The minimum wage hike has driven the wages of teen employees down to $0.00.

I'm 18 as well. I put out A LOT of applications and got one call back from Wendy's. Actually have orientation here in an hour. I'm lucky I even got that one.

reply to post by Albastion

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Simply speaking economics 101 here: If you reduce government mandated mimimum wage, the system takes on more teenagers (good thing for teenagers). If you raise the minimum wage no one hires teenagers and they never learn how to work, how to be a part of the work force (not a good thing for the US or any other country).

Thought you would like to know. If you took Econ 101 you would understand.

reply to post by plumranch

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If the minimum wage is eradicated, then there might very well me more employed teens, but their wage would be so low they may as well be unemployed. Add to that any top-up benefits the government might need to offer to bring their pittance up to a liveable wage, and your not really solving anything, it is the equivilent of paper shuffling.

If you think creating millions of low paid jobs will actually solve more problems than it creates then you need to take that economics course again.

reply to post by quackers

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Read what you wrote. They are already unemployed. If they accepted a wage equitable with what they are worth (let the market not Congress decide) they would have a job (good), earning their own money (good), useful to society (good) and preparing themselves for the future. All good things. Econ 101. You need to take it.

reply to post by plumranch

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But that doesn't make any sense, don't you see?

If you let the "market" decide what the work of a 16 year old is worth, then what do you think will happen?

And who is the "market" these days?

Corporate big wigs and the like, who IF they could, would not pay anybody anything. Why do you think Unions were introduced in the first place?

Minimum wage is a joke.

Let's get an example, to make it simple.

In the 70's you made 4$ a hour. (this is an estimate)

A carton of milk was 1 dollar.

Therefore you made 4x the standard of living if we use Milk as the baseline.

Today in Canada, minimum wage is 8$ in my province.

A carton of milk is 4$ to 4.50$.

That means that they pay us HALF of what we were worth in the 70's, yet the price of living has gone up 4x. How does this make sense?

It doesn't. The fact is they have consistantly raised the cost of living, while cleverly "increasing" the minimum wage, which in turn doesn't help anybody since everytime the wage goes up, so does the cost of living.

According the Eco 101 I should be making 20$ an hour if Milk is 4$.

~Keeper

[edit on 10/17/2009 by tothetenthpower]

reply to post by tothetenthpower

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80% of the economy is small business and small business is the only place teens get a job. Corporate big wigs wouldn't give teens a 2nd thought.

Oh, and small business is not hiring teens in this recession... for reasons that should be obvious to you.

Teens don't need big bucks like mom and dad make. They live at home.

[edit on 17/10/09 by plumranch]

Do they talk about the effects of fighting two wars on two different fronts in your basic economics class?

Well, what about early 20's people? Eventually they are going to want to buy a house of their own, which requires "big bucks".

And they are never going to be able to make big bucks or start their own business if they can't make any principle to start a business with because they can barely cover their expenses.

reply to post by plumranch

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So you ignore the rest of my post and pick out my asking who runs the economy?

No, small business is not where teens get jobs. Is Mcdonald's or any other fast food restaurant small business?

Walmart?
7/11?

I could go on, but obviously teens get jobs from these places far more often than they do from small business. How many small businesses have you seen in your local mall?

The fact remains the same, the minimum wage may "look" higher, but the cost of living combined with inflation makes it less than what it was 30 years ago, there is NO denying that fact.

~Keeper

reply to post by Wimbly

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Ladders are hard to find these days. I work for an old American manufacturing company. At one time if you showed the skill and drive, there were opportunities to better your position including training/education provided by the company. That has all disappeared and there's no chance for a lot of the employees to advance at all. In some cases it's truly a shame.

One other little component of that is the 'off the rack' people they hire for the positions that were formerly filled by promoting internally usually can't find their asses with both hands. It's been a long time since I was in school but I'd say judging by what's coming out of them, they aren't teaching them how to do much that's helpful.

Oh, and all entry level wages are too low imho.

reply to post by Albastion

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No because it has little or nothing to do with supply, demand or the state of the economy (or basic economics). Ever taken a college level economics course?

Perhaps you could better explain what Iraq and Afghanistan have to do with the job woes of teenagers.



Usually local restaurants even though corporate are locally owned and have less than 100 employees so IMHO they come well within the definition but maybe this helps SBA Struggles to Define "Small Business"


[edit on 17/10/09 by plumranch]

I think maybe some of you are putting the blame on the wrong group...

I own two small businesses. Both are bars and most of my employees are college students. They earn minumum wage plus tips. Unfortutately I live in a state that doesn't allow for tip credits. (basically you can't adjust min wage for tips earned.) Which shows that this issue is a little more complicated than just minimum wage. And a whole other topic.

Here's the issue for small businesses:

When I write a paycheck for one of my employees there are witholdings, Income tax, Social Security, L&I etc. Well that comes out of the paycheck payed by the employee. Here's the kicker. I have to match that. So if you make 8.35 hr, Im actually paying more than that. NOT TO THE EMPLOYEE BUT THE GOVERNMENT!! Im my case that includes the amount made on tips which I as the employer never payed the employee. When the min wage is raised, so the does the amount I have to pay matching the employees witholdings. Add tips and I'm no longer paying min wage.

I'm honored to be an employer, I enjoy being able to not only support my family but also that of my employees. I don't think the issue is the small business owner but the tax burden an employee represents CAUSED BY THE GOVERNMENT.

