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Post 16 Oct 2017, 12:10 pm

Please stop the why do you hate workers so much or don't care about them comments.. Obviously, liberals care more about low-wage workers than you guys both do so quit engaging in Orwellian doublespeak. I don't say you guys are bad people for being against the living wage...just wrong.

Let's engage on the merits shall we.
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Post 16 Oct 2017, 12:36 pm

And by the way...I'm not sure your one story about an ineffectual Teamsters union overrides the many millions of auto workers who have had middle-class lifestyles because of unions.
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Post 16 Oct 2017, 12:38 pm

And sure someone could learn a new skill...and corporate American could divide that skill into 20 different parts and deskill it...
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Post 16 Oct 2017, 2:38 pm

Ray Jay wrote:Often they are not applied well. What then?
How often? And how often do they go well?

I appreciate your empathy for minimum wage earners -- the irony here is that the other 3 members of my family are minimum wage earners -- but I don't think you are empathizing enough with employers. What I see is people who are struggling to meet payroll, struggling to pay suppliers, owners going without pay for a year, dealing with endless regulation from the Feds and states, working 60 + hours to survive, etc.
umm, I didn't mention any empathy for either. I was talking about the effects of wages generally in economic and fiscal terms. It is not just about emotion, you know.

The business owners are responsible to following the law, including worker safety and environment, and engaging in voluntary transactions with customers, employees, and suppliers, They stay in business which is a noble fight. You / Democrats see them as responsible for ensuring that their employees can live a lifestyle that the state deems appropriate, paying for health insurance (but curiously not car insurance or home insurance :) ) etc. The state is demanding too much of private sector employers because it can. In addition to my not buying that philosophically, I think it also has disastrous effects for our economy, although maybe not the agents of the state.
It is not the "state" that determines the cost of living. That is based on rents, food prices etc etc often set by markets. Again, you appear to be making an argument against a position I have not been making out. It is easy to attack a philosophical straw man.
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Post 16 Oct 2017, 3:56 pm

freeman3 wrote:Please stop the why do you hate workers so much or don't care about them comments.. Obviously, liberals care more about low-wage workers than you guys both do so quit engaging in Orwellian doublespeak. I don't say you guys are bad people for being against the living wage...just wrong.

Let's engage on the merits shall we.


Go right ahead. Give us the merits. So far, I’m not impressed.

As for my personal experience, I know what it’s like to work 40 hours a week for less than a living wage. Do you?

And, if I was making a living wage at the warehouse, would I be as motivated to do something else? I don’t know.

I believe I asked some very fair questions. I’m disappointed you chose not to answer them.
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Post 16 Oct 2017, 5:43 pm

Danivon:
umm, I didn't mention any empathy for either. I was talking about the effects of wages generally in economic and fiscal terms. It is not just about emotion, you know.


Certainly Freeman (and Geo to a lesser extent) were talking in emotional terms. Empathy is a good thing, but ok, let's talk about the merits.

We started this digression because Brad was talking about his friend who owns a restaurant who may have to cut someone or many of his hours because the minimum wage is too high where he lives. What I've read is that there were virtually no economists that recommended that Seattle raise their minimum to $15. In fact, here's an interesting article on effects https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/won ... 95b9db7714

The costs to low-wage workers in Seattle outweighed the benefits by a ratio of three to one, according to the study, conducted by a group of economists at the University of Washington who were commissioned by the city. The study, published as a working paper Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, has not yet been peer reviewed. On the whole, the study estimates, the average low-wage worker in the city lost $125 a month because of the hike in the minimum.


Go ahead and debate the merits in economic and fiscal terms.

Would Freeman call this "Orwellian doublespeak"? He said that
Obviously, liberals care more about low-wage workers than you guys both do
Both Fate and I know that to not be true.

I've brought up Puerto Rico where unemployment rates were very high because the US federal minimum wage is not appropriate for that Island's economy. Raising the minimum wage would make things even worse for the Island.
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Post 16 Oct 2017, 5:48 pm

Freeman:
We have a Federal Reserve which basically interferes in the economy on the side of employers. How so? By pursuing anti inflationary policies it ensures that there is at least 10% true unemployment.


