Minimum Wage Increase: Support or Oppose ?

[Marcus]

I've got no issue raising it to $10 an hour. $15 an hour is too much, especially to be a burger flipper. There are people with four year degrees that don't even make that much out of school.

I think X has it completely right - fix the broken higher education system, and you will fix a significant portion of our economy's problems. Student loan debt currently comprises 6% of the national debt, a whopping $1.2 trillion, and people still aren't able to find jobs after they graduate, leaving them stuck with a ton of debt and no way out. It's a vicious cycle, and one that needs to be addressed, more so than the federal minimum wage imo.

 

[Cavsfan1985]

You don't want minimum wage raised, but you want more skilled jobs. How do people get skilled if they can't afford education to become skilled? You don't want people working at the grocery store to make a living wage, you'd rather subsidize them through the government.

You've got Walmart, the countrys largest private employer. Went through 3 CEOs in less than 2 years. 1st one got busted for bribing mexican officials. 2nd one got busted for giving himself an $11 million bonus because they hit 2% growth. Except he left all the gov't subsidy (food stamp money) in that growth. When removed, they grew less than half a percent. You realize that pretty much all retail and service companies do the same thing?

I don't know why everyone thinks if you just had more skilled jobs, everything would fix itself. Americans rely on the service industry more now than ever before. What's going to suddenly stop that? You going to start growing your own garden, and maintaining a farm? No? Then maybe you'll stop trivializing minimum wage.

I know you are going over dramatic to make your point, but it really does not make sense. I think you missed the class around supply and demand. The reason we have to have a minimum wage is the supply for retail/fast-food jobs is greater then the demand right now, so minimum wage protects those workers. If we had more skilled jobs which paid more money, the idea is people would be more inclined to get the skills to have these jobs, thus lowering the pool of people looking for minimum wage jobs, thus the supply would go down, demand would go up, and companies would be forced to pay more to get good workers. I put myself through school on these retail jobs, and I always made more then minimum wage, I proved I was valuable so I got more to keep me from leaving.

My main point of minimum wage is it is a macro issue that has many moving parts, you cannot treat it like a micro issue.

 

[Cavsfan1985]

You don't want minimum wage raised, but you want more skilled jobs. How do people get skilled if they can't afford education to become skilled? You don't want people working at the grocery store to make a living wage, you'd rather subsidize them through the government.

You've got Walmart, the countrys largest private employer. Went through 3 CEOs in less than 2 years. 1st one got busted for bribing mexican officials. 2nd one got busted for giving himself an $11 million bonus because they hit 2% growth. Except he left all the gov't subsidy (food stamp money) in that growth. When removed, they grew less than half a percent. You realize that pretty much all retail and service companies do the same thing?

I don't know why everyone thinks if you just had more skilled jobs, everything would fix itself. Americans rely on the service industry more now than ever before. What's going to suddenly stop that? You going to start growing your own garden, and maintaining a farm? No? Then maybe you'll stop trivializing minimum wage.

I know you are going over dramatic to make your point, but it really does not make sense. I think you missed the class around supply and demand. The reason we have to have a minimum wage is the supply for retail/fast-food jobs is greater then the demand right now, so minimum wage protects those workers. If we had more skilled jobs which paid more money, the idea is people would be more inclined to get the skills to have these jobs, thus lowering the pool of people looking for minimum wage jobs, thus the supply would go down, demand would go up, and companies would be forced to pay more to get good workers. I put myself through school on these retail jobs, and I always made more then minimum wage, I proved I was valuable so I got more to keep me from leaving.

My main point of minimum wage is it is a macro issue that has many moving parts, you cannot treat it like a micro issue

 

[FiveThous]

The problem I have with raising the minimum wage is that other people's salaries aren't rising enough to keep up with the current inflation rates. Raising the minimum wage is only going to add to this already existing problem.

 

[Cavsfan1985]

I've got no issue raising it to $10 an hour. $15 an hour is too much, especially to be a burger flipper. There are people with four year degrees that don't even make that much out of school.

