Top Economists Are Backing Sen. Bernie Sanders on Establishing a $15 an Hour Minimum Wage

originally posted by: Aloysius the Gaul
a reply to: interupt42

$10/hr is your idea of middle class???

Really?? :O

Which part of with selected arbitrary price and wages was not clear?

For those of you who also don't understand BUSINESS.

There is one rebound effect too. Being that the U.S. has basically ZERO control of Illegal Immigration, when those wages raise, you can be GUARANTEED that Illegal Immigrants will be the largest growth sector of the economy.

Nobody will hire a low skilled worker for $15 an hour when the can train one for almost half and pay no penalty for it, especially in Sanctuary places.

Bet on it.

originally posted by: BatheInTheFountain
I keep saying over and over again in these forums. There are ONLY 4 solutions to a Government mandated pay increase.

1) Cost increase
2) Lay offs
3) Automation
4) Close down business

Economically that is ALL you get. So choose wisely.

"Top Economists"? Yeah, okay.

1 Cost increase will be determined by capitalism and market forces regarding competition.

2 Layoff again determined by capitalism, the more consumer buying power the more the markets will grow, if the markets grow more will be hired, or do you still believe in trickle down economic?

3 Automation Nothing is going to change this so its a none issue reguarding minimum wage

4 close down business again this will be determined by the market, people working full time and recieving government welfare is nuts!

a reply to: Aazadan

The prices doesn't matter make them what ever you like. That is why I stated with selected arbitrary price and wages ?

I'm curious what your vision of the cost of product , middleclass, and lower wages equate to once the minimum wage is increased and how it translate to their buying power. Set your example using real values if you like.

a reply to: BatheInTheFountain

Maybe we should be asking why without government subsidies milk would be $8 a gallon, why doesn't the market decide how much a product is rather than markets controlled by the government?

a reply to: BatheInTheFountain

Yeah right

So right now there isn't a big immigration issue and the right just uses that as a scare tactic? But if we do this its going to cause a immigration issue? what is it? Can't be both issues right?

All you have is fear mongering?

originally posted by: LDragonFire

originally posted by: BatheInTheFountain
I keep saying over and over again in these forums. There are ONLY 4 solutions to a Government mandated pay increase.

1) Cost increase
2) Lay offs
3) Automation
4) Close down business

Economically that is ALL you get. So choose wisely.

"Top Economists"? Yeah, okay.

1 Cost increase will be determined by capitalism and market forces regarding competition.

2 Layoff again determined by capitalism, the more consumer buying power the more the markets will grow, if the markets grow more will be hired, or do you still believe in trickle down economic?

3 Automation Nothing is going to change this so its a none issue reguarding minimum wage

4 close down business again this will be determined by the market, people working full time and recieving government welfare is nuts!

1) Increasing wages by Government decree is not MARKET FORCES. It is the opposite. And "the market" will respond according to 'can we do this or not'.

2) Your "trickle down" snipe is utter BS. This is about the ABILITY of Employers to meet a standard that Government has set given the current STANDARD of Dollar power, cost of goods, cost of rent, overhead, supplies, etc.

3) If I can create a system of automation for any assembly or service, you can guarantee that an entrepreneur is NOW working on a way to automate current jobs. Automation is happening all over the world. Fact

4) The Market WILL not and cannot react well to Government mandated wage at this level of increase. We're speaking of an over 40% increase is baseline wages.

I have to note, it's always strange how those who want a minimum wage increase NEVER speak about taxation, regulation, cost of energy, INFLATION rent costs, payroll costs, insurance mandates...all the things you have to think about when ou actually OWN a business.

originally posted by: LDragonFire
a reply to: BatheInTheFountain

Yeah right

So right now there isn't a big immigration issue and the right just uses that as a scare tactic? But if we do this its going to cause a immigration issue? what is it? Can't be both issues right?

All you have is fear mongering?

"The Right""?

Who said I'm on the "Right"?

You did. And trust me, Illegal Immigration is a HUGE part of U.S. employment now. That's why the Chamber of Commerce supports all the Illegals coming through. It's big business. But myopic Partisans as yourself can't see the FACTS as they are.

a reply to: BatheInTheFountain

$15 a hour does seem pretty high but if the minimum wage would have increased based on inflation and cost of living the minimum wage would be around $26 a hour. We have 40ish years to catch up.

What your feeling is called the Bern!!! get used to it

Raising the minimum wage is a good thing. If it should be 15 an hour, I'm not sure; however, if your working 40 hours a week and living paycheck to paycheck, visiting food banks, having to receive assistance to pay your rent, gas or electricity; somethings wrong.

Someone working and trying to live shouldn't be forced to look for outside assistance for their daily needs and bills. It's ridiculous to think if you work 40 hours a week your a step away from being homeless; I disagree with that.

Most or some minimum wage jobs require more physical effort than higher skilled jobs. People are literally busting their behinds just to scrape out a meager existence for themselves, let alone if they have a family.

Just because your uneducated or made mistakes in life should mean you don't deserve to at least be able to pay your bills, buy food, clothing ect...oh well you can't buy your boat or a 6 bedroom house and vacations in the Caribbean. People deserve better than just merely surviving, well, in my opinion anyways.

originally posted by: rockpaperhammock
a reply to: Aazadan

Well said brother..and good luck with school..I hope you stick with it...as a long time gamer we need good creative motivated developers! Let me know if you ever need a play tester or some free soundtrack music

Interesting concept about the student debt too...I never thought about that but I know the gov has opened up a few new programs to help people go to school it would be nice to see them help with student loans too.

