Economics: Minimum Wage, Who Gets Hurt?

[DBTrek]

The argument for 'not passing along the costs' would be the insane levels of corporate mass-produced profitability that our industries now enjoy. Profitability has gone parabolic, and wages have not moved (adjusted for inflation).

This is also very simple. Getting pedantic about milk vs. soda pricing is completely missing the point. You won't suddenly see a 3x jump in prices on your weekly grocery trip. You'll simply look back 10 years from now and realize that you're making more dollars, but you're more broke than ever. Frogs and boiling water.

Also, regarding the wages vs. value argument - I find it amusing that we're willing to delegate determining the value of our labor to middle management in any employer's office. American values indeed.

The ol’ socialist “business owners are hoarding wealth and exploiting everyone” theory of economics that turned Cuba, Cambodia, and the USSR into economic utopias.
Good to see it making a comeback.


If business profits are “parabolic” and labor is severely under compensated, why aren’t you running a business GCF? You hate parabolic gains?

[DBTrek]

Also, regarding the wages vs. value argument - I find it amusing that we're willing to delegate determining the value of our labor to middle management in any employer's office. American values indeed.

Yeah that struck me too. Ended up in my sig.

Middle management doesn’t determine the value of your labor ... wow. Can people really be this far behind the bell curve?

Management decides the rate they will pay for a particular labor to be performed, YOU decide if that offer is worth your time. If you take the job, and the pay, where do you get off blaming management for hiring you? If Neil DeGrasse Tyson accepts a job bagging groceries for $8 an hour how has middle management screwed him? He’s screwed himself by bagging groceries instead of working as a scientist. For NdT to rage about management setting his labor value would be ridiculous.

And ridiculous is the word that describes pretty much all the content in GCFs post.

[Fife]

Can people really be this far behind the bell curve?

[BjornP]

Guys, all I'm offering is real world data, and simple logical arguments. Data you can check yourselves. I feel like I'm getting a fight for just stating these two things, how am I misrepresenting the data or making bad arguments? I don't understand.

If you believe that minimum wage doesn't work, to some extent, as a rising tide lifting the prices of all goods, then what's the point of lifting minimum wage? If only very few make minimum wage level wages, then isn't the only benefit to raising it, that it may raise all other wages? Like a rising tide for other income groups than min. wage earners?

You believe the point of raising minimum wage is to raise the price of everything? (I'm confused)

And while most aren't at minimum wage, if minimum wage was raised to $15 then many more people would see a raise.

http://fortune.com/2015/04/13/who-makes-15-per-hour/

I'm not 100% on those numbers, so if anyone finds a better source then that's cool. According to these numbers though:



42% of workers make less than $15 an hour. Though those numbers are from 2012-2014, so a bit dated.

Yes, if people's wages were raised by say, 7$ to 15$, and if they are as many as you say, then that's a lot of people who would see a raise. But I still don't believe in minimum wage as a solution to raising a country's general level of welfare/solution to poverty. Not all employers are rich, multinational super-corps.

[Speaker to Animals]

[nmoore63]

Minimum wage jobs are actually in a large number of small businesses.

Mega corp jobs suck.

As such they generally offer better wage to compensate for all of the other soul sucking.

Its the local sandwich shop that pays less than subway.
Its the local retailer that pays box boys min, not Walmart.

Course min wage where I live is $11

Raising the minimum wage never sticks it to the mega corps like many voters imagine.

[PartyOf5]

In a statement to KIRO 7, the Western Washington McDonald's Owners Cooperative said: “Price increases are due to a variety of reasons and there isn’t any one factor that determines menu items pricing.

No Shit. But when you increase one of those factors by a large percentage, it will have an effect.

Many of the Seattle restaurants (for example the location where this beverage was purchased) are undergoing major renovations and improvements to bring our customers a fresh new experience, we’ve improved our employment packages (beyond the required wage increase) and have made other changes with the customer in mind

[/quote]
Translation: We're looking into self- serve kiosks and robots burger flippers in order to eliminate the $15/hr employee costs.

And who here has stated that "the price of everything will go up"? That's not addressing the actual argument that increasing the cost of labor will have an effect on jobs and prices.

[PartyOf5]

It's relevant because if minimum wage was the sole factor determining price,

Who is even making that argument? We all know that wages are not the sole factor in determining price. It is one of the factors. Most of us also know that if you dramatically increase any of the factors that make up price, then the price will go up.

Your milk argument is a misdirection. If you give fast food workers a raise from $8/hr to $15/hr it won't affect the cost of your milk at the grocery store. What it will do is affect the cost of the items sold by those fast food businesses and the number of jobs at those businesses. If you buy milk from those fast food businesses, then yes the price of your milk will go up.

[jediuser598]

It's relevant because if minimum wage was the sole factor determining price,

Who is even making that argument? We all know that wages are not the sole factor in determining price. It is one of the factors. Most of us also know that if you dramatically increase any of the factors that make up price, then the price will go up.

Your milk argument is a misdirection. If you give fast food workers a raise from $8/hr to $15/hr it won't affect the cost of your milk at the grocery store. What it will do is affect the cost of the items sold by those fast food businesses and the number of jobs at those businesses. If you buy milk from those fast food businesses, then yes the price of your milk will go up.

If you make minimum wage $11.50 will the price of milk be higher than if minimum wage was $8.25?

[K@th]

If you make minimum wage $11.50 will the price of milk be higher than if minimum wage was $8.25?

You should see someone about your milk obsession.