Raising the minimum wage

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:31am

You raise the minimum wage, everything gets more expensive through a trickle-up process.

Sure Kerry wants to raise the minimum wage. That way tax revenue can go up without raising taxes.

Updated On: 10/15/04 at 11:31 AM

[Zola Q. LaPlaya]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:32am

wrong

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:33am

RIGHT

[Gothampc]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:33am

What Kerry doesn't point out is that raising the minimum wage has the potential to cut jobs.

If McDonalds can hire two people at $5.15 they will do it. If they are forced to hire two people at $7.00, that cuts into their profit and so they will hire one person at $7.00 to do the work of 2 people.

[kissmycookie]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:36am

so let's just let people living below the poverty line stay there. i'm guessing people who don't want to raise the minimum wage has never worked for minimum wage?

[ckeaton]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:36am

One has to admit that our economy is ruled by big corporations. The McDonalds example is a good one. But then those on the left bank will start to whine that we need to legislate the amount of work that is legally allowed to be put on one person. Let's expand the child labor laws to adults. Only one paper route per person, and it can only take up less than 4 hours a day.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:37am

The simple fact is that $5.15 is not enough to live on. Clinton raised min. wage and thank God he did. Can you imagine trying to live on $4.25 an hour nowaday? The wage must be raised and over the years it will continue to be raised as costs keep going up. Saying it's "stupid" is not a very well thought out statement.

[mominator]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:38am

Minimum wage? Try waiting tables. My two oldest kids did and got paid $2.62 an hour. Tips wereALL reported to the IRS and still they barely made $6.50 an hour. Plus they had work they had to do off the clock.

[glitzguy3]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:38am

i agree, matt!

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:39am

I did when I was younger.

When I was in the Navy I work for WAY less than minimum wage... really.

The thing that pisses me off is that I KNOW I'm not going to see a 35% increase in salary, yet raising the minimum wage, as ckeaton points out, will cause an increase in the price of my McD's breakfast... yet I don't get a pay increase. Sounds like cloaked inflation to me.

[Zola Q. LaPlaya]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:39am

Every time the minimum wage comes up for an increase, the uninformed radical right screams about potential lost jobs. And every time the wage is increased, more jobs are created. Even neocon economists don't make that argument anymore.

The truth is that the right wing likes people living in poverty. Two adults working at minimum wage with two kids, playing by the rules, live below the poverty line. I guess that's justice to these folks.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:42am

Rodney, you amaze me. If McDonalds is too expensive for you, than just don't eat there. I've wanted to eat at the Italian restaurant right next door to me now for 7 months, however it is too expensive so I don't eat there. Pretty easy solution if you ask me.

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:43am

Is there evidence of mass layoffs or hiring freezes surrounding the previous increases in the minimum wage? I remember I was in high school working fast food when the wage went from $3.35 to $3.80 and we still employed the same amount of people as before. There WAS an effect in that it was harder to get a raise beyond that rate because the company had essentially just been forced to give their entire work force a 45 cent raise but, in terms of staffing and maintaining the same size work force, I never saw anything then or since that supports the notion that a raised minimum wage allowed companies to hire less people than they would have previously, nor were their profit margins noticeably damaged by the increases, either.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:43am

The problem that liberals don't point out is that salary is a cost to a company's bottom line. You can't just pull someone's salary out of thin air, it has to come from somewhere. Profit has to be greater than expense, it's a simple economic principle.

[Zola Q. LaPlaya]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:46am

The "problem" is that one of every six children in the richest country on earth is born into poverty. The "problem" is that more people have fallen into poverty during this Administration.

One solution to lifting children and their parents out of poverty is to raise the minimum wage. Business (and their bottom line) is well protected by this Administration; who is looking out for poor children?

[kissmycookie]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:46am

what about trimming a bit from the massive salary that the CEO gets to take home with him or her?

[ckeaton]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:46am

Interesting thought JP. So what it might do is take the incentive out of working harder to get a raise. So perhaps it will just take longer at the drive thru.

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:47am

gotham - which is why the REAL solution is address legislatively the distribution of wealth - from the top down, not the bottom up. But that will never happen because those are the people making the rules to begin with. And in the meantime, while we all haggle over the economic viability of the little people, they're voting themselves salary and retirement increases and giving tax breaks to their buddies.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:48am

"So perhaps it will just take longer at the drive thru."

CKeaton, that's a ridiculous statement because we all know that it's physically impossible for them to be any slower than they are right now.

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:49am

Yeah but you're assuming that companies are working at a pristine economic level that a minimum wage increase will shatter, which is rarely the case. Will it be a factor in the bottom line? Sure. Is it enough to kill an otherwise successful company? I have a very hard time believing that.

[Zola Q. LaPlaya]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:50am

The reason you have a hard time believing that, JP, is because it's not true.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:51am

"what about trimming a bit from the massive salary that the CEO gets to take home with him or her?"

Who's going to do the trimming? If the government trims by the use of taxes, then the rich CEOs will stop buying their BMWs in order to pay the taxes, thereby slowing sales of BMWs and putting workers at the BMW factory out of work.

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:52am

But Matt, how many people at the Italian restaurant work for minimum wage?
I know the waitstaff MIGHT be on a minimum wage base, bet they get thier tips also.

and besides, what about the grocery store? They have people getting minimum wage. They will have to increase prices also. Am I not supposed to by food?

JohnPopa makes a good point. Also, what about the people who had been working there for a while and were making $3.80 to begin with? Now they have lost thier "above minimum wage due to seniority" status because the new kid is making the same as them. So now THEY want a raise. This trickles up to the $40K salary crowd, but they can't comapre salaries because, after all, in corporate America it's a secret what everyone makes.

The REAL problem of the issue is labor unions because they have the power to force the trickle-up wage increase.

All this creates an increase of over-all cost which is INFLATION.

When a democrat promises an increase in the Minimum wage, he is doing so to pander to the minimum wage people, who are too ininformed to realize what I have said here is true.

[kissmycookie]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:58am

So we're then supposed to let inflation go up but keep the minimum wage down? Doesn't that subvert your "their salary goes up, their pricing goes up" scenario? You'd prefer to let people not buy food because inflation has increased, without allowing salaries to increase?

see mominator's post, regarding wages and waiting tables...

[Jess1483]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 11:58am

I work for minimum wage ($5.15) when I'm at home and it is incredibly difficult. Luckily, my parents pay for my school, because otherwise it would be impossible for me to attend. I know far too many adults as well who have to work for minimum wage and it is nearly impossible for many of them to survive, especially those with children. I can't claim to know enough about economics to say that raising the minimum wage is the way to go (although I can't see any other solution) but it is ridiculous to expect people to live on $5.15 an hour. You don't want people on welfare (I would assume,) so raise their wages, so they can afford to live without asking for welfare.