Setting Minimum Wage In The USA to 4 Cents An Hour

It really is high time that Americans put the USA first and people back to work.

There wasn;t Minimum Wage when I was young and everyone had a job.

It;'s absurd that an employer with a job not worth minimum wage should have to hire a contractor to beat dissidents to death in slave camps to produce manufactured goods at no cost rather than be able to hire Americans.

And just why should someone good enough to offer employment be sent to jail whilst somenone offering no employment be held up as a shining example?

The fact is that Government can't raise wages, only unemployment.

This Minimum Wage crap is killing the USA. High time this malarchy was done away with.

We have minumum wage for a reason. people need to make enough to live on.

Originally posted by georgemoseleylander
It really is high time that Americans put the USA first and people back to work.

There wasn;t Minimum Wage when I was young and everyone had a job.

It;'s absurd that an employer with a job not worth minimum wage should have to hire a contractor to beat dissidents to death in slave camps to produce manufactured goods at no cost rather than be able to hire Americans.

And just why should someone good enough to offer employment be sent to jail whilst somenone offering no employment be held up as a shining example?

The fact is that Government can't raise wages, only unemployment.

This Minimum Wage crap is killing the USA. High time this malarchy was done away with.

Can you prove your facts, George?

I'd first like for you to be able to prove your statement that when you were young, everybody had a job.

GO!!!!!!!

reply to post by georgemoseleylander

I know some people working low end jobs and the worst thing about them are the hours. If they could be reduced to 8 or 6 and to 5 or 6 days a week, people would work for less I'm sure.

The idea that a single job has to be able to pay for an apartment doesn't hold up, in my view. If a poor person lives with others then they can stretch their earnings and work for less.

I want 40 hours per week or less enforced, personally. Too many jobs overdo it. But isn't this the same thing as enforcing a minimum wage? I guess. But 45/50/55/60/70/80 hour weeks....

....have to end.

Time is more important than lotsa money - I think - to a lot of people.

But you know, what I'm suggesting here won't fly either because other countries can work 100 hour weeks if they want and then the same problem of shipping jobs overseas occurs.

The same thing applies to whatever we think "Workers' Rights" means. If we think workers should have health insurance and China doesn't think so, well, the same pattern emerges.

Bottom line, you're advocating reducing standards here to counterbalance china. You're saying "Lets be more like China." Maybe you're right, but I think most americans want to go the route of improving our education system so people have higher skills so we can keep our standards of living and our values where they're at or even improve them rather than lower them to hte level of China.

If we don't find a way to fix it, we will end up being like Chinese sweatshop workers. But... maybe I'm wrong. Maybe if enough people become this way they will try to change the system. This will have to also happen in China and all around the world. A united, international rally for Workers' Rights.

reply to post by georgemoseleylander

Without minimum wage, there would be a lot more jobs. Fact is, some jobs are not worth $7.25 an hour. If employers could pay a lower salary for jobs that require little or no skill, there would be more employment.

Those who advocate a minimum wage claim that without a minimum wage, everyone would get paid 5 cents a day. Yet they seem to forget or simply dont consider the fact that there are many people (most in-fact) who make more than minimum wage. How? Why would an employer pay anyone ABOVE minimum wage when they dont have to???

Ahhhhhhhhhh, interesting.

The real issue is the devaluation of the dollar via centrally planned economics and the Federal Reserve. Since the creation of the Fed, the dollar has lost 95% of its purchasing power.

95%

Restore the value of the dollar and people can buy a lot MORE with a lot LESS.

Two words: Ron Paul.

Audit the Fed then end it.

Originally posted by Night Star
We have minumum wage for a reason. people need to make enough to live on.

Are you simple inthe head?

Govenrment can't raise wages only unemployment.

Minimum Wages exist for a reason, as a fig leaf for shipping all the jobs out to China.

US minimum wage was started in 1938 (Source) - were you working before then? Minimum wage has very little to do with unemplyment rates - many other factors do. Unemployment rates go up and down for various reasons (A brief history of U.S. unemployment).

Western economies run on a supply and demand system. If half the U.S. population sudden had their wages cut in half - how would anyone be able to purchase anything? When there is no demand - the can be no supply. Unemployment would escalate and you would be in an even worse situation than you are now. Minimum wage can be a good thing, the argument should be what dollar figure the minimum wage should be set all.

Our minimum wage up here in Canada is higher than yours and although nobody is in an ideal economic state - we are not doing too bad.

reply to post by georgemoseleylander


There would be no point to work for 4 cents an hour, you cannot buy anything with that.

