaming about the good 'ole days, when a good paying job was easy, are just that... dreaming.  My old man worked in a foundry.  When he was a grinder, on engine heads, at least a couple times each year he would have to go to hospital and have iron chips pulled from his eyes.  No job that pays is ever easy, it takes work.  Weather you wear protective gear, or a suit and tie.

People today need to wake up and realize that hard work is what earns a living.  Forcing fast food joints to pay $15 to people worth $6, isn't the way to tackle income inequality.  The way to fight income inequality is to inspire young people to work and get better skills.

[*Nately120*]

(08-07-2018, 11:32 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: People today need to wake up and realize that hard work is what earns a living.  Forcing fast food joints to pay $15 to people worth $6, isn't the way to tackle income inequality.  The way to fight income inequality is to inspire young people to work and get better skills.

I disagree with the general idea of raising minimum wage to $15 an hour, but I also disagree with the general idea of what you're preaching.  Good news for everyone is that my views on things seem to matter even less than most people's, so there is hope for both sides!

[Beaker]

(08-07-2018, 11:32 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: They will find either other ways to earn an income, or relocate to an area where there is work.

No job that pays is ever easy, it takes work.  Weather you wear protective gear, or a suit and tie.

People today need to wake up and realize that hard work is what earns a living.  Forcing fast food joints to pay $15 to people worth $6, isn't the way to tackle income inequality. 

The way to fight income inequality is to inspire young people to work and get better skills.

You're going to hear "it takes more than just telling people not to be lazy....or get a better job", even though you said more than that. Where were you in the income inequality thread when I was extolling a similar viewpoint?

[Benton]

(08-07-2018, 11:52 PM)Beaker Wrote: You're going to hear "it takes more than just telling people not to be lazy....or get a better job", even though you said more than that. Where were you in the income inequality thread when I was extolling a similar viewpoint?

Maybe it's some of Column A and some of Column B?

Maybe it's not all just "work hard and you'll get six figures" or "incomes have been rapidly outpaced by cost of living so we need intervention to keep up with essential costs"?

The thinking in most industries for decades has been short-term profit above all else. How hard you work is largely irrelevant, unless you're self employed. In that case, it's largely whatever the market pays for your skill. My last corporation recorded record profits year after year despite layoffs year after year. Eventually it went upside down and there wasn't enough labor to generate the same revenue. The solution? More layoffs. My division recorded a 12-15% increase in profits every year for six years... we still laid off 1/3rd of the labor and kept wages flat.

[Belsnickel]

(08-07-2018, 09:10 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Unfortunately, the only way I can see this happening is for the government to augment wages. You force the business owner to pay more he/she is going to raise prices. You tax the business owner more he/she is just going to raise prices. 

I suppose there could be tax incentives based on how much above minimum wage your employees make or number of employees per profit margin. I'm just one that believe the free market will bare out. 

The correlation between market deregulation and growing income inequality (thus more difficulty in upward mobility) leads me to believe that the market will not bare out. Leaving the market to do things on its own has resulted in things getting worse.

(08-07-2018, 10:08 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: I'm all for guidance counselors and educators encouraging young folks to follow their dreams, but perhaps they need to look closer at the entire individual.  Just because someone can achieve a certain score on a standardized test, does not mean they are cut out for the university path.  Just the same as everyone that doesn't achieve a certain score on a standardized test isn't destined to work lowest common denominator jobs their entire life.

I've talked about this, but Germany actually does something like this. It is criticized because they don't always get it right, but overall it does a pretty good job of figuring out the best path for a student. Teachers evaluate students the entire time they have them, directing them to trade, professional, or academic paths depending upon how they perform. It isn't just a standardized test, but a judgement (based on criteria to an extent) from someone that spends a lot of time with the student on a daily basis. When they get done with 5th or 6th grade, they move on to a secondary school that prepares them for the next step based on that evaluation.

Here is the problem with this in the United States, well, problems. The first is funding. Something like this is going to require a lot more funding for education. The training for teachers to do the evaluations and know what to look for, updating curricula, adjusting schools, etc., etc. The adjustment to a new model like this, which is really what would be required to make something like this work, would take a lot of time and money. The public doesn't have the patience for this. It would be interesting to see if a locality would experiment with something like this as a bit of a laboratory.

