What is the real minimum wage?

What is the real minimum wage?

www.unexplained-mysteries.com

On July 24, 2009 the Federal Minimum wage is due to rise from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour. That does not sound like much and in fact it is not, but what should the real minimum wage be? To find out you need to first understand that this is the minimum wage as paid in Federal Reserve Note currency.

The minimum wage in 1964 was $1.25 per hour. 1964 was the last year we used silver in our coinage and since according to the Coinage Act of 1792 the only real dollar is a one ounce silver dollar, that was the last year real dollars were used. With that in mind I will use 1964 as a comparison year for many things, but today we are concerned with the minimum wage, or at least you should be.

At the time of this writing a one ounce silver coin can be purchased from my local coin shop for $14 in Federal Reserve Notes. For comparison one and a quarter ounces can be purchased for $17.50 in Federal Reserve Notes. That means that to be earning the same amount as the minimum wage was in 1964, you would have to be earning $17.50 per hour, or $36,360 per year in Federal Reserve Notes. If you earn less than $17.50 you really earn less than the real minimum wage.

We sometimes laugh at people in foreign countries that work for 25 cents an hour, but if you earn the current Federal Minimum wage of $6.55, in equivalent 1964 dollars, that is 46 cents per hour. You are earning 37% as much, or actually the buying power of what you can purchase with $6.55 is 37% as much as someone could purchase with $1.25 in 1964. So if you can not figure out why you are unable to make ends meet, that is why.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 12-5-2009 by grover]

An interesting article.

Back in the late 90's when an increase in minimum wage was being debated a local Restauranteur wrote to the paper and said that if his employees wanted to make more money they should work harder.

He was an ass and no one shed a tear when he went under a couple of years later...

The thing is no one can live on minimum wage no matter how hard you you work and despite protests to the contrary most employers make far more than what they pay out in wages so their cries of poverty ring hollow.



www.unexplained-mysteries.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Whatever the accurate amount currently is, it's ridiculously low.

Sadly, given the amount of increasing unemployment, minimum wage for many is absolute zero.

I think when I was growing up in the US, it was around $4.25/hour. Now I live in Australia and last I checked households here bringing in two salaries of minimum wage still fall well below the poverty line.

When I worked, I worked damn hard... if you are a slacker you don't last long as a chef... and I never got paid enough for my labor and I was (still am) a damned good cook... and I was basically required to hire illegals because my boss who was useless on a good day... demanded I do so to keep costs down.

Minimum wage is essentially wage slavery.

This is interesting, but not surprising. The real hard workers, which many minimum wage jobs are; The real physical work has never been appreciated in this country. The funny thing is, they're the people who would survive when it came down to having to survive in a world that has no computers or technology of any sort. Those Cmpany Moguls would all die because they do not know what real work is. Plus most of them are sitting down getting fat and out of shape.

Despite some idiotic arguments from the hard right the real engine of the economy is the laborer not the employer.... yes the employer creates jobs but it is the worker, the consumer, the middle and blue collar classes that are the real driving forces... without them nothing would get done... and like slavery, our society is built on their backs... the boss is secondary.

The problem is very clear here, but i told myself yesterday while driving that it's time to focus on solutions and not the problems.

To me the only solution to this kind of ordeal is absolute technological inovation. Effectively ending the monetary system.

There should be no minimum wage. The Gov has no right to dictate how much people should be making--- especially over a the entire economy encompassing millions of jobs that are completely unrelated.

Inflation of Federal Reserve Notes out paced the minimum wage. Sure the minimum wage was raised in the past, but truly it never kept up with inflation. The Government could have made sure that it did, but that would have kept them from achieving their goal. That goal was to separate you from the wealth you should have been earning. It is easier to control a population that is barely keeping the wolf away from the door.

italics mine

When I was growing up years...decades ...ago, the minimum wage was a standard for teenagers working summer jobs. (The fear was that youth, especially black unemployed youth, would cause more riots.) There were plenty of jobs out there for middle class adults that made more than minimum wage. Usually the middle class job was referenced at "double" or "triple" the min wage.

Starting with the 1980's, the minimum wage began to be seen as a standard wage for the middle class. Inflation was brought under control with this tactic (besides the use of high unemployment so the unemployed would take any job available). By depressing wages, the employer could continue to earn the same (or increasing) income. Hence, we started to see this transfer of wealth upward.

