because in practice, it's the humane and civilized thing to do.

Trust me, I'm no socialist, but I'm no social darwinist either.

Using the Federal Income Tax to redistribute wealth is an idea only about 60 years old.  (Some might argue only about 40 years old and beginning with Lyin L. Johnson.)

Through most of our history the 'local' community helped those in need.  NOT the federal government.

Fine, how would you feel about someone profiting off of your charity? My point is that these extraneous costs shouldn't be borne by the outside society at all and instead by the employer who should pay the full economic cost of labor.

Granted, the problem lies in the inelasticity of labor supply on the down side, since we can't just remove these people from the face of the earth. I guess you can consider the costs of having people on this earth overhead costs of society. However, revenue generated by labor should first be deducted for full costs of that labor so as to reflect true economic value.

dude, I'm not economically illiterate.

Can anyone make a convincing argument as to why businesses should NOT pay their full costs of input?

I guess it depends on what form of government you favor - Socialism or Capitalism ?

Now if you move the full social costs of labor to business guess who still picks up the tab ?

minimum wage sucks

when i was looking for a job about 4 years ago it was like this hire the highschool student for 4 something a hour or the college student for the same amount well i got shafted

social costs will be paid regardless, it makes sense that those who profit from it should pay the costs that went into those profits.

If you don't like the idea of an employer "profiting" from your charity gift, then don't give it. Then the very few people too stupid to learn how to survive won't be around to cause problems, making the world a better place.

You fault Citadel's sources as being politically bias, and yet in your first post you recomend that we accept Barbra Ehrenriech's (the author of Nickeled and Dimed and a fervent activist for the "underprivilaged") take on the issue? Your own cited sources have a equally visable slanted, you just prefer the way it leans. Reread the book and read between the lines this time and you will see:

Of all the jobs and places Ehrenriech worked (I believe it was three places: Florida, Maine, and Minnesota; and or so five jobs) only once did she fail to meet her monthly budget. Most of the time she was able to get by one job.

She would not lower herself to do certain things. This is understandable when you are talking about wintering in Maine in a car, but she refused to give up many menial things like having a place of her own (i.e. taking on a roomate) and as such her expenses were higher than they could have been.

Most importantly, SHE SET HER SELF UP TO FAIL. She was unable to do so in all but one instance, but she would work only the lowest paying job available, while expecting to not have to have to lower her standard of living below a certain point (which was notably above the what most anyone, including Mrs. Ehrenriech herself, consider minimum livable conditions for a first world country). She would not take raises, promotions, or a better job if it came along.

The people who she works with in these jobs are unwilling to help themselves. She was working unskilled labor positions and the common story among those who had made these jobs careers was high school drop out, criminal record, and startinga family before they had the means to support one. These people would not stand against management to improve their situation, learn a skill, or unionize. They wanted all these things done for them.

Kyle

yeah, and they also enjoy political freedoms and democratic institutions seen rarely elsewhere. Even though most of them have done nothing to contribute to the defense of such freedoms and institutions. Does that mean that these working poor are any less deserving of human rights than the rest of us?

This follows similar to the question, should the fruits of common defense be only restricted to those who have contributed to and participated in the act of common defense?

BTW, I'm a compassionate conservative. [:D]
Sorry, I couldn't resist, no, I'm really a libertarian. But I just couldn't resist making fun of Bush for a minute.

Paul,

According to a teacher I had for my History of East Asia class in the 1970's a group of Chinese propagandist came over to the US to film the horror of the way the Capitalist poor lived. They had to shut down production of their film project because even the poorest of our poor were doing visibly better then 60% of the Chinese. They continued with other projects that did not require visuals. The truth never got in the way of a good commie.

Kyle

You don't need to take away my human rights in order to give them to the working poor. Giving them money takes it from someone else however.

