OT - minimum wage

jimg.allentown

Well-known Member
Did not want to hijack SPOOK's post below so I started a new thread.
Regarding minimum wage, it is not and never will be a "living wage" no matter how high they push it. There are too many side effects from raising the minimum wage too high. Businesses will simply pass along the higher cost of labor. This will raise prices for everybody. At the same time, it will effectively lower the wages of the skilled trades.
As the wage "floor" rises, it will raise prices as well. Simple economics 101. Supply versus demand. As people have seemingly more money, it will create higher demand for consumer goods. This will cause prices to rise as demand rises. This will raise the overall cost of living, and will trigger demands for even more money from the working people.
My humble opinion is that these over inflated minimum wages will only cause prices to increase, and the result will be to break even in terms of income versus buying power. Where it will hurt is a phenomenon called tax inflation. As income rises, tax rates also rise resulting in a net loss of buying power.
My opinion is that minimum wages should rise at no more than the rate of inflation. Let us recall that minimum wage is generally an entry level wage. Not intended to support a family or make large purchases. Just a starting point for entry level workers.
 
They raised the minimum wage in seattle to 15.00 first year 36 business closed a business is not required to lose money 😁
 
Ofcourse, just for the sake of discussion, we will never know if the businesses closed because they ceased to make a profit for the business owner or ceased to make enough of a profit for the owner. There is some difference. I'm long past worrying about minimum wage, only worked 6 months at minimum wage of $1.65 an hour til the owner deemed me worthy of a greater rate. Gotta produce more than you earn to become a valued employee. old man rantings gobble
 
Far too many don't understand what was said here. Nor do they understand that the 'wage' isn't the total cost of the employee. Add in training costs, loss due to sickness or goofing off on the job, and any other variety of expenses, and an employee easily costs far more than the wage being paid.
 
I find it interesting how big-city living has forced increases in minimum wage, and therefore also increased prices on other goods. In some cities, you're living in a slum if you spend less than $200k annually on housing. Certainly cannot afford to live in more than a cardboard box with those rates! So people started moving outside city limits and commuting to work. So now land and housing is more expensive there with the new-found money. So then folks move to the next town and commute. ...Seems to be an endless cycle.

Nothing has changed out here in the last few decades, yet land prices keep going up. Why? Cause more out-of-the-area folks are buying up what land they can find and paying inflated prices, yet think they're getting a bargain. Kinda hard to keep track of all the changes.
 
Well said, jmg.

Minimum wage is a shell game used by politicians to buy votes, paid for by consumers. It is counterproductive for workers.

Dean
 
When the contractor billed the customer for time and material extras, the labor rate was basically twice the employee hourly rate. Covered fringe benefits,health ins, retirement, workmans comp, unemployment ins. and of course company profit. So yes that "minimum wage" likely costs the employer nearly twice that. gobble
 
For those of us that are self employed, a rise in the minimum wage, makes everything we do ourselves, without hiring employees, more valuable. For example, if I can run my farm, and milk 60 cows with no workers I am making more money for my time and investment than someone who mills 100 cows, but has to have a hired man. People in business will find ways to get their jobs done with fewer or no employees.
 
A recent study of the effect of the $15 minimum wage in Seattle came to the conclusion that it ended up making the average minimum wage worker $125 per month worse off than (s)he was before, due to cutbacks in hours, layoffs, etc. Some other repercussions, such as Jack in the Box is now requiring all new stores and remodels to eliminate the front counter and replace it with a kiosk for ordering, thereby eliminating the order-takers jobs. The march toward automation continues.

The Seattle City Council has never received any awards for foresight.
 
Yup,that's why we have a robot. Two guys told me the same day they were leaving. Full time and a part timer. Always seemed like a revolving door. I can't blame a one of them though,spending my life milking someone else's cows with 4 regular days off a month doesn't appeal to me either. All great young fellas but with cows you either can't imagine a life without them or you dread the sight of them in the morning.
 
That's what I try to explain to my wife when I'm working on an old piece of equipment or tractor that breaks down.I tell her when I was baling hay I was probably doing a $10 hr job now that
I'm doing mechanic work I'm doing a $100 hr job as that's what they charge at the dealerships(LOL)
 
There is also a seldom unmentioned (except by me) circumstance that makes this even worse. The last president signed something about an overtime law. All this did was make businesses cut hours back so you could not make as much as you used to. My wife got hurt by this . Same thing happened with health care law IIRC ? peoples hours got cut to less than 32 per week making them all part time employees.
Lots of bad side effects to these so called "laws"
 
And That Is A Fact!
I have found it is easier to train a horse or dog than some new employees! So many of the first day on a job new employees that have never seen or done the job before think they know more than the trainer.
 
