Help me understand the impact of a $15 minimum wage?

[Anonymous]

I'd say that an employer has a moral obligation to pay his workers a living wage - $7.50 an hour ain't it. Can't pay a living wage? Then you need to do something else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think anyone who has the same knee-jerk reaction every single time we discuss raising the federal minimum wage should not be taken seriously when they make the same exact tires arguments without backing them up with current research. It’s not meant to never change. It has to change as the economy changes. We should be debating how much it goes up and what indicators to tie it to, not whether it needs to go up at all. Because it obviously does. Half of the workforce making under 15 an hour is insane.

Frankly, I don't think the govt. should be setting a minimum wage.
If a person cannot afford to live on a wage offered to him/her, then that person should seek a job elsewhere. If the businesses offering low wages cannot find workers, they will raise their wages.
Of course, this depends on NOT having low wage workers flooding our country from south of our border.
You realize that under Trump, wages rose and this was in large part due to our border enforcement. Sadly, that has now changed.

Since our economy is dominated by effective monopolies, this does not work. If they break up the big corporations and strongly enforce anti-monopoly laws, this might work.

Who are these monopolies that you speak of and how do they have a monopoly in the hiring of labor near minimum wage levels.

Not the Pp, but when the only employer in town is Walmart, it’s an effective monopoly. Which is why we have minimum wage laws to begin with. We don’t need anti-trust, just floors for what we deem is an acceptable and not unconscionable bargain between an employee and an employer.

Show me a town where the only employer there is Walmart. Go ahead, I'm open-minded enough to learn of such a town.

There are TONS of little places where a downtown commercial district was completely gutted by a WalMart opening.

I’ll give you one example I saw happen in real-time: Bedford, VA. I grew up there.

Prior to a WalMart supercenter openning up, the downtown commercial corridor in Bedford had: a pharmacy, a grocery store, a furniture store, a fabric sewing and vacuum store, an optician, an appliance store, a sporting goods-hunting-guns-bait shop, a phone and computer store, a dress shop, a toy store, a bike shop, a bakery, a hardware store, a book store, a VA ABC store, a shoe store, a tire and car repair shop, and several restaurants.

Within two years, everything except the VA ABC and the tire shop were gone.

This isn’t debatable. This happened to MY little town, where I grew up. I. Watched. It. Happen.

If you want to open a discussion about the impact of Wal-Mart on small-town economy, go open such a thread. The discussion here is around the claim that there is a "monopoly" of labor demand. To show just how idiotic this claim is, I challenged for someone, anyone, to show an example of such a monopoly, and the response is "Wal-Mart". Regardless of Wal-Mart's effect on Bedford, VA, or any other similar small town, they do not have a monopoly on the labor demand in those small towns. Just a quick search of jobs in Bedford, VA:

https://www.google.com/search?q=jobs+bedford+va&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS737US737&oq=jobs+bedford+va&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i22i30l9.2458j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&ibp=htl;jobs&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj0qqbI-9ruAhVBVTUKHa7KCQoQudcGKAN6BAgDEC4&sxsrf=ALeKk01e0WZyjO1oCpq1N6jMGF_vXbitvw:1612810568711#htivrt=jobs&htidocid=H93lg8WQXApyFr1OAAAAAA%3D%3D&fpstate=tldetail

While a few of the jobs listed are certainly from Wal-Mart, it certainly doesn't look anything like a monopoly. In fact, Bedford County does not even list Wal-Mart among its top employers:

https://www.bedfordareachamber.com/economic-development/

Anyone who thinks Wal-Mart or any other company has a monopoly on the demand for labor is ignorant of the facts.

the original thread said effective monopoly, not monopoly. When all the wealth is concentrated in a few hands, these people don't even need to talk to each other to collude. they know that if none of them breaks ranks, they can be the boss men and the poor have to live with whatever crumbs they put out. Only in large cities are there enough employers that the boss man can't effectively collude (and yes, the word effectively is key)

Well if "effective monopoly" is the argument, then just listing out a single company Wal-Mart doesn't qualify as evidence, does it? I'm not the one who brought up Wal-Mart. So if Wal-Mart is an ineffective example of "effective monopoly", a position which I am in complete agreement with, then please show evidence that there is an effective monopoly of the labor market in Bedford VA or anywhere else by "big corporations". Go ahead.