People have a right to self-determinism, not to live comfortably. If somebody won't provide for themselves, too bad. It's economic freedom. If Bill Gates makes a billion jillion dollars, good for him. It's economic freedom.

well sence im one of the x% working at minimum wage ill throw in my .02 In Oregon Minimum wage is $6.50 hr which isnt to bad looking at the national average. personaly I dont think the min wage needs raised... If I dont like my job Ill find one thats differnt. Im not thrilled to work for minimum wage but hey you got to start somewhere and that somewhere is the bottem. the wage pays my bills... I dont have much money left over for toys but thats life. I can make nearly $2k a month on min wage full time plus overtime if I work at it Its not fun but it can be done. for all those people out there screaming about all the people who have a wife and 2 kids at home and are working minimum wage Im sorry but you f*cked up bad If a person manages to have 2 kids and get marryed they are messed up in the head. im sorry, but people have to be resposible for thier actions. Im looking ino a diff job right now cause my employer is an ass about raises but its my coice to move on and I dont expect people to feel sorry for me and such

uh, oh, Ahhh.  Now that I have my asbestos suit on, I will throw in my two cents worth!

Yes, I think minimum wage needs raised.  It should be linked to CONGRESS critters salaries.  No raise for the fat cats unless the little guys get the SAME percentage.

Anybody willing to work should be paid MORE than a welfare slime.

Solution: cut out the welfare.

We should raise the min wage to $70 per hour, that way everybody will become conservative, as they try to conserve there taxes.  

Seriously, it's one of those ideas that sounds good, but taken to it's  logical conclusion, it it dosen't work.

Conversely, I am for Unions trying to raise wages, as they level the playing field with management.

[b]CITADELGRAD87, Paul, 5subslr5, Wiggins[/b] and others have really done a hell of a job shredding the inane mentality behind the minimum wage.

Especially you[b] CITADELGRAD87[/b] your excellent posts and links were right on the money.
You made so many lucid points that cut to the heart of the issue so well - you've certainly got your crap down cold on this one.

There are a few things I'd like to throw in the mix.


[u]First[/u]:
I just love it when the bleeding hearts talk about how it's impossible to raise a family on $5.15/hour.

Newsflash Nitwits... It's called [b]"MINIMUM"[/b] wage, NOT "comfortable wage" or "adequate wage" or "raise-a-family-of-three-on-it wage"!!

It's enough for a MINIMUM amount of people (that being ONE person) to live on at MINIMUM standard of living!

That's why they call it [b]MINIMUM[/b] wage![:E]



[u]Second[/u]:
To those who support the Federal Minimum Wage [u]AND[/u] our Constitution, answer this please:

[b]Where in the Constitution does it grant the Gov't the power to mandate wages?[/b]



[u]Third[/u]:
If anyone's in favor of a Gov't-imposed "minimum wage" and thinks that...

(A) the Gov't has the legitimate authority under the Constitution to mandate such a wage,

Then...

(B) the Gov't must also have the authority and the right (at it's whim) to impose a "maximum wage" as well as Gov't-imposed wage brackets for ALL occupations and ALL workers employed by private employers.

If you agree with (A), then do you also agree with (B)? If not, please explain your contraditory logic.

You know Clinton/Clinton/Gore floated that Communist balloon of Gov't-imposed wage brackets for the private sector during the 1996 Presidential Election.


[u]Bottom-line[/u]:
The minimum wage is NOT meant to raise a family on - all realities aside.

It's not even Constitutional!

But hell, what's the Constitution to a bunch of do-gooder socialists hell-bent on enslaving all Americans into Gov't-imposed universal mediocrity.

But because so many knucklebrained morons start having kids at 15, or are addle-brained, uneducable mooks and midriffs, or are unmotivated, lazy, pot-smoking skateboard-riding stoners, or are just too wreckless and irresponsible to hold any decent job for longer than three months and drift through life with no goal other than to get back to bed, we have big Gov't-Nanny to get them a fatter paycheck than they're worth which just encourages their dim-witted, irresponsible, slothful, aimless, unmotivated lazy habits in perpetuity.

