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On July 08 2015 06:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2015 05:56 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:13 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 07 2015 12:36 KwarK wrote:On July 07 2015 12:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 07 2015 11:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 07 2015 11:40 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 07 2015 11:07 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
It's the most accessible and easiest to enforce, are a couple better reasons.
For instance you mentioned the EITC. Many people don't get it because they don't even know they qualify, they don't file (because they are told they don't have to), or when they do get it they don't even get all of it because some tax preparation company takes a slice. That ~$910,000,000 in profits from H&R Block isn't primarily coming from millionaires. The EITC isn't perfect but it is currently the largest anti-poverty program in the country. It's also widely regarded as a public policy success story, and more directly effective at combating poverty than a higher minimum wage. Higher wages means you lose out on other benefits as well as the EITC. Not all households will navigate that change well. Not every employer is going to be able to support large single earner households at a 'living' level, meaning that the public will have to step in an provide assistance anyways. I don't think people making minimum wage are worried about losing the EITC. You're not getting anywhere close to losing it if you have a kid, and if you don't have a kid why would you want ~$500 at the end of the year instead of doubling your wage? If by chance you're married with or without children and file jointly and make over the current amount, then I think you make a good case for raising the limit on the credit in those circumstances. As for any alleged significant job loss from employers who can't afford a living wage, that doesn't happen. There are more benefits at stake than just the EITC though. As for any specifics on numbers, it depends on what the specfics of your proposal is. When you say something like "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country" and propose something like a higher min wage, you'll still have some people who do not earn a living wage and need benefits because they have a large household size. Or if you have a flexible min wage that becomes harder to administer and has more detrimental affects on prices and unemployment. This is nonsense. Those benefits are decided by AGI, not gross. If someone is truly better off earning less than they were earning more then it's within their power to simply open a tIRA, throw the extra money in there and not only does their income/taxes/benefits stay the same as it was before but they also get the Saver's Credit. The suggestion that the poor rely upon you not giving them too much money is absurd. If they really liked having not very much money and giving them a little extra money is going to fuck them over then they can go back to having not very much money without much effort while building a modest retirement/emergency fund. I think you misinterpreted my post somehow. I'm not claiming that you end up with more money by earning less. My argument was that a decent standard of living now may require min wage plus benefits, and that a decent standard of living under a 'living wage' system, if such a system is simply a higher min wage, may also require min wage plus benefits because not everyone will conform to the average household situation that the new, and higher, min wage is based off of. So your argument is, at it's core "If we let the poor have refrigerators they won't be happy, they'll be asking for microwaves next. And if we let them have those then they'll want televisions and maybe even cell phones. And they'll still be poor relative to the rest of us so it's probably better just to draw the line at refrigerators." Sure, most of the poor in America are not poor except when compared to everyone else in America. The "decent" standard of living increases with income. I don't deny that. But I'm not sure how we get from there to "probably best to just keep it where it is". No, that's not even in the ballpark of my argument. Then I'm getting lost somewhere. Right now the poor need minimum wage + benefits to have a poor lifestyle. You argue that if we increased the minimum wage then the poor lifestyle would be better but would still be poor because poor is a relative? I think that don't pay enough to support a 'living' lifestyle should largely still exist and that the government should try to make up the difference with well-designed benefits. My arguments are in support of that. I'm opposed to: "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country."
You know those are Franklin Roosevelt's words not mine right? When he was talking about creating the minimum wage in the first place.
The lie that minimum wage was never supposed to be a living wage was wrong from the first time someone said it.
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United States41995 Posts
On July 08 2015 06:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2015 05:56 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:13 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 07 2015 12:36 KwarK wrote:On July 07 2015 12:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 07 2015 11:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 07 2015 11:40 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 07 2015 11:07 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
It's the most accessible and easiest to enforce, are a couple better reasons.
