Minimum wage

October 28th, 2021 at 11:28:06 AM permalink
Mission146
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Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 23
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Quote: rxwine


f we conclude that raising minimum wage ultimately doesn't improve the lives at the bottom, but we're still getting greater wealth inequality year after year between the rich and the poor, that argues for a tax on the wealthy.

Conservatives will scream against either, so it makes little difference to me.


I don't think that an increase to minimum wage is inherently bad or doesn't improve anything; I think that a drastic increase (it's literally more than a 100% increase they are calling for) is going to be met by substantial and almost immediate price increases and will create pandemonium. It's not like, "Yay, everyone making less than $15/hour makes $15/hour now, and therefore, all problems are solved," because the increased prices are going to create absolute pandemonium when it comes to standards of living.

When the prices go up, you're also going to see people who were once reasonably comfortable be unable to meet their expenses because their budgets were not only based on their earnings, but they were also based upon prices of base goods and services remaining relatively stable. Increase to prices is going to be really bad news for the credit industry because people are going to begin to default as they become unable to buy food and make all of their bills...probably going to also play hell on landlords.

With that, you also get into the people who were getting certain social safety nets that I mentioned before who will no longer qualify. For example, here is the SNAP benefit estimator for Oregon, which I pulled up just because that's what Google had up top for my search:

https://sharedsystems.dhsoha.state.or.us/SNAP_Estimate/frmEstimate.cfm

We will start with a single mother of two who works full-time and makes $11/hour as our baseline. That comes out to $22,880/annually in pre-tax wages or $1906.67/month.

We will put rent at $1,400, but she's going to be on Section 8 for this family as she qualifies...so that's going to be a maximum of roughly $572/month in rent for her. Rent would otherwise be $1,456/month limit (max allowed for landlord to want) for Section 8 in my randomly picked Oregon County.

With that, she pays $572/month and Section 8 pays the landlord $828/month, but back to SNAP...we will say that she gets $600/month child support and only pays for a phone; the rest being included in rent.

With that, she qualifies for SNAP benefits of $514.

Thus, her effective monthly income (not including taxes paid) is 1906.67 + 600 + 514 = $3,020.67/month, of which she pays $572 for rent and her phone bill.

Now...if minimum wage goes up to $15/hour, let's take a look at what happens:

First thing is her base monthly income is $2,600/month, and with that, her first major problem---she no longer qualifies for Section 8 assistance unless the income limits change.

She still gets the child support, so that brings her up to $3,200/month. Her rent is now $1,400 (we will say) per month, due to the fact that she does not qualify for Section 8 anymore. Her SNAP benefits go down to $446 based on this new rent.

With that, her effective pre-tax income becomes $3,646/month, which reflects a difference of about $626/month, unfortunately, before we factor in any increases to the costs of consumer goods and services, her rent alone has gone up by $828/month, which means that she is worse off from a cash standpoint than she was before she started making an extra $4/hour.***

----As a result, ignoring the possibility of full-time benefits, this person (which is a lot of people) is actually better off to simply work fewer hours (as long as you ignore the increase to the costs of consumer goods and services) and NOT make more money overall.

So, what is the answer to the Minimum Wage problem?

Same answer it always was and they will never do. Index increases to MW to inflation.

***ADDED, also where her share of the rent was once 30% of her income (the most it can be if she is on Section 8 Assistance) her $1,400 rent now reflects 53.8% of her work income. Ouch.
"War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen..let us give them all they want." William T. Sherman
October 28th, 2021 at 11:29:56 AM permalink
Mission146
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Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 23
Posts: 4147
Quote: Evenbob
Rush Limbaugh, is that you speaking from Beyond the Grave? This is what Rush preached for years. Used to say $10 an hour, $12 an hour, $15 an hour. Why not make it $50 an hour, what difference would it make. The employer will just raise his prices to compensate and you will always be right where you started.


Ha! Well, I consider myself economically Moderate, am a Libertarian and did not necessarily disagree with everything that Rush Limbaugh said...just most of it.
"War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen..let us give them all they want." William T. Sherman
October 28th, 2021 at 11:33:31 AM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
Posts: 18632
Quote: AZDuffman
A tax on the wealthy? Why? Because they are more successful than you are?

