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The President really does want to act on this stuff, but who are we kidding? He can't even declare a snow day without being accused of Communism.
Hate to burst your bubble, but Obama is as much of a taker as any other politician.
One reason to avoid the hourly pay and pay on salary instead. OF course, some of those on salary probably get less then minimum wage when you consider the hours worked vs. pay.
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Hate to burst your bubble, but Obama is as much of a taker as any other politician.
That's every politician who isn't independently wealthy (Thanks, Supreme Court!). At least in Obama's case, there is no "next campaign."
He can't even declare a snow day without being accused of Communism.
It's Communist snow. :P
One reason to avoid the hourly pay and pay on salary instead. OF course, some of those on salary probably get less then minimum wage when you consider the hours worked vs. pay.
Actually, that's been tried and found wanting. One generally loses too much flexibility and therefore money paying for hours that people aren't working, because you can't simply send people home when it turns out to be a slow day at the office.
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$54.40 and a Union or Fight!!!
Vive le Galt!
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A lot of the time it doesn't really matter what Congress does. Obama already raised the minimum wage for all the federal workers he had the authority to and many Dem controlled states and inidividual cities have followed suit.
Granted, this is creating a clear salary divide between Democrat and Republican areas (GOP Oklahoma just passed a law BANNING minimum wage increases), but frankly I'm all for that. If you look at maps of the U.S. by health, education, economic opportunity, crime, et cetera there is a clear and growing divide between GOP controlled areas sinking into barbarism and Democrat controlled areas starting to join the rest of the civilized world. The more the damage of GOP policies can be limited to people voting for GOP candidates the better IMO. Rather than having Roberts declare the Medicare expansion optional per state the Dems should have just made the entire Affordable Care Act 'opt in' from the start. Then Republicans could have rejected it and had nothing to complain about.
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He can't even declare a snow day without being accused of Communism.It's Communist snow. :P
{in best Soviet Ygritte accent:} You know nothing, Communist Snow!
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Hes the president!. Stop making excuses for him. Minimum wage/war on women. History as of right now will show he's not up for the job. His polling numbers are awful. First quarter growth for this year was awful, he looks lost on international politics (why is he bowing to China!!). Most democrats campaigning dont want to be seen with/near him. People have been waiting with baited breath for Hillary/Warren to declare. The rose has lost its bloom. You democrats who will never eva vote for a democrat should have demanded a primary challenger to unseat him.
As for things being all great in the democratic state think again. Chicago is a mess! Anyone taken a look at the governor of Massachusetts and the scandals. Taxes/fees are skyrocketing. Cost of living in New york is out of sight. You may make more but you will be living in a closet.
The only reason the 10.10 has any life as there are no jobs. People over 55 who get laid off wont get rehired so those at Home depot/Mcdonalds/Walmart are the only jobs they can get and they realize its not enough. Has anyone been to a home depot/supermarket lately. Home depot in Massachusetts 90% of lanes are automated. I cant find a person to help me in a walmart and its not long before more and more jobs get automated. Where are the jobs coming from next. All this vote was a hope that Reid can get the base fired up
Where are the protests!! Wheres the Occupy movement! Wallstreet is doing better than ever and its mostly because of your president.
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I'm not sure the minimum wage increase would help or hurt more. For people in my situation (unemployed student) it makes it less likely that an employer can afford a new employee, meaning fewer job openings. For those in full-time minimum-wage jobs, I'm sure a pay increase is great.
Personally, I don't know many people working full-time at minimum wage. Many employers hire several part-time employees for one position to avoid paying out benefits. Perhaps a wage increase helps them, too.
As for the Affordable Care Act, it could not survive as optional; the whole point of making it mandatory to buy insurance was that the plan could not be paid for otherwise. Not that the cost hasn't rocketed beyond projections, but what government program hasn't?
The President really does want to act on this stuff, but who are we kidding? He can't even declare a snow day without being accused of Communism.Hate to burst your bubble, but Obama is as much of a taker as any other politician.Hate to burst your bubble, but I support Obama as a human trying to do a d****d difficult job, not some kind of Easter Bunny who will save us with his superpowers.
It's not as if I was given any real freedom of choice about who would be President of the United States - or any other position above the county level. I'm only ever offered two options, both of them pretty solidly owned by the plutocrats.
I understand and agree with your second paragraph, but why would that lead to the first? Why should you encourage or support a corrupt politician, just because they're all corrupt?
