Let us do a little math on 15.00 minimum wage

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: panoz77

What do you do with people already making @ 15.00/hr?

In my experience, you just give them more work so you can lay off someone less experienced.

Meanwhile in a few years the cost of living will catch up and anyone making more than minimum wage just has to eat the effective pay cut

Won't matter too much longer anyway, USD was never designed to last this long. It finished its job of stealing everything from everyone decades ago and shouldn't be around much longer

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa
a reply to: panoz77

Sounds like a no brainer too me, going by your calculations... raise the minimum wage too $15 an hour, then that $8 an hour worker would basically be making the same money, without relying on government assistance.

I’m actually kinda surprised conservatives aren’t the ones pushing for the $15 minimum wage... with all the bitching they do about their tax dollars going towards supplementing the incomes of poor people.

The problem is two fold. First, inflation will just raise the price of everything so the $15/hr won't actually be any different from $8/hr. The second issue is that you leftist will never get rid of the welfare state. I mean we could say screw it, give everyone $100k as a sort of debt jubilee. In one year, all the crackheads and losers will have blown all their money and we will be right back at square one and leftist crying about the need for welfare for the impoverished.

a reply to: LordAhriman

Exactly, it would piss anyone off.

originally posted by: panoz77
a reply to: Bluntone22

Isn't it odd that all these poor people can afford $1000 cellphones and $800 PS5's? I probably could splurge on such things if I didn't pay for food, rent, utilities and healthcare and received a govt paycheck for not working. But alas, I'll stick with my $200 motorola cell phone and my Xbox one.

True enough.
I have an LG phone that was free with no contract obligation and an x box one that's 3 years old.
I do splurge on good beer every now and then...

a reply to: Edumakated

Inflation plays a minor role their have been studies on places that raised their minimum wages such as California. It was swown that prices rose by just 0.36 percent for every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage. So in other words its not really an issue because even if you doubled it from 8.00 to 16 you are still only talking about an increase of 3.6 percent. So the wage increase far outstrips inflation

research.upjohn.org...

I see people arguing against minimum wage and they tend to be misinformed. Why are so many against making it possibe for people to survive on their own?

It is all so stupid. Fed min wage is not a real wage. It is an index number that states regulate state level min off of. Some states are already 15 or very close to it, and some are 8 or very close to it. Much depends on the cost of living in your state, AND how you vote in your state. Raising the index to a crazy number is really really bad...maybe need a few more reallys.. Voting to raise state level minimum is really really good.

How stupid can a person be to not understand something so simple.

To the OP don't worry they will be right where they started as companies go part time to offset the cost and so many will lose their medical, 401k, PTO etc etc that part time do not get, but get 15 per hour for 30 hours a week. Well they will have 10 extra hours to binge watch Netflix.

a reply to: dragonridr

Nobody is against people making it on their own.
We already have food stamps, Medicaid, subsidized housing, school lunch prog, etc etc funded by tax payers.


So if the minimum wage goes to $15 an hour and a person is working full time, will we be able to cancel all of those other benefits?

If $15 is a true living wage then all those other programs will only be needed for people unable to work.

originally posted by: harold223
Minimum wage here in Australia is $19.84 per hour currently. It generally edges up a little every year based on various factors. $15 per hour in the US will help people a lot I would think.

Your 19.84 is about 15 US, the difference is we are 50 united countries we call states, and the average cost of living per state is from 40k to 62k. In my State of WA that is 62k the min wage is almost 14 per hour and in a 40ish cost state is it 7.25.

The fed min is actually just a index number that states use as a starting point to set their own min based on the voters of that state. What this means is 15 per hour fed min would cripple businesses across America. BTW less than 2% of all workers actually make min wage where in your country it is 22%, plus you all have a minimum wage variable that goes from about 7 to 19 based on age below 21, we don't. So in America the assumption is minimum wage is for the young and newly starting out. If you are 30 and making minimum you have other serious issues in your life.

originally posted by: dragonridr
a reply to: Edumakated

Inflation plays a minor role their have been studies on places that raised their minimum wages such as California. It was swown that prices rose by just 0.36 percent for every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage. So in other words its not really an issue because even if you doubled it from 8.00 to 16 you are still only talking about an increase of 3.6 percent. So the wage increase far outstrips inflation

research.upjohn.org...

I see people arguing against minimum wage and they tend to be misinformed. Why are so many against making it possibe for people to survive on their own?

We have plenty of real world results to observe which mirror exactly what many of us have stated.

A good simple example which I've yet to see anyone supporting minimum wage refute is what happened to the New York City car wash industry. It used to be that when you wanted your car washed, you'd go the car wash and an army of guys would wash your car. Most made minimum wage and tips.

Well some genius decided the car wash workers should be unionized and paid $15/hr a couple of years ago. What happened? Car washes basically closed and the few that stayed open went from employing like 30 people down to like 5 people and using machines.

Not only that, the workers who lost their jobs are basically having to work illegally to wash cars as no one will hire them. So they basically do illegal street car washes.

Here is a good video on what happened.

a reply to: dragonridr

Roosevelt is the one that got it enacted, everything that Roosevelt did or tried to do was a bad idea in my opinion. I strictly oppose a federal minimum wage law, it should be a state issue. If you look at why the law came into being in the first place, you'll see that the supported reasons behind it were pretty awful, even by the standards of the 30's.

a reply to: panoz77

Soo does our hard worker bread winner will be able to keep his job? after the employer is forced to pa 15 dollars an hour? maybe if he is lucky enough and not be part of the job cuts.

