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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“This does not change the fact that the economic value of the carwashing labor is worth less than $15.”

Really? What would you say if I suggested that consumer prices are being subsidized by underpaid labor, and that people actually are willing and able to pay much more than they do for things?

Hmmm.

I already pay $23 for a full service car wash, as far as I'm concerned that's too much.

so wash your own car

Or do it less often.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:higher minimum wage = more automation displacing workers and fewer jobs for young people entering the workforce...

Argue as you might that those outcomes are fantasy but this is the truth.

When I was a kid I got my first W2 job at 15 when minimum wage was $2.25. The company had a policy to limit hours to 28 hours per week to avoid paying benefits from what I understood.
My kid just turned 16 and has been having trouble finding a job because many place will only hire people over 18 years old now. I stopped by my old job from high school the other day to ask if they are hiring and was told they still limit hours to 28 per week and will only hire if over 18 with at least a high school degree. The $15 minimum wage will simply lead to more selective hiring which will make the completion for the comparatively fewer entry level jobs more stiff.

You do realize that your $2.25 minimum wage back in the 1970s was equivalent to $20-something in 2018, right?

My highschool job was in the late 80s. don't think it had an equivalent $20 purchase power. As I recall my go-to snack on my 15 minute break was a 50cent coke and 55cent snickers bar. Thats $1.05 which was 30 about 30 minutes of labor. A coke and snickers bar do NOT cost $10 today.

DP. The federal minimum wage in the late 80s was $3.35, not $2.25.

Not to mention that not everything is Snickers and Coke. A years worth of public college was about 800 hours of minimum wage work when that $3.35 minimum wage started, now it's about 1,300.

That’s less to do with inflation and more to do with the other factors causing college costs to rise far more than inflation.

So? It's still something that people working minimum wage jobs might really want to buy, just like healthcare or housing or any of the other things where costs are growing faster than overall inflation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d rather we stopped this “living wage” talk and focus on making essentials like health care and housing more affordable/accessible.

If the 15 does not result in reduced employment, it will result in inflation of things like daycare, food, and housing. Then the 15 will not have as much buying power as it does now. And where does that place people who are already making 15 an hour? Are their wages going to go up too?

If it does result in reduced employment, then that is going to be a larger societal problem. Work is important to human dignity and a sense of purpose.

I also have kids. One will be old enough for a PT job in a year or two. Its already hard enough for young people to get their foot in the door and this will make it harder.

Which would you rather if it were you at that income level? I'd rather a living wage so I don't have to be dependent on public projects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“This does not change the fact that the economic value of the carwashing labor is worth less than $15.”

Really? What would you say if I suggested that consumer prices are being subsidized by underpaid labor, and that people actually are willing and able to pay much more than they do for things?

Hmmm.

I already pay $23 for a full service car wash, as far as I'm concerned that's too much.

so wash your own car

Or do it less often.

Or more than likely just do it as often as you did before and absorb the extra couple bucks without noticing. I don’t know the relative elasticity of demand for car washes vs cheeseburgers vs daycare but, I do know I’m probably getting more than a good deal on a lot of things.

[Anonymous]

It will never pass! The GOP benefits from keeping wages low and folks in poverty because those poor people are angry and will blame immigrants and Democrats. Keep them in poverty so they can entertain themselves with cheap QAnon videos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It will never pass! The GOP benefits from keeping wages low and folks in poverty because those poor people are angry and will blame immigrants and Democrats. Keep them in poverty so they can entertain themselves with cheap QAnon videos.

Which is exactly why Dem voters should push their congresspeople on this. If Dem finally figure out their messaging, they can attract voters back to the party a la Bernie. What are the demographics of min wage workers? A lot of them are POC. Any worker in this country deserves a living wage. Businesses can shorten shifts if they have to which can give some parents flexibility with child care.

[Anonymous]

1968 min wage = 1.60 equivalent to 11.98 today, so start there. In fact, the minimum wage has pretty much been declining in real dollars since then. From 1955 to 1967 it was less than 11.98 in today's dollars, but still above $10. As income inequality has risen, the resistance to minimum wage increases seems to rise as well. Small employers (like my mom, when she owned a cafe in a small rural town in the 1980s and $300 take was a good day) have the hardest time paying that (her state required tipped employees to be paid minimum wage, but she paid it). But . . . dollar stores? (DS does networking setup for one of the major dollar store chains as a subcontractor, and 2020 was his best year yet, but he gets a minimum $85/hr plus a hefty charge for travel. The employees? Not so much)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“This does not change the fact that the economic value of the carwashing labor is worth less than $15.”

Really? What would you say if I suggested that consumer prices are being subsidized by underpaid labor, and that people actually are willing and able to pay much more than they do for things?

Hmmm.

I already pay $23 for a full service car wash, as far as I'm concerned that's too much.

so wash your own car

Or do it less often.

Geeze......leave it to DCUM for such great ideas. I'm 70 years old, am not going outside in 35 degree weather to wash my own damn car. Why don't you come over in 35 degrees and do it for $23?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:higher minimum wage = more automation displacing workers and fewer jobs for young people entering the workforce...

Argue as you might that those outcomes are fantasy but this is the truth.