Damn to hell the minimum wage and all those closet-communists who defend it.[pissed]

You calling yourself a Libertarian is like Rosie O'donnel calling herself a Republican.  Unless you are one of those Libertarian's that are Libertarian because they only want the legalization of drugs whereas everything else about them is Liberal...

ok, so what I'm hearing is that we should abolish welfare and the minimum wage, thus leaving these people with no social safety net whatsoever.

I agree the constitution does not allow for FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE, but where does it prohibit state or local minimum wages? I never said that I want a federal minimum wage because the cost of living varies so much across the country, but I think a local minimum wage should be perfectly feasible. The social costs of idiots having kids at 15 with no skills will be there no matter what we say or do. And this problem has to be resolved no matter what. In general it's considered uncivilized to let such poor members of society starve to death. What do you propose that the solution to these irresponsible individuals be? BTW, there will always be such irresponsible individuals, the trick is to somehow discourage them from such irresponsibility without starving them to death.

That "social safety net" you speak of has become a hammock for too many unproductive, unmotivated slugs to wallow in with no real incentive to help themselves out of it.

The "safety net" is supposed to be the generosity of private charity which CAN handle the truly downtrodden in society.

Then let's abolish it.

It doesn't.

But since the 10th Amendment reserves those powers to the "state OR the people respectively", let's hear your argument on why that power should rest with the "state" and NOT with the "people".

Okay. Please explain this:

Since you're in favor of a (state)Gov't-imposed "minimum wage" and think that...

(A) the (state)Gov't has the legitimate authority under the Constitution to mandate such a wage,

Then...

(B) the (state)Gov't must also have the authority and the right (at it's whim) to impose a "maximum wage" as well as (state)Gov't-imposed wage brackets for ALL occupations and ALL workers employed by private employers.

If you agree with (A), then do you also agree with (B)? If not, please explain your contraditory logic.


No, the welfare reform act of 1995(?) reduced the social costs of those welfare slugs by throwing them out on their ear if they didn't get they're act together.

The result: MANY people who spent generations on welfare finally got their lazy fat asses of the couch and got job training and went to work.


Who's talking about "starving to death"?!?

We have billions of dollars given to private charities for dolts that are too stupid, lazy or irresponsible to hold down a decent job.

Privately-run (usually religious) homeless shelters/foodbanks etc. help the truly needy in our society.

How does [b]mandating[/b] a "decent living wage for a family of three" discourage irresponsibility?

It doesn't.

It rewards it by not allowing the full consequences of irresponsiblity, laziness and stupidity from being realized upon those who are stupid, lazy and irresponsible.

I work for a minimum wage. I set it. I generally won't work for less than the amount I set. Sometimes it is required to accept less. Sometimes I set it higher, depending on the kind of people for whom I am working. To work with or for a**holes costs more.

jz02,

If an employer should be required to pay all of the costs related to keeping a worker in working condition, when you hire the neighborhood kid to mow the lawn should you be forced to pay all of the costs of his upbringing (food, clothing, schooling...) for the last 10 years?  If the answer is no, then are you forcing a negative externality onto the parents for his upbringing?

If you hire two people, one full time and one part time at a half-day a week, the costs of keeping them both available is the same.  Would you pay them the same?  What do you think the full-timer will do when he realizes that he can make the same amount on a tenth of the effort?  What will the part-timer do when he realizes he won't be better off with 10x the effort?  Is it OK to force you to pay them the same, even though they are performing unequal work?  At what point are you responsible for all of the costs? 1hr/week? 4hrs/week? 8hrs/week? 40hrs/week? 60hrs/week? 80hrs/week?

If you hire someone who has been unemployed for six months then the cost would include those months he was unemployed, right?  Do you realize that under these rules the currently unemployed will not be re-employed?

Supposing somebody holds two jobs with different hours per week and different duties, how do you determine what the pay split between the different employers should be?

YOU'RE RIGHT it is obvious.  I don't know what I was thinking yesterday.  Welfare is by far the better choice.

