Minimum Wage - who was right

[GodLovesCats]

I thought unemployment was at an all-time record low.

How many jobs actually pay LIVING wage? How many employees work FULL time at PERMANENT jobs? If you think just the total unemployment rate matters, your head is in the sand.

 

[Speedwell]

How many jobs actually pay LIVING wage? How many employees work FULL time at PERMANENT jobs? If you think just the total unemployment rate matters, your head is in the sand.

I am well aware of that. I'm just trying to draw M&M out a little by asking him some leading questions. He's evidently in a jam, but he's not going to get out of it by blaming China.

 

[GodLovesCats]

These workers should be happy just to have a job. Our Great Leader works for free; these people could learn a thing or two about making America Great and not taking a paycheck.

No they shouldn't. People who are forced to accept temporary jobs, part time jobs, bad jobs, varied hours jobs, two jobs at the same time . . . so they still don't have enough money without high minimum wages.

 

[Aryeh Jay]

No they shouldn't. People who are forced to accept temporary jobs, part time jobs, bad jobs, varied hours jobs, two jobs at the same time . . . so they still don't have enough money without high minimum wages.

President Trump shows us the way to better ourselves and the country and that is to work for nothing.

 

[iluvatar5150]

I rarely look at the media because I know it is bull, but here's evidence the guy on the door didn't make all that stuff up:

Congress should prioritize raising the minimum wage

(Cross-posted from The Hill)

As Congress heads back into session, one of the first orders of business should be to raise the minimum wage. Raising the minimum wage strengthens workers' purchasing power and, in turn, provides a boost to the overall economy. Raising the minimum wage would also help close the racial wealth gap, which is at historic levels.

The current federal minimum is lower in real value than in 1956. Contrary to many conservative claims, roughly half of all minimum wage workers are adults. At this wage level, people working full-time cannot afford to feed their families. A full-time minimum wage worker makes $15,080, $4,000 below the federal poverty line for a family of three.

BLAH BLAH BLAH

Why America Needs a $15 Minimum Wage
Fact Sheet • February 5, 2019

The federal minimum wage is just $7.25 and has not increased since 2009. The Raise the Wage Act of 2019 would gradually raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024. Here is how it would work:
This fact sheet was produced in collaboration with the National Employment Law Project.

• Raise the federal minimum wage to $8.55 this year and increase it over the next five years until it reaches $15 an hour in 2024.
• After 2024, adjust the minimum wage each year to keep pace with growth in the typical worker’s wages

ETC ETC ETC

So we did it and now half of us are out of work.

I just tried to find news articles about Walmart in Rio Rancho laying people off, but couldn't find anything. Then I went and re-read your other post on this subject. You didn't say you got laid off - you said you quit because Walmart was chronically understaffed and the pay was messing with your Medicaid. Now, those are obviously problems, but they're rather different problems than what you've described.

Walmart has always been understaffed and always jerked people around on their schedules. I worked there in 2001 and it wasn't too bad then, but it was lean and the schedules were janky. I've known plenty of people who've worked in that same store since (including over the past 2 years) and it's only gotten worse. That's irrespective of anything that's happened with the minimum wage. That's just how they do things.

Regarding your Medicaid - even at the earlier pay rate of $9/hr, you'd have been over the limit for Medicaid if you were working full-time.

IOW, you didn't lose your job because the minimum wage went up. You quit your job because Walmart is a lousy employer and because the Medicaid eligibility is too stingy.

 

[Innsmuthbride]

So, what is the answer to unemployment? no minimum wage? A race to the bottom wages for all but managers & tech people?

 

[GodLovesCats]

President Trump shows us the way to better ourselves and the country and that is to work for nothing.

Working for nothing is against the law, obviously, because there is a minimum wage. Making ourselves better is not about what Trump does, but what we do.

 

[Sparagmos]

At work in retailing, a very successful retailer, a lot of pressure was applied by the public to raise the base pay.

It was raised to 10.00 per hour in 2017 and again to 11.00 per hour in 2018 and now half of us are out of work.

Half of who? Unemployment is at record lows. Where I live the min wage was raised to 12.50 and there are plenty of jobs, especially min wage jobs.

 

[Aryeh Jay]

Half of who? Unemployment is at record lows. Where I live the min wage was raised to 12.50 and there are plenty of jobs, especially min wage jobs.

It would appear you do not live in the same world that is collapsing in on itself because of a couple of dollars and hour raise…

 

[Nithavela]

I thought unemployment was at an all-time record low.