And I must say, damn, your minimum wages are low. Even in my country, $7.25 is lower than what kids are paid for summer jobs. I've been at the crap end of wages my whole life, and rarely had lower than $14. And my jobs have pretty much been cleaning ditches, handing out newspapers and scrubbing floors. Granted we have slightly higher wages, but they hardly affect me with my low income.
Time to use presidential authority to push through a fourty five dollar wage increase...
I didn't know Australia had a President! Of course I haven't read the article but I assume you would be talking about your own country.
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Hes the president!. Stop making excuses for him. Minimum wage/war on women. History as of right now will show he's not up for the job. His polling numbers are awful. First quarter growth for this year was awful, he looks lost on international politics (why is he bowing to China!!). Most democrats campaigning dont want to be seen with/near him. People have been waiting with baited breath for Hillary/Warren to declare. The rose has lost its bloom. You democrats who will never eva vote for a democrat should have demanded a primary challenger to unseat him.
As for things being all great in the democratic state think again. Chicago is a mess! Anyone taken a look at the governor of Massachusetts and the scandals. Taxes/fees are skyrocketing. Cost of living in New york is out of sight. You may make more but you will be living in a closet.
The only reason the 10.10 has any life as there are no jobs. People over 55 who get laid off wont get rehired so those at Home depot/Mcdonalds/Walmart are the only jobs they can get and they realize its not enough. Has anyone been to a home depot/supermarket lately. Home depot in Massachusetts 90% of lanes are automated. I cant find a person to help me in a walmart and its not long before more and more jobs get automated. Where are the jobs coming from next. All this vote was a hope that Reid can get the base fired up
Where are the protests!! Wheres the Occupy movement! Wallstreet is doing better than ever and its mostly because of your president.
Hi Welcome
I cant find a person to help me in a walmart and its not long before more and more jobs get automated.
To be fair, I tried once in 2003 to get help in Wal Mart, for what it was worth.
One reason to avoid the hourly pay and pay on salary instead. OF course, some of those on salary probably get less then minimum wage when you consider the hours worked vs. pay.Actually, that's been tried and found wanting. One generally loses too much flexibility and therefore money paying for hours that people aren't working, because you can't simply send people home when it turns out to be a slow day at the office.
I've never had a day (at least when I visit an office which I own or am over) where there's nothing to do. There may be slow days, but there's ALWAYS something for them to do. (Even if it's to browse the internet and learn something in hopes that they can be inspired...or maybe it's a day for a company picnic...I'm certain SOMETHING can be found...or maybe it's just time for training...or an extra LOOOOONG meeting).
Also, if there's a crunch time, having salaried personnel REALLY is a boon in relation to how many hours many work.
Plus, depending on the type of hourly employee, if they are counted on the books as full time, you HAVE to get them 40 hours regardless.
If they could be relegated to part time anyways, I don't think they normally would be salaried anyways. Maybe contracted for a set fee, but normally not salaried.
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And I must say, damn, your minimum wages are low. Even in my country, $7.25 is lower than what kids are paid for summer jobs. I've been at the crap end of wages my whole life, and rarely had lower than $14. And my jobs have pretty much been cleaning ditches, handing out newspapers and scrubbing floors. Granted we have slightly higher wages, but they hardly affect me with my low income.What country do you live in?
Sweden. We don't have a legal minimum wage but rather union contracts instead, and have historically had quite strong union rights compared to the US. I guess that's the difference. Though that's mostly gone now.
After I posted I realized though that when I handed out papers my wage was $12.74, and because I didn't get paid vacation I got "vacation compensation" of $1.6. But that's the only time my wage's been lower than $14, barring the odd jobs as a kid and stuff like jumping in as a bartender on a party for a bottle of rum and $50 for a night.
One reason to avoid the hourly pay and pay on salary instead. OF course, some of those on salary probably get less then minimum wage when you consider the hours worked vs. pay.
Yea, when you have a "salary" of $22k a year, you're prolly gettin f'd in the a.
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To be fair, I tried once in 2003 to get help in Wal Mart, for what it was worth.I cant find a person to help me in a walmart and its not long before more and more jobs get automated.
Are you still there?
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Seattle to push through fifteen dollar pay.
Huzzah!
ULTRALEFT EDIT: Boo!
Forward, comrades, to international proletarian socialist revolution!
Where are the protests!! Wheres the Occupy movement! Wallstreet is doing better than ever and its mostly because of your president.
Are you still there?To be fair, I tried once in 2003 to get help in Wal Mart, for what it was worth.I cant find a person to help me in a walmart and its not long before more and more jobs get automated.
