The Minimum Wage in One Paragraph

reply to post by ownbestenemy


Your right there, setting a minimum wage no matter the amount isn't what capitalism is about... but it is in this warped place (only in America). So your asking why do the PTB set the minimum wage so low? Well, the people making these decisions are the ones in the best position to speculate on the future costs of commodities. They know gas is going up, same with groceries and utilities.

They set it low, and they keep it low, to prepare people. To prepare people who are used to living nice middle-class lives for living in the ranks of poverty.

Its working! People are getting used to having less and struggling, its becoming normal. Its a class issue plain and simple.. the owners of this country are not going to sacrifice a dime, they're not going to compromise tax-hikes on the rich, not gonna happen.

Minimum wage is a joke "Oh, I'd pay ya less if I could! hahaha". I know you've heard that one.

Study

Even back in 2001 before the Great Recession, a quarter of all workers were considered low wage. That is people making less than 8.63 an hour. Now, this was back in 01, so it's people making less than 150% of minimum wage. Keep in mind that this wasn't but three or four years before minimum wage went up to 7.25, though.

The stats on minimum wage are misleading. Nobody pays minimum wage. They pay 25 or 50 cents above it. And less than one percent of full time workers make minimum wage because it's rare for people working for minimum wage to work in an environment where they will offer full time hours.

Maybe if we actually had places that would offer more than 20 or 25 hours a week to people working for minimum wage and a little above it, we could get more people off the poverty rolls.

Back when my parents were young, you could regularly get full-time hours or close to it if you had the schedule to allow it even on minimum wage. Back then, you actually had places that would run on a properly staffed crew. The only fastfood joint that I see that actually seems to be properly staffed these days are Chick-Fil-As.

The world is not what it used to be. People refuse to listen to the reality of poverty in this country and then wonder why so many can't seem to get a leg up.

Instead of reading a nice little study, why don't you people get out there and actually ask folks that live it? Listen to their stories. If it sounds like one excuse after another, it may be because they're just lazy. Or it may be because things that are nothing big for people like you are 4-alarm emergencies for them.

And don't give me that crap about working your way up. Reality doesn't work that way anymore. Even if you do work your way up, you're still going to be poor.

Originally posted by 1/2 Nephilim
reply to post by ownbestenemy

 

Your right there, setting a minimum wage no matter the amount isn't what capitalism is about... but it is in this warped place (only in America). So your asking why do the PTB set the minimum wage so low? Well, the people making these decisions are the ones in the best position to speculate on the future costs of commodities. They know gas is going up, same with groceries and utilities.

You keep referring to "they" but do "they" force a company to pay skilled workers and workers who have knowledge and competence in areas needed a higher wage? Your logic is curious at best, but is tenuous. Any person looking to employ someone isn't factoring in the price of commodities; they are factoring in is it worth it to hirer this person. It is simple economics really. If I owned a business and I had to choose on hiring a low skilled worker at forced wages or just doing it myself (if the work involved didn't require much skill), then I would eat the cost in my utility (economically speaking; you do know what economic utility is right?)

If I employed 8 workers at a rate of 8.00/hour for stocking shelves and mundane duties and tomorrow the government told me I have to pay them 9.00/hour, I would seek to find who I can get rid of; simple math really because that dollar amounts to another person hired. My business supplies my own livelihood and I have to ensure I can stay in business to provide for my family too.

Its working! People are getting used to having less and struggling, its becoming normal. Its a class issue plain and simple.. the owners of this country are not going to sacrifice a dime, they're not going to compromise tax-hikes on the rich, not gonna happen.

Interesting because since the mid-90s I have been honing my skills, finding avenues of growth and making sure I have a viable skill to trade in the workforce. I guess we could all just throw up our hands and claim we deserve a certain amount or we could actually be productive if we are in the workforce and have a skill that is in demand. What is so hard about this? Or is it just so easy to moan and complain that you aren't being paid the same as your neighbor?