Maybe just maybe people get wealthy because they work smarter and harder?

Someone had to explain why wealth inequality is a problem in the first place. After all, the more liberal a place is the more wealth inequality it tends to have. San Francisco is about the most liberal place there is and you have homeless slums around the plenty of the wealthy.


Where do you get off complaining about the wealthy getting screwed when anyone in a lower tax bracket like yourself is also screwing them? It’s not just the poor. Did you ever notice there are tax brackets all the way up. Why don’t you pay them back if you’re so concerned?
You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really?
October 28th, 2021 at 12:01:53 PM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
Posts: 18632
Quote: Mission146
I don't think that an increase to minimum wage is inherently bad or doesn't improve anything; I think that a drastic increase (it's literally more than a 100% increase they are calling for) is going to be met by substantial and almost immediate price increases and will create pandemonium. It's not like, "Yay, everyone making less than $15/hour makes $15/hour now, and therefore, all problems are solved," because the increased prices are going to create absolute pandemonium when it comes to standards of living.

When the prices go up, you're also going to see people who were once reasonably comfortable be unable to meet their expenses because their budgets were not only based on their earnings, but they were also based upon prices of base goods and services remaining relatively stable. Increase to prices is going to be really bad news for the credit industry because people are going to begin to default as they become unable to buy food and make all of their bills...probably going to also play hell on landlords.

With that, you also get into the people who were getting certain social safety nets that I mentioned before who will no longer qualify. For example, here is the SNAP benefit estimator for Oregon, which I pulled up just because that's what Google had up top for my search:

https://sharedsystems.dhsoha.state.or.us/SNAP_Estimate/frmEstimate.cfm

We will start with a single mother of two who works full-time and makes $11/hour as our baseline. That comes out to $22,880/annually in pre-tax wages or $1906.67/month.

We will put rent at $1,400, but she's going to be on Section 8 for this family as she qualifies...so that's going to be a maximum of roughly $572/month in rent for her. Rent would otherwise be $1,456/month limit (max allowed for landlord to want) for Section 8 in my randomly picked Oregon County.

With that, she pays $572/month and Section 8 pays the landlord $828/month, but back to SNAP...we will say that she gets $600/month child support and only pays for a phone; the rest being included in rent.

With that, she qualifies for SNAP benefits of $514.

Thus, her effective monthly income (not including taxes paid) is 1906.67 + 600 + 514 = $3,020.67/month, of which she pays $572 for rent and her phone bill.

Now...if minimum wage goes up to $15/hour, let's take a look at what happens:

First thing is her base monthly income is $2,600/month, and with that, her first major problem---she no longer qualifies for Section 8 assistance unless the income limits change.

She still gets the child support, so that brings her up to $3,200/month. Her rent is now $1,400 (we will say) per month, due to the fact that she does not qualify for Section 8 anymore. Her SNAP benefits go down to $446 based on this new rent.

With that, her effective pre-tax income becomes $3,646/month, which reflects a difference of about $626/month, unfortunately, before we factor in any increases to the costs of consumer goods and services, her rent alone has gone up by $828/month, which means that she is worse off from a cash standpoint than she was before she started making an extra $4/hour.***

----As a result, ignoring the possibility of full-time benefits, this person (which is a lot of people) is actually better off to simply work fewer hours (as long as you ignore the increase to the costs of consumer goods and services) and NOT make more money overall.

So, what is the answer to the Minimum Wage problem?

Same answer it always was and they will never do. Index increases to MW to inflation.

***ADDED, also where her share of the rent was once 30% of her income (the most it can be if she is on Section 8 Assistance) her $1,400 rent now reflects 53.8% of her work income. Ouch.


I say, we fix our system by paying taxes and letting politicians do what they think is best for us with the money. Then at the end of every fiscal year we vote for which one to execute.
You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really?
October 28th, 2021 at 12:15:02 PM permalink
AZDuffman
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 135
Posts: 18136
Quote: rxwine
Where do you get off complaining about the wealthy getting screwed when anyone in a lower tax bracket like yourself is also screwing them? It’s not just the poor. Did you ever notice there are tax brackets all the way up. Why don’t you pay them back if you’re so concerned?