Well the Fed has 2 objectives: employment and inflation control. Those of us of a certain age still fear inflation. Re the merits though, it sounds like you are saying that Janet Yellen (and the President who made her Chairman) are part of a conspiracy for keeping interest rates too high? The Fed has kept interest rates at historical lows now for many years..
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Post 16 Oct 2017, 6:41 pm

I've worked in a warehouse before. The place made some kind of stuff. I put the stuff into a cart which to people who then boxed it. I worked at a McDonalds. Got a $89 check for 30 hours of work.

At that factory they paid the workers that made the stuff by piece work. It was amazing how productive people can be when they have incentives. When you tell people you get minimum
wage no matter how productive they are...they tend not to be that productive. The workers who got paid by piece work made a lot more than the people who boxed.

I think it's very hard for people who have a high-level of verbal ability and can therefore excel in this Information Age (and RJ and DF qualify) to really put themselves in the shoes of people who are not going to be in those types of jobs. Just because they are not going to be high income workers...does not mean that they cannot be very productive workers. Their contributions to society are still significant. By paying less than the living wage...you are devaluing their contribution to society.

The whole idea of paying a person a wage to be somewhere and do something puts constraints on a person's ability to maximize their labor. Here is an example:


https://www.fastcompany.com/3063262/wha ... ur-workday

There is an enormous amount of productivity that goes untapped when you pay people a wage to be at a certain place at a certain time. That is part why being at work is a prison of sorts. No way someone is going to max out for minimum wage. It's similar to what happened under Communism, really. Communist countries found that farmers were far more productive when they grew crops on individual plots vs the commune. It's the same thing with minimum wage jobs now. You get paid the same whether you do an outstanding or a mediocre job.

I am not alleging any conspiracy by the Fed. But their antinflationary monetary policy favors employers' bargaining power with workers. So its policy distorts wages, making the idea that the market fixes fair wage rates absurd. Said distortion (along with other distortions like monopolies/oligopolies, deunionization, disproportionate corporate bargaining power, globalization etc) makes a slight government intervention to correct these distortions fair.

So if you're concerned about paying someone a living wage...I'm very confident that there is a huge amount of untapped productivity based on paying employees for merely being there. It's not just people at high-income levels that should be able to express their abilities through their labor. Paying people by a flat wage is already an inefficient economic straitjacket. Paying them less than the living is an even worse offense.

Rather than paying dirt-poor wages...out of concern for their plight...how about figuring out ways to make them more productive so an employer can more easily afford paying them higher wages?
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Post 16 Oct 2017, 7:04 pm

As for your questions DF...I think I answered most of them. The government is using a limited tool demanding that employers pay a minimal level of pay that people can live on. That's it. It's justified because: (1) there is no evidence to indicate that a living wage would amount to low-wage employees getting an unacceptable amount of the wealth they create, (2) There are distortions to the market that favor employers (as discussed above), (3) the system that corporations use to pay wages--a flat rate--is an inefficient way of maximizing the productive potential of low-wage workers, and thus they should easily be able to adapt to paying higher wages by tapping untapped potential of workers, (4) paying workers a low wage to be someplace for a certain time limits their ability to fully express themselves in work (unless you think workers should be willing to work at a rate above normal and get nothing--that's Communism), and (5) it fulfills a societal policy that if you work hard and put in your 2,000 hours...you should be able to support yourself.

Work low-wage workers hard if you want. But pay them decently. I am just wondering if you did a poll in the 1950s...how many people would think that in 2017 millions of people work 40 hours (or more!) without being able to support themselves. I am guessing the number of people thinking that at that time would approach zero.
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Post 16 Oct 2017, 7:53 pm

freeman3 wrote:As for your questions DF...I think I answered most of them. The government is using a limited tool demanding that employers pay a minimal level of pay that people can live on. That's it. It's justified because: (1) there is no evidence to indicate that a living wage would amount to low-wage employees getting an unacceptable amount of the wealth they create, (2) There are distortions to the market that favor employers (as discussed above), (3) the system that corporations use to pay wages--a flat rate--is an inefficient way of maximizing the productive potential of low-wage workers, and thus they should easily be able to adapt to paying higher wages by tapping untapped potential of workers, (4) paying workers a low wage to be someplace for a certain time limits their ability to fully express themselves in work (unless you think workers should be willing to work at a rate above normal and get nothing--that's Communism), and (5) it fulfills a societal policy that if you work hard and put in your 2,000 hours...you should be able to support yourself.

