Homesteading Forum banner

Raise the minimum wage

1 reading
8.9K views 187 replies 39 participants last post by  HDRider  
#1 ·
So, I got this whole thing figured out. People in the top 5% make 2500/hour so why not just raise the minimum wage to 2500/hour? That way we will all have income equality and the only way to go from there is up.

Thoughts?
 
#3 ·
So, I got this whole thing figured out. People in the top 5% make 2500/hour so why not just raise the minimum wage to 2500/hour? That way we will all have income equality and the only way to go from there is up.

Thoughts?
Dang! You got it figured out. I thought I was doing great at $1100 a day back in 2005. Don't tell my nephews 😂... Every generation gets more used to the give me world 🌎 depending on the breeding cycle!!! Had to play the cows part on stuff.
 
#7 ·
Raising the minimum wage is a joke on us folks - don't get suckered in and think the government is being benevolent. It's just another sneaky way for the government to get more taxes.

Talk to someone that's gotten a pay raise and come home with less cash in their pocket. Or someone who has refused a pay raise because it's put them in a higher tax bracket.....
 
#10 ·
Raising the minimum wage is a joke on us folks - don't get suckered in and think the government is being benevolent. It's just another sneaky way for the government to get more taxes.

Talk to someone that's gotten a pay raise and come home with less cash in their pocket. Or someone who has refused a pay raise because it's put them in a higher tax bracket.....
Think of the national debt and how much we would pay that down. They promise to not spend more every 4 years.

Besides, you know you need to pay more taxes. :)
 
#13 ·
a friend managed a very successful pizzeria in IL they raised the minimum to 10 dollars an hour Jan 1 2020 with plans to ad 1 dollar each Jan 1 till they were at 15 an hour they knew they couldn't make it work with those numbers.

it isn't just going from paying the employee who was making 8-10 to 15 it is all the payroll taxes also.

they closed in December 2019
 
#21 ·
Pretty simple arithmetic-- You run a business that makes an acceptable profit. You make it while paying 10 employees each $10/hr-- total payroll $100/hr x 8 hr/d = $800/d --that's $80/worker; total 80 man-hrs per day.

They raise min wage to $15/hr, so in order to maintain your barely acceptable profit, you have to keep weekly payroll at that same $800...To do that, 800/15 = 53 man-hrs per day, or 6.6 workers -- You'd have to fire 3.4 workers.

So in the end, 6.6 workers would get richer (while working harder), but 3.4 would have no income at all....What happened to Income Equality?

The Socialists whine "You can't raise a family on $10/hr"... Who says you're supposed to?
 
#38 ·
The idea is that the 3.4 workers with "no income at all" would find other work and fill a niche where they, too, "get richer." Aren't ya'll always first in line to bang that, "If you don't like it, find a new job!!?!?" drum?

Meanwhile, the 6.6 workers can quit their excessive part-time jobs because they can self-support on only the first job. This frees positions for the 3.4 workers to fill, and shifts the need from "many part times" to "a few but full shifts." Again, more stable and better for the working class.

I spent several years working with small businesses -- both for them, and in support of them. There is one thing that a lot of these businesses had in common, and that was an obsession with monstrous, rapid growth. They would out-grow themselves, while never providing raises to their workers. Instead, they'd only add more workers at the bottom wage when their current staff could no longer physically support the workload (which always seemed to get worse). Many of these idiots would suck their company dry to pay for personal expenses (new house, new boat, etc). Then something happens, like a minor law changes or taxes change, and suddenly they can't afford all of their bottom-of-the-barrel employees because they didn't budget for higher human resource expenses. And who do they blame? The Democrats, or the government, or their competition, or the workers themselves for being "greedy takers" who "refuse to work." Never themselves, the business owners who should have been dripping cost-of-living adjustments and wages to keep time with their growth, and leaving their company coffers alone.
 
#23 ·
We don't need money. Everything will soon be free.

You will own nothing, and be happy

 
#24 ·
Anyone notice how chicken has got more expensive in the last ten years? I used to be able to buy a whole chicken for less than a dollar. Now you are lucky to find it less than a dollar a pound. Pilgrim's Pride and Tyson are now union and starting wages are close to 15 an hour.
 
#31 ·
I don't know what You all earn or earned , but $15 is nothing nowadays. Wages have stagnated over the last several decades- this is long overdue. Low wage earners need some incentive, otherwise its just not worth it , to work for nothing. Come on all of You 'high rollers', with all of your money- time to share a little!
 