For instance you mentioned the EITC. Many people don't get it because they don't even know they qualify, they don't file (because they are told they don't have to), or when they do get it they don't even get all of it because some tax preparation company takes a slice. That ~$910,000,000 in profits from H&R Block isn't primarily coming from millionaires. The EITC isn't perfect but it is currently the largest anti-poverty program in the country. It's also widely regarded as a public policy success story, and more directly effective at combating poverty than a higher minimum wage. Higher wages means you lose out on other benefits as well as the EITC. Not all households will navigate that change well. Not every employer is going to be able to support large single earner households at a 'living' level, meaning that the public will have to step in an provide assistance anyways. I don't think people making minimum wage are worried about losing the EITC. You're not getting anywhere close to losing it if you have a kid, and if you don't have a kid why would you want ~$500 at the end of the year instead of doubling your wage? If by chance you're married with or without children and file jointly and make over the current amount, then I think you make a good case for raising the limit on the credit in those circumstances. As for any alleged significant job loss from employers who can't afford a living wage, that doesn't happen. There are more benefits at stake than just the EITC though. As for any specifics on numbers, it depends on what the specfics of your proposal is. When you say something like "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country" and propose something like a higher min wage, you'll still have some people who do not earn a living wage and need benefits because they have a large household size. Or if you have a flexible min wage that becomes harder to administer and has more detrimental affects on prices and unemployment. This is nonsense. Those benefits are decided by AGI, not gross. If someone is truly better off earning less than they were earning more then it's within their power to simply open a tIRA, throw the extra money in there and not only does their income/taxes/benefits stay the same as it was before but they also get the Saver's Credit. The suggestion that the poor rely upon you not giving them too much money is absurd. If they really liked having not very much money and giving them a little extra money is going to fuck them over then they can go back to having not very much money without much effort while building a modest retirement/emergency fund. I think you misinterpreted my post somehow. I'm not claiming that you end up with more money by earning less. My argument was that a decent standard of living now may require min wage plus benefits, and that a decent standard of living under a 'living wage' system, if such a system is simply a higher min wage, may also require min wage plus benefits because not everyone will conform to the average household situation that the new, and higher, min wage is based off of. So your argument is, at it's core "If we let the poor have refrigerators they won't be happy, they'll be asking for microwaves next. And if we let them have those then they'll want televisions and maybe even cell phones. And they'll still be poor relative to the rest of us so it's probably better just to draw the line at refrigerators." Sure, most of the poor in America are not poor except when compared to everyone else in America. The "decent" standard of living increases with income. I don't deny that. But I'm not sure how we get from there to "probably best to just keep it where it is". No, that's not even in the ballpark of my argument. Then I'm getting lost somewhere. Right now the poor need minimum wage + benefits to have a poor lifestyle. You argue that if we increased the minimum wage then the poor lifestyle would be better but would still be poor because poor is a relative? I think that don't pay enough to support a 'living' lifestyle should largely still exist and that the government should try to make up the difference with well-designed benefits. My arguments are in support of that. I'm opposed to: "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country."
It's an odd quote anyway given the implicit insertion of the word "American" before the word "workers". I imagine even in its day it was not meant to apply to migrant labourers or foreigners.
The problem of the definition of a living wage is a difficult one, especially given the degree to which the government has less power to dictate what the American public needs to buy than advertisers. I'd argue that it's reasonable to expect internet access and a phone with a living wage which means I think at the minimum people need instant remote access to communication with all of humanity, pretty much everything we know and more porn than anyone could ever want. Maybe in the future a living wage that doesn't include a jetpack would be unacceptable.
A few weeks ago though I worked alongside some people making $8/hr without health insurance or a regular schedule. We could debate what a living wage does, and does not include, but it's not entirely relevant to the immediate fact that those people need some help.
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Before getting to that, you still need to make the argument as to why those people deserve a jetpack. Or why person X should be subsidizing person Y based on their general proximity to each other.
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United States41995 Posts
On July 08 2015 06:31 cLutZ wrote:
Before getting to that, you still need to make the argument as to why those people deserve a jetpack. Or why person X should be subsidizing person Y based on their general proximity to each other.
Because it can be done. We're at a point in human society right now where we have wealth beyond the imagining of our ancestors. Where making sure that nobody in the United States ever goes hungry really isn't a big deal at all because we've all got so much luxury everywhere that asking ourselves whether or not they deserve food is about as relevant as rationing their oxygen consumption. And there is exponential growth in that wealth.
Competition for limited resources and rationalizing withholding from other people based upon what you have decided they deserve is going to be obsolete at some point. When there isn't enough to go around then it makes sense to grab as much as you can, shout "mine" and then build a fence around it. But that pool of resources is growing and at some point you have to look down at all the luxury you grabbed and think "wtf was I even thinking, I can't possibly use all of this".
We're at the point where we can afford to feed the world without it being a big deal at all. It's not unreasonable to think that the expectation that every member of society must labour 40 hours a week to justify their existence is on the way out.
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On July 08 2015 06:12 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2015 06:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:56 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:13 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 07 2015 12:36 KwarK wrote:On July 07 2015 12:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 07 2015 11:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 07 2015 11:40 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
The EITC isn't perfect but it is currently the largest anti-poverty program in the country. It's also widely regarded as a public policy success story, and more directly effective at combating poverty than a higher minimum wage.
Higher wages means you lose out on other benefits as well as the EITC. Not all households will navigate that change well. Not every employer is going to be able to support large single earner households at a 'living' level, meaning that the public will have to step in an provide assistance anyways. I don't think people making minimum wage are worried about losing the EITC. You're not getting anywhere close to losing it if you have a kid, and if you don't have a kid why would you want ~$500 at the end of the year instead of doubling your wage? If by chance you're married with or without children and file jointly and make over the current amount, then I think you make a good case for raising the limit on the credit in those circumstances. As for any alleged significant job loss from employers who can't afford a living wage, that doesn't happen. There are more benefits at stake than just the EITC though. As for any specifics on numbers, it depends on what the specfics of your proposal is. When you say something like "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country" and propose something like a higher min wage, you'll still have some people who do not earn a living wage and need benefits because they have a large household size. Or if you have a flexible min wage that becomes harder to administer and has more detrimental affects on prices and unemployment. This is nonsense. Those benefits are decided by AGI, not gross. If someone is truly better off earning less than they were earning more then it's within their power to simply open a tIRA, throw the extra money in there and not only does their income/taxes/benefits stay the same as it was before but they also get the Saver's Credit. The suggestion that the poor rely upon you not giving them too much money is absurd. If they really liked having not very much money and giving them a little extra money is going to fuck them over then they can go back to having not very much money without much effort while building a modest retirement/emergency fund. I think you misinterpreted my post somehow. I'm not claiming that you end up with more money by earning less. My argument was that a decent standard of living now may require min wage plus benefits, and that a decent standard of living under a 'living wage' system, if such a system is simply a higher min wage, may also require min wage plus benefits because not everyone will conform to the average household situation that the new, and higher, min wage is based off of. So your argument is, at it's core "If we let the poor have refrigerators they won't be happy, they'll be asking for microwaves next. And if we let them have those then they'll want televisions and maybe even cell phones. And they'll still be poor relative to the rest of us so it's probably better just to draw the line at refrigerators." Sure, most of the poor in America are not poor except when compared to everyone else in America. The "decent" standard of living increases with income. I don't deny that. But I'm not sure how we get from there to "probably best to just keep it where it is". No, that's not even in the ballpark of my argument. Then I'm getting lost somewhere. Right now the poor need minimum wage + benefits to have a poor lifestyle. You argue that if we increased the minimum wage then the poor lifestyle would be better but would still be poor because poor is a relative? I think that don't pay enough to support a 'living' lifestyle should largely still exist and that the government should try to make up the difference with well-designed benefits. My arguments are in support of that. I'm opposed to: "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country." You know those are Franklin Roosevelt's words not mine right? When he was talking about creating the minimum wage in the first place. The lie that minimum wage was never supposed to be a living wage was wrong from the first time someone said it.