Minimum wage is a joke "Oh, I'd pay ya less if I could! hahaha". I know you've heard that one.

And I would if I could find willing labor to accept it. It is a two-way street but the Government is making it a one way street with them in command. If someone finds that their skill set and labor is worth more, then they leave or demand to be paid more. Simple as that.

And don't give me that crap about working your way up. Reality doesn't work that way anymore. Even if you do work your way up, you're still going to be poor.

Did it and doing it now and I was born late 70s, early 80s (not going to divulge exactly).....so yes it does happen if you have the aptitude and skill to do it. Also the tenacity.

Take for instance my niece. By all accounts she should not be where she is at. She has a rare disease that what most doctors would say, limit her abilities. Yet there she is making her way up in the company she works for. Want to know why? Because she makes herself viable. She finds out what is needed and educates herself and applies it to become available for those spots.

Take some damn initiative in your lives people and stop worrying about what Tom, Dick and Harry have and get.

Here are some realities of the workplace.

Folks bitch about unions, but skilled non-union labor operates much of the time by having the owner by the balls.

They tell you the market calls the shots on wages but I personaly know someone that had to take a 15% pay cut back a few years ago durring the "purge" and yet sales at that location are up and steady. Point is they will stick it to a good higher wage earning person at a good location when sales are down and costs are up across the board. And how many times have you heard about someone training their own replacement coming in at half the wage.

I remember when the term "overqualified" became an excuse not to hire someone due to wage considerations. In many cases knowing to much and having to much time in grade will insure that you dont get hired.

In most cases the real driving force behind wages is what the company down the road is paying for the same labor.

The original OP's numbers are skewed. The fact is people on minimum wage salaries do not pay taxes. They will be reimbursed 100% of their salary after tax returns. This is the reality of a highly progressive tax system that supports the poor standard of living in America.

reply to post by bgold1212


A fancy word for screwing the poor called "regressive taxation". Its like why joe owns his own complany can take off gas expence but the guy driving to work cant.

Originally posted by sageofmonticello
reply to post by inverslyproportional

 

Those numbers are fudged, becsuse they assume anuone making $7.35 an bour is above the minimum wage.

They are not fudged these are the statistics from the BLS. Sure, maybe some people make a nickel more than minimum wage but unless you can go find a source saying that some percentage of people make just above minimum wage all you are doing is simply speculating.

I can tell you from personal experience, and looking around for work, that most of the jobs in the country pay less than $10 an hour.

So you have in fact looked over the entire country and come to the conclusion that the majority of jobs pay under $10 an hour. Sounds like more speculation based soley on your personal experience.

At $10 an hour , your lucky if your bringing home $8.50, take half that for gas, and now.....ya broke.

$10 an hour is $1600 a month. With 30% (a general tax rate as these things change on location) that is $1120 a month. If your are spending $1120 a month on gas I would get rid of the suburban. My wife has an SUV and has a 50 mile round trip to work each day, her gas cost around $400 a month give or take a few bucks.

now you still have $500 minimum a month for rent, $100 a month for electricity, a minikum of $150 a week for food..... if there is gonna be a minimum wage at all, it at least needs to be worth having.

Those numbers seem a little high to me. Taking a quick look in my area I found a 3 bedroom house in a decent neighborhood for $900 a month, split 3 ways (roommates) that is $300 a month. Two ways (husband and wife) that's $450 a month. I spend much less on food than $150 a week and I don't even hunt for bargains or use coupons. I'll give you the $100 a month electric bill but again split 2 ways or more with roommates that isn't much is it. Still a lot of money left.

Nobody is saying that being poor is fun and easy. The discussion I am trying to have is if the minimum wage itself creates a barrier for low skilled workers to actually gain the job skills to command a higher pay.

I appreciate the discussion and your reply, I hope you don't see my reply back as malicious, I just feel like speculation makes a bad argument and I feel like you are exaggerating a bit on the minimum cost of living. Sure it isn't easy to be poor (I am poor) but that is not what we are talking about.

edit on 27-2-2013 by sageofmonticello because: (no reason given)

His numbers seemed way more realistic than yours, from what I've seen.