#40 ·
Here is yet another thumbnail of a conversation I had with one of my son's college pals over the topic.

Kid- "A higher wage levels the playing field."
Me- "How so?"
Kid- "Young people need equal pay just like women."
Me- "...ok, I think that relates to the job position more than the person."
Kid- "Yeah, well, paying people better means they will do a better job."
Me- "You mean if I'm not getting their best effort at $12 an hour I would at $15?"
Kid- "Probably."
Me- "If someone is purposely slacking and getting paid for it, shouldn't I just fire them and hire someone who is willing to earn their way up the ladder?"
Kid- "That isn't fair to the guy you fired. He just wants what he deserves."
Me- "Well what about the worker that has been there for 5 years making $15?"
Kid- "That is like slavery. They should get more, a lot more."
Me- "So, like $20? $25 per hour."
Kid- "Pay them more and you'll get a better product and people will want to come back to do business with you. So you would make more money in the end."
Me- "I'd have to raise prices to absorb the higher labor costs."
Kid- "That's a myth. Besides, nobody that owns a business is living in the poor house."

Class envy
A lack of business comprehension
A bias formed off of the cliff notes of modern main stream media
Myopia. His dad is a successful music producer.

This is a kid attending a major university who is seeking a major in marketing. To be fair, he is a freshman...

BTW, the phrase "Level the playing field" is a sports analogy, and implies the participants are paid based on skills, talent and production.
 
#41 ·
I see the usual ideological positions well represented, but there is some economic misinformation here:

1. The Laffler Curve theory (even if one accepts it as true, which is disputed) only states that overall government revenue may not increase by increasing minimum wage. It does not address disemployment effects or how the raise benefits low income workers or the general economy. So it is a red herring in this discussion.

2. The disemployment effect is greatly exaggerated in supply side economic modelling. Firstly, labour costs are a fairly small percentage of overall costs, so a raise to minimum wage if only fractionally felt on the bottom line. Secondly, these models presume that prices are immovable, even though a modest increase in price could easily accommodate paying a living wage. That's not to say that massive sudden hikes can't have a disemployment effect, but phased in predictable stages, it can be quite manageable.
 
#74 ·
Bottom line for me:

Raising the minimum wage has been tried and it has been successful. None of the effects that people here are doom-and-glooming about actually occurred in areas where the minimum wage was raised.

Nobody is suggesting a "$1000" minimum wage, either, so anyone coming into the conversation with that isn't coming into it in good faith.



Different parts of the country require different wages. Some places in Texas a house note is under 400 a month. I have 5 acres and a 2500 foot house, a 1500 foot shop and I pay a little over 600.

In california that same house would cost about 3000 month.

That is why we don't need a federally mandate for wages.
My point above is that $600 can't reliably be lived on.

You pay a little over $600/mo for your plot, and you're already over budget before you even pay for insurance, electricity, or your first pair of good work boots. Even if you bought something at $400/mo, you have only $200 remaining to pay for all of your most basic essentials. You can't. It's not reasonable, unless you do all your own medical care, walk everywhere, and live like it's the 1800's.

Do you see why I was scoffing at this person suggesting people should actually be able to live on that?
 
#46 ·
Company scrip is scrip issued by a company to pay its employees. It can only be exchanged in company stores
 
#52 ·
That terrifying video out of Boston Dynamics should disabuse anyone of the idea that minimum wage no skill jobs are going to be around much longer, anyway. Robots don't care what wage you pay them, they don't call in sick or take maternity leave, quit or require benefits.


Continue to make it more financially feasible to buy some robots to do your brainless burger flipping or box stacking than to hire people to do it and the minimum wage argument becomes moot, but not in the way proponents hope it will.
 
#62 ·
A guy I knew as a very young adult married a gal and she got pregnant soon after.
He got fired at the department store he worked at, getting paid minimum wage plus commission. His new wife's brother worked for his dad's company and made some decent money.
My buddy confronted his brother in law and demanded that he quit and give him the job. Why?
Because he had a family and needed the money. The BIL still lived at home and could go find something else.
At the time I thought that was a rare strain of ignorance.
 
#64 ·
Years ago I suggested that the Republicans advocate a minimum wage of $1,000 an hour.

The low wage folks would vote Republican.

And a hamburger would cost $2,000.

But, hey, voters are stupid and self-serving.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JeffreyD and doc-