To give the "middle class" the illusion of buying power, home loans as well as car loans began to be extended. Need more cash?...refinance your house. Need money for college?...here's a loan. Insurance (health, car, etc) too high?...go for high deductibles. Need cheaper goods?...shop at WalMart. Can't make it to payday?...go to the corner payday loan business.

The vampires of capital sucked blood out of the consuming American middle class for years, without a meaningful transfusion of money, until the economy imploded. Of course, it didn't hep the economy either for these vampires to corrupt Washington with pleas of "Make it legal to suck more blood!!", i.e. relax/get rid of regulations.

haha I can remember in the 1980's one of the pleas given to the middle class to transfer their wealth upward (in order to let it piss...trickle...down) was to let the wealthy have the money to continue to buy their yachts! Look at all the yacht building jobs it would save! And some think a Wanda Sykes joke is terrible! The American wage earner is no longer laughing.

I am of the personal opinion that the min. wage is destroying businesses in America.

I know plenty of people who's work ethic and/or abilities are not worth $5.15 an hour, let alone $7.25 an hour.

There is a fundamental concept of running a business when it comes to paying your employee's:

You will treat employee compensation with a competative nature just like any other aspect of your business. You want your staff to be competant and skilled, so you may offer a little more than the guy down the street to anyone who has the credentials you are looking for.

For the nitwit who takes 17 bathroom breaks that are 25 minutes long, who comes back late from lunch, and does not do a good job, you don't offer that person much money, because they aren't worth it.

Typically you'd fire them, but that's a whole other can of worms.



Min. wage is a bad bad bad thing.
It forces smaller businesses to offer less positions for pay...because instead of paying 10 low-skilled employee's $5.15 an hour, now you can only afford to pay 6 low-skilled employee's $8.00 an hour....leaving 4 people unemployed.

For those in the work place who make a bad wage, there's only one way to fix it. Be good at what you do.
If you're a burger flipper, be a great one with a good attitude.

Businesses reward their upstanding employee's.

Why?

Because they want to keep them.


Businesses should not be forced to reward degenerate worthless employee's.

It'd be no different than the government forcing you to tip the waitress who never brought you a single refill and dropped your food all over your lap without even giving you a towel to clean up with.

reply to post by Rockpuck

There should be no minimum wage. The Gov has no right to dictate how much people should be making--- especially over a the entire economy encompassing millions of jobs that are completely unrelated.

If there was no minimum wage, there would be countless people working for less than what they do now.


I think that many people, when discussing minimum wage, forget that if the minimum wage goes up, that the cost of goods will go up too. This is because a company is still going to make at least the same amount of money when the wage raises. An example. Recenttly, here in Germany a new minimum wage went into effect. The cost of food at McDonald's was jacked up. [I actually thought it was kinda funny because my sister-in-law freaked out--she lives on the stuff I think.]

So in effect, raising the minimum wage doesn't change anything--because the cost of goods will keep going up--unless you're going to set a cap on how much a business can make, which isn't the right thing to do. At least in my opinion.

reply to post by Rockpuck

There should be no minimum wage. The Gov has no right to dictate how much people should be making--- especially over a the entire economy encompassing millions of jobs that are completely unrelated.

If there was no minimum wage, there would be countless people working for less than what they do now.


I think that many people, when discussing minimum wage, forget that if the minimum wage goes up, that the cost of goods will go up too. This is because a company is still going to make at least the same amount of money when the wage raises. An example. Recenttly, here in Germany a new minimum wage went into effect. The cost of food at McDonald's was jacked up. [I actually thought it was kinda funny because my sister-in-law freaked out--she lives on the stuff I think.]

So in effect, raising the minimum wage doesn't change anything--because the cost of goods will keep going up--unless you're going to set a cap on how much a business can make, which isn't the right thing to do. At least in my opinion.

reply to post by octotom

If there was no minimum wage, there would be countless people working for less than what they do now.

thats just flat out not true.

A business would offer competitive wages to lure in and retain worthwhile employee's.

Originally posted by Fremd
reply to post by octotom

 

If there was no minimum wage, there would be countless people working for less than what they do now.

thats just flat out not true.

