The paradoxical meanness of the minimum wage...

[TheOtherHockeyMom]

Well, there was Michie's article. And then there's this:

Minimum wage hike hurts teenage workers

Then the Heritage Foundation had one. Then there was an article on the Boston Globe. I have seen many folks say that if they never had a chance, they simply would not have been able to succeed. Maybe as a teen, they waited tables or bussed tables, or washed dishes, or worked in the "mail room", or worked as a "go-fer" and now they are the manager of a restaurant or the head of a department. Besides, it's only common sense, if a business is forced to pay double or triple what they intended to pay for some teen without any skills *plus* provide expensive health plans for any unskilled entry-level worker, there are simply going to be less people the business can afford to hire.

Just said that I'm reading more and more articles that finally have realized this.

I think you may have missed the point of the question here. My interpretation is that she is looking for hard data indicating that in countries with no minimum wage laws the workers are doing well. I would think that one could look at countries without labor protection, where people work for minuscule amounts of money to collect this data. For instance, is a teen that works long hours in a factory overseas likely to get promoted to management? A child that sews soccer balls? What does the evidence say?

 

[KatherineS]

Pretty poorly reasoned articles from two right-wing organizations. I got news for you, no one is supporting themselves AND paying for their college at $5/hour as they suggest. Most minimum wages go to people who will never go to college.

I understand unskilled work will not compensate as well as skilled work. But no one has yet explained how a boss can take the brawn of a man's back and the sweat of his brow for 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year and not give him a basic, living wage. Even unskilled work has human dignity, or so our Church teaches us. That is why the Catholic Church supports the minimum wage.

 

[Fantine]

In talks about raising the minimum wage, there is never any talk about "doubling or tripling it," AMDG. To fear monger with the idea that everyone would get paid $22 an hour and prices would spike is completely inaccurate.

Instead, we're talking about things like indexing the minimum wage to inflation, which some states have already done.

But I ask you again, doesn't it bother you that your income taxes are subsidizing companies that underpay their employees (through earned income tax credit grants--or the negative income tax)?

SOMEONE is helping these workers enough to keep body and soul together--praise God. And that someone is you and me.

 

[MKJ]

Well, there was Michie's article. And then there's this:

Minimum wage hike hurts teenage workers

Then the Heritage Foundation had one. Then there was an article on the Boston Globe. I have seen many folks say that if they never had a chance, they simply would not have been able to succeed. Maybe as a teen, they waited tables or bussed tables, or washed dishes, or worked in the "mail room", or worked as a "go-fer" and now they are the manager of a restaurant or the head of a department. Besides, it's only common sense, if a business is forced to pay double or triple what they intended to pay for some teen without any skills *plus* provide expensive health plans for any unskilled entry-level worker, there are simply going to be less people the business can afford to hire.

Just said that I'm reading more and more articles that finally have realized this.

The Op article was almost incoherent. Teen workers do not an economy make. And they are not an example of an effective economy with few or no controls anyway.

Please, give me an example of such an economy, in a reasonably comparable modern context, which was also a just economy (and a sustainable one as well).

It is possible, by the way, to have minimum wage laws developed in such a way that they allow room for some jobs to pay teens or certain other kinds of worers like apprentices on a different scale.

 

[MKJ]

I think you may have missed the point of the question here. My interpretation is that she is looking for hard data indicating that in countries with no minimum wage laws the workers are doing well. I would think that one could look at countries without labor protection, where people work for minuscule amounts of money to collect this data. For instance, is a teen that works long hours in a factory overseas likely to get promoted to management? A child that sews soccer balls? What does the evidence say?

Yes.

I would like to see an example of such an economy where the poorer workers, as a group, still do well enough to live dignified lives, where the capital-owners are not enriching themselves by stealing the fair wages of their workers, where the government does not have to support the workers being paid something less than a minimum wage, where the workers have some level of power and control over their lives and work.

The wage gap has, I believe, generally been seen as one measure of such things.

 

[AMDG]

I think you may have missed the point of the question here. My interpretation is that she is looking for hard data indicating that in countries with no minimum wage laws the workers are doing well. I would think that one could look at countries without labor protection, where people work for minuscule amounts of money to collect this data. For instance, is a teen that works long hours in a factory overseas likely to get promoted to management? A child that sews soccer balls? What does the evidence say?

Like I said, it's just starting--folks are starting to realize how damaging just raising the minimimum wage is. How it actually hurts folks who need to get into employment market and learn a trade. but can't now. How it can easily mean that folks who cannot produce the set wage can be thought to be "not worth it" and simply fired because of it.

We are finally talking about how *not* having a minimum wage in the past has allowed folks to join the work place and gain skills that they could later use for better jobs. How before lawmakers arbitrarily decided on a "minimum" (not realizing that businesses have budgets and it means less people working) not having that minimum wage was like the apprenticeship period of "trade unions" where folks learned their trade.

We are not talking about sweatshops or how labor unions supposedly (cough-cough) are the valiant "white knight" to help the poor. (Interesting choice of words I used, since at least here unions were founded so there *could* be descrimination.)