Before you post your next evidence, also ponder the fact that people living in/around Bedford, VA know how to drive cars and are able to commute to a reasonable degree. Within a 30 mile drive of Bedford is Roanoke, VA, and Lynchburg, VA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd say that an employer has a moral obligation to pay his workers a living wage - $7.50 an hour ain't it. Can't pay a living wage? Then you need to do something else.

That may be, but an employer has a higher moral obligation to his family. Furthermore, the employer has a higher moral obligation to repay any debts and to offer his customers a product/service at a competitive price. It's irrational for any employer to overpay his employees beyond the economic value of their labor because such an employer would be violating his higher moral obligation to his family, lenders, and customers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I'm sorry you find having to pay your employees a living wage so confounding.

Telling that you assume that anyone arguing for the business owner is a business owner.

Far from it. My dad started a business that didn't succeed. He paid his employees when he was not paying himself. He sold the business to someone who had the capital to invest. Because of capital, the business became successful. Took dad years to get back on his feet financially. It was his dream, and it didn't work out for him. But, that is why I know how hard starting a business can be. Spouse and I have only worked for others. I never had any desire to start a business--I know how hard it is to make a buck. You obviously do not.

I actually am a business owner. And I don't have any employees yet, because I wouldn't be able to pay them what I feel is fair. Instead I do a lot of the work myself, and I hire contractors for specific tasks within projects.

The business owner is not entitled to the success that comes from building a business AT THE EXPENSE of paying their employees a living wage. I really don't understand why that's so hard for you to grasp.

Not sure how altruistic you are being. After you, you are adding money into your own pocket by not paying someone else. So, you are clearly able to handle the business without help.
I find it kind of insulting that you are putting your own opinions on someone who may be looking for a job. After all, that individual might prefer to have a job making a low wage, to having no job and no wage. KInd of arrogant to decide that for them. Might b someone who could use the job to build skills and work experience in order to get a better job.

There is an adage that I've heard: It is easier to get a job when you have a job--even if it is not the job you wish. I believe this to be true. Long gaps in work experience are not attractive on a resume or job application. So, you might be giving someone an opportunity by hiring them and contributing to the economy and society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd say that an employer has a moral obligation to pay his workers a living wage - $7.50 an hour ain't it. Can't pay a living wage? Then you need to do something else.

That may be, but an employer has a higher moral obligation to his family. Furthermore, the employer has a higher moral obligation to repay any debts and to offer his customers a product/service at a competitive price. It's irrational for any employer to overpay his employees beyond the economic value of their labor because such an employer would be violating his higher moral obligation to his family, lenders, and customers.

If they don't start paying more, there won't be more customers.

Even pre Covid, we stopped going out to eat, I started getting my hair cut professionally at most three times a year.

[Anonymous]

Listen the Republican piggies squeal because they know that the big employers in their very red towns can certainly afford to pay 15 bucks an hour...but don’t want to because they make their money exploiting human misery. Good luck! Voters like it when government protects them. Just haven’t had a chance to do it for a while. It’s a new day!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Less than 2 percent of hourly workers in the U.S. are paid the $7.25 minimum wage or less. Most employers, even most retail, food, and service businesses, already know they have to pay more than the current minimum wage to recruit and retain good workers. Businesses that insist on paying the minimum wage complain that they have high employee turnover and spend a lot of their time hiring and training new employees, but they are too stupid and/or too cheap to pay a little more to keep their productive workers.

The main effect of the minimum wage increase would be for those currently making $10 to $15 per hour. That is a much larger segment of wage earners than the minimum wage workers. The $10 to $15 group is full of women who are underpaid for the quality and responsibility of the work they perform.

You need to get your logic straight, do businesses know or not that they have to pay good enough wages to recruit and retain good workers? How can they know this at the minimum wage level, but all of a sudden lose their logic in the $10-$15 level? I mean, when you go out looking for wine, are you suddenly unwilling to pay a fair price for a $15 bottle while you were perfectly willing to pay for a $9 bottle? How does that logic work in your mind?

