fate

You want to compare theoretical socialist outcomes with the US--then dig into the numbers and NOT just about "poverty alleviation." You also need to take into account military responsibilities, Social Security, Medicare, and a myriad of other factors.

Theoretical? Do these nations not exist?
It is indeed a complex set of variable that need to be considered when the prosperity of nations is compared. (89 according to prosperity.com)
But setting that aside, one thing in common with nations that are considered more prosperous than the US is a higher minimum wage.... The working class also enjoy cheaper or paid by taxes health care... So if you add that in as a benefit that US minimum wage workers generally don't get it just means that more prosperous nations ensure that the working classes are far more rewarded minimum for work than the US.... And yet, survive.
BTW, you guessed only 1 of the nations. In order: Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Finland, Netherlands, Switzerland and Ireland. next is the USA)

fate

You have no idea what will happen because no country in our exact position with our precise obligations has ever done it

.
Every time the US has raised the minimum wage, there has been no significant change in the employment rates. So, there's your "direct comparison".
You mention obligations.....
I think it does come down to what a nation sees as its obligations. When the poorest are treated with greater dignity because the nation feels obligated to provide a "living wage" or a minimal living standard ..... the economy is generally healthier. As is society.

freeman2 wrote:The point is when you reward workers who are so-called low - skilled you get more productive workers.

So, capitalism is . . . pay a lot and expect your workers to live up to their wage?

Hmm . . .

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:So, either society subsidizes businesses or it subsidizes those who cannot or will not make themselves more valuable?

Umm, I'm saying you are currently doing both. it's not an either/or. If work pays more, then not only will you be spending less subsidising people out of work (because work will have a greater incentive), but it will also spend less subsidising people in work, which is effectlively allowing employers to pay below-subsistence wages.

That is not true.

Costs will inevitably go up. Employers don't ignore increased labor costs.

Employment will go down. If employers can avoid your regulations by reducing hours, they will (as is happening with Obamacare).

It's yet to be shown that raising these wages will provide any measure of positive return. When I posted stats showing most of the people on straight minimum wage (no tips) were high school/college age, there was no legitimate response.

Check out the charts at my link. It seems to me that it's a complex issue, needing some thought, not an experimental "let's raise wages and see" mentality.

It does need some thought, and more than just "but it's all about 'fairness' and Marxism by the back door"...

Even more than just "let's raise the minimum wage to a living wage because it will reduce the burden on government?"

Well then, go ahead and make a case!

The way that the right frame the debate and sneer about 'fairness' is reductive and frankly demeaning. Not to the people you sneer at, but yourselves.

Right, because I'm the one who raises the issue of fairness?

No, because you are mischaracterising the argument as being only about fairness. I have mentioned the other aspects - economic and fiscal - before.

When I have some time, I'll go back to reading them. But, the whole "making work pay" thing is "fairness."

Also, on a slightly earlier post from you, DF:

I would also say it is not the employer's fault if someone's skillset is so limited that he/she cannot get paid more elsewhere.

Hmmm. In the olden days, employers used to train people up, with internal programmes and apprenticeships etc.

They still do. However, there are some people who do not have the wherewithal to do something like this. The french fry person at McD's may or may not be capable of more. Should he/she get a living wage just because you think it's right?

Now they expect them to be fully formed and ready to work, and complain that academic study does not do this (it never used to, and education systems are better than before, but just not as good as what has been lost). They stopped, in large part, because cheap employers realised they could save money on training etc by simply offering trained up employees a slightly better rate. People get stuck in a viscious circle wherein no employer wants someone untrained or inexperienced (or with a period out of employment), but as such, potential employees who require that can't get it from work for the same reason.

When unemployment is low, there is more competition for good workers. Right now, not so much.

A friend of mine who is in management moved across the country last year for a new job: no moving allowance/compensation. He said they (the company) doesn't have to do that right now to compete, so they don't.

I don't think that a minimum wage increase would solve that problem either, but it's part of the reason for people lacking skills, that doesn't come from your prejudice that it's all their fault, or that employers have no part in the situation.

Oh brother.

My first job was in a union warehouse making minimum wage. The Teamsters took a very nice piece of my take home pay. So, please, no lectures about how getting ahead is not a personal responsibility.

In fact, the whole of your words in that post are a crock:

Why should a guy who uses a leaf blower to clean the parking lot be mandated by law to earn the same as a Costco employee?

As freeman2 has pointed out, that's not what he is calling for. It's also not what I am calling for.

So, some people will be allowed to remain below "living wage?"

rickyp wrote:fate

You want to compare theoretical socialist outcomes with the US--then dig into the numbers and NOT just about "poverty alleviation." You also need to take into account military responsibilities, Social Security, Medicare, and a myriad of other factors.