Higher minumum wages did cause me to layoff many employees, I didn't want to, I lost many nights of sleep over it. My employees become part of my family, as do their family. But its either go out of business and everyone looses their job or relieve tax burnden. Its as simple as that.

Look small business owners are'nt as rich as some of you are making us out to be. We struggle daily to just keep the doors open, Taxes and Licenses is where most if not all of our "profit" goes.

So if there's anyone to blame talk to the Federal Reserve and the Government. Because if this continues there will only be the giant corps left, where you are a number not a person. And they will pay you very little, if at all.

But I suppose the Government enjoys making more income tax revenue. OOPS I mean the Fed.....

You want jobs teenagers, tell the over regulating, over taxing gonvernment to beat it. Move to spokane, be honest, have integrity and I'll have a job for you With honor.

reply to post by JohnnyR

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Stared.

That says it! Businesses will be forced to lay off if minimum wage is raised. Simple concept.

Congressional Democrats know that most of their base don't know or understand economics (and a lot more) so they raise the MW to appease their base, put them out of work, when they are jobless they complain that it is the fault of XYZ, (Bush, corporations, etc.) and they vote for the disgusting liberal that did them no favor by raising minimum wage the next time.

What a great system!

Our national debt skyrocketed because of our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Increased national debt causes inflation, because we have to print money to pay back money. We have to pay back more and more money every year, which reduces the amount we as a nation can spend on other things, causing tax increases and waste. It also causes inflation because other nations worry that the US dollar after a while may not be worth anything due to our borrowing and possible inability to pay them back, causing the devaluation of the dollar. Inflation hurts our economy because an unstable dollar means less trade with other nations since they are less likely to want our money, and less ability to plan for the future for businesses at home.

In addition to causing inflation, increased national debt generally means higher interest rates. Higher interest rates means higher mortgage payments, which in turn hurts the housing market because it makes buying a home less attractive. The increasing national debt therefore only threatens to make the housing market worse.

We all have heard of the housing crisis, but most people don't know that it happened during a time of very low interest rates. Think about how bad it is now, and imagine if interest rates get higher... it will make our economy even worse in the future. With these wars going on, the federal deficit is sure to increase more, which in turn will cause more inflation and higher interest rates, hurting the economy.

Back to the housing crisis. The housing crisis was also caused by a lack of regulation in the financial industry, which is something I attributed to causing the poor economy to earlier in this thread, in addition to the wars. Banks thought they could get away with selling sub-prime mortgages as more valuable than they really were forever.

The housing crisis caused problems for the banks as lenders because they now had a bunch of worthless mortgages that wouldn't get paid back to them. This caused huge problems for the banking industry, which had to be bailed out. The effect of this on the economy as a whole is that the banks, since they essentially lent out a bunch of money that would never get paid back, have to be more selective about who they give loans to now. Some banks failed, and this damaged the economy because the FDIC had to insure all the lost money, and this made it so that there were less banks for other banks to borrow from, also hurting the economy.

The ability to take out a loan therefore was diminished for both businesses and the individual since banks now have to be very careful about who they lend money to. This alone caused a lot of the money circulating in the economy to dry up, which causes loss of jobs and opportunity for businesses. This is known as the Credit crunch.

There you are: a brief explanation about how the wars and the lack of financial regulation in the financial industry is causing our current economic woes.

Like I mentioned earlier, it doesn't make sense that "high" minimum wage is causing these problems, because adjusted to inflation, the minimum wage is about as low as it has ever been.


The point of the idea of the "minimum wage" is that we as a nation have decided that there should be a minimum standard of living. We have decided as a nation that you shouldn't work in a factory for 25 cents an hour, because that quality of life is below the standards of living that we have agreed upon as a nation.

I am not saying I don't believe in a protected and secure country. I am saying that we should reduce our current inefficiencies in military spending and focus on an exit plan so we can get our country back on track and stop bleeding money. If we keep traveling this path, things will get worse before they get better, regardless of what the minimum wage is at that time.

Seriously, if you are going to blame anyone for causing these economic hardships, don't blame the average minimum wage worker; blame the banking industry and their irresponsible lending practices.

Plumranch, maybe you need to look beyond basic supply and demand to see the real issues here. Either way, since you are a business owner, your motivation for arguing in this thread is pretty transparent. I'd be willing to bet that you don't care about the plight of American teenagers half as much as you care about increasing your profit margins.

Treat the disease, not the symptoms.

What I am trying to say is that if you really want to make sure your business stays healthy in the future, then you should focus on increasing national efficiency, decreasing waste, and regulating the financial industry. Once the economy gets back on track, your business will improve.

If we just reduce minimum wage without fixing some of these inherent problems, it will only be a temporary fix and your company will go down the tubes anyways. Just my two cents.

reply to post by Albastion

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The debt went up, yes, but nothing in comparison to what Obama has done and interest rates haven't gone up they have gone down.

Inflation has been staying down through all of this. Huge losses in housing and equities is generally deflationary so that seems to be playing out reasonably.

I agree, generally. Lack of regulation? Maybe. I attribute it more to the 1979 Community Development Act and subsequent support of the act by liberal congress and Bill Clinton but that is another thread.

A teenager doesn't have such a good standard of living if he is not working!
(he/ she is living with mom and dad anyway)

Hear that. I wanted to mention that the military hires many, many teens and young adults. I know because I hire their wives and spouses. The more the military hires the fewer are in the job market competing with those 25 to 50% unemployed teens. Sort of a make work program greatly needed right now!

You need to speak for yourself and not make reckless assumptions!

Oh, yes, and take the Econ course. Apparently you need it.