I guess if you are buying 100 bottles of wine for a party, you might then consider whether or not the difference in cost is worth it.

Well, it would depend on the party (job), wouldn't it? The very fact that you would *consider* the value derived from a $15 bottle of wine is directly counter to the PP's claims, which is that some people out there are only willing to pay $12 for something they derive $15 of value. Not only that, but a majority of the people behave this way, causing a distortion in the pricing of labor in this segment. This is simply illogical, with no basis in reality.

If I’m paying $15 rather than $9 for a bottle of wine, it better be worth the difference. The $9 would be a starter wine and the $15 bottle a better wine. Why, otherwise, would you suddenly pay $15 for the same wine as you get for $9?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I'm sorry you find having to pay your employees a living wage so confounding.

Telling that you assume that anyone arguing for the business owner is a business owner.

Far from it. My dad started a business that didn't succeed. He paid his employees when he was not paying himself. He sold the business to someone who had the capital to invest. Because of capital, the business became successful. Took dad years to get back on his feet financially. It was his dream, and it didn't work out for him. But, that is why I know how hard starting a business can be. Spouse and I have only worked for others. I never had any desire to start a business--I know how hard it is to make a buck. You obviously do not.

I actually am a business owner. And I don't have any employees yet, because I wouldn't be able to pay them what I feel is fair. Instead I do a lot of the work myself, and I hire contractors for specific tasks within projects.

The business owner is not entitled to the success that comes from building a business AT THE EXPENSE of paying their employees a living wage. I really don't understand why that's so hard for you to grasp.

What an asinine way of looking at employee expenses. The real reason you don't have employees is that your business is not demanding enough to the point where the marginal value of your time is high enough to justify the expense of an employee. When you offer to pay someone a market wage, and he/she accepts, you are not building your business at the expense of that employee. He/she is not producing any excess economic value that you are not paying for. If the employee is not productive enough to earn a "living wage", that is not because you somehow cheated or swindled him/her. By this same token, you think your customers care whether your business is generating a "living wage" for you? They don't. They pay for your products/services based on how much value they derive from your product/services, and the availability of alternatives on the market.

It doesn't surprise me that you have failed to grasp these fundamental ideas of how capitalism works within a liberal society, given the modest size of your business.

Okay random internet person. You think you've devined everything you need to know about me and my business from a single post to pass judgement, but I'm asinine? 😂

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Less than 2 percent of hourly workers in the U.S. are paid the $7.25 minimum wage or less. Most employers, even most retail, food, and service businesses, already know they have to pay more than the current minimum wage to recruit and retain good workers. Businesses that insist on paying the minimum wage complain that they have high employee turnover and spend a lot of their time hiring and training new employees, but they are too stupid and/or too cheap to pay a little more to keep their productive workers.

The main effect of the minimum wage increase would be for those currently making $10 to $15 per hour. That is a much larger segment of wage earners than the minimum wage workers. The $10 to $15 group is full of women who are underpaid for the quality and responsibility of the work they perform.

You need to get your logic straight, do businesses know or not that they have to pay good enough wages to recruit and retain good workers? How can they know this at the minimum wage level, but all of a sudden lose their logic in the $10-$15 level? I mean, when you go out looking for wine, are you suddenly unwilling to pay a fair price for a $15 bottle while you were perfectly willing to pay for a $9 bottle? How does that logic work in your mind?

I guess if you are buying 100 bottles of wine for a party, you might then consider whether or not the difference in cost is worth it.

Well, it would depend on the party (job), wouldn't it? The very fact that you would *consider* the value derived from a $15 bottle of wine is directly counter to the PP's claims, which is that some people out there are only willing to pay $12 for something they derive $15 of value. Not only that, but a majority of the people behave this way, causing a distortion in the pricing of labor in this segment. This is simply illogical, with no basis in reality.

If I’m paying $15 rather than $9 for a bottle of wine, it better be worth the difference. The $9 would be a starter wine and the $15 bottle a better wine. Why, otherwise, would you suddenly pay $15 for the same wine as you get for $9?

