A Just Minimum Wage

[Era Might]

Is what reality? That people can't find a job? People are unemployed all over the country.

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Era Might' post='1368347' date='Aug 22 2007, 09:44 PM']Is what reality? That people can't find a job? People are unemployed all over the country.[/quote]
There are always people unemployed. What's your point? There are always people hiring and willing to pay other people to work for them. I hire people all the time. I also fire people who drink, don't show up, don't want to do the job, lie, cheat, steal. Those fired people are unemployed.

[Era Might]

Yes, there are always people unemployed, and it is in part thanks to the minimum wage that they aren't exploited while they are unemployed. Companies are bound to a basic standard of decency when it comes to the wage payed so that they [i]can't[/i] exploit the unemployed.

[Cure of Ars]

I don't think you understand what I am saying. An earned income tax credit resolves both sides of this issue on this debate.

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1367997' date='Aug 22 2007, 01:27 PM']if it happens to help the those who aren't poor, so be it. it's still a just wage as it's worth what they pay.[/quote]

In my suggestion it makes it so that poor people get the preferential treatment for jobs over those who don't need the money to make ends meat. How is this a bad thing? The beauty in it is that it helps the poor and those businesses that rely on cheep labor to survive. It also makes it so there are more jobs. The more jobs available the more pressure it puts on businesses to increase their wages to gain employees. The suggestion I give resolves a lot of the down sides that people are bringing up towards minimum wage.

[quote]we can't give credits as the poor don't pay taxes.[/quote]

A earned income tax credit would work like a subsidy. Instead of paying takes you actually get a tax return.


[quote]we might be able to devise a system of educating them to be competitive such that they don't need to stay at an unjust job for long[/quote]

Your assuming that it is always unjust to pay someone below the minimum wage. If someone paid me a dollar an hour to post on phatmass as a job, on my free time, I would not call this "unjust". I would call it a win-win situation. It would actually help the economy and who are you (and how can the government) say that I can't make this agreement with someone? Your one size fits all justice does not work.

[quote]the class that wouldn't have ben able to get jobs anyway, are out of luck[/quote]

Minimum wage would not help them anyway.

Edited August 23, 2007 by Cure of Ars

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Era Might' post='1368353' date='Aug 22 2007, 09:49 PM']Yes, there are always people unemployed, and it is in part thanks to the minimum wage that they aren't exploited while they are unemployed. Companies are bound to a basic standard of decency when it comes to the wage payed so that they can't exploit the unemployed.[/quote]
That's your theory, but that is not reality. As a manager who makes a % of my division's profits, I have plenty of motivation to pay the least amount possible for workers. I manage a construction company, I don't have to hire rocket scientists. My lowest, cheapest pay scale is $10 PLUS Free Medical Insurance (Dental is $2 week more), 9 paid holidays, 1 week paid vacation, and 401K. Since I get 5% of the profit, If I can hire people at minimum wage, no benefits, that would save about $12 each man hour (in benifits, taxes, etc.), puting 60 cents in my personal pocket every hour they work. I can easily use 10 workers like that (I will keep the supervisors I have now at the $25+ per hour now) and pocket $240 a week while making an additional $4,560 per week profit.
Why doesn't that happen considering all the 'unemployed' people in the town I live in? How does that figure in your hypothesis?

[Era Might]

[quote name='Anomaly' post='1368380' date='Aug 22 2007, 09:01 PM']Why doesn't that happen considering all the 'unemployed' people in the town I live in? How does that figure in your hypothesis?[/quote]
Because you have a conscience. In a perfect world, everyone would be like you, and would look at workers as more than chattel. We wouldn't need to force people to treat others justly, they would do it on their own. But we live in a world where love of money is the root of all evils (1Tim 6:10), and if there is no law against exploiting others, there will be employers who do so without regard for conscience.

[Apotheoun]

The minimum wage increase will be paid by consumers (including those who get the wage increase) as businesses pass on the costs of these salary increases in order to maintain their profit margins, and -- of course -- this will frustrate any benefit that might have accrued from government intervention in the economy.

Ultimately, as with most liberal economic plans, this is a huge invisible tax increase on the working poor, while also having the potential to spur an inflationary cycle within the economy that will hurt everyone as the economy slows down.