The other major issue would be that the concept is going to be antithetical to many Americans. The American dream, albeit unrealistic today, is still something many people believe in. The idea that a child's path is going to be directed for them at such a young age like this is going to cause quite a stir. While a student could switch between schools if something changes, it is going to be seen as the government restricting freedoms and being overreaching, as the government knowing better than the student and their family.

(08-07-2018, 11:42 PM)Nately120 Wrote: I disagree with the general idea of raising minimum wage to $15 an hour, but I also disagree with the general idea of what you're preaching.  Good news for everyone is that my views on things seem to matter even less than most people's, so there is hope for both sides!

This progressive knows what you're saying and agrees, but my solutions may involve the government a bit more than you'd like.

[*michaelsean*]

(08-07-2018, 11:42 PM)Nately120 Wrote: I disagree with the general idea of raising minimum wage to $15 an hour, but I also disagree with the general idea of what you're preaching.  Good news for everyone is that my views on things seem to matter even less than most people's, so there is hope for both sides!

It took you 9000+ posts to figure it out, but you got there.

[Benton]

(08-08-2018, 08:01 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: The correlation between market deregulation and growing income inequality (thus more difficulty in upward mobility) leads me to believe that the market will not bare out. Leaving the market to do things on its own has resulted in things getting worse.


I've talked about this, but Germany actually does something like this. It is criticized because they don't always get it right, but overall it does a pretty good job of figuring out the best path for a student. Teachers evaluate students the entire time they have them, directing them to trade, professional, or academic paths depending upon how they perform. It isn't just a standardized test, but a judgement (based on criteria to an extent) from someone that spends a lot of time with the student on a daily basis. When they get done with 5th or 6th grade, they move on to a secondary school that prepares them for the next step based on that evaluation.

Here is the problem with this in the United States, well, problems.

The other major issue would be that the concept is going to be antithetical to many Americans. The American dream, albeit unrealistic today, is still something many people believe in. The idea that a child's path is going to be directed for them at such a young age like this is going to cause quite a stir. While a student could switch between schools if something changes, it is going to be seen as the government restricting freedoms and being overreaching, as the government knowing better than the student and their family.

:

It may not be that hard to swallow. A lot of the American dream is less than a century old and largely marketing to sell cars, houses and kitchen utensils. I think the heart of it (private business ownership) is disappearing unrelated to student education.

Used to, a lot of what you’re mentioning here was done by the family unit, they just aren’t doing that any more for a variety of reasons (lack of involvement, belief that everyone has to go get a degree, etc).

I think if the education system involved parents (the ones that want to participate anyway) in the process, it might go over.

[XenoMorph]

My only issue is who is demanding the $15 an hour... Fast food workers lol... McDonalds will have machines doing everything before you get that pay.

[Yojimbo]

(08-07-2018, 11:20 PM)Benton Wrote: Personally, I'm not a fan of a high minimum wage. Unfortunately, we've had decades of a market without much control. That results in workers making less, which results in less buying, which means businesses need to cut costs, which means workers are making less, etc.

I'd rather keep the minimum wage low and tie corporate tax rates (if we enforced them) to wages as a percent of net profit. It would take someone far soberer than I to set real rates, but if your company is making hundreds of millions in profits, paying little to no taxes and compensating workers on social aid, then you need to pay a higher tax rate than a company that pays taxes and pays employees enough to live on.

My plan is to just send a bill to any company that has employees getting federal aid, for the cost of that aid. So, the company can choose to raise wages or pay that tax bill.

[fredtoast]

(08-07-2018, 11:16 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Raising the minimum is just the first effect. What do you do with the employee that has earned more than the minimum due to seniority ect...? 

You're starting out on fries and make $15/hour. What do you do with the cashier that has been there 1 year and has made a couple extra dollars more than the minimum? 

Labor is only a fraction of the cost of any goods.  And minimum wage increases are only a fraction of the labor cost.  So costs are not going to go up dramatically.  

It blows my mind that people are actually trying to argue that we have to keep working people in poverty so that we can afford hamburgers.