Work low-wage workers hard if you want. But pay them decently. I am just wondering if you did a poll in the 1950s...how many people would think that in 2017 millions of people work 40 hours (or more!) without being able to support themselves. I am guessing the number of people thinking that at that time would approach zero.


Sorry, your arguments fall flat.

The following are highlights from the 2015 data:

Age. Minimum wage workers tend to be young. Although workers under age 25 represented only about one-fifth of hourly paid workers, they made up about half of those paid the federal minimum wage or less. Among employed teenagers (ages 16 to 19) paid by the hour, about 11 percent earned the minimum wage or less, compared with about 2 percent of workers age 25 and older. (See tables 1 and 7.)

Gender. Among workers who were paid hourly rates in 2015, about 4 percent of women and about 3 percent of men had wages at or below the prevailing federal minimum. (See table 1.)

Race and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. The major race and ethnicity groups had similar percentages of hourly workers paid wages at or below the federal minimum. About 3 percent of White, Asian, and Hispanic or Latino workers earned the federal minimum wage or less. Among Black workers, the percentage was about 4 percent. (See table 1.)

Education. Among hourly paid workers age 16 and older, about 6 percent of those without a high school diploma earned the federal minimum wage or less, compared with about 3 percent of those who had a high school diploma (with no college), 3 percent of those with some college or an associate degree, and about 2 percent of college graduates. (See table 6.)

Marital status. Of those paid an hourly wage, never-married workers, who tend to be young, were more likely (5 percent) than married workers (2 percent) to earn the federal minimum wage or less. (See table 8.)

Full- and part-time status. About 7 percent of part-time workers (those who usually work fewer than 35 hours per week) were paid at or below the federal minimum wage, compared with about 2 percent of full-time workers. (See tables 1 and 9.)


https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimu ... 5/home.htm

As for verbal skills, I think the money, by and large, is in tech. I know people who make very nice livings and could not play Diplomacy if you paid them handsomely.

You didn’t answer this question: if supply and demand is a law, why do you not care about the unskilled labor illegally residing in the US?
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Post 16 Oct 2017, 9:09 pm

In other words, half the minimum wage workers are 25 or older. Your stats are for federal minimum wage. For your argument to be valid...you need stats on those making a living wage or less.

McDonald's is paying illegals to work there? Didn't know that...

Anyway, how many illegal workers are here 5-10 million? That seems like a drop in the bucket out of an overall labor force of 150 million. But let's assume for the sake of argument that it has a significant effect on low wages. I don't have a trouble with strict border control. If you agree to a living wage..you can build a wall 100 feet high. Two problems I have with those opposing illegal immigration: (1) it scapegoats mexican, it's rooted in xenophobia-- anti-immigration forces has always been thus, (2) it is traumatic to uproot people who have been here a long time; I think if you have been here 5 years without any problems and you're working and staying out of trouble..we just let you stay. If you want to get people out...get them out quickly before they put down roots.

I would definitely support very strict border control for a living wage. Definitely. Having seen the trauma of long-time residents being deported...I do wish people would see the inhumanity of that. But strict border control I don't oppose, I just wish it came from a better place.
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Post 17 Oct 2017, 6:35 am

freeman3 wrote:In other words, half the minimum wage workers are 25 or older. Your stats are for federal minimum wage. For your argument to be valid...you need stats on those making a living wage or less.


No, it shows that the “problem” is not what you make it out to be: some epidemic of households across the nation. In fact, I might well argue, “Physician, heal thyself.”

http://www.politifact.com/california/st ... ty-rate-w/

McDonald's is paying illegals to work there? Didn't know that...


