Minimum Wage Increase: Support or Oppose ?

[MattyFos.]

I'm having a hard enough job trying to find people worth paying $9 an hour who can pass a drug test and background check.. I'll never find someone worth 15. The applicant pool is shallow as fuck.

 

[Cratylus]

Once they have that kid, he/she is an American child, a baby, so now the ethical responsibility is on THE PARENTS OF THAT CHILD to ensure their well-being.

I fixed that for you.

 

[Cavsfan1985]

I look at min wage this way. I it goes up lets say to 12/hour. What does that do for the rest of the work force? Will all wages move up? IMO the higher the min wage goes up, the harder it will be for young adults to find jobs. Would you rather hire a 18 year old kid, or someone who is looking for a post retirement job now that it is worth taking one as you make $12/hour?

 

[elcheato]

I look at min wage this way. I it goes up lets say to 12/hour. What does that do for the rest of the work force? Will all wages move up? IMO the higher the min wage goes up, the harder it will be for young adults to find jobs. Would you rather hire a 18 year old kid, or someone who is looking for a post retirement job now that it is worth taking one as you make $12/hour?

An 18 year old kid because they're probably able to get more work done than someone post-retirement

 

[Ohdang]

I was having this discussion at work with a coworker and wanted to get RCF's view. IS the below story and issue of not having a high enough min wage, or people who do not have self control and take personal responsibly.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/07/news/economy/working-poor/index.html?iid=EL

I feel for the guy who's working when he can and trying to find another job but not having much luck, but the other people in the story did that to themselves. He has a job making next to nothing and she only works part time at Taco Bell? Why the fuck did you have 6 kids then? She said "We deserve so much better" but I say get the fuck outta here. You deserve more because you had 6 kids while you worked part time at Taco fucking Bell? I hate people that have entitled attitudes like that. They made $27k and got $825 in food stamps? Shit, I survived on less than that without food stamps for years. It wasn't that hard because I wasn't trying to repopulate the neighborhood.

It would be nice if everyone who is so in favor of increasing the minimum wage that drastically would take an economics class. That's going to do so much more damage than its going to help.

 

[Ohdang]

I look at min wage this way. I it goes up lets say to 12/hour. What does that do for the rest of the work force? Will all wages move up? IMO the higher the min wage goes up, the harder it will be for young adults to find jobs. Would you rather hire a 18 year old kid, or someone who is looking for a post retirement job now that it is worth taking one as you make $12/hour?

I think people who support significant minimum wage increases think that. Like companies will say oh now we're paying our janitors $5 more an hour, so we'll pay everyone else $5 more an hour too! Not fucking likely. What will happen is the low wage workers will make more, and then most of them will be laid off and a few will be expected to earn that increase by doing the work other people were doing in addition to their own. That makes for more unemployment. Then also, the middle class all of a sudden gets a good bit poorer and there are even more people sliding into poverty due to the money they do make being worth less. Poor people have extra money and aren't used to it, so they go out and foolishly spend it, causing more inflation...

Such a bad, bad idea.

If you want more money, learn to do something that society thinks is worth more than you're currently doing. Nobody thinks a part timer at Taco Bell is worth $15 except the person who works part time at Taco Bell.

 

[KI4MVP]

There are currently two problems with minimum wage law.

1 - it doesn't account for different areas having different costs of living. When you adjust for cost of living, a $7.25 minimum wage is only worth $4/hour for someone in NYC. i.e. what they can buy with that is what an average american can buy with $7.25. The minimum wage should be higher in NYC to account for that. The minimum wage in other areas doesn't need to be increased to fix the issue in NYC.

2 - it doesn't adjust from year to year as the national cost of living increases. Some states (like Ohio) fix this by indexing the cost of living to changes in the US Consumer Price Index.

Both of these issues should be fixed.

It is insane to just blanket raise it to $15 across the country. This would have so many unintended consequences. Companies would have to do some combination of raising prices, cutting staff, lowering quality, cutting payroll of higher paid employees, etc, to cover the sudden increase in the cost of their own staff and the increased prices from their suppliers. Some companies would go out of business.

 

[gourimoko]

There are currently two problems with minimum wage law.

1 - it doesn't account for different areas having different costs of living. When you adjust for cost of living, a $7.25 minimum wage is only worth $4/hour for someone in NYC. i.e. what they can buy with that is what an average american can buy with $7.25. The minimum wage should be higher in NYC to account for that. The minimum wage in other areas doesn't need to be increased to fix the issue in NYC.

2 - it doesn't adjust from year to year as the national cost of living increases. Some states (like Ohio) fix this by indexing the cost of living to changes in the US Consumer Price Index.

Both of these issues should be fixed.

It is insane to just blanket raise it to $15 across the country. This would have so many unintended consequences. Companies would have to do some combination of raising prices, cutting staff, lowering quality, cutting payroll of higher paid employees, etc, to cover the sudden increase in the cost of their own staff and the increased prices from their suppliers. Some companies would go out of business.

Just FYI, the Federal Minimum Wage legislation is not designed to contend with issue #1. The States and local municipal governments can enforce higher minimum wages. California has a $9 minimum wage statewide, and Los Angeles is almost assuredly going to adopt a $15 minimum wage in the coming year.

It's better that the federal government not involve itself in local issues like that.