This is because the cost of welfare is easily seen by everyone when they pay their taxes, but the cost of the minimum wage is not seen because it is hidden in the price of the goods you buy.  In a perfect world this distinction would make little difference, but in the real world the easily seen costs of welfare will prevent overpayment of benefits whereas the minimum wage will be raised too high, increasing total social/economic costs over welfare, because the costs are hidden.

Zoom...In My state you must have 140 dollars to carry concealed, you must pay at least 300 dollars(insurance,tags,license,inspection)to drive, you must pay 21 dollars(clean air act) to breathe, you must pay at least 35% of your wages to work, you must pay 8% on everything you buy, you must pay ?% on your property....and you have the gall to back talk someone who suggests that you should be financially able to support your kids

I always come in to these interesting threads too late.

As for the minimum wage--ELIMINATE IT.  We are supposed to be operating a Capitalistic country.

I'm pretty sure that a maximum wage law would violate the intent behind "the pursuit of happiness".

Generally speaking, anywhere from 40-60 hours a week should constitute full time, depending on the job. Basically, if you employ someone full time, you should pay sufficiently for him to live on his wages without social assistance like welfare. Figure out what the subsistence cost of living is in an area, add in a slight (5%) margin of safety, and divide that by the hours of a full time job. (maximum of 60 hours a week for calculating hourly wages from annual living costs). Keep in mind that I'm talking about full time workers doing this for a living, not kids for spending money or part timers as a second income.

Decent wage standards encourage people to take responsibility for their economic well being. Welfare offers no way out and few people really want to remain trapped in welfare. If jobs are available being offered for a decent wage, then it motivates people to take a paying job instead of living on handouts. What workfare does is that it's essentially welfare except the recipients are working for private companies who are in effect being subsidized on their labor costs. If someone works full time, he should have a living standard superior to that of a welfare recipient, otherwise there would be no material motivation to get off welfare.

Great, I'll hire two people part-time instead of one person full-time.  All of my work will get done and I won't be paying more than they're worth.

NO no no!

You don't understand.

In the fantasy land that is government interference with the free market, THERE CAN BE NO REACTION TO THE REGULATION.

People simply do not react to things like higher taxes or higher overhead for labor.

They just pay the extra expenses.  

I don't think he said anything about requiring you to have a certain amount of money before having kids. What he did say was "don't have children you can't afford to support." In other words, if your paycheck is barely enough to feed you and your wife, put a roof over your head, and allow you to get to work, then you don't increase your costs by having a kid (or buying a new car, new house, $10,000 in consumer electronics and furniture, etc - you know, the mandatories for young couples.)

I personally would prefer the gov't to say "no kids for you because you don't make enough money to support them" than to have Uncle Sam hold a gun to my head and go through my wallet in order to pay for all the programs and subsidies used by people who have more kids than they can afford. Both are evils, but the former is the lesser of the 2 evils IMO.

I'm far from being an economics wizard, so maybe you can explain to me who pays a business' cost of input. In what way are you and I subsidizing McDonald's and allowing the owner to take home half the profits every month?

I'm serious. Explain your theories or beliefs, and I'll attempt to compare mine and/or refute yours.

Don't hire people if you can't afford to pay them a living wage. It's the same principal as don't eat at a restaurant if you can't afford to pay a tip. You can react to minimum wages however you want. If you can't afford it, don't buy it.

The way I see it, most low pay service jobs hire too many people and pay each too little. Why not hire 2 people instead of 3? Work them 60 hours a week instead of 40? Low pay service jobs have notoriously high turnover, what do you think this does to productivity? If you can pay these people living wages so that you don't have to keep on hiring new people, the efficiency improvements would easily pay for the wage increases. Experience on the job tend to increase productivity, that is the ultimate key to economic growth. The low end of the economy tend to have a lot of friction, which squanders away money that can be better used to train and retain workers.

How many 60 hour weeks have you worked buddy? They have trouble getting min wage folks to stick around for 40 hours, and you think that requiring 60 will increase efficiency?