I think X has it completely right - fix the broken higher education system, and you will fix a significant portion of our economy's problems. Student loan debt currently comprises 6% of the national debt, a whopping $1.2 trillion, and people still aren't able to find jobs after they graduate, leaving them stuck with a ton of debt and no way out. It's a vicious cycle, and one that needs to be addressed, more so than the federal minimum wage imo.

I could not agree more. The issue is minimum wage is a bigger political topic that helps politicians get votes. Most people who are college educated have already picked a side and are educated voters. Introducing a plan to fix student loans and college does not move the needle for an election year.

I think one of the biggest issues on college is you are told your whole life you need to go to college and have a degree to be successful. While there is some truth to this, college just want students and the days of people being blunt on what you should be doing with your life are over. A college will feed you anything to get you to enroll. Colleges should be more upfront about the true cost of school, and the average amount of money you will make when you graduate. If you go to school rack up 10's of thousand of debt to be a teacher, you should know that your first 10-15 years of your professional career you will struggle with huge parts of your income to pay off college.

 

[AuxiliaryPie]

I put myself through school on these retail jobs, and I always made more then minimum wage, I proved I was valuable so I got more to keep me from leaving.

that might have worked out for you, but at my company there were no raises except for the annual systematic one where you get a % raise for meeting criteria. The % raise had a cap (which I hit every year and I honestly was not that great of an employee, but i was pretty good) and it went into effect right before any changes in minimum wage went into effect.

So for example, i make 8.50, i get my annual % raise to 8.65. Minimum wage goes up to $8.68 a week later, I now make $8.68 instead of $8.68 + my % raise

and even though i regularly worked the sales floor, freight, POS, overnights and even managed some people during holiday times, i made as much as all the scrubs that are only trained in one of those areas. and when we bitched about being over qualified and underpaid we got the BS "Well that makes you available for more hours." or "That makes you qualified for promotions down the road" yeah well i still average 15 hours a week and im not here to get promoted to supervisor (which is next to impossible), im here to do my part and pay off my loans; so fucking pay me what im worth

/rant

I should add that i didnt just leave because they were extremely flexible with scheduling me around my schooling and the people were very nice, just shitty corporate structure that is similar to the industry standard

 

[brownindian]

Businesses will pay only what a job is worth and not you are worth and i think that is where the principle disagreement comes from. You could be the worlds greatest security guard even Bruce Lee for crying out loud but that does not mean you will get paid like a manager.

Having said that I do feel like wages not being tied to inflation is a problem and a bump is needed but what would be a good measuring stick ?

And to add, I feel as more and more people find it harder to make a living and are forced to depend on the government then more the government will be forced to adopt a socialistic policy or be geared to face a revolution.

 

[Kyrieville]

I would support an industry-based minimum wage. I do not think fast food should pay $15/hour. Fast food jobs are traditionally jobs for teenagers (not so much recently) and I think the current minimum wage is fine for that industry (a slight bump is needed). I would support a $15/hour minimum wage for factory workers and other potentially hazardous jobs.

A lot of the manufacturing jobs in this area require people to apply through a temp agency. They pay minimum wage-$9/hr. They mandate 58 hour work weeks and do not pay overtime. They get around it by saying that the worker is an employee of the temp agency for 29 hours and an employee of the factory for 29 hours. They also avoid having to pay for health insurance. Nice loophole, eh?

 

[Kyrieville]

They can raise minimum wage, but it's a band-aid. This country needs to figure out what to do with the worthless leeches and freeloaders. Make them learn a trade or something... Put money towards trade programs in high schools, make it more difficult to drop-out of school... I don't know, but something needs to happen. You can't just keep putting a napkin over the wound by handing out more money.

I agree. Quit making it advantageous for 18 year olds to have children. The Earned Income Tax Credit is a joke. Noone should get more back in taxes than what they paid in. EBT is a joke. I am fine with an EBT program, but I think it should turn into a voucher program, or cut the funds in half and make people buy generic foods. Ban the use of EBT on things like steak, lobster, pop, etc. Allow for 0-10% of the funds to be spent on junk food.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Thoughts ?