Thanks to Trump we all have a job and thanks to the democrats we're all unemployed.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

I did the math once and if you take the minimum wage at the rate when it introduced taking into account the legislative increases and increase it each year by just the average cost of living over time which is right around 3% the minimum wage should be about $12 an hour right now.

The current federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009.

 

[Aryeh Jay]

I did the math once and if you take the minimum wage at the rate when it introduced taking into account the legislative increases and increase it each year by just the average cost of living over time which is right around 3% the minimum wage should be about $12 an hour right now.

The current federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009.

2009? Obama wants us to be poor.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

2009? Obama wants us to be poor.

Obama wasn't a progressive.

 

[Aryeh Jay]

Obama wasn't a progressive.

Obama was a foreign born Commie Socialist who destroyed America’s credibility and alienated all our important allies. President Trump said so and has the proof.

It is all part of the agenda.

 

[MorkandMindy]

I am well aware of that. I'm just trying to draw M&M out a little by asking him some leading questions. He's evidently in a jam, but he's not going to get out of it by blaming China.

The point I made was we don't have a closed economy, and pumping money into our economy will not in itself fix it nor will rising consumer confidence.

 

[MorkandMindy]

...
Regarding your Medicaid - even at the earlier pay rate of $9/hr, you'd have been over the limit for Medicaid if you were working full-time.

IOW, you didn't lose your job because the minimum wage went up. You quit your job because Walmart is a lousy employer and because the Medicaid eligibility is too stingy.

In 2017 I averaged 34 hours per week and after taxes I came in just under the limit for Medicaid.

In 2018 I had an agreement with the store that I would work only the busiest days of the week, Friday Saturday and Sunday, and that would keep my hours down to 24, and I retained my Medicaid and later Medicaid sent me a letter stating I had been approved for the all of 2019 through to October.

But then my manager reneged on the agreement and kept giving me more days and too many hours and pretty well everyone else in the department much shorter hours.

Like most things in my life this made no sense, there were employees better at their jobs and faster needing more hours and getting 25 while I was getting 33.

Repeated requests seemed to have the reverse effect, then Medicaid wrote to me cancelling my cover. I looked at my schedule for the next few weeks and all were 34 hours a week so knowing there was no way I would get my pay under the threshold for Medicaid I resigned.

After that things got complicated.

The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent - Maynard Keynes

 

[iluvatar5150]

In 2017 I averaged 34 hours per week and after taxes I came in just under the limit for Medicaid.

In 2018 I had an agreement with the store that I would work only the busiest days of the week, Friday Saturday and Sunday, and that would keep my hours down to 24, and I retained my Medicaid and later Medicaid sent me a letter stating I had been approved for the all of 2019 through to October.

But then my manager reneged on the agreement and kept giving me more days and too many hours and pretty well everyone else in the department much shorter hours.

Like most things in my life this made no sense, there were employees better at their jobs and faster needing more hours and getting 25 while I was getting 33.

Repeated requests seemed to have the reverse effect, then Medicaid wrote to me cancelling my cover. I looked at my schedule for the next few weeks and all were 34 hours a week so knowing there was no way I would get my pay under the threshold for Medicaid I resigned.

After that things got complicated.

Thank you for the information, but it just undermines your argument even further. None of that is the fault of a minimum wage hike - it’s entirely the fault of Walmart and their incompetent back office, which I and others I’ve known have had to deal with as well. They could’ve screwed up your hours back when you were making $9/hr and tanked your Medicaid eligibility. Sure, a higher pay rate made it easier for them to screw up, but it wasn’t inevitable that they would screw it up, and they were going to raise those wages regardless of what your state mandated.

 

[MorkandMindy]

Well it's both.

In my individual case the company was not willing to correct for the problems the higher base pay was giving me, after all, it isn't really their problem, if the public demands a higher minimum wage then the public is going to have to live with it.

And if I recall it was known that 11 dollars an hour was the point at which automation would be brought in to replace a lot of the jobs, so they know what the result was going to be.

As for 15 dollar an hour minimum wage, I doubt if they do know what the consequences will be.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

As for 15 dollar an hour minimum wage, I doubt if they do know what the consequences will be.

Seattle has a $15 minimum wage. Their job market is doing pretty great, last I heard.

California has a state-wide $13 minimum (ramping up to $15 in 2022), and it's higher in certain cities (LA is currently $14.25). I don't see automation taking over here any more than I did when I lived in Kansas ($7.25 minimum).

 

[MorkandMindy]

The point at which automation becomes economically viable will include a ratio of technician to unskilled labor rates.

So if twenty technicians are needed to keep the automation running which replaces 200 manual workers then that's viable if the techs are paid enough less than the ten workers each replaces and the cost of the automation equipment.