People are too narrow minded today to see the overall picture. They think they can just legislate a problem away. If the people in this country would commit themselves to produce as much as they can in what ever line of work they do they would make a living. If their employer didn't share the profits there would be lots of other employers needing help. If you ask an American worker what they are making they are likely to say eight hours.
 
If you think about it what law or program has government every created to fix a problem that didn't create a problem somewhere else. Yet there are many people in this country that think government is the fix for everything. Minimum wage is no exception.
 
I have to disagree with not making a living on minimum wage. Yes no big purchases, but a living come on. It is your way of thinking that makes so much welfare. Anybody that works a 8-10 hour day should be able to make a living, I'm not talking children at home. There are way to many people that think "because you have no education your worth less" That does not work in todays world. All assembly line on the floor work that I have done, they seem to think minimum wage is all your worth. 80% of all jobs are classed as entry level, so with your way of thinking 80% of people should not be able to make a living. No wonder welfare looks so good. I don't care if you flip burgers all day long ,but you better be able to make a living on it. If the CEO would quit wanting to make a killing on workers we wouldnt have all the illegals coming in. They have most of the entry level jobs you seem to think should not be able to make a living on. They live like rats with 5 families in 1 house just so they can make a living and that is what drives down the wages. Because big corporations can higher people with out them being able to make a living it keeps the home born people from seeking jobs ,even in entry level. No one born in America wants to live like Rats, and they shouldn't have to. But 800 sq ft house and an old vehicle should be capable on minimum wage.
 
Up here in Alberta, I think the minimum wage just went up to maybe $13.50 per hour. Keep in mind those are Canadian dollars ..... and an 1100 square foot bungalow in a residential area here costs maybe $350,000 to $400,000 which of course is ridiculous (the house price I'm referring to). I don't envy nor pass judgement on anyone living on a minimum wage (or trying to). I don't mind some of my tax dollars helping the less fortunate or providing health care for them. I guess that makes me one of the hated lefties that are often flamed here on the YT site. Getting back to the minimum wage though, I suspect that if there was no such thing, those people that are getting $13.50 today would likely be getting something closer to half of that. Why would a business whose purpose is to make profits for themselves or their shareholders pay twice as much for labor than they have to? Out of the goodness of their heart? Ha, I don't think so. The fact that so much North American manufacturing moved to Asia and other places is proof of that, they didn't move to improve conditions in those offshore countries.
 
most of the problem is they no longer teach money management in school, ive seen young people and family members who just cant sit and think about what they can have and not have with any given amount of money in their pocket, family farmers seem to know how to do this well some years they do well some not, but they raise a big garden, they can a lot of it to eat thry the winter, they raise some stock for their own consumption, that helps, a lot, most youngsters want a tv that takes a whole wall to hang and all the electronic toys, i still read books for leisure time more cost effective, ive never seen the need to own video games when i could go see the real thing, and youngsters tie up staggering amounts of money in those things and then demand more money so they can buy even more while working at a unskilled entry even job, i give then the nod, as they are working, but they need to put surviving above playing,they dont understand that the grey haired neighbor with all the cool stuff, it took him 50 years to get it, they want it all in 2
 
Slopping hamburgers is a low paying job period. If you don't like it, go and get an education, a trade, something that you can market and then go for the big bucks. I have a problem trying to hire high school kids to do odd jobs around the place, and teach them something in the process, because of the minimum wage law. As a result they sit at home and play with their phone, and get fat from no exercise, and my jobs don't get accomplished. Aren't any square balers here any more for that reason. Just rollers. Everybody looses.
 
(quoted from post at 11:26:11 01/12/18) I have to disagree with not making a living on minimum wage. Yes no big purchases, but a living come on. It is your way of thinking that makes so much welfare. Anybody that works a 8-10 hour day should be able to make a living, I'm not talking children at home. There are way to many people that think "because you have no education your worth less" That does not work in todays world. All assembly line on the floor work that I have done, they seem to think minimum wage is all your worth. 80% of all jobs are classed as entry level, so with your way of thinking 80% of people should not be able to make a living. No wonder welfare looks so good. I don't care if you flip burgers all day long ,but you better be able to make a living on it. If the CEO would quit wanting to make a killing on workers we wouldnt have all the illegals coming in. They have most of the entry level jobs you seem to think should not be able to make a living on. They live like rats with 5 families in 1 house just so they can make a living and that is what drives down the wages. Because big corporations can higher people with out them being able to make a living it keeps the home born people from seeking jobs ,even in entry level. No one born in America wants to live like Rats, and they shouldn't have to. But 800 sq ft house and an old vehicle should be capable on minimum wage.