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Era Might' post='1368390' date='Aug 22 2007, 10:07 PM']Probably because you have a conscience. In a perfect world, everyone would be like you, and would look at workers as more than chattel. We wouldn't need to force people to treat others justly, they would do it on their own. But we live in a world where love of money is the root of all evils (1Tim 6:10), and if there is no law against exploiting others, there will be employers who do so.[/quote]LOL. NO! It's your warped assumption that everyone is evil unless proven otherwise. You completely ignore the market forces at play when people have freedom to choose. I pay what I pay (and more, and have a hard time finding employees) becaue people are free to work wherever the want. I have to compete for people with other companies. Mostly, the people I hire should be unemployed because they smell of elderberries and won't do the job they get paid for which is why they were looking for a job in the first place. Out of every 10 people I hire, I luck out and get a person who is looking because their other employer isn't doing well, has crappy working conditions, moved with a spouse for a better job, is moving up after having some work experience. That's reality based on my experience in hiring people for more than a couple of decades. What you are coming up with is hypothesis, theory, or a warped 'victim' mentality.
As much as I make now, and the type of job I have, I've been unemployed between jobs as the sole breadwinner, with tuition to pay, kids to cloth, mouths to feed, etc. But since I have personal dignity, I worked VERY hard at jobs that many people feel too good to do, for cheap money, with more than 1 job, in order to take care of my responsibilities. Nor was I too proud to ask for help from others. Within the last 5 years, I actually worked for a Mexican illegal immigrant at below the minim wage because that was what was available at the time, what the guy could afford, etc. It was worth it too me because he also paid in home-made tortilla's, and bought me a meal a couple of times. What would be the point to refuse him unless he paid 'minimum wage'. He couldn't afford it and it was only worth while for me for a week or so before I took a tougher job that paid more.

Minimum wage is mostly for lazy people who are too full of pride to work hard and put in the time and effort to get themselves ahead.


Edit to add. I must agree with you though, in my opinion too, in a perfect world, Everyone would be just like me!

Edited August 23, 2007 by Anomaly

[Socrates]

[quote name='Era Might' post='1368309' date='Aug 22 2007, 07:11 PM']It's not unnecessary at all, and the fact that these jobs pay [i]over[/i] the minimum wage supports the point that the establishment of a minimum wage is reasonable. The minimum wage ensures that these companies continue to pay reasonable wages, and not exploit workers.[/quote]
If unskilled, entry-level jobs are paying [i]over[/i] the minimum wage in order to attract labor, why is the minimum wage necessary in the first place?
If (as you imply) these companies would exploit the empoyees by paying them next to nothing if there was no minimum wage, why are they (with minimum wage) not just paying their employees legal minimum wage and not a cent over?
The answer is that the market keeps the wages up as businesses compete to attract labor

[quote name='Era Might' post='1368353' date='Aug 22 2007, 07:49 PM']Yes, there are always people unemployed, and it is in part thanks to the minimum wage that they aren't exploited while they are unemployed. Companies are bound to a basic standard of decency when it comes to the wage payed so that they [i]can't[/i] exploit the unemployed.[/quote]
Quite frankly, that makes no sense.
If people are [i]unemployed[/i], they are, by definition not being "exploited" by employers.
You seem to imply that being unemployed is better than working for low wages.

My point is that an artificially high minimum wage would drastically i[b]ncrease[/b] unemployment, as there would be much fewer entry-level, low-paying jobs available.
These unemployed people would be stuck either having no income at all, or dependent on welfare, neither of which would in the long run benefit them or the economy as a whole, and the problem would perpetuate itself.
Businesses dependent on low-paying labor would either could back jobs, go bankrupt, or use illegal labor or outsource.
More people staying unemployed for longer is not a better situation.

[Era Might]

[quote name='Socrates' post='1368464' date='Aug 22 2007, 10:00 PM']If unskilled, entry-level jobs are paying [i]over[/i] the minimum wage in order to attract labor, why is the minimum wage necessary in the first place?
If (as you imply) these companies would exploit the empoyees by paying them next to nothing if there was no minimum wage, why are they (with minimum wage) not just paying their employees legal minimum wage and not a cent over?[/quote]
Not every employer will exploit their workers, just as not every citizen will murder someone. But we still have laws against murder for the people who [i]do[/i] murder others. The minimum wage is there to remove the option of exploiting anyone.

[quote]If people are [i]unemployed[/i], they are, by definition not being "exploited" by employers. You seem to imply that being unemployed is better than working for low wages.[/quote]
If there were no minimum wage, and the company could hire seven more workers at $1 an hour, instead of one worker at $7 an hour, then the unemployed would accept this exploitation, because they would see it as better than having no money at all. At forty hours a week, that's $40 more in their pocket (before taxes anyway).