FDR also wanted business to form cartels so that they could raise prices to pay those wages.
FDR had a lot of bad ideas to go along with the good ones.
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On July 08 2015 06:14 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2015 06:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:56 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:13 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 07 2015 12:36 KwarK wrote:On July 07 2015 12:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 07 2015 11:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 07 2015 11:40 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
The EITC isn't perfect but it is currently the largest anti-poverty program in the country. It's also widely regarded as a public policy success story, and more directly effective at combating poverty than a higher minimum wage.
Higher wages means you lose out on other benefits as well as the EITC. Not all households will navigate that change well. Not every employer is going to be able to support large single earner households at a 'living' level, meaning that the public will have to step in an provide assistance anyways. I don't think people making minimum wage are worried about losing the EITC. You're not getting anywhere close to losing it if you have a kid, and if you don't have a kid why would you want ~$500 at the end of the year instead of doubling your wage? If by chance you're married with or without children and file jointly and make over the current amount, then I think you make a good case for raising the limit on the credit in those circumstances. As for any alleged significant job loss from employers who can't afford a living wage, that doesn't happen. There are more benefits at stake than just the EITC though. As for any specifics on numbers, it depends on what the specfics of your proposal is. When you say something like "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country" and propose something like a higher min wage, you'll still have some people who do not earn a living wage and need benefits because they have a large household size. Or if you have a flexible min wage that becomes harder to administer and has more detrimental affects on prices and unemployment. This is nonsense. Those benefits are decided by AGI, not gross. If someone is truly better off earning less than they were earning more then it's within their power to simply open a tIRA, throw the extra money in there and not only does their income/taxes/benefits stay the same as it was before but they also get the Saver's Credit. The suggestion that the poor rely upon you not giving them too much money is absurd. If they really liked having not very much money and giving them a little extra money is going to fuck them over then they can go back to having not very much money without much effort while building a modest retirement/emergency fund. I think you misinterpreted my post somehow. I'm not claiming that you end up with more money by earning less. My argument was that a decent standard of living now may require min wage plus benefits, and that a decent standard of living under a 'living wage' system, if such a system is simply a higher min wage, may also require min wage plus benefits because not everyone will conform to the average household situation that the new, and higher, min wage is based off of. So your argument is, at it's core "If we let the poor have refrigerators they won't be happy, they'll be asking for microwaves next. And if we let them have those then they'll want televisions and maybe even cell phones. And they'll still be poor relative to the rest of us so it's probably better just to draw the line at refrigerators." Sure, most of the poor in America are not poor except when compared to everyone else in America. The "decent" standard of living increases with income. I don't deny that. But I'm not sure how we get from there to "probably best to just keep it where it is". No, that's not even in the ballpark of my argument. Then I'm getting lost somewhere. Right now the poor need minimum wage + benefits to have a poor lifestyle. You argue that if we increased the minimum wage then the poor lifestyle would be better but would still be poor because poor is a relative? I think that don't pay enough to support a 'living' lifestyle should largely still exist and that the government should try to make up the difference with well-designed benefits. My arguments are in support of that. I'm opposed to: "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country." It's an odd quote anyway given the implicit insertion of the word "American" before the word "workers". I imagine even in its day it was not meant to apply to migrant labourers or foreigners. The problem of the definition of a living wage is a difficult one, especially given the degree to which the government has less power to dictate what the American public needs to buy than advertisers. I'd argue that it's reasonable to expect internet access and a phone with a living wage which means I think at the minimum people need instant remote access to communication with all of humanity, pretty much everything we know and more porn than anyone could ever want. Maybe in the future a living wage that doesn't include a jetpack would be unacceptable. A few weeks ago though I worked alongside some people making $8/hr without health insurance or a regular schedule. We could debate what a living wage does, and does not include, but it's not entirely relevant to the immediate fact that those people need some help.
I'm not sure what your point is. I'm not arguing against help, I'm arguing over the form of the help and which is more practical.