A business would offer competitive wages to lure in and retain worthwhile employee's.

Do you really believe that an employer willing to pay the bare-minimum to their workforce today, really cares about a "quality" labor force? At present they aren't willing to pay competitive wages. The elimination of pay standards will undoubtedly lead to massive pay decreases among service industry jobs.

The person running the fast food franchise in the hood is not looking to build a highly-trained and motivated workforce or he/she would already be paying wages at a higher level.

Your logic is false.

Low wage businesses are designed to pay as little as possible to maintain their operations while factoring in a high-turnover rate. There will always be desperate, poor people to hire for trivial wages. A little pay is better than no pay.

This is a sad fact.

You have to think about this way..

When I first started college I managed security at a high-end condo facility.. I got paid $8.40/hr for third shift.

Now, this was considered a pretty good wage back then.. most people I knew strived for the $8+/hr jobs.. they where not as easy to come by, especially for no education.

Most of my friends made less then me, working at restaurants, or at stores, typically making around $5.50-$6.00/hr.

(Minimum wage was $5.15)

So they move minimum wage up.. to $6.00+ something (it changes every year now, up a few cents in Ohio). I remember we got a .05 cent raise because they felt that because people working at Taco Bell where now making nearly as much as we where, we needed a raise. Sadly, the actual real value of the raises people making over minimum wage did not reflect that which minimum wage workers got.

So now that minimum wage is nearing $7.00/hr, the average job that had a $8/hr wage might make $9 .. because the cost of keeping a business has soared so drastically, and the cost to maintain employees has as well. The wage increase as percentage to wage increases of the "minimum" wages is not equal -- if the lowest earners get a $3/hr wage, and it's not reflected across the board, then economics dictates that the price of goods (inflation) will reflect the largest earners wage increase.

Essentially... by increasing the minimum wage, you decreased the Real Wage value of "above minimum wage" earners, and effectively through inflation gave millions of people salary reductions.

Where is the incentive to work? .. I can go work at Taco Bell and get high in the back room while serving up some nacho's and get paid maybe $2 less an hour then someone working their ass off. And once taxes are considered, the difference really isn't even that $2 dollars.

Keep the government OUT of business. DO NOT RELY ON THE GOVERNMENT TO ENSURE EQUALITY!

reply to post by clay2 baraka


the only false logic in this thread is the idea that paying a worthless employee a worthwhile wage is somehow a noble cause.

Would you pay Ford motor company $32,000 for a 1987 ford taurus with a big dent in the side?

Well, why not? Ford needs the money!

Regardless of whether there should or shouldn't be a minimum wage the harsh reality is this... the hardest, most grubby and often most dangerous work pays the least. This has been true of any job I have ever worked... I don't care if it was a dishwasher position, guard, ditch digger or what not... the nastier the work the less it paid.

The next jobs up a paid a little more and the next a little more than that until you get to the jobs where no one sweats, risks life or limb and often do nothing except make money from money... and they get paid the most.

Something is wrong with this picture.

reply to post by grover


that's because anyone can dig a ditch or flip some burgers

but it usually takes someone special to properly run a major corporation and make executive decisions that result in billions of dollars in profit. (i realize there have been some major idiots in this position, but those are few and far between.....more often than not)


It also says something for those who make more money - they work harder and have more dedication.


I see what you're saying, and i agree to an extent that there is some exploitation.

But i also think that in every aspect of every day life, someone gets exploited somewhere and somehow.

But punishing everyone to try and make up for it isn't going to fix anything.

It's just going to make things worse.



[edit on 12-5-2009 by Fremd]

Originally posted by Fremd
reply to post by clay2 baraka

 

the only false logic in this thread is the idea that paying a worthless employee a worthwhile wage is somehow a noble cause.

The fallacy of your argument is that you are ignoring the fact that worthless employees exist at all income levels:

Not all poor are lazy, not all poor are hard working.
Not all CEO's are lazy. Not all CEO's are hard working.

Guess what? All CEO's get paid bank!

[edit on 5/12/2009 by clay2 baraka]

reply to post by Fremd


Yeah it takes someone special to run a multi billion dollar bank or insurance company or car manufacturer into the ground...

I understand that.