Crime would sky rocket, everyone would be starving, and homeless.

Originally posted by gladtobehere
reply to post by georgemoseleylander

 

If there was no minimum wage, there would be a lot more jobs. Fact is, some jobs are not worth $7.25 an hour. If employers could pay a lower salary for jobs that require little or no skill, there would be more employment.

Those who advocate a minimum wage claim that without a minimum wage, everyone would get paid 5 cents a day. Yet they seem to forget or simply dont consider the fact that there are many people (most in-fact) who make more than minimum wage. How? Why would an employer pay anyone ABOVE minimum wage when they dont have to???

Ahhhhhhhhhh, interesting.

The real cause of our problems is the devaluation of the dollar via centrally planned economics and the Federal Reserve. Since the creation of the Fed, the dollar has lost 95% of its purchasing power.

95%

Restore the value of the dollar and people can buy a lot MORE with a lot LESS.

Two words: Ron Paul.

Audit the Fed then end it.

edit on 5-11-2012 by gladtobehere because: (no reason given)

In actuality, it is NOT training that is the biggest block for most people to enter employment, but EXPERIENCE. Even if people were paid 5 cents and hour for a couple of months, it would give them the EXPERIENCE that they need to go on to better things. Isnt that the whole concept of Internship?

One of the worst government polices is the minimum wage. Get rid of it and let the market take over. It wasn't meant to live on only as a starter wage to get people to work then they kept raising it to get elected. It's outlived it usefulness and needs to go

Minimum wage costs jobs ,as long as the labor for income transaction is voluntary , there is no exploitation issue.

reply to post by mikellmikell

The reason they raise it is to try and stay in tune with inflation. Do you really trust the markets these days? If corporations can cut the wages of their employees, where so you really think all that extra money is going to go? They're not about to suddenly hire hundreds and thousands of workers, they will fatten their own pockets first.

Originally posted by fenceSitter
If half the U.S. population sudden had their wages cut in half - how would anyone be able to purchase anything? .

Exactly! So no-one would be able to afford Chinese crap that has had to be hauled expensively around the world yet the store would be teeming with cheap, locally produced US goods.

....And if people had their wages slashed in half, many would leave employment and go and start their own company, able to afford hiring people at the much lower levels.

Minimum Wages are a curse that have expanded in inverse proportion to the trade balance.

...And just what is the morality at refusing to allow an American to hire at $6.50 an hour and encouraging an employer instead to send the job to China where the pay in the slave camps is ZERO? Why should the life of a person in China, another human being on the planet be valued at less that trying to ensure that an American is paid enought to get that extra Big Mac and fries at lunch?

you drop minimum wage, the price of goods drop with it. things become cheaper and later on lift the market as a whole.

The most fundamental principle of economics is supply and demand. Just like any other goods or services, labor being no different, the supply of workers goes up as wages go up (higher unemployment) and the demand for workers by employers goes down as wages go down. ( lower unemployment)

Minimum wage job are those job that need little to no working skills to accomplish tasks, a.k.a. “unskilled labor”. Forcing a company to pay a minimum wage of $8 an hour on a fixed overhead forces the employer to only higher a certain number of workers. Dropping the minimum wage would allow the employer to hire two people at $4 an hour instead of the one person at $8 an hour. Having two people rather than one person increases productivity and service. Because of the increase of productivity, service and competition, overall market prices on goods and services would actual go down, making products cheaper and more obtainable for all.

Now let’s take a burger flipper job and attach a wage of $100 an hour. You’re going to have a lot of people applying for the job. But you’re also going to have to pay $100 hamburgers. But drop the wage to $1 an hour and you’re most likely not going to get anyone to want to work for you at all. Same principals for higher paying jobs, you get what you pay for. Take a look at a lawyers or doctors, there wages are higher because they are higher skilled laborers. You don’t see them bidding for minimum wage jobs because market forces like supply and demand make their wages higher.

So if minimum wage is a good thing and its made to help people earn a living, then why dont we make minimum wage $20 or $30 an hour? It will help people earn a living right???

reply to post by georgemoseleylander


Is that you Mitt Romney ?

America’s low-wage economy is marked by two extremes. On the one hand, workers earning at or near the minimum wage are seeing the real value of their paychecks diminish steadily over time, as the cost of living increases while their wages remain stagnant. After nearly half a century of neglect, today’s federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is decades out of date. In terms of purchasing power, its value is 30 percent lower today than it was in 1968.