Theoretical? Do these nations not exist?
It is indeed a complex set of variable that need to be considered when the prosperity of nations is compared. (89 according to prosperity.com)
But setting that aside, one thing in common with nations that are considered more prosperous than the US is a higher minimum wage....

That's fine. If Americans want to chase the socialist dream, they are welcome to immigrate to those workers' paradises.

The working class also enjoy cheaper or paid by taxes health care... So if you add that in as a benefit that US minimum wage workers generally don't get it just means that more prosperous nations ensure that the working classes are far more rewarded minimum for work than the US.... And yet, survive.
BTW, you guessed only 1 of the nations. In order: Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Finland, Netherlands, Switzerland and Ireland. next is the USA)

Um, I was not guessing. Just pointing to the "glorious" realities of socialist life.

fate

You have no idea what will happen because no country in our exact position with our precise obligations has ever done it

.
Every time the US has raised the minimum wage, there has been no significant change in the employment rates. So, there's your "direct comparison".

You are talking about quite an increase. What's the current min. wage? I think it's $7.25, more or less. Imagine it going to $12 without some serious shockwaves . . . not gonna happen.

You mention obligations.....
I think it does come down to what a nation sees as its obligations. When the poorest are treated with greater dignity because the nation feels obligated to provide a "living wage" or a minimal living standard ..... the economy is generally healthier. As is society.

Says you.

In America, the country I was raised in, I learned that we appreciate the things we earn more than the things we are given. Maybe it's different in Canada.

rickyp wrote:ray

Good for Costco and their employees ... an excellent reason to NOT raise the minimum wage. No one is mandating that employers pay the minimum wage.

Can you explain your logic.

I believe in economic freedom and the wisdom of the marketplace. If an employee is capable of working at Costco they are able to earn additional bucks. If they are not capable of doing that, they may be stuck at Walmarts. (I've met some helpful Walmart employees, but that is not the norm. Perhaps their plan is to get a good reputation and then get a job at Costco.)

If customers want more helpful employees, they can pay a little more and go to Costco. My wife does. If customers DON'T want friendly employees and know what they want, they can shop at Walmart. The reaity is that some shoppers cannot afford a little more and the savings they get from Walmart means their kids can get gloves for Christmas.

If Costco becomes more profitable relative to Walmart then more employers will gravitate to that business model.

The notion that Freeman, Rickyp, or Danivon -- as intelligent as they are -- are smarter than the billions of transactions made by knowing individuals using their own money and time is not plausible,

ray

I believe in economic freedom and the wisdom of the marketplace

Economic freedom does not have to mean the freedom of some to exploit employees.
You seem to assume that employees always have an abundance of choice. If everyone of the employers in a geographical region offers $2 an hour thats the going wage. (And in isolated areas, the company store becomes the only place to use that money conveniently) Without choice employees need to be able to level the playing field . Which is how unions and collective bargaining began....

Your ideal is a return to the Gilded age, when employees endured horrible working conditions and enjoyed no security, whilst a small elite amasssed most of the wealth in the US. It wasn't till both unions and govenrment provided a more level playing filed through both legislation and collective bargaining that the middle class began to grow.

In China, factories and business enjoy the economic freedom you envision. Is that really your vision for the US? Eventually China will go through a period or enlightenment and the working class and middle classes will weild the political power that comes from their numbers and the employment laws and working conditions will imporve as they did for 100 years in the West from 1870. In fact, its apparent that this has already begun as strikes and demonstrations are daily occurrences in China...
But for now, if you want an example of what "economic freedom" for employers means when entirely unfettered...look East.

Ray Jay wrote:

rickyp wrote:ray

Good for Costco and their employees ... an excellent reason to NOT raise the minimum wage. No one is mandating that employers pay the minimum wage.

Can you explain your logic.

I believe in economic freedom and the wisdom of the marketplace. If an employee is capable of working at Costco they are able to earn additional bucks. If they are not capable of doing that, they may be stuck at Walmarts. (I've met some helpful Walmart employees, but that is not the norm. Perhaps their plan is to get a good reputation and then get a job at Costco.)

If customers want more helpful employees, they can pay a little more and go to Costco. My wife does. If customers DON'T want friendly employees and know what they want, they can shop at Walmart. The reaity is that some shoppers cannot afford a little more and the savings they get from Walmart means their kids can get gloves for Christmas.

If Costco becomes more profitable relative to Walmart then more employers will gravitate to that business model.

The notion that Freeman, Rickyp, or Danivon -- as intelligent as they are -- are smarter than the billions of transactions made by knowing individuals using their own money and time is not plausible,

^Like.

Hope you'll respond to rickyp's insipid answer that you are in favor of the China model applied here. Believe it or not, it is entertaining to watch your thoughtful replies to his hysteria.