NH212, first we define our scoep to be low income unskilled full time service jobs. Now consider a worker, say the costs of his upkeep are $100 a month for basic living expenses to keep him on welfare. If we add some basic costs to make him able to work, like uniforms, gasoline to drive to work, etc. Say that will up his costs to $150 a month. Now $150 is the absolute practical minimum it will take to keep this worker in working condition. This is the economic unit cost of labor. If a business hires him and pays him only the marginal unit cost of labor, which is the $50 to upgrade him from welfare to work, then some external source is going to have to pay the $100 to keep him alive. In accounting terms, this would be fair since the $100 would have to be paid anyway if the business did not hire the worker. However, in economic terms, for 1/3 of the total economic cost of the worker, the business has reaped 100% of the worker's economic output. This clearly is not a fair economic distribution of costs and benefits. In other words, some external source is subsidizing the business to lower its cost structure.

Of course, it is possible that for some jobs, it would not be economical to hire someone for over $50 a month, or $75 a month, etc. In this instance, isn't taking some of the burden off the external source better than none? This is one of those difficult questions, it's very much liek the question whether the government or IMF should bail out distressed investors in destabalizing financial crisis. Doing so in the short term has obvious benefits in preventing an economic collapse and capital flight. However, in the long term it will encourage reckless investments and a repeat of this scenerio. Basically, in the short term allowing an employer to hire a worker for below cost wages would benefit the economy because the worker is now covering at least part of his costs through his own labor. But in the long term, it would establish the expectation of below cost hire of labor. Just as investors shouldn't be able to count on a government bailout, business owners shouldn't be able to count on government subsidies for their labor. The economics of expectations is a funny thing, because it's not anything material, yet it has an impact on how people allocate capital and make decisions. If business owners are forced to pay at cost wages, then they would be forced by economic reality to either make their cost structures more efficient or layoff the worker. This would reflect an undistorted economic decision, because if a worker can truly not be made productive enough to pay his costs, then the job makes no economic sense. The strength of entrepreneurial capitalism is the ability for people to adapt and innovate, if minimum wages were imposed to reflect cost of living, I think most jobs would remain and businesses would rely on productivity increases rather than on low costs to remain competitive. In the past several years, productivity for high wage jobs increased far more than the productivity for low wage jobs, precisely because low wages give little incentive for businesses to invest in improving productivity.

A lot of people work 60 hour weeks. I know Nickeled and Dimed isnt' an objective source. However, I would think that working conditions described in the book isn't too far from the truth. Plus, I do work for minimum wage part time, and personally, I hate my job. The problem with a lot of these jobs is social as well as economic. A lot of people look down on minimum wage workers as beneath them and treat them accordingly. There is an unmistakable classism. Minimum wage jobs offer little reward in every sense. At least at my job everyone are highschool students from middle class backgrounds, so people at least treat us like people. That can't be said of many minimum wage jobs, theirs are a much more hostile work environment. Because of their low costs, there's little incentive to improve their working condition or invest in improving their productivity. This is the path to economic stagnation. If you were to break our economy down into componenets by wage, then the bottom tier is almost stagnant, plagued by chronic turnover and low productivity.

I have no unrealistic expectations of minimum wage sectors driving economic growth. However, in order to prevent the country from splitting up along social-economic lines, there has to be some effort targeted at improving minimum wage productivity so that we don't have some caste of untouchables living beneath us.

OK, I got that part from the thread contents. [:D]



What exactly do you mean by "costs of his upkeep?" Rent and groceries, basically? Also, don't you mean "keep him [b]off[/b] welfare?



OK, so you're saying that a worker's wages should be high enough to enable him to have a roof over his head, food on his table, and get to work. I conditionally agree with that - the condition being that the worker lives within his means. In other words, if he's single and taking home $160 per week, he doesn't rent an $850/month 2-bedroom apartment when there are plenty of efficiencies available for $400.