How often would Spanky have to save vs SAN damage/drain?
Are you still there?To be fair, I tried once in 2003 to get help in Wal Mart, for what it was worth.I cant find a person to help me in a walmart and its not long before more and more jobs get automated.
~LAUGHTER~
Sadly, IMHO and through experience, every time the minium wage has gone up, ALL prices will go up within 6 months.
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WARNING: SEVERAL GROSS OVERSIMPLIFICATIONS AHEAD. I realize that I'm about to really streamline this argument, but I'm doing it so you don't have to read a textbook. Bear with me. (and if you want to read up on economics, there's plenty of data on Wikipedia)
Okay. So.
The argument of "when you pay people more, prices will go up" is a fallacious one at best, demonstrating a poor understanding of how the economy actually works. At worst, it's a poison-pill argument used by supporters of supply-side economic theory (the "trickle down" argument - which has been proven in the last half-century to be the destruction of healthy economies) and is often used to justify giving those at the top of the economic ladder more money while in turn taking it away from those who need it most.
The fact of the matter is that when you pay the bottom of the pyramid more, they then have more to spend. As in engineering it is the foundation of the pyramid that supports the weight of the rest of the structure, so too is it the foundation of the pyramid - in this case the work force, the common person, the one making the lowest wage - that supports the rest of the economy.
When you provide the people that actually consume the most with more money, an amazing thing happens: They spend it.
Giving the lowest paid earners more money results in them buying more things. Which results in more money going into the economy. Which in turn results in a richer economic base, which in turn results in a broader economic flow, which - say it with me now - results in more people getting jobs. More demand from the largest pool of consumers results in greater demand on business, which results in greater demand on employers. Because those employers are faced with greater demand for their product, they must rise to meet that demand. Failure to do so will result in their economic failure, and they will go out of business. Since no one actively WANTS to go out of business (no one sane, anyway), they will in turn increase their workforce in order to increase their ability to meet that demand. This will result in a greater return on investment, and enable them to meet the rising volume of consumer attention.
Additionally, in order to take up a greater portion of the increase in demand, businesses must engage in competitive practices - usually in the form of deals, sales, and other attention-getters - to ensure that they get a greater portion of the business than their competitors.
This means that if you pay people what they're actually worth - a living wage at the very least - prices will actually go DOWN as demand goes up, in order to meet that demand and keep the business of those looking to purchase goods and services.
This is basic Keynesian economic theory, and I would suggest that some of you should review it. The Supply Side (Reaganomics/Trickle Down) economics that has been prevalent in the United States and several other countries since the 80's does not follow this model, and leads to severe income disparities - by controlling supply and pushing economic mandates that reward false shortages and artificially generated demand, wages are kept low because the suppliers tell you what you want, rather than letting the market determine what and where the demand will be. This is in actuality the opposite of what the "free market" is supposed to be, and is the reason that the economy has been tanking so frequently. The "Boom/Bust" cycle that accompanies capitalism has traditionally taken place with far more frequency during periods of unrestricted corporate profit and supply-side economics than it ever has during periods of demand-side economics.
In other words, when you give tax breaks and high wages to the people who need them the least, the economy suffers. Prices go up. Inflation rises. Currency devalues.
When you give tax breaks and high wages to the people who need them the most, the economy grows and prospers. Prices go down. Inflation decreases. Currency gains value.
The only people who benefit from supply side economics are the people who need the money the least. Which, in this case, are the same people who voted against raising pay for the lower-tier workers. In this case, the entirety of the GOP representation in the US Government.
Fun bonus fact: When people are paid more and have access to things like leisure time, better health care, and education, crime rates plummet. When people don't have to scrounge for their next meal, they're less likely to break the law. Funny how that works.
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WARNING: SEVERAL GROSS OVERSIMPLIFICATIONS AHEAD. I realize that I'm about to really streamline this argument, but I'm doing it so you don't have to read a textbook. Bear with me. (and if you want to read up on economics, there's plenty of data on Wikipedia)
Okay. So.
The argument of "when you pay people more, prices will go up" is a fallacious one at best, demonstrating a poor understanding of how the economy actually works. At worst, it's a poison-pill argument used by supporters of supply-side economic theory (the "trickle down" argument - which has been proven in the last half-century to be the destruction of healthy economies) and is often used to justify giving those at the top of the economic ladder more money while in turn taking it away from those who need it most.
You weren't kidding about oversimplifying.