I'll tell you right now that if you raised it to $15/hour, there would be a serious loss of jobs attributable directly to that. We've got a lot of manufacturers who are running razor-thin margins to remain competitive with overseas products. And while most manufacturers aren't paying minimum wage, a great many have some positions that are well under $15/hr. Things like sweepers, janitors, unskilled labor, etc.. And If you jack up the minimum wage to $15/hr., not only are you going to have increased costs from those folks, but that is also going to place a lot of upward pressure on wage scales above $15/hour, because you can't pay the guys who were earning nearly double minimum wage the new minimum wage. Wage compression doesn't work. You'd make a bunch of manufacturers/industries non-competitive virtually overnight.

You'd also likely see dollars flowing away from those businesses most likely to pay minimum wage. Fast food, some landscaping jobs, etc.. Instead of ordering pizza twice a week like you used to, you can only afford it once a week. And then, why pay the same for pizza that you would getting something nicer? You'd see a tremendous reduction in the number of "minimum wage jobs", with that same amount of money going to far fewer people. Leaving all those unskilled/problem workers without job opportunities, because their work just isn't worth $15/hour.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

.

A lot of the manufacturing jobs in this area require people to apply through a temp agency. They pay minimum wage-$9/hr. They mandate 58 hour work weeks and do not pay overtime. They get around it by saying that the worker is an employee of the temp agency for 29 hours and an employee of the factory for 29 hours. They also avoid having to pay for health insurance. Nice loophole, eh?

That's blatantly illegal, and explicitly barred by the wage-hour folks because they're considered joint employers. If that is really happening, call up a local attorney or just call the department of labor.

 

[Kyrieville]

That's blatantly illegal, and explicitly barred by the wage-hour folks because they're considered joint employers. If that is really happening, call up a local attorney or just call the department of labor.

It's happening to a couple of friends (two different companies). Maybe I'll call on their behalf. It sickens me to see shit like this.

 

[BigErieCavsFan]

I voted yes, but not for $15. Start at 10ish with yearly reviews of the economy for small % raises.

 

[Marcus]

I could not agree more. The issue is minimum wage is a bigger political topic that helps politicians get votes. Most people who are college educated have already picked a side and are educated voters. Introducing a plan to fix student loans and college does not move the needle for an election year.

I think one of the biggest issues on college is you are told your whole life you need to go to college and have a degree to be successful. While there is some truth to this, college just want students and the days of people being blunt on what you should be doing with your life are over. A college will feed you anything to get you to enroll. Colleges should be more upfront about the true cost of school, and the average amount of money you will make when you graduate. If you go to school rack up 10's of thousand of debt to be a teacher, you should know that your first 10-15 years of your professional career you will struggle with huge parts of your income to pay off college.

The issue is that these loan companies target vulnerable 17/18 year-olds that have never dealt with the real world before in their lives. The private lenders are the worst. They can basically set any terms that they want and if you hit some major financial hardships, they don't have to (and usually won't) work with you at all to come up with alternative repayment options.

I would argue that going to a trade school is just as lucrative a choice as getting a bachelor's in several cases. But you are correct, there is just this stigma in our society that you HAVE to go to college in order to get a good job and be successful.

Kind of off topic for this post, but to address another point I saw, I don't know that you can technically say that an increase in the minimum wage would mean job loss. That to me means that workers already under contract would lose their jobs. No, it would result in fewer jobs, I think. Workers (especially those in supervisory positions) would take on more tasks to avoid having to pay another worker, especially one who is salaried. Employers would be less likely to hire when they could just have another worker take up those tasks.

 

[Cavsfan1985]

I think the hardest part about this type of discussion is the Bias we all. If you are someone making close to min wage then yes you support it going up, if you are not even close to it, then you may be more in favor of no change.