Define a "living wage"! I just looked at one chart that says in NYS (not NYC) that works out to about $32K NET (not gross) a year for a single person. That's north of $32@ hour. Is a Walmart cart pusher or Mickey Dees burger flipper worth $32@ hour?

As far as living on min wage alone, it can be horribly tough, that I can agree on. But around here living on min wage puts you below the level where all sorts of public assistance is available. I see these people in the line ahead of me in the grocery store, paying for their groceries with an EBT benefit card while texting on their $800.00 smart phone. Think about that! My groceries are getting paid for out of my bank account and my pocket holds a $17.00 Tracfone flip phone. I'm sorry, but part of living on a low wage is setting priorities and $800.00 phones (or beer and smokes and new tats) aren't priorities. There should be some realism in play if you're living on nothing.
 
OK guys, business 101, a business has to make a certain profit margin to stay profitable. Net about 5%. And this is where you have to watch the news media. They love to report gross profit but seldom report net. Few years back they reported one company at some 750 million profit and yet net was only about 7.5 million.

Now also look at every time minimum wage has gone up. If they pass a 10% hike then inflation will quickly rise by at least 10%. Because the companies have to maintain about a 5% margin and remain profitable. It gets to be less than 5% and the bottom drops out? Then they fail.

Rick
 
Well here is my thoughts. I live in an area where there is not a lot of factory or higher paying jobs. The average is on the lower side. Minimum wage was stagnate at the lower end, and people got sick of it. Voted in one of these new minimum wage. It will look good of the crack of the bat but I got my doubts down the road. Guess what I am saying is one extreme follows another.
 
(quoted from post at 12:52:09 01/12/18) A yearly income of 32000 would be 16 dollars per hr for 50 weeks no vacation pay.


The chart I looked at gave that as the net pay required, not the gross. For the gross, you're right. But it's the net that matters.

ETA- looked at another chart that gives it as something closer to $22 and change. Either way, is a cart pusher worth $22@ hour? Is he worth 15@hour? I know motor equipment operators that don't make $15 an hour net and they have skills and seniority.

For that matter, if $11 or $15 or whatever isn't enough, then what is? Should min wage be $20@hour? $40? $100? If it's as simple as "Pay them more and let the business deal with the cost." then why not $100 @hour?
 
(quoted from post at 12:52:09 01/12/18) A yearly income of 32000 would be 16 dollars per hr for 50 weeks no vacation pay.

Okay figured it out, the fine print on the site I looked at gives the cost to the EMPLOYER of having a $32K a year base wage. So as I suspected, the net is going to be closer to that $16@hour figure for the employee, but north of 32 for the employer.
 
(quoted from post at 13:32:17 01/12/18)
(quoted from post at 12:52:09 01/12/18) A yearly income of 32000 would be 16 dollars per hr for 50 weeks no vacation pay.

Okay figured it out, the fine print on the site I looked at gives the cost to the EMPLOYER of having a $32K a year base wage. So as I suspected, the net is going to be closer to that $16@hour figure for the employee, but north of 32 for the employer.

And I screwed the wordin on that up too. Nevermnd, I give up. e
 
I always like how when they cry to "raise the minimum wage" I never EVER hear cries to keep fica, medicare , medicade,federal , state, local and school district TAXES from being taken out ! If I had all that back I'd be doing a lot better !
 
I see Mc Donalds has already figured out a way to cut down on California's stupid minimum wage hike. You go in the front door, swipe your card at a kiosk - punch in your order, then one of the 2 people behind the counter hollers your number and you pick up your grub. Cut out 3 or 4 people at the counter, no counting money at night, can use a minimum wage person to punch a couple of buttons to send the daily report to corperate. More and more will be doing this. Wanna thank the bozos in California for cutting jobs in Iowa, ya go ahead thank them!!! They can't figure out how keep the state finances in the black how would you expect them to run a business???
 
(quoted from post at 21:12:49 01/12/18) Ok, first of all margin, prophet, and net are the same thing.

Yup. I guess the problem is that everyone wants more money, we'd like our relatives and friends and neighbors to make more and have a higher standard of living. The problem comes down to the mechanics of engineering that increase. You can up the min wage to $100.00 an hour, but someone has to pay for that wage. It's pretty simple really. Where the problem comes in is with people either refusing to accept that someone has to pay for the increase in wages (the consumer or taxpayer) or the belief a company can just absorb the costs and remain in business. Nothing comes for free.
 

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Back
Top