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On July 08 2015 06:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2015 06:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:56 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:13 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 07 2015 12:36 KwarK wrote:On July 07 2015 12:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 07 2015 11:49 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
I don't think people making minimum wage are worried about losing the EITC. You're not getting anywhere close to losing it if you have a kid, and if you don't have a kid why would you want ~$500 at the end of the year instead of doubling your wage? If by chance you're married with or without children and file jointly and make over the current amount, then I think you make a good case for raising the limit on the credit in those circumstances.
As for any alleged significant job loss from employers who can't afford a living wage, that doesn't happen. There are more benefits at stake than just the EITC though. As for any specifics on numbers, it depends on what the specfics of your proposal is. When you say something like "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country" and propose something like a higher min wage, you'll still have some people who do not earn a living wage and need benefits because they have a large household size. Or if you have a flexible min wage that becomes harder to administer and has more detrimental affects on prices and unemployment. This is nonsense. Those benefits are decided by AGI, not gross. If someone is truly better off earning less than they were earning more then it's within their power to simply open a tIRA, throw the extra money in there and not only does their income/taxes/benefits stay the same as it was before but they also get the Saver's Credit. The suggestion that the poor rely upon you not giving them too much money is absurd. If they really liked having not very much money and giving them a little extra money is going to fuck them over then they can go back to having not very much money without much effort while building a modest retirement/emergency fund. I think you misinterpreted my post somehow. I'm not claiming that you end up with more money by earning less. My argument was that a decent standard of living now may require min wage plus benefits, and that a decent standard of living under a 'living wage' system, if such a system is simply a higher min wage, may also require min wage plus benefits because not everyone will conform to the average household situation that the new, and higher, min wage is based off of. So your argument is, at it's core "If we let the poor have refrigerators they won't be happy, they'll be asking for microwaves next. And if we let them have those then they'll want televisions and maybe even cell phones. And they'll still be poor relative to the rest of us so it's probably better just to draw the line at refrigerators." Sure, most of the poor in America are not poor except when compared to everyone else in America. The "decent" standard of living increases with income. I don't deny that. But I'm not sure how we get from there to "probably best to just keep it where it is". No, that's not even in the ballpark of my argument. Then I'm getting lost somewhere. Right now the poor need minimum wage + benefits to have a poor lifestyle. You argue that if we increased the minimum wage then the poor lifestyle would be better but would still be poor because poor is a relative? I think that don't pay enough to support a 'living' lifestyle should largely still exist and that the government should try to make up the difference with well-designed benefits. My arguments are in support of that. I'm opposed to: "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country." You know those are Franklin Roosevelt's words not mine right? When he was talking about creating the minimum wage in the first place. The lie that minimum wage was never supposed to be a living wage was wrong from the first time someone said it. FDR also wanted business to form cartels so that they could raise prices to pay those wages. FDR had a lot of bad ideas to go along with the good ones.
Well we got the cartels without the wages.
That applies to every human being, I think we all know that.
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On July 08 2015 06:50 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2015 06:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 06:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:56 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:13 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 07 2015 12:36 KwarK wrote:On July 07 2015 12:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
There are more benefits at stake than just the EITC though. As for any specifics on numbers, it depends on what the specfics of your proposal is. When you say something like "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country" and propose something like a higher min wage, you'll still have some people who do not earn a living wage and need benefits because they have a large household size. Or if you have a flexible min wage that becomes harder to administer and has more detrimental affects on prices and unemployment. This is nonsense. Those benefits are decided by AGI, not gross. If someone is truly better off earning less than they were earning more then it's within their power to simply open a tIRA, throw the extra money in there and not only does their income/taxes/benefits stay the same as it was before but they also get the Saver's Credit. The suggestion that the poor rely upon you not giving them too much money is absurd. If they really liked having not very much money and giving them a little extra money is going to fuck them over then they can go back to having not very much money without much effort while building a modest retirement/emergency fund. I think you misinterpreted my post somehow. I'm not claiming that you end up with more money by earning less. My argument was that a decent standard of living now may require min wage plus benefits, and that a decent standard of living under a 'living wage' system, if such a system is simply a higher min wage, may also require min wage plus benefits because not everyone will conform to the average household situation that the new, and higher, min wage is based off of. So your argument is, at it's core "If we let the poor have refrigerators they won't be happy, they'll be asking for microwaves next. And if we let them have those then they'll want televisions and maybe even cell phones. And they'll still be poor relative to the rest of us so it's probably better just to draw the line at refrigerators." Sure, most of the poor in America are not poor except when compared to everyone else in America. The "decent" standard of living increases with income. I don't deny that. But I'm not sure how we get from there to "probably best to just keep it where it is". No, that's not even in the ballpark of my argument. Then I'm getting lost somewhere. Right now the poor need minimum wage + benefits to have a poor lifestyle. You argue that if we increased the minimum wage then the poor lifestyle would be better but would still be poor because poor is a relative? I think that don't pay enough to support a 'living' lifestyle should largely still exist and that the government should try to make up the difference with well-designed benefits. My arguments are in support of that. I'm opposed to: "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country." You know those are Franklin Roosevelt's words not mine right? When he was talking about creating the minimum wage in the first place. The lie that minimum wage was never supposed to be a living wage was wrong from the first time someone said it. FDR also wanted business to form cartels so that they could raise prices to pay those wages. FDR had a lot of bad ideas to go along with the good ones. Well we got the cartels without the wages. That applies to every human being, I think we all know that.