I cannot understand what you are trying to say. The bottom 45% are the ones screwing everyone as they are paying 0% or even getting refundable credits.

How about answering what is wrong with "wealth inequality" instead of evading. Why should people who work harder not have more?
The President is a fink.
October 28th, 2021 at 12:37:40 PM permalink
Mission146
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Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 23
Posts: 4147
Also, I think $12 is the minimum wage in Oregon, but I mainly just selected Oregon because of the SNAP calculator being the first Google result.
"War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen..let us give them all they want." William T. Sherman
October 28th, 2021 at 12:46:21 PM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
Posts: 18632
People who work hard do have more. I guarantee a billionaire in the highest tax bracket has more.

Nothing hard to understand about my tax bracket example, but I’ll make it so easy even a complete dummy could understand by using some of the tax brackets in a sales tax example.

Guy A is making the most and would pay 32% sales tax for anything he buys
Guy B is making the next lowest and pays 24% sales tax for anything he buys
Guy C is making less and pays 22% sales tax for anything he buys.

Sure another person “D” at the bottom paying no tax gets the biggest break, but no one would say the guy paying 32% is getting the same deal as the other two. If you do, I’ll be glad to draw up a contract agreement for you and keep my “fair” share according to you.
You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really?
October 28th, 2021 at 12:48:30 PM permalink
AZDuffman
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 135
Posts: 18136
Quote: rxwine
People who work hard do have more. I guarantee a billionaire in the highest tax bracket has more.

Nothing hard to understand about my tax bracket example, but I’ll make it so easy even a complete dummy could understand by using some of the tax brackets in a sales tax example.

Guy A is making the most and would pay 32% sales tax for anything he buys
Guy B is making the next lowest and pays 24% sales tax for anything he buys
Guy C is making less and pays 22% sales tax for anything he buys.

Sure another person “D” at the bottom paying no tax gets the biggest break, but no one would say the guy paying 32% is getting the same deal as the other two. If you do, I’ll be glad to draw up a contract agreement for you and keep my “fair” share according to you.


"Fair" would be they all pay the same rate. And you still do not state why you thing income inequality is a bad thing. But at least you did not post a link to a porn site when I asked so not as bad as some previous evasions on your part.
The President is a fink.
October 28th, 2021 at 12:50:01 PM permalink
Mission146
Administrator
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 23
Posts: 4147
Quote: AZDuffman
I cannot understand what you are trying to say. The bottom 45% are the ones screwing everyone as they are paying 0% or even getting refundable credits.

How about answering what is wrong with "wealth inequality" instead of evading. Why should people who work harder not have more?


That's overgeneralizes it. If you look at Jon Gruden who had a contract for $10M/annually before he resigned as the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders and compare him to a distribution center employee who makes:

10000000/(18.25*40*52) = 263.44 (rounded)

Are you really going to tell me that Gruden worked 263.44x harder than the DC guy that year?

It obviously has more to do with the perception of Gruden's value to the organization than it has to do with how, 'Hard,' his work was, or even the quality of his work. If you say Gruden puts in more work, then if our DC guy only could work every single hour of the entire year, Gruden would then earn only 62.55x more than that employee would per year.

Anyway, the bottom 45% aren't, "Screwing," anybody. The tax code says what the tax code says, so go complain to the guys that wrote the tax laws. You're not going to have someone working as a grocery store cashier for $11/hour full-time and tell me that person is the one doing the, "Screwing." The tax code might be screwed, but they're not screwing anyone.

Might get somewhere if people quit casting aspersions and blame all the time and actually contemplated alternatives and what the consequences of potential alternatives might be. Instead, you have the $15/hour brigade who pounds their feet and (mostly) lacks the ability to even comprehend the possible consequences of such a thing...and Republicans, who mostly seem to think that almost nobody is worth more than five cents per hour.
"War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen..let us give them all they want." William T. Sherman
October 28th, 2021 at 12:53:49 PM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
Posts: 18632
OR to put it more simply, everyone but the rich is screwing the rich. Not just the bottom. But to different degrees.
You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really?