It sounds to me like your business is basically providing only his work uniforms and transportation to work (the $50 marginal cost of labor), and not compensating him in any other ways. You and I both know that's not how it works in the real world.



And if the business doesn't hire him at the marginal cost, then the external source (i.e., you, me, and the other taxpayers) pay 100% of the "worker's" economic cost but reap 0% of his economic output (which also happens to be zero.) I guess I'd rather foot 67% of the bill and see a return, than foot 100% and see no return.



You and I are "subsidizing" that business by patronizing it. The money we spend goes toward facility upkeep, raw materials purchasing, and the labor needed to maintain the facility and transform the raw materials into a consumer product, correct? Plus the business has to see a profit, which is generally reinvested in one way or another (stockholder dividends, expansion of facilities or consumer products, hiring more workers to keep up with demand, etc.)



If I owned a business and one day, out of the blue, my labor costs increased 20%, I'm left with 3 choices: 1) increase productivity by 20% to maintain the status quo, 2) lay off some of my work force to minimize the impact of my increased expenses, or 3) raise the consumer prices of my products in order to offset my increased expenses.

(cont'd)

(Part II)

The problems with each (as I see it) are as follows:

1) If my employees aren't currently goofing off 20% of the time, it's going to be very hard to achieve a 20% increase in efficiency. But, just for the sake of argument, let's say that the local Taco Bell pays minimum wage to its 10 employees, and the minimum wage goes from $5/hour to $6/hour. This cuts into profits and the investors have a fit, so Taco Bell R&D invents a "tortilla folder" machine that works a lot like those computerized drinkmakers in bars. The employee merely pushes the proper button, and the tortilla folder does the proper fold and also places the finished product into the paper wrapper. Using the tortilla folder, a taco or burrito can be made in 50 seconds, compared to 60 seconds when done completely by hand. In other words, 6 tacos can be made in the time it takes an employee to make 5. So unless you sell 17% more tacos, your employees will spend 10 minutes "goofing off" out of every hour you're paying them to work. So management says "hey, with this tortilla folder, productivity is increased and 5 people can now do the work that it used to take 6 people to do. Plus, we no longer have to buy 100 million boxes of plastic gloves every year, because the employees never touch the food now." Well, you know management and the investors aren't going to stand for having 10 people being paid to do a job when only 8.3 people are needed, so 2 people get fired and go on welfare.

2) The minimum wage is increased 20%, meaning I'm paying 20% more for the same amount of labor. I'm only showing a 2% profit margin as it is (being an employer of unskilled labor, quantity is how I make my profits, not quality) and this 20% cost increase will put me well into the red. My solution? Fire perhaps 20% of my work force and hope the $2 I'm saving per hour (10x$5/hour vs 8x$6/hour) offsets the decrease in production and keeps the profits relatively stable. 2 people end up on welfare.

3) Well, minimum wage has just gone from $5/hour to $6/hour, but as the manager of a Taco Bell franchise I don't want to fire any of my 10 employees so I look for a way to recoup the $10 I'm losing every hour. Going through the books I find that on average we sell 100 tacos per hour, so if I increase the price of a taco by 10 cents, I'll make up for the extra labor costs. Or, I can increase the price by 5 cents, and make up the difference by cutting other expenses - after all, will anyone [b]really[/b] notice if I use a little less beef and a little more refried bean paste or lettuce in my taco or burrito? Refried bean paste and lettuce cost less than beef, after all.

(cont'd)

(Part III)



I see this as being because most low wage jobs involve manual labor of some kind or another, and a person can only carry so many buckets of gravel in an hour. Higher-paying jobs, on the other hand, often require "mental" labor and if you give an accountant a faster computer and printer, new software, etc, they'll crunch more numbers per hour. Give an architect a CAD workstation instead of a drafting table and he'll get more drawings done because he doesn't have to spend time setting up, sharpening pencils, erasing, etc. Give a mason's laborer a wheelbarrow to move gravel instead of a 5-gallon bucket and he'll be able to move more gravel per trip, but it'll also take longer for him to fill it up and dump it out so you really don't see an increase in productivity - but a wheelbarrow costs a hell of a lot more than a sheetrock mud bucket.

