08-13-2015, 07:09 PM
(08-13-2015, 03:59 PM)jakefromstatefarm Wrote: I personally believe that wage should be up to employer and employee, 100% of the time, but for the sake of discussion, let's say that a living wage is imposed. I have three questions:
1) Is the living wage going to fluctuate based on location? $15 is a lot of money in some hick town in W. Virginia. $15 isn't anything in NYC.
2) When the market reacts to this living wage and the costs of every good and service goes up to compensate for it, what have they accomplished? Do you really believe that if a business owner's labor costs go up by whatever percent, that they will just eat that additional expense out of their profits and not pass that on to the consumer??
3) If a "living wage" is deemed a solution to making sure that everyone that works is making enough money to live comfortably (that's what the term "living wage" means, right?), does that mean that if it is enacted that we will see a major decrease in social program spending?
1. Living wage would be adjusted by location.
2. Costs of goods and services would not have to increase that much because...(1) Labor is only a fraction of the cost. (2) Only a fraction of the workers would get substantial raises. (3) Businesses have been able to give their highest management HUGE raises without driving up prices. Our economy worked just fine in 1965 when the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio was 20 to 1. So why does it have to be close to 300 to 1 today? Instead of raising prices they could just spread around the money they have been pumping into the pockets of their highest paid employees.
3. Yes. the number one goal of mandating a living wage would be to reduce the burden of taxpayers. It isnb't fair for large corporations to make huge profits and not pay their employees enough to live on then expect the taxpayers to make up the difference.