No, cartels are illegal.
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United States41995 Posts
On July 08 2015 06:49 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2015 06:14 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 06:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:56 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:13 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 07 2015 12:36 KwarK wrote:On July 07 2015 12:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 07 2015 11:49 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
I don't think people making minimum wage are worried about losing the EITC. You're not getting anywhere close to losing it if you have a kid, and if you don't have a kid why would you want ~$500 at the end of the year instead of doubling your wage? If by chance you're married with or without children and file jointly and make over the current amount, then I think you make a good case for raising the limit on the credit in those circumstances.
As for any alleged significant job loss from employers who can't afford a living wage, that doesn't happen. There are more benefits at stake than just the EITC though. As for any specifics on numbers, it depends on what the specfics of your proposal is. When you say something like "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country" and propose something like a higher min wage, you'll still have some people who do not earn a living wage and need benefits because they have a large household size. Or if you have a flexible min wage that becomes harder to administer and has more detrimental affects on prices and unemployment. This is nonsense. Those benefits are decided by AGI, not gross. If someone is truly better off earning less than they were earning more then it's within their power to simply open a tIRA, throw the extra money in there and not only does their income/taxes/benefits stay the same as it was before but they also get the Saver's Credit. The suggestion that the poor rely upon you not giving them too much money is absurd. If they really liked having not very much money and giving them a little extra money is going to fuck them over then they can go back to having not very much money without much effort while building a modest retirement/emergency fund. I think you misinterpreted my post somehow. I'm not claiming that you end up with more money by earning less. My argument was that a decent standard of living now may require min wage plus benefits, and that a decent standard of living under a 'living wage' system, if such a system is simply a higher min wage, may also require min wage plus benefits because not everyone will conform to the average household situation that the new, and higher, min wage is based off of. So your argument is, at it's core "If we let the poor have refrigerators they won't be happy, they'll be asking for microwaves next. And if we let them have those then they'll want televisions and maybe even cell phones. And they'll still be poor relative to the rest of us so it's probably better just to draw the line at refrigerators." Sure, most of the poor in America are not poor except when compared to everyone else in America. The "decent" standard of living increases with income. I don't deny that. But I'm not sure how we get from there to "probably best to just keep it where it is". No, that's not even in the ballpark of my argument. Then I'm getting lost somewhere. Right now the poor need minimum wage + benefits to have a poor lifestyle. You argue that if we increased the minimum wage then the poor lifestyle would be better but would still be poor because poor is a relative? I think that don't pay enough to support a 'living' lifestyle should largely still exist and that the government should try to make up the difference with well-designed benefits. My arguments are in support of that. I'm opposed to: "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country." It's an odd quote anyway given the implicit insertion of the word "American" before the word "workers". I imagine even in its day it was not meant to apply to migrant labourers or foreigners. The problem of the definition of a living wage is a difficult one, especially given the degree to which the government has less power to dictate what the American public needs to buy than advertisers. I'd argue that it's reasonable to expect internet access and a phone with a living wage which means I think at the minimum people need instant remote access to communication with all of humanity, pretty much everything we know and more porn than anyone could ever want. Maybe in the future a living wage that doesn't include a jetpack would be unacceptable. A few weeks ago though I worked alongside some people making $8/hr without health insurance or a regular schedule. We could debate what a living wage does, and does not include, but it's not entirely relevant to the immediate fact that those people need some help. I'm not sure what your point is. I'm not arguing against help, I'm arguing over the form of the help and which is more practical.
We're not really disagreeing and it doesn't look like we ever were. I was misreading your posts and after having you explain your intent then we're not really in conflict. Although with my last line I was trying to illustrate that while it's possible to argue over the details of what is, and is not, a living wage you can know it when you see it.
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On July 08 2015 06:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2015 06:50 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 06:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:56 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:13 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 07 2015 12:36 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
This is nonsense. Those benefits are decided by AGI, not gross. If someone is truly better off earning less than they were earning more then it's within their power to simply open a tIRA, throw the extra money in there and not only does their income/taxes/benefits stay the same as it was before but they also get the Saver's Credit.
The suggestion that the poor rely upon you not giving them too much money is absurd. If they really liked having not very much money and giving them a little extra money is going to fuck them over then they can go back to having not very much money without much effort while building a modest retirement/emergency fund. I think you misinterpreted my post somehow. I'm not claiming that you end up with more money by earning less. My argument was that a decent standard of living now may require min wage plus benefits, and that a decent standard of living under a 'living wage' system, if such a system is simply a higher min wage, may also require min wage plus benefits because not everyone will conform to the average household situation that the new, and higher, min wage is based off of. So your argument is, at it's core "If we let the poor have refrigerators they won't be happy, they'll be asking for microwaves next. And if we let them have those then they'll want televisions and maybe even cell phones. And they'll still be poor relative to the rest of us so it's probably better just to draw the line at refrigerators." Sure, most of the poor in America are not poor except when compared to everyone else in America. The "decent" standard of living increases with income. I don't deny that. But I'm not sure how we get from there to "probably best to just keep it where it is". No, that's not even in the ballpark of my argument. Then I'm getting lost somewhere. Right now the poor need minimum wage + benefits to have a poor lifestyle. You argue that if we increased the minimum wage then the poor lifestyle would be better but would still be poor because poor is a relative? I think that don't pay enough to support a 'living' lifestyle should largely still exist and that the government should try to make up the difference with well-designed benefits. My arguments are in support of that. I'm opposed to: "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country." You know those are Franklin Roosevelt's words not mine right? When he was talking about creating the minimum wage in the first place. The lie that minimum wage was never supposed to be a living wage was wrong from the first time someone said it. FDR also wanted business to form cartels so that they could raise prices to pay those wages. FDR had a lot of bad ideas to go along with the good ones. Well we got the cartels without the wages. That applies to every human being, I think we all know that. No, cartels are illegal.