On the other hand, many corporations are posting record-breaking profits. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that, after sinking from 2007 to 2009, corporate profits had successfully caught up to their pre-recession peak by the beginning of 2010 – and that by the third quarter of 2011, total profits for U.S. corporations reached a new record high of $1.97 trillion.

Source

Companies are making record profits and you want to pay people 4 cents an hour, yup ... You must be Romney.

Corporate profit margins just hit an all-time high. Companies are making more per dollar of sales than they ever have before. (And some people are still saying that companies are suffering from "too much regulation" and "too many taxes." Maybe little companies are, but big ones certainly aren't).

Wages as a percent of the economy are at an all-time low. This is both cause and effect. One reason companies are so profitable is that they're paying employees less than they ever have as a share of GDP. And that, in turn, is one reason the economy is so weak: Those "wages" are other companies' revenue.

Source

In short, our current system and philosophy is creating a country of a few million overlords and 300+ million serfs.

I am all for it as long as you are willing to be one of the serfs, somehow I believe you will not like that idea ...

Originally posted by camaro68ss........Take a look at a lawyers or doctors, there wages are higher because they are higher skilled laborers. You don’t see them bidding for minimum wage jobs because market forces like supply and demand make their wages higher.

Honestly, doctors work at least as hard and sacrifice more than many people with 100's of millions in the bank. And yet doctors make less. There're many examples of this imbalance.

Many technical/science positions make less money than their value is to society. Look at professional sports and how much money they make, for example. Compare that to a theoretical physicist. Physicists of that calibre, if they're multi-talented, will write books and do shows, but many don't. Many are not going to make the kind of money a football or baseball or basketball star will make.

And what about soldiers that go to the front lines? Don't they have value to society too? They come home broken sometimes and don't get their medical needs met. They sacrifice a lot.

So a random guy with some acting talent does a movie and grosses $6 million. It's a surprise hit. And it's the only movie he does in his whole life. He dies at 30. He never went to college. Another man also dies at 30 but was a military workhorse and trained many recruits how to do well. He saved many lives and dies from random sniper fire. He doesn't even make $1 million in his 30 years.

A wage has to be based on something tangible. Forever and a day, wages were the necessities of life...food and shelter. You work, you have a place to sleep and food to eat...but then someone realized..."hey, this sucks, I can never get out of here! This is actually slavery!"

There has to be a standard...Is what we are doing the best way? Prob not. The problem is that this country or that country can still enslave people (essentially) and pay them $3.00 a day (wages of factory workers in China) but provided them with crappy food and crappy shelter. Is this what you would agree with?

We used to have that back at the turn of the 19th into the twentieth century. Poor folks were worked to death and "robber Barons" kept the lion's share...nothing attractive in the system you tout.

So...you looking to start a sweatshop anytime soon?

Originally posted by jonnywhite

Originally posted by camaro68ss........Take a look at a lawyers or doctors, there wages are higher because they are higher skilled laborers. You don’t see them bidding for minimum wage jobs because market forces like supply and demand make their wages higher.

Honestly, doctors work at least as hard and sacrifice more than many people with 100's of millions in the bank. And yet doctors make less. There're many examples of this imbalance.

Many technical/science positions make less money than their value is to society. Look at professional sports and how much money they make, for example. Compare that to a theoretical physicist.

edit on 5-11-2012 by jonnywhite because: (no reason given)

Its not about working harder, its about working smarter. Of course there’s the few that inherit there money but that has nothing to do with the fundamentals of job and workforce supply and demand. Those that have the knowledge to provide service that are not common will be paid handsomely for it.

Originally posted by Zngland
...as long as the labor for income transaction is voluntary , there is no exploitation issue.

UNTRUE. When there is minimum wage law, the manager won't give the job to the cheapest ot hire, he'll give ti to his cousin, the girl with the big cleavage or his dope dealer in preference.

MINIMUM WAGE EQUALS EXPLOITATION.

Originally posted by Jeremiah65


We used to have that back at the turn of the 19th into the twentieth century. Poor folks were worked to death and "robber Barons" kept the lion's share...nothing attractive in the system you tout.

So...you looking to start a sweatshop anytime soon?

So, instead of some Americans working for low wages, you want ot see Chinese dissidents literally whipped and beaten to death for ZERO WAGES in dissident slave camps to manufacture you Rattan Furniture?

Look, Minimum Wage does not mean higher wages it means NO WAGES. No one has a paid job in America and goods are churned out in Slave Camps in China again for ZERO WAGES.