Of course unemployment is not better than working, but even if exploitation is providing jobs it doesn't mean the government can allow exploitation to take place.

[quote]My point is that an artificially high minimum wage would drastically i[b]ncrease[/b] unemployment, as there would be much fewer entry-level, low-paying jobs available.
These unemployed people would be stuck either having no income at all, or dependent on welfare, neither of which would in the long run benefit them or the economy as a whole, and the problem would perpetuate itself.
Businesses dependent on low-paying labor would either could back jobs, go bankrupt, or use illegal labor or outsource.
More people staying unemployed for longer is not a better situation.[/quote]
This is a separate issue. I am talking about the necessity of a minimum wage. What it should be is debatable, but I do not believe that the basic necessity of minimum wage is reasonably debatable.

[Mercy me]

Anomoly, your posts rock!! Couldn't add anything to them.

The truth is that the few people who make minimum don't stay there. They move on and up. But pretty much everywhere even McDonalds pays well above minimum. Why? Because people won't work for minimum wage.

[Era Might]

[quote name='Mercy me' post='1368483' date='Aug 22 2007, 10:23 PM']But pretty much everywhere even McDonalds pays well above minimum. Why? Because people won't work for minimum wage.[/quote]
If a company sees $7 (or whatever the minimum wage is) as too small of a wage that the people won't work for, and are freely paying more than that, then they are admitting that a wage below that is unacceptable. The government is simply establishing that principle in law.

[Lounge Daddy]

But this makes such laws unnecessary, doesn't it?.

[abercius24]

Era, I think from now on I'm just going to quote your statements and put my name under them. We are so on the same wavelength!

[quote name='Era Might' post='1367966' date='Aug 22 2007, 01:56 PM']Not having a minimum wage (and other labor laws) is a recipe for mass exploitation. All work requires something: the ability of someone to do the work. Even if it is manual labor, it still requires them to be able to handle that physical labor, a skill which a doctor may not have (not everyone is physically able to be a furniture mover, for example). If someone is starving they will take fifty cents an hour to do back breaking work for long hours. The government has a duty to prevent that.[/quote]

Absolutely. This is the very reason Cesar Chavez was so important to the undocumentated workers in California. Because there was a lack of protection for the illegal field workers, the growers totally took advantage of them. They paid them hardly any money and regularly charged them for living expenses to essentially enslave them. If you'd like to see just how bad employment can get in the United States, read a book called "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. It will turn your stomach to think that terrible things like what's in that book have actually been the standard of living for some people here. Europe has very similar stories as part of their history, too!


[quote name='Anomaly' post='1368335' date='Aug 22 2007, 08:38 PM']Doh!

Why would someone work for $1 unless they were severely mentally deficient, or they were in a Home Star Runner cartoon and were willing to work for pencil shavings or $1 per hour. Just not going to happen.

If it's a m-d person, someone kind sould would point out the problem to them because they would not be able to live, eat, or cloth themselves and would be noticed wandering the streets. The other person is already being explointed by StrongBad, so it doesn't matter.[/quote]

If for nothing else, the minimum wage will be there to protect YOU from exploitation if our economy ever returns to the state it was in during the Great Depression. (Go watch The Grapes of Wrath and Cindarella Man to remind yourself of how the average guy can have it really bad.) You can't just make plans based on the good times. You must plan for the worst case scenario, too. Don't presume upon God's blessings so much that you think you'll always have a good wage and a good job! All it takes is a bad car accident and you or I could be handicapped. Imagine sitting in line at the social security office waiting for your $800 handout wishing there was some job you could do that could at least feed you and pay $25 a month toward your medical bills. If we're going to error on this issue, we better error on the side of those who already have it hard!

Edited August 23, 2007 by abercius24

[Era Might]

[quote name='Lounge Daddy' post='1368499' date='Aug 22 2007, 10:39 PM']But this makes such laws unnecessary, doesn't it?.[/quote]
You could say that about any law, though. To use an analogy, if the sale of illegal drugs decreases, does that mean the laws against drugs are unnecessary? No, it would mean that those laws are even more important, because they preserve a line that won't be crossed without consequences. If the law were gone and drugs were no longer illegal, it would open them up to be sold legally for huge profits. Similarly, once there is no minimum wage, then it opens up the legality of exploitation by unscrupulous employers.