RJ, you cite a conservative principle, that we should be suspicious of any one person's ability to device a better way of doing things over a custom that had developed over many years and derived from the interaction of many people. But as Ricky at least implicitly pointed out the problem with that application to the employer-employee relationship is that bargaining power is not equal, particularly when we get away from small businesses and talk about large corporations
Unions had a lot to do with the creation of a strong middle-class and FDR started a golden age for workers from the 1930s to the 1970s
Now after our economy struggled in the 1970s we have swung back to this faith that if you leave markets alone wealth will be maximized. Maybe that is theoretically true. But somehow free market adherents underestimate the human desire for easy money. From companies engaging in monopolistic or oligopolistic behavior, to transferring costs such as pollution to the public at large, to buying advantages by political contributions, to trading on confidential info, to taking unreasonable risks that the public pays for at little or no cost to them, there are many reasons to doubt the existence of msrkets where many businesses compete for customers and workers, with the most efficient company winning and the most productive workers being paid handsomely.
That free-market world is a dream world. In a lot of industries you have a few industries and they dictate how much money is paid. Cost-co is actually a relic--in the recent past grocery jobs in a lot of the country were unionized and workers made a unionized wage . We have amnesia in this country about workers obtained decent wages--if you're a nurse, a teacher, a police officer, etc or in a non-unionized job you benefited from those union fights, which in some cases required sacrifice of life
Now we're in a post-union world where people have forgotten the exploitation of workers. We don't have unions to bargain for most workers and we have this ideology that permeates the country, that we are better off without unions and government should not intervene in the marketplace. How has that worked out for most workers? If you looked at how people in the 1950s expected it would be in the next century, they assumed people would work a lot less because of technological breakthroughs
Of course that has not happened, because there is no reason for companies to give more vacation time or lower work hours (in fact corporations love to put people who are really production workers as managers so they can work them 60 hours a week without paying overtime).
Adding to all this is the recent development of us trading with low-wage partners like China, further putting downward pressure on wages
I just watched A Wonderful Life where a man who tried to help his fellow man triumphed over a man who treated his fellow man as stooges to be exploited. Conservatives want workers to be just commodities, whose value fluctuates with a ruthless market and that somehow that will benefit them eventually. The data since 1980 (accelerating since 2000) indicates otherwise

There's a lot here to respond to, but let me just add a few points. First, A Wonderful Life is one of the best movies ever. No argument there. However, just so you know, it is a movie. Just because you see something on TV or in the movie theater or read it in the papers or a book, doesn't mean that it represents a fair summary of what is going on. It represents an artist's or editor's view of what will grab your attention and compel you to read more or watch the whole thing. It doesn't summarize reality and the bulk of what goes on.

I think that unions have had a positive place in our society, and still do in some cases. Capitalism needs the softening effect of unions and the political process which affords a safety net. The hard part is figuring out when the softening effect has gone too far, and also when the softening effect has become corrupted, which is the nature of all institutions that are run by people. Period. Think about that.

There are examples of unions doing good things. I spoke with someone this morning about his wife who is being forced out from her company because she is getting older, and fortunately for her is being protected by a union. For those of us who are over 50, we get this since the employer inevitably wants to hire a younger and less expensive worker, particularly when it comes to health insurance. That's an example of the positive effects of unions, but it is also an example of businesses making decisions on costs.

However, there are many examples of unions going too far. They have an unfair negotiating position in the public sector and we who live in America see that all the time. Our states are burdened by this and that is part of the reason that they are going to the feds. One of the requirements of the federal stimulus program was to force union wages, resulting in the stimulus money not going as far as it could have.

I have school age kids, so I see the inefficiency of the teacher's unions all the time. The teachers are lovely, but the union plays hard ball, putting the teachers benefits above the kids. Town administrators have no ability to combat them since their budgets are smaller. The Governors in many blue states owe their election to unions, so often the unions are negotiating against themselves, or at least with someone who is intentilnally playing at half of capability level. We all rail against corporate influence in elections but the reality is that unions are huge spenders and have oversized influence as well. The unions have gone too far. If you believe that politics are local, start talking to parents, expecially those with kids in poor school districts and see for yourself.


Re Ricky's hyperpole on Chinese serfdom and the gilded age, give me a break. Is he really saying that a couple of dollars in the minimum wage rate is the difference between a fair society and a terrible one? Is he saying that people who work in Costco are living high on the hog whereas people who work at Walmart are eating out of dumpsters? Aren't there some progressive yearnings that don't make sense when you actually do a cost / benefit analysis?

Ray, you said you believe in the "wisdom of the markets", and "economic freedom".
Its obvious from your response to Freeman that you don't beleive in this without limits. But you didn't put conditions on your statement .... so how else is one to interpret it as anything but an extreme statement.