The basic problem is that everything the supply-side economists write is just "theorycrafting," but so is everything you wrote. Reality is considerably more complex, in part because the actual effects of increasing the minimum wage -- or of anything, really, in economics -- is dependent upon everything else in the system. If the minimum wage is too low, that's bad. But if the minimum wage is too high, that's bad, too.
So, basically, one needs to look at the empirical data. Fortunately, that experiment has been done, lots of times.
The conclusion of the article cited speaks for itself:
the standard competitive model predicts that firms will reduce employment in response to the minimum wage, in turn causing a negative employment effect to be observed. However, our analysis above of the effect of the introduction of a minimum wage in a low-wage sector shows no clear evidence that the introduction of minimum wage laws had a significant impact on employment in a given period for the five sectors analysed. Although the results here appear to be at odds with the standard prediction from many earlier studies that found a negative employment impact of minimum wages (Brown et al. 1982; Charles et al. 1983), they are consistent with some of the more recent international studies on minimum wages that do not always find a negative employment effect associated with the minimum wage (Katz and Krueger 1992; Card and Krueger, 1995).
Seattle to push through fifteen dollar pay.
Tacoma is praying for this to happen, because as prices shoot up in Seattle, more people will go to Tacoma to shop.
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No evidence that prices have or will shoot up.
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People that think minimum wage increases prices must really hate that huge CEO salaries.
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People that think minimum wage increases prices must really hate that huge CEO salaries.Don't be silly, CEOs earn those huge salaries, often by reducing workforce and keeping wages low. They must deserve them, because the free market has given them to them. Minimum wage workers are obviously not worth more than minimum wage or the free market would have given more to them. The government, by imposing a minimum wage that is more than the worker is worth is distorting the efficiency of the market and thus raising prices for everyone.
Terrible how workers are worth 25% of what they were worth in 1945. I cant abide Useless slaves...
People that think minimum wage increases prices must really hate that huge CEO salaries.Don't be silly, CEOs earn those huge salaries, often by reducing workforce and keeping wages low. They must deserve them, because the free market has given them to them. Minimum wage workers are obviously not worth more than minimum wage or the free market would have given more to them. The government, by imposing a minimum wage that is more than the worker is worth is distorting the efficiency of the market and thus raising prices for everyone.
The worst thing is, if I hadn't read some other posts you'd written, I wouldn't have understood the sarcasm.
Poe's law indeed.
People that think minimum wage increases prices must really hate that huge CEO salaries.
People that think wage increases won't increase prices aren't thinking. Do you think that businesses are just going to lose the profit that they are making? If costs to a company increase, whether it is to raw materials, taxes, wage increases, or whatever, the business has to increase what it charges, or it will go out of business.
McDonalds has 1.7+ MILLION employees, the CEO made 13.8 million, that means that if a minimum wage increase gave each employee an extra $10 a year, that is more than the CEO makes. $100/year (that would be $2 a week) would be $170 Million, $1000/year is 1.7 Billion or about 1/3 of McDonalds total profit of last year.
So that "giant" CEO salary is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount paid to the rest of the employees.
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People that think minimum wage increases prices must really hate that huge CEO salaries.People that think wage increases won't increase prices aren't thinking.
... Or have actually looked at the empirical data. Which disagrees with you.
When your model doesn't match the real world, your model is the one that's wrong. By definition.
There are lots of factors that underly costs. More consumers means more sales, so you can make it up on volume. With higher gross revenue, you may be able to get a better deal from your suppliers or invest in better equipment. Higher wages can mean less turnover and lower recruitment and training costs. It can even lower health and safety costs. Et cetera.
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Good for the GOP. States can, and do, have their own minimum wage laws. They should pass such things, not the federal government. It's a huge over-reach by the feds in the first place.
Tried and found wanting. The interstate commerce clause covers this.
But please don't let facts and reason interfere with your beliefs. They'll throw you out of the Republican club if you do.
I thought it was interesting, looking at this wiki page.
I can't tell if it's entirely true, but it certainly looks like each individual state's minimum wage laws were overturned by the Supreme Court and it wasn't until the second federal min wage in '38 that the concept finally passed muster.
I'd be curious to see if any state minimum wage survived the Lochner court, but, to be honest, I probably won't go look it up.
Seattle to push through fifteen dollar pay.Tacoma is praying for this to happen, because as prices shoot up in Seattle, more people will go to Tacoma to shop.
If this goes through, they're going to have to wait something like 11 years.