stevo

Thats all fine and dandy, but this is a minimum wage thread, are you for or against a federally mandated minimum wage? If so, what should the minimum be?

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"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

gefax

I really like this idea, actually. I'm a bit iffy on minimum wage's reliability as a method of minimising the effects of poverty, and this is a new one for me.

Only issue I see with it is it potentially putting a cap on the size of a company - expanding into new markets often means more employees, and while the amount of work a CEO has increases, their 'value' remains the same. Not sure if this is a bad thing though (those dirty rich bastards!).

ratbastid

That's certainly the direction the invisible hand pushes. They put it in pretty terms like "cost reduction". What they mean is, treating employees like commodities instead of like human beings.

Personally, if I were a CEO, I would be willing to trade some profits for the benefit of having my employees be respected and treated well. Some investors would have a problem with that, to be sure, and I would advise them to invest in another company.

Now, every major company that I know of that follows that philosophy is also remarkably successful. CostCo comes to mind, just as one example.

A federally-mandated minimum wage prevents the most egregious abuses by corporations. It would be nice to think that a free labor market could take care of itself, but without massive overhauls in corporate structures and thinking, I don't see that happening.

pan6467

Ok and exactly what jobs are out there that pay decent wages?

So you blame the worker and it's never the companies?

I am not pro-minimum wage. It is inherently a bad policy to have. It promotes companies to pay as little as possible. However, again, in the atmosphere we have now, the government must do the policing because private industry refuses to.

When my parents got married my father was a meter reader for the electric company and my mother was an operator for Ma Bell. They were in dead end jobs and knew it.

What was available to them were government programs that allowed employers to hire, train and promote growth in the workers.

Thus, my father was given the chance to become a land surveyor, train him help him through college and get more marketable skills. From there he was able to move onto becoming a civil engineer and then project manager, pretty much being able to dictate his price to companies that wanted his services. This continued to where he owns his own multi million dollar construction business.

My mother was able to be a housewife because of the oppurtunities the companies gave my dad. The companies were able to give my dad his start because the government provided the incentives to hire and train people.

My mother was able to use that system to when she was ready in the late 70's, through her desire she became an LPN, and then the hospital helped her through loans from them and grants and scholarships for good grades become an RN.

The point is with my examples is this..... because government promoted growth, companies promoted growth, tax base increased and it was a win-win situation for everybody.

Today, those incentives are gone. Government would rather just police a minimum wage and be done with it.

What I believe is if government allowed and promoted what happened for my dad and 1000's of others like him in the 70's to happen today and companies policed themselves and invested in the workers, then we wouldn't have a need for this discussion.

But neither the government nor the companies seem to want that. Instead they make it progressively harder to advance. Today, there would be no way my father could advance the way he did. The programs are not in place to promote the training, you need a college degree. No longer can you just be interviewed, have the boss like your drive and you be trained and then sent to college while doing the job.

Take my industry for example. Used to be that a person would get the on the job training, some college and be able to help addicts recover. Today, you need college, you need the hours in and when all is finished you make barely enough to pay off the loans and live. You are a professional, you had the drive, you worked your ass off and now you don't get rewarded for the hard work?

When you see the increases in CEO pay and the stagnant growth in wages for the worker and the disparity, there is a severe problem.

What happens as these good manufacturing jobs (and that is the true backbone to any country's economy) leave, and shit waged jobs come in, you are destroying yourself economically.

You say move to where the better paying jobs are..... ok let's say you can and do, then you flood that market and the wages decrease.

It is important for companies to hire people, train them and move them up. This doesn't happen when, like in today's marketplace, companies pay very little, offer little growth and try hard to get rid of people when they reach a certain point so that they can bring in someone else cheaper.

The system needs fixed, if the companies refuse to do it then government must.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Willravel

The Libertarian in me thinks that companies should simply pay what's fair, but that won't happen. The former Democrat in me says that federal minimum wage should always be increased with inflation, but it causes inflation, too. The Republican in me says that it should be determined by the state, and we should invade Iran. The Green in me says it should be a cooperation between government, companies, and the individual, which is really vague.

Bottom line? I'm really not 100% sure. I know that what's succesful for me may not be succesful for everyone, and as such I can't just make a broad stroke generalization about income in the market. I think that no matter what, someone will probably be screwed by someone else, but I'm not sure what would allow for the least screwage. My guess would be that minimum wage isn't a really good idea, but (as Pan pointed out) companies aren't responsible enough to pay fair wages left to their own devices. It's like a turnmacate for a lost limb...it's good to keep it together on the way to the hospital, but the doctors must reattach the lim for everything to be okay again. Minimum wage is an okay way to hold us over for a short time until something better and more perminant can be developed.