What you fail to see is because of all these well intentioned social programs and increasing welfare all you are doing is increasing the number of untouchables as you call them.  The world will always need ditch diggers and at the same time it will need people to tell those ditch diggers what to do.

By increasing welfare (which at the same time increases the cost of living) all you are doing is causing more people to be out of work.  Which in turn causes people to go out and get welfare or whatever other social program they can get their hands on.

Do you wonder why things cost more than they did 1, 2 or maybe even 5 years ago?  In many places it costs $10 dollars to go to a movie.  When not to long ago it was maybe $8.50 or possibly even $5.  Guess why that is?  Now, most people won't pay to go to a movie that is $10 but because of the cost of labor and some other factors movie theaters don't have a choice because they [i]need[/i] to make a profit.  Now, if less people go to a movie the manager sees no point in having as many people work so he/she will give their people less hours or maybe even let some people go.  Which in turn causes people to work harder than they had to before...I saw it all the time while working at a movie theater.  I cringed everytime minimum wage was going to go up because I knew a) a few people may get fired and/or b) only the good workers were going to get the same number of hours a week (luckily I was a good worker so I got my choice of hours and such) however at the same time I had to do the job of some other people as well which meant I had to do more than I was required...
Right now I am a temp working my way through college and guess what?  I still cringe whenvever I hear min wage will go up because a) my pay won't be going up (unless the city decides I deserve it) and b) I will be in essense making less.

Sure I won't be going on welfare because of it but I might as well be.  Might make my life easier since I don't have to work for my paycheck and it will make going to school much easier...


Maybe you are ignorant because as you said you are in High School and I assume you if you work are making min wage.  Learn some basic economics and maybe you will learn all that minimum wage does is hurt more people than it helps.

Bzzzt.

WRONG.

You're exhibiting the bass-akwards logic of socialism. That the EMPLOYER is responsible for providing the WORKER a decent living condition.

Here in the land of the FREE, it is the WORKER who is responsible for THEIR OWN living condition.

If YOU are working full time, YOU should live at whatever means YOU are capable of supporting.

That means:
* Don't have kids you can't afford to raise.
* Don't waste money on drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, lottery tickets, etc.
* Don't be a gangbanging-underachieving-potsmoking-lazy-hedonist.
* Don't hang around gangbanging-underachieving-potsmoking-lazy-hedonists.
* Don't get married to a spouse-beating alcoholic at 19.

* DO learn proper English.
* DO be punctual.
* DO take responsibility for your own decisions and your own living condition.
* DO stay in school.
* DO avoid the "party scene" while in school.
* DO live a healthy lifestyle.
* DO take a class in Home Financial Mangagement/Budgetting.



[b]jz02[/b], why do you think it's the responsibility of the EMPLOYER to support the EMPLOYEE??

Also, since you DO believe it's the responsibility of the EMPLOYER to support the EMPLOYEE, then doesn't that responsibility also give the employer the RIGHTS to dictate HOW the employee will live?

In other words, if the employer is supposed to be responsible for the employee's living condition, then the employee ought to have control over what that employee does (smoking at home, how many kids to have, what food to eat, what friends to have) because all those things will affect the employee's living condition that the employer is now responsible for paying for.

If the employer is responsible for paying enough wages to cover the bills, shouldn't the employer have a say in what those expenses will be?




P.S. Your "formula" for calculating local minimum wages based on local housing costs will immediately spiral upwards because as more people can afford more expensive housing (due to rising minimum wages), housing costs will equally rise (simple supply and demand).

That's why tying the minimum wage to inflation (or local costs of living) is a snowball rolling downhill.

I make a certain wage because the value of my work justifies that wage. If I want a raise, I find a way to make my work more valuable.

If the minimum wage goes up 10% percent and minimum wage earners don't produce 10% more we'll have to lay off 10% of them in order to keep the books balanced.