Like I said, it's just starting and I figure that as we go forward, there will be more and more "hard evidence" that you seem to want.

 

[Fantine]

If *we the taxpayers* subsidize stingy companies for paying the minimum wage to their employees (through bringing their employees' income up to scale through the Earned Income Tax Credit) then imagine how much more it would cost if *we the taxpayers* had to subsidize even *stingier* companies who were paying less than the current minimum wage?

To use a term that conservatives love to use disparagingly, whenever *we the taxpayers* are required to bring an underpaid employee's wages up to snuff with the EITC we are providing corporate *welfare.*

At least we know there's *one* kind of welfare you approve of, AMDG.

 

[Maynard Keenan]

If *we the taxpayers* subsidize stingy companies for paying the minimum wage to their employees (through bringing their employees' income up to scale through the Earned Income Tax Credit) then imagine how much more it would cost if *we the taxpayers* had to subsidize even *stingier* companies who were paying less than the current minimum wage?

To use a term that conservatives love to use disparagingly, whenever *we the taxpayers* are required to bring an underpaid employee's wages up to snuff with the EITC we are providing corporate *welfare.*

At least we know there's *one* kind of welfare you approve of, AMDG.

These conservatives would most likely want to cut the minimum wage AND stop providing things like the EITC. We could have full employment, and since everyone's working we could get rid of all safety net programs. Go work your $4 an hour job and bring home $10,000 for the year if you work 50 hours every single week. You'll get by - not my problem, you're working.

 

[AMDG]

Um--and how do we know what business to subsidize? Any that happen to not be hiring because of the economy? Anyone who has recently had to turn down a teenager or someone just out of school or an unskilled person or someone from a military family who has to depend on these kinds of jobs (since they are forever moving and need these low skilled jobs).

Hmm--how come the only thing some of you understand is "subsidizing" when your plans for what works doesn't? How about allowing some freedom? That's what has actually worked in the U.S. That's what the U.S. was built on. Opportunity and freedom. The people that didn't like that didn't immigrate to the U.S. So no one is stopping them from their broken economies. What? They broke theirs and now want to break ours? Is that it?

 

[MKJ]

Um--and how do we know what business to subsidize? Any that happen to not be hiring because of the economy? Anyone who has recently had to turn down a teenager or someone just out of school or an unskilled person or someone from a military family who has to depend on these kinds of jobs (since they are forever moving and need these low skilled jobs).

Hmm--how come the only thing some of you understand is "subsidizing" when your plans for what works doesn't? How about allowing some freedom? That's what has actually worked in the U.S. That's what the U.S. was built on. Opportunity and freedom. The people that didn't like that didn't immigrate to the U.S. So no one is stopping them from their broken economies. What? They broke theirs and now want to break ours? Is that it?

I think you have missed the point again - the posters here were not actually advocating subsidizing anyone.

They are pointing out that right now, the American public is subsidizing the wages of low earners - Walmart employees, for example. Not by giving money to Walmart directly. But these workers are earning so little working full time that they are eligible for various government programs lie free medical care, food stamps, and so on.

What is happening is that Walmart is avoiding paying a living wage, so their private investors can make more profit. Then the extra money that the employees need to live a decent life comes out of the public pocket.

Private profit, socialized costs and risk - great for corporations.


they are saying that if the take-home pay of these workers is even further reduced, they are going to have even more need for public assistance to get by. maybe more people will have jobs that do not pay for the cost of living (though we do not know that, the company may instead keep the same number of jobs and ban the profit).

 

[MKJ]

Like I said, it's just starting--folks are starting to realize how damaging just raising the minimimum wage is. How it actually hurts folks who need to get into employment market and learn a trade. but can't now. How it can easily mean that folks who cannot produce the set wage can be thought to be "not worth it" and simply fired because of it.

We are finally talking about how *not* having a minimum wage in the past has allowed folks to join the work place and gain skills that they could later use for better jobs. How before lawmakers arbitrarily decided on a "minimum" (not realizing that businesses have budgets and it means less people working) not having that minimum wage was like the apprenticeship period of "trade unions" where folks learned their trade.

We are not talking about sweatshops or how labor unions supposedly (cough-cough) are the valiant "white knight" to help the poor. (Interesting choice of words I used, since at least here unions were founded so there *could* be descrimination.)

Like I said, it's just starting and I figure that as we go forward, there will be more and more "hard evidence" that you seem to want.

Are you saying that you actually have no evidence that your theory on minimum wage is true.

There have been historical periods without such things, or similar controls that have similar effects. Maybe you should find out how well did people do under those types of arrangements.

 

[KatherineS]

Like I said, it's just starting--folks are starting to realize how damaging just raising the minimimum wage is. How it actually hurts folks who need to get into employment market and learn a trade.

Nah. The Right-Wing and Big Business have been against the minimum wage for a long time, fighting it tooth and nail. Nothing new there. And contrary to your assertion that unskilled workers think the minimum wage should be lower, you woudl be hard pressed finding many who say that. They are the strongest supporters of a higher minimum wage.