Cynthetiq

and there are SOME companies that do that it's called profit sharing, then there are performance bonuses, and finally there are becoming shareholders by buying discounted stock purchases.

but what about the mom and pop shops? how would they retain employees? that was a compliant in Las Vegas when the big boxes came around that paid substantially more than the m&p shops.

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stevo

so pan, what should the federal minimum wage be?

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"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

NCB

Neither, just a realist. There is quite a bit youre leaving out of this. Sorry if I think youre spinning this to make your political philosphy fall in line

BTW.....you've been working and getting "shit on" by bosses since you were 13. Tell me, what type of business allows a 13 yo to work with them? I'm guessing this is your dad's business and that you are being groomed to take it over. Nothing wrong with that ofcourse, I think its great that busineeses are passed down from generation to generation. Youre lucky to have such a person in your life

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pan6467

Did you read what I wrote or just see what you wanted?

What's wrong with opening up the chances again. Promote training, give incentives to move forward and reward those companies that help move people through the socio-economic classes.

You do this and you have companies that actually practice it and maybe there won't be a need for minimum wage.... But I seriously doubt the CEO wants to only make in 1 month what a worker makes in a day, he'd rather keep the system the way it is where soon he'll be making more in an hour than that worker makes in a year. More in a day than the worker will in ten years and more in a month than that worker will see in a lifetime.

The wealth needs to be spread and people need to be truly rewarded for their labor.

Until the companies will reward the workers...... government will have to make sure it doesn't get worse..... and the workers will someday have to stand and say enough.

The CEO's may have the money but there are 100's of 1000's more workers than CEO's and money cannot buy 24/7 security forever.

But the way to avoid the showdown that will come eventually, is to promote training, promote better employee relations and to promote loyalty as a 2 way street.

If the company is loyal and pays well and the worker doesn't give a true honest day's work then get rid of the worker. But if the worker works his honest day and does the best of his ability then reward him nicely.

2 way street..... now it's a one way and perhaps the workers need to show their muscle.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

NCB

For those keeping score at home, pan didnt even come close to answering the question.

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Willravel

I had a paper route at 12.5, so I rounded to 13, I did that until I was 15, when I got a job filing (basic secretarial work). I did landscaping, Radioshack, Sears, cell phones, etc. through HS and college, now I'm here. I've never worked for my parents.

pan6467

I guess you must find it hard to find any winnable counterpoint to what I have said so you have to try to attack.

You and Stevo obviously missed where I stated:

But if the government must be brought into the mix, and refuses to do what is truly best for the nation, promote internships and companies training and working with employees to better themselves.... then we need to put caps on what a person at the top earns.

If we have a minimum wage we may as well implement a maximum wage and take as taxes anything over that wage.

The biggest reason tax revenue will keep decreasing is because of stagnant wages and good paying jobs being exported or cut.

The whole point to my telling my parents story, was to show that there are ways to advance the workforce, promote growth and thus tax revenue. (I guess some where too ignorant and wanting to attack more than see what was said).

You promote internships, training and developing a workforce that increases their own potential, the wages will go up through natural progression, thus tax revenue goes up, fewer people need government programs and the system builds up and progresses.

As opposed to now, where you do not train the workforce, nor do you show them respect, treat them like they are a dime a dozen and then ship jobs overseas, the results are horrendous.

You decrease tax revenue, you have more people turning to government programs and you have an educational system that cannot train or build the needed workforce. In this model, and this is the model we have now, the workforce becomes disenchanted, the government is relied upon more, tax revenue decreases because of wages, thus programs to advance decrease and it is a spiral downward, to a point where everyone from the worker, to the CEO to the government go broke.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

NCB

Pan, youre dancing around the issue. This whole thread you've been all about promoting a "living wage". The ideas that you have proposed in response to actually answering the question are ideas that have been more or less in place in Western Europe. And in case you've missed it, their economies are daoing pretty shitty. Also, remember the riots by French young people who went into a fit of rage when the idea of eliminating the immunity of firing an employee within the first two ywars of employment was brought up??

Now, those ideas have been proven ineffective on a much smaller scale and would be even worse if introduced in a nation of 300 million.

Now, for the third time, short of any of these measures being enacted, what should the federal mininum wage be? I'll hang up and listen

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Willravel

Alright...who gave NCB's avatar a gun?

dogzilla

I think wages should be set based on the market, rather than by enforcing a minimum (or maximum) wage. Salary is roughly established by what the required skills are for the job, what society says a job is worth, and by what businesses are willing to pay.

So, if the mandated minimum wage is $10.00/hr, then what about those who currently make $10/hr because they have a job that was judged as worth more? Do they get an equivalent percentage boost in their pay? If everyone gets a boost in pay, then what does boosting minimum wage accomplish other than add to inflation? What about businesses that are just barely profitable? Do they go out of business because they can't afford to pay more? Do they lay off people and make those that are left work harder to pick up the slack?