Oh I forgot, when you make something illegal, it ceases to exist.
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On July 08 2015 07:15 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2015 06:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 06:50 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 06:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:56 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:13 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
I think you misinterpreted my post somehow. I'm not claiming that you end up with more money by earning less. My argument was that a decent standard of living now may require min wage plus benefits, and that a decent standard of living under a 'living wage' system, if such a system is simply a higher min wage, may also require min wage plus benefits because not everyone will conform to the average household situation that the new, and higher, min wage is based off of. So your argument is, at it's core "If we let the poor have refrigerators they won't be happy, they'll be asking for microwaves next. And if we let them have those then they'll want televisions and maybe even cell phones. And they'll still be poor relative to the rest of us so it's probably better just to draw the line at refrigerators." Sure, most of the poor in America are not poor except when compared to everyone else in America. The "decent" standard of living increases with income. I don't deny that. But I'm not sure how we get from there to "probably best to just keep it where it is". No, that's not even in the ballpark of my argument. Then I'm getting lost somewhere. Right now the poor need minimum wage + benefits to have a poor lifestyle. You argue that if we increased the minimum wage then the poor lifestyle would be better but would still be poor because poor is a relative? I think that don't pay enough to support a 'living' lifestyle should largely still exist and that the government should try to make up the difference with well-designed benefits. My arguments are in support of that. I'm opposed to: "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country." You know those are Franklin Roosevelt's words not mine right? When he was talking about creating the minimum wage in the first place. The lie that minimum wage was never supposed to be a living wage was wrong from the first time someone said it. FDR also wanted business to form cartels so that they could raise prices to pay those wages. FDR had a lot of bad ideas to go along with the good ones. Well we got the cartels without the wages. That applies to every human being, I think we all know that. No, cartels are illegal. Oh I forgot, when you make something illegal, it ceases to exist.
There is a lawful minimum wage.
Cartels are illegal.
You think we have the former, but not the latter. Reality is not what you think it to be.
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On July 08 2015 08:43 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2015 07:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 06:50 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 06:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:56 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:13 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
So your argument is, at it's core "If we let the poor have refrigerators they won't be happy, they'll be asking for microwaves next. And if we let them have those then they'll want televisions and maybe even cell phones. And they'll still be poor relative to the rest of us so it's probably better just to draw the line at refrigerators."
Sure, most of the poor in America are not poor except when compared to everyone else in America. The "decent" standard of living increases with income. I don't deny that. But I'm not sure how we get from there to "probably best to just keep it where it is". No, that's not even in the ballpark of my argument. Then I'm getting lost somewhere. Right now the poor need minimum wage + benefits to have a poor lifestyle. You argue that if we increased the minimum wage then the poor lifestyle would be better but would still be poor because poor is a relative? I think that don't pay enough to support a 'living' lifestyle should largely still exist and that the government should try to make up the difference with well-designed benefits. My arguments are in support of that. I'm opposed to: "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country." You know those are Franklin Roosevelt's words not mine right? When he was talking about creating the minimum wage in the first place. The lie that minimum wage was never supposed to be a living wage was wrong from the first time someone said it. FDR also wanted business to form cartels so that they could raise prices to pay those wages. FDR had a lot of bad ideas to go along with the good ones. Well we got the cartels without the wages. That applies to every human being, I think we all know that. No, cartels are illegal. Oh I forgot, when you make something illegal, it ceases to exist. There is a lawful minimum wage. Cartels are illegal. You think we have the former, but not the latter. Reality is not what you think it to be.
Those are clever ways to say nothing that matters to the point.
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On July 08 2015 08:43 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2015 07:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 06:50 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 06:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:56 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:13 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
So your argument is, at it's core "If we let the poor have refrigerators they won't be happy, they'll be asking for microwaves next. And if we let them have those then they'll want televisions and maybe even cell phones. And they'll still be poor relative to the rest of us so it's probably better just to draw the line at refrigerators."
Sure, most of the poor in America are not poor except when compared to everyone else in America. The "decent" standard of living increases with income. I don't deny that. But I'm not sure how we get from there to "probably best to just keep it where it is". No, that's not even in the ballpark of my argument. Then I'm getting lost somewhere. Right now the poor need minimum wage + benefits to have a poor lifestyle. You argue that if we increased the minimum wage then the poor lifestyle would be better but would still be poor because poor is a relative? I think that don't pay enough to support a 'living' lifestyle should largely still exist and that the government should try to make up the difference with well-designed benefits. My arguments are in support of that. I'm opposed to: "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country." You know those are Franklin Roosevelt's words not mine right? When he was talking about creating the minimum wage in the first place. The lie that minimum wage was never supposed to be a living wage was wrong from the first time someone said it. FDR also wanted business to form cartels so that they could raise prices to pay those wages. FDR had a lot of bad ideas to go along with the good ones. Well we got the cartels without the wages. That applies to every human being, I think we all know that. No, cartels are illegal. Oh I forgot, when you make something illegal, it ceases to exist. There is a lawful minimum wage. Cartels are illegal. You think we have the former, but not the latter. Reality is not what you think it to be.