Forgot to add for your friend I would suggest building a portfolio of work if that's the field he wants to go into. For example I participate in and complete a project in all 3 major Ludum Dare's per year, I also do one for IGDA, and one for my school which is a statewide competition (which I've won twice). Plus I build between 2 and 3 additional projects (not all games) per year across various technology like Unity, HTML/CSS/Javascript, MySQL, etc. Then I github everything and I add the projects to a website where I store my work so that I can just give an employer the URL.

It doesn't do me any good right now, but by the time I get out of school I'll have a nice catalog of work I can hand over to an employer to show that I'm semi competent. I've been thinking about getting into answering Stack Overflow questions as well.

originally posted by: interupt42

originally posted by: Aloysius the Gaul
a reply to: interupt42

$10/hr is your idea of middle class???

Really?? :O

Which part of with selected arbitrary price and wages was not clear?

All of it.

If you are going to quote a figure as arbitrary that is fine....but when you put a lablel next to $10 calling it "middle class" that is not arbitrary - that is you putting your label on that figure - and so it is a reasonable question to ask if you think $10 is middle class?

why not just say yes or no instead of crying faux outrage that someone has spotted an indication of your real attitude??

a reply to: Aazadan

I guess you missed the story about how some folks in Seattle are asking their employers for fewer hours, since they've come to realize a higher minimum wage put them out of reach for all the freebies they've been getting from Uncle Sam.

a reply to: Daedal

No, it's a bad thing. You're forcing a shift in the supply-demand curve that isn't brought about by normal competitive forces. Sure, wages go up over time, but such a huge jump is going to impact things adversely.

The curve always seeks equilibrium and you won't like the results when they shift to reach that point.

a reply to: Freenrgy2

This will impact 75 million workers, if that's truly the case what do you suggest those 75 million workers do instead to live a decent life?

And who's going to run all the services you probably enjoy taking advantage of?

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: whatmakesyouright
Yup.
What we don't need is encouragement for people to flip burgers. Encouragement in the form of a "living wage." Encouragement to do "good enough."

Yes, what we need is for one third of the adult labor force to not be able to support themselves, so that they'll all get motivated to go through college. And then if they all do that, most of then will still work those jobs, cuz...someone has to, there's a finite number of higher level jobs, and there's not enough teenagers to work them all...so now they're in debt, and still can't support themselves...actually it's harder, with the newfound debt...ah, America.

a reply to: Freenrgy2

Normal supply-demand curves have never applied anywhere except in Econ 101 classrooms anyway - everything else in the world is distorted by various pressures - one of the biggies for example is the ease of workers to bargain collectively - where it is hard to do the employers have too much power, where it is compulsory the unions generally end up bloated and corrupt.

Then there is corporate welfare - the US right wing rails against unions and individual welfare, but never seems to mention the billions of public money given to corporations - eg 8 biggest recipients of US corporate welfare:
nike 2.03 billion
Royal Dutch Shell 2.04 billion
fiat Chrysler 2.06 billion
Ford 2.52 billion
GM 3.58 billion
Intel 3.87 billion
Alcoa 5.64 billion
Boeing 13.18 billion

Even Duck Dynasty gets $70k per episode from Louisiana taxpayers!! for a total of over $6 million so far!

This report also links to a database to enable easy tracking of corporate subsidies.

originally posted by: Freenrgy2
a reply to: Aazadan

I guess you missed the story about how some folks in Seattle are asking their employers for fewer hours, since they've come to realize a higher minimum wage put them out of reach for all the freebies they've been getting from Uncle Sam.

Well by all means let's determine national policy on the basis of the actions of a few individuals.

originally posted by: interupt42
a reply to: Aazadan

The prices doesn't matter make them what ever you like. That is why I stated with selected arbitrary price and wages ?

I'm curious what your vision of the cost of product , middleclass, and lower wages equate to once the minimum wage is increased and how it translate to their buying power. Set your example using real values if you like.

I'm not quite sure I understand the question. It sounds to me like what you're asking for is what I believe the wealth gap should be and how many minutes of work various commodities should cost.

To that I would say that the gap between the highest and lowest is a bit arbitrary and what sounds fair is pretty much irrelevant but if I have to go with something I'll go with a difference of 6x. I think that those who take a risk or who come up with a great innovation should be highly rewarded but that everyone should rise in a fairly linear fashion so the total amount of wealth owned by percentile would look something like this:

99% - 18
90% - 16
80% - 14
70% - 12
60% - 11
50% - 9
40% - 7
30% - 6
20% - 4
10% - 3

If we were going to put a dollar figure to these wages, using the 2010 figures (a quick google search isn't finding more recent numbers) total wages in the US came to 9 trillion. This means we would expect the bottom 10% of people to be splitting 3% of that pie which means $270 billion. 10% of people works out to 30 million to divide 270 billion which works out to $9000 per person. That's not a lot, the bottom 10% would still be on some form of assistance but it's better than we currently have where the bottom 50% only own a collective 2% of the wealth, under this model they're at 29%. In fact, under this model the bottom 20% own a larger share of the pie than the bottom 80% own currently.

originally posted by: Freenrgy2
a reply to: Aazadan

I guess you missed the story about how some folks in Seattle are asking their employers for fewer hours, since they've come to realize a higher minimum wage put them out of reach for all the freebies they've been getting from Uncle Sam.

No, I didn't miss it. I just find it to be irrelevant. The business still has a need to work those hours, if someone cuts back on hours that opens up time for someone who isn't currently doing any work to be employed. We're currently in a labor market where there aren't enough jobs to go around. People cutting back on their hours in order to spread the work around is what we're going to have to do anyways so in the end it doesn't do any harm.