Is hard to be a bread winner in America this days, I mean is better to collect unemployment, at least until is over and the next recession hits.

Y'all are acting like this thing, which is not happening, was to happen overnight, it was to happen over 5 years!!!

a reply to: vonclod

I do not even want to know how America will look like under the democrats in 5 years.

originally posted by: marg6043
a reply to: vonclod

I do not even want to know how America will look like under the democrats in 5 years.

Ha, true, I don't even want to guess, I think it will be chipping away at little things..we shall see.

I'm not even saying that doubling in 5 years is completely appropriate, but I definitely think, keeping it too low/stagnant.. is not a good thing either.

originally posted by: vonclod

originally posted by: marg6043
a reply to: vonclod

I do not even want to know how America will look like under the democrats in 5 years.

Ha, true, I don't even want to guess, I think it will be chipping away at little things..we shall see.

I'm not even saying that doubling in 5 years is completely appropriate, but I definitely think, keeping it too low/stagnant.. is not a good thing either.

The only thing that keeps minimum wage low is the supply of low skilled workers exceeding the demand by employers to fill those roles.

Wage are just where supply and demand meet on economic curve. A wage is the price you want to charge for your labor and what the employer is willing to pay for particular skill set.

I always find it ironic that the left is always harping about minimum wage, but yet they continually do things that suppress wages such as importing poor and uneducated illegal immigrants. The easiest way to naturally raise the minimum wage is to suppress the supply of low skilled workers available.

originally posted by: panoz77
The liberals and democrats want to lift people out of poverty and give them a "living wage". So let's focus on the impacts to the individual working that minimum wage job. I'm not going to discuss the other impacts to the economy or businesses in general.

So, let's assume that our worker with girlfriend and child (aka the breadwinner) currently makes $8.00 and hypothetically works 40 hours a week (even though most minimum wage jobs are not 40 hr per week "full time" jobs.

$8.00 per week at 40 hrs/wk = $16,640 or $1,386.66 (Based on gross income)

Now, with an annual salary of $16,640 how much does our worker with girlfriend and child pay in Federal taxes? 10%
So that brings us to about $14,976. Minus local taxes, let us assume 1% local tax. Now we are at $14,810 and we are going to assume this worker with girlfriend and child is not investing in a 401K. We won't even bother deducting social security and medicare.
Monthly net income is about $1,234.

Does our worker with girlfriend and child qualify for SNAP? Yes they do!
eligibility.com...
www.masslegalhelp.org...

So I would get about $535 in monthly SNAP benefits.

So just adding SNAP benefits, our worker with girlfriend and child is actually making about $1,769 NET INCOME adding just SNAP alone.

Now let's add our Medicaid benefits. Yey, we qualify since we are under $29,207 (before taxes). Let's just say that equates to about $400 a month we save from having to pay for medical insurance through our employer for a family plan ($200 per pay is an extremely low estimate for a family insurance plan). What are we up to now in monthly wage?
$2,169!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So for the sake of argument, we will just stop here even though we probably qualify for several other assistance programs, like housing, utilities etc.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Now, let's see what our $15/hr worker with girlfriend and child will make, shall we?

$15/hr equates to $31,200 per year or $2,600 (gross monthly income)
Federal tax bracket = 15%
us.icalculator.info...

So our net income after Uncle Sam takes his part is $25,392 minus local taxes of 1% = $25,080 or $2,090 (net income).

To qualify for SNAP we would have to be below $2,184 (gross); $1,680 (net) OH NO!!!!! We loose our SNAP benefits!!!!
WHAT! We loose our Medicaid too!!!!! And all our other govt assistance?

So just doing some very generous back of the paper math, we can see that our $8.00 worker with child and girlfriend with Govt assistance actually make MORE that our $15.00 per hour "living wage" worker with child and girlfriend.

$8.00 with Govt assistance = $2,169 net monthly income (very lowball estimate)
$15.00 with not Uncle Sam helping = $2,090 net monthly income

But the democrats are helping you earn your "living wage", and they thank you for being a new taxpayer.

Baby mama in your example qualifies for a ton of free things including education and housing and baby daddy can live with her for free

a reply to: dragonridr

Because the whole "survive on their own" is a myth as I pointed out in the original post. They would be taking a pay cut by making $15 per hour, unless the govt still allows them to qualify for govt assistance, SNAP, housing assistance, medicaid, free phones, free internet etc.

In addition, the whole minimum wage being a "living wage" is a complete misnomer. The minimum wage jobs were never meant to be "careers" or to support a family. They are entry level low skilled positions that are almost never full time to begin with. They are part time jobs for low skilled workers. High school kids, high school dropouts, college kid making some book or beer money, and maybe a retired person looking to make a bit for their prescriptions.

These are not careers, LOL. How some people don't even understand this simple fact is beyond me.

a reply to: panoz77

Do you ever wonder about a maximum wage?

a reply to: purplemer

No. Why have you?

Skills and need determine what a persons time is worth. Some skills demand very high wages because only very few people have certain skills.