Minimum wage

Quote: Gandler

1.25 an hour adjusted for inflation would be about 11/HR today, not bad for a high school job even by today's standards (And Pre-COVID it would be actually quite good, now 11/HR would be low for entry level because of the stretched labor market, and everyone keeps offering more just to get applicants). But, certainly a fair minimum wage.

I have long said that 10-12 dollars an hours would be a reasonable minimum wage today. And, I think consistent with the intent of the early rates. But, there has been pushback since its inception for automatic inflation adjustment or else thing would probably be approx the minimum rate today.

$10-12 is the de facto minimum now, few jobs pay lower. I prefer it this way as it lets places pay lower for very marginal jobs that do not justify even $10 but most anyone can get $10-12 with little effort.

Quote: Mission146

Maybe the disqualifying factor is having a cock a doodle doo, or are we assuming this is post op?

I am assuming post-op. My position is born male always male. So I would not go with one. But I am not afraid to answer the question.

Anytime you want to issue a challenge, expect one in return. Or don't bother. No one has time for that weak sauce.

Quote: AZDuffman

$10-12 is the de facto minimum now, few jobs pay lower. I prefer it this way as it lets places pay lower for very marginal jobs that do not justify even $10 but most anyone can get $10-12 with little effort.

Exactly. That's the entire idea behind Minimum Wage, hence the word, "Minimum."

When Minimum Wage is increased, that increase happens at a specific time such that the Minimum Wage represents a certain amount of spending power (for that amount of money) relative to the time that the new wage is instituted. As inflation goes up and Minimum Wage remains unchanged, the relative spending power for someone who makes Minimum Wage drops in a relatively proportional way.

The same can be said for anyone making a particular amount of money that continues to make that amount of money over x period of time, where x can be anything that you want as long as there is inflation. In a deflationary period, spending power actually goes up by virtue of making the same amount of money.

With that, if Minimum Wage were to be reset and indexed to inflation, then what you would probably see many companies do (though likely rounding up or down to a number that ends in a zero or a five---ex: $9.75/hour) would be to have wages for positions that relate directly back to Minimum Wage. As an example, a grocery store might decide, "We pay our cashiers 25% over the Minimum Wage," so then when inflation (my system) causes Minimum Wage to go up, the cashier's wages would also increase proportionally to 25% over whatever the new Minimum Wage is.

Otherwise, what you end up with is one side pointing to the fact that Federal Minimum Wage has not changed in more than 12 years...and then campaigning for something ridiculous, such as the arbitrary amount of $15/hour...probably because it's a number that sounds good.

In my system, MW would change almost every year and there have only been one or two years of deflation, so it wouldn't have changed those years as my system would say never less than the previous year and never more than 5% more, regardless of what inflation does.

Honestly, the main reason that I think this would never happen is that it would take away a political talking point for both sides, but it's easily the most reasonable solution.

And, as has been pointed out (by people on opposite sides of the aisle----good job!) almost nobody actually makes the Federal Minimum Wage. In my system, that would continue to be the case.

What the right will agree with me on is that the Minimum Wage is NOT meant to be a living wage---otherwise, it would be called, "Living Wage," and probably would be $15/hour, or something. Both sides agree that the Federal Minimum Wage is rarely relevant to an individual person. Both sides agree that labor demand (read: jobs available) currently exceeds labor supply in most labor markets, so that renders Minimum Wage even less relevant.

That's the point. The reason for Minimum Wage to exist in the first place is so that the labor demand side (the employers) can't blatantly exploit people when the labor supply (people wanting jobs) greatly exceeds the number of jobs available---it creates a bottom so that there's no race to the bottom that drops below that.

Essentially, almost nobody should make Minimum Wage and almost nobody does. The labor market is pretty close to free market, most of the time...there's just a baseline for the bottom.

Both Republicans Democrats, Moderates all reward people having families bigger than they can afford which creates constant pressure on minimum wage, and if not minimum wage, than some other payments to families. The left funds those children when they come along and the right does little but encourages more births and lack of birth control measures. Or the right just underfunds things, and hopes that leads to overall good results.

Otherwise, there would be minimal pressure on minimum wage. Though it really is nonsense that it isn't indexed.