People are not commodities. Start there and maybe you can begin to understand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think anyone who has the same knee-jerk reaction every single time we discuss raising the federal minimum wage should not be taken seriously when they make the same exact tires arguments without backing them up with current research. It’s not meant to never change. It has to change as the economy changes. We should be debating how much it goes up and what indicators to tie it to, not whether it needs to go up at all. Because it obviously does. Half of the workforce making under 15 an hour is insane.

Frankly, I don't think the govt. should be setting a minimum wage.
If a person cannot afford to live on a wage offered to him/her, then that person should seek a job elsewhere. If the businesses offering low wages cannot find workers, they will raise their wages.
Of course, this depends on NOT having low wage workers flooding our country from south of our border.
You realize that under Trump, wages rose and this was in large part due to our border enforcement. Sadly, that has now changed.

Since our economy is dominated by effective monopolies, this does not work. If they break up the big corporations and strongly enforce anti-monopoly laws, this might work.

Who are these monopolies that you speak of and how do they have a monopoly in the hiring of labor near minimum wage levels.

Not the Pp, but when the only employer in town is Walmart, it’s an effective monopoly. Which is why we have minimum wage laws to begin with. We don’t need anti-trust, just floors for what we deem is an acceptable and not unconscionable bargain between an employee and an employer.

Show me a town where the only employer there is Walmart. Go ahead, I'm open-minded enough to learn of such a town.

There are TONS of little places where a downtown commercial district was completely gutted by a WalMart opening.

I’ll give you one example I saw happen in real-time: Bedford, VA. I grew up there.

Prior to a WalMart supercenter openning up, the downtown commercial corridor in Bedford had: a pharmacy, a grocery store, a furniture store, a fabric sewing and vacuum store, an optician, an appliance store, a sporting goods-hunting-guns-bait shop, a phone and computer store, a dress shop, a toy store, a bike shop, a bakery, a hardware store, a book store, a VA ABC store, a shoe store, a tire and car repair shop, and several restaurants.

Within two years, everything except the VA ABC and the tire shop were gone.

This isn’t debatable. This happened to MY little town, where I grew up. I. Watched. It. Happen.

According to posters here those businesses deserved to fail anyway because they couldn't pay employees a "living wage" while keeping prices cheap enough to compete with Wal-Mart. Those same people say they will gladly pay more to small businesses but shop at Wal-Mart enough to put the small guys under......

If everyone was willing to pay more for products to "help everyone out" there would be no Wal Mart, but here we are

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd say that an employer has a moral obligation to pay his workers a living wage - $7.50 an hour ain't it. Can't pay a living wage? Then you need to do something else.

That may be, but an employer has a higher moral obligation to his family. Furthermore, the employer has a higher moral obligation to repay any debts and to offer his customers a product/service at a competitive price. It's irrational for any employer to overpay his employees beyond the economic value of their labor because such an employer would be violating his higher moral obligation to his family, lenders, and customers.

Greed. Those higher moral obligations you're describing are greed. You're arguing that an employer should prioritize the greed of himself and others over ensuring his employees don't need food stamps to feed themselves.

It is entirely possible for a business owner to 1) pay a living wage 2) pay his bills and 3) offer a competitive price on their product. The fact that you think 1 must be sacrificed in favor of the others is really sad. There are plenty of businesses already making this work.

Again, people in other countries get paid a living wage, and have Healthcare as a basic right. Why do we not think it possible to achieve this for our country? Aren't we supposed to be the greatest country on earth? Or do we still only mean for it to be great for wealthy white people?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think anyone who has the same knee-jerk reaction every single time we discuss raising the federal minimum wage should not be taken seriously when they make the same exact tires arguments without backing them up with current research. It’s not meant to never change. It has to change as the economy changes. We should be debating how much it goes up and what indicators to tie it to, not whether it needs to go up at all. Because it obviously does. Half of the workforce making under 15 an hour is insane.