When I was a kid I got my first W2 job at 15 when minimum wage was $2.25. The company had a policy to limit hours to 28 hours per week to avoid paying benefits from what I understood.
My kid just turned 16 and has been having trouble finding a job because many place will only hire people over 18 years old now. I stopped by my old job from high school the other day to ask if they are hiring and was told they still limit hours to 28 per week and will only hire if over 18 with at least a high school degree. The $15 minimum wage will simply lead to more selective hiring which will make the completion for the comparatively fewer entry level jobs more stiff.

You do realize that your $2.25 minimum wage back in the 1970s was equivalent to $20-something in 2018, right?

My highschool job was in the late 80s. don't think it had an equivalent $20 purchase power. As I recall my go-to snack on my 15 minute break was a 50cent coke and 55cent snickers bar. Thats $1.05 which was 30 about 30 minutes of labor. A coke and snickers bar do NOT cost $10 today.

DP. The federal minimum wage in the late 80s was $3.35, not $2.25.

Well. My summer job in 1972 paid 1.25 which was worth 4 gallons of gas (I'd buy a gallon at a time--it was a small town where I spent the summer at my grandparents' house and had a crush on the kid pumping gas, so I clearly remember 31 cent pas). Right now gas in tha area runs probably 2.49/gal and of course pas prices have been low for quite awhile. That would be $10 minimum wage.

But. I spent my tips that summer and saved my paychecks for college. I was part time and made $25 each week. I had merit aid (National Merit Scholarship and a bunch of small scholarships besides, plus some other from the college) at a SLAC. $25 of tuition then would be $750 today, and my 10 weeks would cover $7500 of tuition is minimum wage were the same. But I would actually be earning $145 a week doing that job today and only able to pay $1450 of my tuition bill--effectively, in terms of college tuition, my summer job today is worth 1/5 what it was in 1972. As for your Coke and Snickers, the wholesale price of sugar has only gone up 3x since 1972, and the labor costs have decreased relatively, so of course your Coke and Snickers is still cheap.

[Anonymous]

^^ And if you leave pricey SLACs out of the picture, let's discuss rent. National average today is 10 times what it was in 1970. I'm sure certain expensive locations have affected that, but there's no question people today pay at least 3-4 times what they did for a crummy apartment then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

A minimum wage job needs to be able to pay its workers enough to feed, clothe and house themselves. As PP noted above, there are only so many hours a day you can work and in this new economy, people ARE expected to support themselves on minimum wage jobs. It is not heavy-handed to correct a real labor issue. With any change, there are consequences, yes. We have lost entire swaths of jobs due to technological changes. But we don't sit on our hands and let allowing businesses big and small thrive by exploiting their labor.(and please, spare us "they have a choice" argument, because they simply don't for a variety of reasons).

There is something seriously wrong in a country where people can put in a hard and honest 40+hours of work a week and still not be able to meet the basics.

Basically this. We shouldn't have a static minimum wage, that is fought over by politicians. It should be tied to productivity, inflation, something like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

A minimum wage job needs to be able to pay its workers enough to feed, clothe and house themselves. As PP noted above, there are only so many hours a day you can work and in this new economy, people ARE expected to support themselves on minimum wage jobs. It is not heavy-handed to correct a real labor issue. With any change, there are consequences, yes. We have lost entire swaths of jobs due to technological changes. But we don't sit on our hands and let allowing businesses big and small thrive by exploiting their labor.(and please, spare us "they have a choice" argument, because they simply don't for a variety of reasons).

There is something seriously wrong in a country where people can put in a hard and honest 40+hours of work a week and still not be able to meet the basics.

Basically this. We shouldn't have a static minimum wage, that is fought over by politicians. It should be tied to productivity, inflation, something like that.

Agreed. But apparently people that can’t qualify to do more than minimum wage work should just be at risk for hunger or homelessness...because their work isn’t worth a living wage I guess?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a Democrat that supported Biden. But I don't understand why it seems to be $15 or nothing? Can they raise the minimum wage to $10 as compromise? The jump from 7 to 15 seems large, and concerning in terms of job loss and cost of goods. However, I do see the argument of not taking advantage of the lower paid and raising their wages. Why can there not be a happy medium proposed? I have not yet heard of a discussion of compromise.

Wtf???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d rather we stopped this “living wage” talk and focus on making essentials like health care and housing more affordable/accessible.

If the 15 does not result in reduced employment, it will result in inflation of things like daycare, food, and housing. Then the 15 will not have as much buying power as it does now. And where does that place people who are already making 15 an hour? Are their wages going to go up too?

If it does result in reduced employment, then that is going to be a larger societal problem. Work is important to human dignity and a sense of purpose.

I also have kids. One will be old enough for a PT job in a year or two. Its already hard enough for young people to get their foot in the door and this will make it harder.

Raising minimum wage will not cause inflation. That’s a myth that keeps being repeated by idiots like you.

[Anonymous]

If they do something like this then it needs to be at the state level. $15/hr might not be too bad in NY but it's insane in Alabama.

If they do this, we need to stop tipping. Surely nobody thinks that a waitress deserves $15/hr AND a tip, right?