And the numbers look fudged to me, too. This whole piece sounded to me like yet another slickly-presented propaganda piece designed to skew reality.

We need a higher minimum wage. Period.

And I really have difficulty believing that most jobs make over minimum wage, or that 3 out of 4 teenagers make more than this. I'm not sure I live in the same country as whoever collected that data.

In FACT, raising or even dictating a minimum wage ALWAYS has a negative effect. There are other avenues. The best one we have is to raise the EITC. This doesn't happen because it reduces the pocket money of the feds while increasing benefits to the low-paid worker, but is between net neutral and net plus on the economy, where minimum wage is ALWAYS net negative on the economy.

That would be The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the government, that collected those statistics.

Would there be another source that was more preferential than the proverbial horses mouth?

The problem is, the propoganda arm didn't communicate with the BLS before they set into high gear. You know, the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing.

Perhaps if nothing else, it should bring home the obvious propogandization tactics the government uses, all the while hoping no one looks at or verifies the facts.

Kind of shocking when you actually see it in play like this, all blatant and out there in your face. Quite a wake up call. Or, should be.

Originally posted by bgold1212
The original OP's numbers are skewed. The fact is people on minimum wage salaries do not pay taxes. They will be reimbursed 100% of their salary after tax returns. This is the reality of a highly progressive tax system that supports the poor standard of living in America.

How are they skewed? Are you saying that the Government is skewing the numbers contrary to what they want to do?

I understand your overall sentiment here, since many making those wages will see a positive return at the end of the tax year, but the point of the thread was to highlight just who is receiving minimum wages; hint, it isn't a large sum of the workforce as the media or Government wants you to believe.

Originally posted by Ahabstar
You realize that the last large jump in minimum wage was in July 2008, nothing bad financially or economically happened that year going into 2009 and still continuing today did it?

lol is this sarcasm ?

I think the issue in the USA is the massive unemployment levels which keep labor prices down. As we know, wages are driven by the market.. .and if an employer can pay 7 or 8 dollars an hour, they will. Increasing minimum wage will not help this .. inflation and other issues will offset any benefits as others have pointed out.

US government needs to create jobs so that it is a 'sellers market'... in that employees can can demand higher wages or leave..

In Australia, even for unskilled labor.. if you are being paid minimum wage and get no raise you will leave and find someone who will pay you more as there are generally more jobs than employees.
That being said, certain sectors here have an over supply of workers, and thus times are tough for them. Junior lawyer in many cases will make same or less than than a check out chick, this is because there is an over supply of new law graduates.... .. but once you have two or three years experience you can demand good money, much more than check out chick with 3 years experience. but of course the lawyer spent 5 or 6 years at uni.

I know many young lawyers who spend months working for free just to get their foot in the door.



edit: here's a nice song for you all.. hope you like. heart goes out btw to all you struggling to get by.. it ain't your fault.

reply to post by bgold1212


His numbers are not skewed or factually incorrect. They are however used in an incomplete picture and used with the intent of misleading the reader. The fact of it is the number of full time positions is and has been shrinking for an extended period in favor of part-time and in many cases temporary employment. Which is why he keeps saying "no no don't talk about part -time employment or under employment" because he knows it is little more than a misleading farce.

Originally posted by KeliOnyx
reply to post by bgold1212

 

His numbers are not skewed or factually incorrect. They are however used in an incomplete picture and used with the intent of misleading the reader. The fact of it is the number of full time positions is and has been shrinking for an extended period in favor of part-time and in many cases temporary employment. Which is why he keeps saying "no no don't talk about part -time employment or under employment" because he knows it is little more than a misleading farce.

Do you thinking forcing private employers to pay a higher wage will reverse that trend?

If full-time positions are already on the decline and part-time jobs are on the rise, do you think raising the wage-floor will increase the number of position available?