A lawful minimum wage? $7.25? Are you serious?
Really? Walmart has to run Thanksgiving food drives for their employees and you're championing our pitifully low minimum wage?
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On July 08 2015 09:30 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2015 08:43 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 07:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 06:50 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 06:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:56 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
No, that's not even in the ballpark of my argument. Then I'm getting lost somewhere. Right now the poor need minimum wage + benefits to have a poor lifestyle. You argue that if we increased the minimum wage then the poor lifestyle would be better but would still be poor because poor is a relative? I think that don't pay enough to support a 'living' lifestyle should largely still exist and that the government should try to make up the difference with well-designed benefits. My arguments are in support of that. I'm opposed to: "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country." You know those are Franklin Roosevelt's words not mine right? When he was talking about creating the minimum wage in the first place. The lie that minimum wage was never supposed to be a living wage was wrong from the first time someone said it. FDR also wanted business to form cartels so that they could raise prices to pay those wages. FDR had a lot of bad ideas to go along with the good ones. Well we got the cartels without the wages. That applies to every human being, I think we all know that. No, cartels are illegal. Oh I forgot, when you make something illegal, it ceases to exist. There is a lawful minimum wage. Cartels are illegal. You think we have the former, but not the latter. Reality is not what you think it to be. Those are clever ways to say nothing that matters to the point.
mmmk, and what point would that be? Do you suppose that wages are lower now than during the Great Depression or that the cartels that FDR wanted to set up were struck down as illegal, and yet somehow flourished while minimum wages, which are now legal have somehow gone away?
Your quote was that we got the cartels but not the wages and you've offered nothing to support that assertion or expand upon what you meant.
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People who want higher minimum wage should be showing how that feeds other minimum wage jobs. This living wage argument just feeds into too much of a class warfare angle.
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A spike in intravenous drug use in a growing number of U.S. counties has led to soaring infection rates of hepatitis C and HIV in communities across the country. Increasingly these counties are pushing for the creation of needle exchange programs, but politics and bureaucracy appears to be slowing the spread of such harm reduction programs.
By enabling access to health care, rehab facilities and addressing social inequalities that exacerbate substance abuse, advocates say harm reduction programs, like needle exchanges, help to reduce the negative health effects of drug injection.
“There has been a big change in how state legislators view overdose and view drug-related harm in general,” said Corey Davis, the deputy director of the National Health Law Program.
But despite renewed interest in clinics where people can receive treatment and drop off contaminated wares in exchange for clean ones, political and bureaucratic hurdles are preventing widespread implementation — even after epidemics in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and elsewhere raised national alarm.
In April, an HIV outbreak in Scott County, Indiana grabbed headlines when health officials there recorded more than 100 cases in a month. The number grew to 169 by June — more than 30 times the county’s yearly average. Most infections occurred from injecting Opana, a popular painkiller containing oxymorphone, with contaminated needles.
Following the outbreak, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence waived the state’s anti-needle ban that criminalized the possession of a syringe without a medical reason and signed a law allowing county officials to request permission to establish their own needle exchange programs — though these clinics were not eligible for state funding.
While some saw this as opening the door for harm reduction clinics across the state, the reaction so far has been muted. Only two counties have made use of the new rules, though a third county is considering establishing an exchange, according to local reports.
Health officials in Scott County, Indiana, declared a health emergency and established a needle exchange program in April to slow the spread of HIV.
Source
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On July 08 2015 09:44 darthfoley wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2015 08:43 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 07:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 06:50 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 06:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:56 KwarK wrote:On July 08 2015 05:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
No, that's not even in the ballpark of my argument. Then I'm getting lost somewhere. Right now the poor need minimum wage + benefits to have a poor lifestyle. You argue that if we increased the minimum wage then the poor lifestyle would be better but would still be poor because poor is a relative? I think that don't pay enough to support a 'living' lifestyle should largely still exist and that the government should try to make up the difference with well-designed benefits. My arguments are in support of that. I'm opposed to: "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country." You know those are Franklin Roosevelt's words not mine right? When he was talking about creating the minimum wage in the first place. The lie that minimum wage was never supposed to be a living wage was wrong from the first time someone said it. FDR also wanted business to form cartels so that they could raise prices to pay those wages. FDR had a lot of bad ideas to go along with the good ones. Well we got the cartels without the wages. That applies to every human being, I think we all know that. No, cartels are illegal. Oh I forgot, when you make something illegal, it ceases to exist. There is a lawful minimum wage. Cartels are illegal. You think we have the former, but not the latter. Reality is not what you think it to be. A lawful minimum wage? $7.25? Are you serious? Really? Walmart has to run Thanksgiving food drives for their employees and you're championing our pitifully low minimum wage?