Frankly, I don't think the govt. should be setting a minimum wage.
If a person cannot afford to live on a wage offered to him/her, then that person should seek a job elsewhere. If the businesses offering low wages cannot find workers, they will raise their wages.
Of course, this depends on NOT having low wage workers flooding our country from south of our border.
You realize that under Trump, wages rose and this was in large part due to our border enforcement. Sadly, that has now changed.

Since our economy is dominated by effective monopolies, this does not work. If they break up the big corporations and strongly enforce anti-monopoly laws, this might work.

Who are these monopolies that you speak of and how do they have a monopoly in the hiring of labor near minimum wage levels.

Not the Pp, but when the only employer in town is Walmart, it’s an effective monopoly. Which is why we have minimum wage laws to begin with. We don’t need anti-trust, just floors for what we deem is an acceptable and not unconscionable bargain between an employee and an employer.

Show me a town where the only employer there is Walmart. Go ahead, I'm open-minded enough to learn of such a town.

There are TONS of little places where a downtown commercial district was completely gutted by a WalMart opening.

I’ll give you one example I saw happen in real-time: Bedford, VA. I grew up there.

Prior to a WalMart supercenter openning up, the downtown commercial corridor in Bedford had: a pharmacy, a grocery store, a furniture store, a fabric sewing and vacuum store, an optician, an appliance store, a sporting goods-hunting-guns-bait shop, a phone and computer store, a dress shop, a toy store, a bike shop, a bakery, a hardware store, a book store, a VA ABC store, a shoe store, a tire and car repair shop, and several restaurants.

Within two years, everything except the VA ABC and the tire shop were gone.

This isn’t debatable. This happened to MY little town, where I grew up. I. Watched. It. Happen.

According to posters here those businesses deserved to fail anyway because they couldn't pay employees a "living wage" while keeping prices cheap enough to compete with Wal-Mart. Those same people say they will gladly pay more to small businesses but shop at Wal-Mart enough to put the small guys under......

If everyone was willing to pay more for products to "help everyone out" there would be no Wal Mart, but here we are

Help me understand why you think we should weep for businesses that failed to compete, but we the same compassion shouldn't apply to their workers? Why is it okay to tell a low wage worker to buck up and work to get a better job, but we can expect a business to buck and do better for their employees?

Businesses are a vehicle for someone to build wealth on the backs of other people. If you're going to do that, can't we at least ask them to pay those people enough to eat!?

[Anonymous]

Help me understand why you think we should weep for businesses that failed to compete, but we the same compassion shouldn't apply to their workers? Why is it okay to tell a low wage worker to buck up and work to get a better job, but we can expect a business to buck and do better for their employees?

Businesses are a vehicle for someone to build wealth on the backs of other people. If you're going to do that, can't we at least ask them to pay those people enough to eat!?

Very few people are paid minimum wage. Some people are working for extra cash--like teens. Some are working to supplement other income. Few people remain in the same low level job all their lives. Have you listened to Biden talk about his Dad---"a job is not just about a paycheck, Joey, it's about dignity."

[Anonymous]

The PP just will NOT acknowledge that about half of all hourly workers make less than 15 bucks an hour. That’s not a small number of employees. It’s a huge chunk of the economy. And it’s underpowered. Big businesses have lost sight of the first from the trees. Time to make them understand. We can pay living wages, and have a booming economy. We’ve literally done it before....back in the day when you all thought America was so great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Help me understand why you think we should weep for businesses that failed to compete, but we the same compassion shouldn't apply to their workers? Why is it okay to tell a low wage worker to buck up and work to get a better job, but we can expect a business to buck and do better for their employees?

Businesses are a vehicle for someone to build wealth on the backs of other people. If you're going to do that, can't we at least ask them to pay those people enough to eat!?

Very few people are paid minimum wage. Some people are working for extra cash--like teens. Some are working to supplement other income. Few people remain in the same low level job all their lives. Have you listened to Biden talk about his Dad---"a job is not just about a paycheck, Joey, it's about dignity."

Where is the dignity in working 40 hours a week or more, and still being on food stamps? Where is the dignity in hearing people debate your economic worth, utterly refusing to acknowledge your humanity?