I say all sides "reward" because all measures when it comes to children are toothless essentially despite all attempts to pretend otherwise.

I can't think of any other absolute pressures on minimum wage besides food, somewhere to live and at least enough to eventually get ahead of where you started when you add in the normal pressures without kids.

Quote: rxwine

Both Republicans Democrats, Moderates all reward people having families bigger than they can afford which creates constant pressure on minimum wage, and if not minimum wage, than some other payments to families. The left funds those children when they come along and the right does little but encourages more births and lack of birth control measures. Or the right just underfunds things, and hopes that leads to overall good results.

Otherwise, there would be minimal pressure on minimum wage. Though it really is nonsense that it isn't indexed.

Ideally, you wouldn't have people in the family way making minimum wage jobs, though that occasionally fails in practice.

I think what can create pressure is that some employers occasionally pay less than a job (in my opinion) should reasonably make. Personally, I would look at someone who makes minimum wage and think that they should be doing minimum labor output, though I will concede that, "Labor output," is subjective and becomes a hard thing to strictly quantify.

For example, someone might say that a food prep person at McDonald's should not automatically make $15/hour, which I agree with, and think that the wage for that position should be primarily market driven, and will be, largely as a function of what other jobs are paying and cost of living. That said, I don't think that such a person should make the Federal Minimum Wage, either, because I think their labor output warrants more money than that. They risk injury, deal with hot equipment their entire shift...while not physically taxing, per se, the job requires one to do more than nothing physically, etc.

Even though I made more than Minimum Wage there, one job that would seem to warrant Minimum Wage (in my opinion) is when I worked at a set of tennis courts when I got out of High School. I did almost nothing. The courts were a substance called Har-Tru, so you would have to water them every couple of hours and brush them to smooth it back out after they were played on, but that's about it.*** The most physically demanding aspect of the job was that, maybe once per day, you'd have to carry down one of the bags of Har-Tru and, "Patch pour," which is just putting a little where concrete was showing and then rebrushing the entire thing.

Like Peter Gibbons of Office Space, I would say, in an eight hour shift, I did about fifteen minutes of actual work. I guess it was probably closer to a half hour of actual work, but you get the idea. On rainy days, I did virtually nothing, except sit there surprised that they wouldn't shut it down for the day and direct me to go help another department of the park---which I would have been more than happy to do. Of course, given the rain, the other departments also had almost nothing to do.

I spent most of my days inventing new types of solitaire card games, or a game by which I would bounce a tennis ball off of the picnic table, have it rebound off a brick wall and then catch it...with bonus points if it hits the little plaque that says who donated the shelter.

THAT is a minimum wage job. It essentially just requires that a person be physically present somewhere.

I look at the other social safety nets you mention as a totally unrelated matter, but wish it was left entirely up to the states to handle with the Federal Government totally out of it. I guess the only thing that I would do, since I would Index MW to inflation, is that I would also index the income qualifications for those safety nets (if you're to have them at all) to inflation---which I think might already be the case, in some instances...and others being indexed to cost of living and rental market values for an area.

***Added, after watering or brushing, there was a little tool that you had to use to clear the lines. It maybe weighed five pounds, so was really just walking around a little bit and rolling it.

Quote: Mission146

Exactly. That's the entire idea behind Minimum Wage, hence the word, "Minimum."

Here is what you are missing.

You think even liberal pols care about the teenager making minimum wage? Not really.

Lots of Federal contract paying union workers are indexed to minimum wage. IOW, a carpenter might be paid twice minimum. Then he pays union dues. And the union gives contributions to politicians.

THAT is why the pols care.

Quote: AZDuffman

Here is what you are missing.

You think even liberal pols care about the teenager making minimum wage? Not really.

Lots of Federal contract paying union workers are indexed to minimum wage. IOW, a carpenter might be paid twice minimum. Then he pays union dues. And the union gives contributions to politicians.

THAT is why the pols care.

I'm only concerned with a practical solution to Minimum Wage. If you index it to inflation, then the carpenter's wage would simply increase by the inflation percentage the following year.

It seems to me that would be better for the Union (and, by extension, the politicians of whom you speak) rather than having no change to the MW for more than a decade.