Clearly you didn't read my posts, but I'll entertain your ignorance.
GH implied that a min wage didn't exist so I pointed out that it does. I never claimed that it was awesome or whatever you've imagined.
As for Walmart, the last story of that happening was an employee (not the company) collecting donations for other employees who were on a leave of absence and unable to work.
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Kayla Whaling quickly responded to the criticism, saying the drive was planned by one of the store's employees, who was collecting food for two co-workers who were on a leave of absence and unable to work.
...
Dawnne Sulaitis, who has worked at Wal-Mart for 19 years, said she asked for permission to hold the food drive when she found out that two families would be down to one income over the holidays.
...
Wal-Mart came under similar criticism last year, when an employee held a food drive for one co-worker who had lost their home in a fire, and for another who had stopped receiving child support from her ex-husband.
Link
Helping people out after a fire... so horrible... I'm literally crying...
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On July 08 2015 10:01 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +A spike in intravenous drug use in a growing number of U.S. counties has led to soaring infection rates of hepatitis C and HIV in communities across the country. Increasingly these counties are pushing for the creation of needle exchange programs, but politics and bureaucracy appears to be slowing the spread of such harm reduction programs.
By enabling access to health care, rehab facilities and addressing social inequalities that exacerbate substance abuse, advocates say harm reduction programs, like needle exchanges, help to reduce the negative health effects of drug injection.
“There has been a big change in how state legislators view overdose and view drug-related harm in general,” said Corey Davis, the deputy director of the National Health Law Program.
But despite renewed interest in clinics where people can receive treatment and drop off contaminated wares in exchange for clean ones, political and bureaucratic hurdles are preventing widespread implementation — even after epidemics in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and elsewhere raised national alarm.
In April, an HIV outbreak in Scott County, Indiana grabbed headlines when health officials there recorded more than 100 cases in a month. The number grew to 169 by June — more than 30 times the county’s yearly average. Most infections occurred from injecting Opana, a popular painkiller containing oxymorphone, with contaminated needles.
Following the outbreak, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence waived the state’s anti-needle ban that criminalized the possession of a syringe without a medical reason and signed a law allowing county officials to request permission to establish their own needle exchange programs — though these clinics were not eligible for state funding.
While some saw this as opening the door for harm reduction clinics across the state, the reaction so far has been muted. Only two counties have made use of the new rules, though a third county is considering establishing an exchange, according to local reports.
Health officials in Scott County, Indiana, declared a health emergency and established a needle exchange program in April to slow the spread of HIV. Source
I wish more places had seen this coming and prepared accordingly when the DEA pushed FDA to make Vicodin an order of magnitude harder to obtain.
At least, I assume this is mostly heroin/opioid based. I could be wrong though.
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On July 08 2015 09:51 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2015 09:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 08:43 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 07:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 06:50 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 06:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 08 2015 06:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 08 2015 05:56 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
Then I'm getting lost somewhere. Right now the poor need minimum wage + benefits to have a poor lifestyle. You argue that if we increased the minimum wage then the poor lifestyle would be better but would still be poor because poor is a relative? I think that don't pay enough to support a 'living' lifestyle should largely still exist and that the government should try to make up the difference with well-designed benefits. My arguments are in support of that. I'm opposed to: "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country." You know those are Franklin Roosevelt's words not mine right? When he was talking about creating the minimum wage in the first place. The lie that minimum wage was never supposed to be a living wage was wrong from the first time someone said it. FDR also wanted business to form cartels so that they could raise prices to pay those wages. FDR had a lot of bad ideas to go along with the good ones. Well we got the cartels without the wages. That applies to every human being, I think we all know that. No, cartels are illegal. Oh I forgot, when you make something illegal, it ceases to exist. There is a lawful minimum wage. Cartels are illegal. You think we have the former, but not the latter. Reality is not what you think it to be. Those are clever ways to say nothing that matters to the point. mmmk, and what point would that be? Do you suppose that wages are lower now than during the Great Depression or that the cartels that FDR wanted to set up were struck down as illegal, and yet somehow flourished while minimum wages, which are now legal have somehow gone away? Your quote was that we got the cartels but not the wages and you've offered nothing to support that assertion or expand upon what you meant.
That we didn't get a living wage, but we got businesses acting like cartels. There's the airline story (but that's still being investigated), The Apple, google, intel, etc. wage fixing. There are plenty of other examples, but I know you know that and are just playing dumb.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On July 08 2015 09:54 Sermokala wrote:
People who want higher minimum wage should be showing how that feeds other minimum wage jobs. This living wage argument just feeds into too much of a class warfare angle.
fairly simple to show just by propensity to spend, but there's also a pretty big inflation effect.
the angle of analysis here should be how to create 'creative disorganization' to allow for a more productive economy made of smaller 'firms'. the economy for the past 30 years has proceeded to award organization and sophistication over smaller actors, and the division between being a vital cog of corporate america and not is ever larger. the force behind this division is the efficiency fo scale and organization.
given backdrop of urbanization there's some potential for entrepreneurship in urban service industry to create this sort of decentralized, high value small business ecosystem. decentralized and relatively low cost production and whatnot may further boost this. technology and creativity should be the left's positive message, and instead of attacking 'the rich,' focus on rent seeking and monopoly power.
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EPT