Do you know they don’t—given the ease with which fake ID’s are available?

However, that’s really beside the point. Labor supply is labor supply. Illegals are working, yes? If so, they are driving down the demand for unskilled labor among legal workers.

Go ahead. Prove that wrong.

Anyway, how many illegal workers are here 5-10 million? That seems like a drop in the bucket out of an overall labor force of 150 million.


Sigh. You complain about me, then you do this? What percentage of the overall labor force is unskilled? That’s the fair comparison of the illegal worker.

But let's assume for the sake of argument that it has a significant effect on low wages. I don't have a trouble with strict border control. If you agree to a living wage..you can build a wall 100 feet high. Two problems I have with those opposing illegal immigration: (1) it scapegoats mexican, it's rooted in xenophobia-- anti-immigration forces has always been thus, (2) it is traumatic to uproot people who have been here a long time; I think if you have been here 5 years without any problems and you're working and staying out of trouble..we just let you stay. If you want to get people out...get them out quickly before they put down roots.


1. Nonsense. We all know many crossing the border are OTM.
2. Nonsense. That they have been successfully avoiding obeying the law does not give them a pardon. Furthermore, it’s comical to say that because Obama let them in they should be able to stay—which is what you’re saying with your 5 year rule. What nonsense is that?

I, like most Americans, are not opposed to a pathway for citizenship AFTER the border has been controlled and the attraction for illegal immigrants has been closed. In other words, reform the system, then we can talk about legalization. Democrats are bent on the opposite. And, once legalization occurs, they will stonewall reform as they have for quite some time. They are only interested in MORE illegal aliens. In fact, if Democrats had their way they would effectively erase our borders. The more poor and ignorant socialists they can get into the country, the happier they are.

I would definitely support very strict border control for a living wage. Definitely. Having seen the trauma of long-time residents being deported...I do wish people would see the inhumanity of that. But strict border control I don't oppose, I just wish it came from a better place.


I would definitely support a living wage in exchange for a balanced budget amendment, a 10% cut in the Federal budget this year, term limits on Congress and the Supreme Court, Voter ID laws, defunding of Planned Parenthood, the elimination of the EPA and Departments of Energy and Education, the repeal of the ACA, and a restoration of limitations on the Federal government.

Deal?
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Post 17 Oct 2017, 8:28 am

Geo:
Either expect workers to be more productive and pay them more, or, the business person makes less profit and the worker is paid more, but either way the public should be paying NOTHING.


Freeman has used the term "living wage" many times.

I do think this needs to be defined to have a conversation on the merits.

In Massachusetts, you get subsidized health insurance if your income is less than 3X the federal poverty level. The poverty level for a family of four in 2018 will be $24,600. So, to follow Geo's condition in Mass. (and I presume NY and CA since we tend to be similar) you have to pay someone $36.90 per hour for 2,000 hours per year. (I'm assuming one parent is at home with the kids.)
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Post 17 Oct 2017, 8:43 am

Living wage to me is $15 per hour in a state like California. So $30,000 a year if you work 2,000 hours in a year.
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Post 17 Oct 2017, 9:13 am

Ray Jay wrote:Geo:
Either expect workers to be more productive and pay them more, or, the business person makes less profit and the worker is paid more, but either way the public should be paying NOTHING.


Freeman has used the term "living wage" many times.

I do think this needs to be defined to have a conversation on the merits.

In Massachusetts, you get subsidized health insurance if your income is less than 3X the federal poverty level. The poverty level for a family of four in 2018 will be $24,600. So, to follow Geo's condition in Mass. (and I presume NY and CA since we tend to be similar) you have to pay someone $36.90 per hour for 2,000 hours per year. (I'm assuming one parent is at home with the kids.)
Well, health insurance is probably a bad one to look at, given the mess it is in.

And it is an assumption that one partner would stay at home - and if they do, living costs are lower (no childcare).

Certainly it would seem to me that a reasonable minimum wage would at least be set so that full time work would put your household above poverty levels. Which on your figures and assumptions suggests c. $12 an hour at a federal level.