Economic freedom as envisioned by Libertarians is exactly that. Without limits. And that is a return to the Gilded Age.

Unions grew up because of the uneven bargaining position between individuals and large employers.
Work safety regulations, and labour laws grew up because of democracy. Workers demanded that their elected officials develop laws that protected them, and offered them some security. With the power of the vote, they elcted those who followed through for them.
Decent wages, and decent working conditions were seldom delivered freely and willingly.

I happen to agree with you that unions are an out moded instituion. At least as practiced in North America, where they are predominantly oppositional in nature. And leads to confrontation.
I think that where unions are more cooperative you end up with far better labour relations, greater productivity and usually better run companies.
In germany unions are part of management. And the compensation of their members is tied directly to the performance of the company.
That to me makes sense. With a direct stake in productivity and profitability, and a direct say in helping achieve this, companies benefit enormously. For one thing, employees generally have a longer view than stock holders. Employees invest their time, their lives, in a company and look to find companies where they can enjoy themselves and benefit long term. Stock holders, have a mix of motives, but many are there for this quarter's performance..

ray

Re Ricky's hyperpole on Chinese serfdom and the gilded age, give me a break. Is he really saying that a couple of dollars in the minimum wage rate is the difference between a fair society and a terrible one?

If I did, why did I write this?
rickyp

I realize that by itself a minimum wage increase isn't solving all of the problems of poverty in the US.
However, it is a step in the right direction

If you want to understand what happens in American industry when an employer gains a significant advantage over employers...look to the meat packing plants. When they discovered they could hire undocumented workers for a wage half that of their incumbent work force .... wages fell and illegal immigration skyrocketed.... With no limits to "economic freedom" for the employers .... this would be the trend in many industries..

RJ, you raise some valid points about public unions-- -I am ambivalent about those unions. I don't think there is an equal adversary on the other side negotiating against them. In the private sector, it is sort of a zero sum game where whatever the union gets is subtracted from the profits of a business (and business is highly motivated to drive a hard bargain), that is not true in the public sector. And the fact that in the public sector the governor (or whoever is negotiating on behalf of the government) will not personally lose financially (only taxpayers in a very diffuse way) means that unions have an increased ability to affect the process by opposing anyone (with money and threatening to have union members vote as a bloc) who wants to rein them in. States can have a difficult time negotiating with public sector unions
In the private sector, the situation is different, private business has at least equal bargaining power, and it appears that without unions (or strong intervention by the government) low and medium skilled workers will be exploited.

Freeman:

In the private sector, the situation is different, private business has at least equal bargaining power, and it appears that without unions (or strong intervention by the government) low and medium skilled workers will be exploited.

Usually that is the case and I agree there is a place for unions. I highly recommend Norma Rae although it doesn't have the sci fi appeal of It's a Wonderful Life. But it's not always the case that in the private sector the employer has at least equal bargaining power as the union ... my dad had a small food distribution company ... he had 5 NYC truck drivers in his employ ... he had to personally negotiate (not having the necessary funds to let the clock run with someone of your profession) with teamster union lawyers. He did not have at least equal bargaining power.

Ricky:

Ray, you said you believe in the "wisdom of the markets", and "economic freedom".
Its obvious from your response to Freeman that you don't beleive in this without limits. But you didn't put conditions on your statement .... so how else is one to interpret it as anything but an extreme statement.

One could honestly look at the statements in the context of the actual discussion and try to engage in a reasonable debate on the issues without trying to inflame the situation.

Ricky:

If you want to understand what happens in American industry when an employer gains a significant advantage over employers...look to the meat packing plants. When they discovered they could hire undocumented workers for a wage half that of their incumbent work force .... wages fell and illegal immigration skyrocketed.... With no limits to "economic freedom" for the employers .... this would be the trend in many industries..

That's a good argument for the federal government to enforce our immigration and employment laws. Regarding your conclusion, first of all, no one is arguing for "no limits to 'economic freedom'" so perhaps you should, as I so nicely put, stop trying to inflame the situation. Second, the evidence offered by Freeman as it relates to Costco and Starbucks argues against your conclusion. I wouldn't describe their work forces as particularly high skilled.

so, raising the federal minimum wage by $2 wouldn't be an attack on economic freedom then?

RJ, with regard to your dad's small business being at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the Teamsters, I would certainly not argue that a small business would have equal bargaining power with a union and in general I have much less of a concern about small business taking advantage of workers. I might have somewhat of a blind eye to the excesses of unions, but in general we have to be concerned about entities (whether unions or corporations) who can use their economic and political power in ways that are unfair to other participants in the market ( whether they are workers or small businesses) Overall, my biggest concern is about workers being taken advantage of by large corporations but is not to say I am indifferent to the difficulties that small busineses face. This is not white hat, black hat stuff--real life is always much more complex