OTOH, if the minimum wage guys found a way to MAKE THEMSELVES MORE VALUABLE that would justify a raise or allow them to get better (higher paying) jobs without the need for congressional mandate.

People who have kids before they have a way to support them and then complain that welfare isn't enough to make ends meet don't get much sympathy from the folks who work for what they have.

Productivity is the key to increased earning power. Reproductivity is not.

Even if productivity increases for low wage jobs aren't as high as for tech jobs, it's still possible. That as I've said, is the key to long term pay raises.

I'm not saying that a minimum wage worker deserves a $800 a month dwelling, but he should be able to afford a roof not subsidized by the government. As housing costs increase, it's a signal for builders to build more housing units. Assuming that there's no rent control. What I'm see here is that many of you have a perception that someone on minimum wage fails to make ends meet due to personal irreponsibility. While this may be true in some cases, we all have some minimum living standards. We need shelter, food, clothing and basic sanitation facilities. These things cost money, and if an employer pays less than this minimum, the rest will have to be covered by an external source.

BTW, cutting jobs or raising prices isn't necessarily a bad thing. The idea is to price thigns to reflect the true economic cost of producing them. If the government subsidize something, it will cost less, but that won't reflect the true economic costs of producing them and will lead to oversupply. So if you cheeseburger costs 99 cents but really should cost 1.09, it costs 10 cents less because the government is subsidizing the cost of labor to allow the business owner to price the cheeseburger lower.

I never said that the business owner is reponsible for the living conditions of the worker, I said that he's responsible for paying the full economic costs of his input. He has no right to expect any subsidies funded by external sources. The minimum wage should be set to what it would cost for a relatively informed resident to live in the local region and be able to work sustainably.

Once again, by increasing the minimum wage you are thus increasing everything else.  Thus causing no change whatsoever.  You can make it so the minimum wage is $100 an hour but by doing so you're changing renting of a house or appartment to reflect that.  Sure it may feel good to make 10 or 20 times more than what the minimum wage used to be but all it is doing is raising the cost of living so that there is no change at all.

However, if no minimum wage existed an employer and employee would negotiate such that they both feel they are getting a fair wage.  Or the employer will pay a wage (say $1.50) and somebody somewhere will decide thats all I want or need.  And if he can't find a taker he'll raise it to what he deems fair or to a point where an employee will take it.

Frankly the only thing minimum wage benefits are the tax guys because in the end the extra wages mean more tax revenue.


You say you want people to make a higher wage and you say you think its good that prices reflect the market (which i won't totally disagree with) and then you say its a good thing when people cut jobs?

Also, you say people need a minimum amount to live on for food and shelter and etc.  I won't disagree with but who is to say that he alone must cover the cost?  Who says the guys wife or the womans husband or a roomate can't do the same?  All minimum wage means is a minimum amount to make for basically no skills whatsoever.  Until someone learns a skill they don't deserve to make much more than they're worth.  Learn to type or answer a phone guess what...you have the skills to be a secretary and guess what?  You are worth more now.  Now you can make more than $10 or possibly $20 or $30 if you're lucky.  And if an employer won't give more than say $8.50 then you must decide should I take the job?  Is it worth my time?  Is it nearby?  Will I enjoy it more?  If you say no to any or all then you hold out for something better.


The whole idea of minimum wage is dangerous.  What you do is cause an employer to basically decide is an extra guy worth the cost they must pay to train and whatnot.  The whole point of a company is to make a profit.  If they don't make a profit then sooner or later they will have to lay people off and if that doesn't help with the profit they will have to close shop.  Raise minimum wage enough and that .39 cent taco will end up being .49 cents and then someday will be a dollar.  How much are you willing to pay for a taco?  It also, for certain jobs, makes a company think should I move shop to another country.  Build the product there and ship it back.  While at the same time receiving better tax benefits and a much better profit.

So what are the "full economic costs of his inputs"? Don't you mean by that the consts associated with keeping the worker alive and aorund to work for him?