If the numbers support the OP, that show the majority of "minimum wage" workers to be in a very small percentile and of demographics, a forced increase would suddenly bring light to the situation?

This is from BLS minimum wage workers:

About 11 percent of part-time workers (persons who usually work less than 35 hours per week) were paid the federal minimum wage or less, compared with about 2 percent of full-time workers. (See table 1 and table 9.)

That alone proves that the data presented in the OP is cherry picked. Table 9 has the 0.6% for "at minimum wage at 40 hours", but they totally dismissed those below minimum wage and those at less than or more than 40 hours which make up 4.7% of the work force.

Does the minimum wage affect those that make less than minimum wage? According to the Department of Labor:

If an employee's tips combined with the employer's direct wages of at least $2.13 an hour do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference.

So the answer is yes.

This of course does nothing to include those making a little more than minimum wage. Working from the numbers I found here, I calculated the following:

$15,000(Annual income)/52(weeks)/40(hours) = $7.21/hr.
$17,500(Annual income)/52(weeks)/40(hours) = $8.41/hr.

(In thousands)
Total People with income 211,492
$1 to $2,499 or loss 12,686
$2,500 to $4,999 7,202
$5,000 to $7,499 9,645
$7,500 to $9,999 12,157
$10,000 to $12,499 13,115
$12,500 to $14,999 9,491
$15,000 to $17,499 11,452


People earning

I dunno if anyone posted this info yet but here is some basic info
on part time work, it does indeed appear that most retailers are
shifting from mostly full timers to mostly part timers, honestly i think
min wage is not gonna fix the problem at all, things that need fixed
are insane spending habits of our own government and the frivolity
that has become of our nation, the guys i used to work with who
were under a union actually wanted to strike and threw ungodly fits
because they took away their golf carts, you know they might actually
have to walk from the gate to their chair where they sit all night,
the 2 or 3 blocks they would walk, maybe even less, was just too
much for them.....

That is the attitude that's killing us, "I have a great job and wonderful
benefits, but that's just not enough, i want a golf cart right by my door
so i don't have to walk more than a few feet a day...." when did unions
stop being about fair treatment and start this self aggrandized, entitled
attitude, its that attitude that drives companies to leave and not even
try to fix the problems, when they see ludicrous demands like that
what else should they think.....

www.nytimes.com...

I know a lot of people who make minimum wage, and their managers go out of the way to make sure that they never get 40 hours a week - otherwise they are counted as full time. So I think that's the answer you are looking for.

Well, just because some make 'above' minimum, is that really a reason to give the system a gold star? or a happy face sticker? The bottom rung workers where I am make 'above' minimum wage too. BUT, only as a technicality. Minimum (here anyway) is 10.25$, where as our new guys come in at 10.30$. Is that really better? The problem with statistics is that they group it all together so that ANYONE that makes even a single cent above, technically doesn't make minimum wage now.

Originally posted by Ahabstar
You realize that the last large jump in minimum wage was in July 2008, nothing bad financially or economically happened that year going into 2009 and still continuing today did it?

Look at the price of consumer goods during that time frame. You can say it's a matter of course if those prices also rose, and you would be right. You can't raise the price of something, anything, without it having an impact elsewhere in the economic chain.

Raise minimum wage and the employer paying people that wage will raise their prices to consumers to help cover that cost. When consumers get hit, so does everything else. It has a ripple effect that's insidious and hard to prove. Or even see with the untrained eye.

Raise the minimum wage and not much will change. So Johnny made 7.35 and hour and now he makes 9.00. $1.65hr x 30hrs. (avg.) = a $39.50 raise per week. Before taxes. That, and you think his employer is going to take that hit to HIS pocketbook? Doubtful. He's gonna raise the price of whatever he's selling.

What I don't understand is how raising the minimum wage creates a barrier for workers to get into skilled trades. Would someone explain how that works? Seriously, I'm not making that connection.