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On June 22 2010 10:54 daveydweeb wrote:Show nested quote +Given that minimum wages are (unfortunately) already here to stay, just answer the OP's question instead of launching into this kind of ill-argued economically illiterate nonsense. Fun fact: Australia, with one of the highest minimum wages in the OECD, is also the only OECD country to have avoided recession over the last two years. We also have the lowest unemployment in the developed world. How does it increase the cost of imported goods?
That is quite an interesting fact...
Here in Connecticut, minimum wage is $8.25, one of the highest in the states I think. Right now I'm getting $10/hr, working 10 hr days. It's rough, but it's good money for a kid between his freshman and sophomore years of college...
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On June 22 2010 10:54 daveydweeb wrote:Fun fact: Australia, with one of the highest minimum wages in the OECD, is also the only OECD country to have avoided recession over the last two years. We also have the lowest unemployment in the developed world.
Completely unrelated facts.
What, precisely, is your point?
How does it increase the cost of imported goods?
It doesn't, but it renders the economy affected by a minimum wage less competitive against imports, resulting in less employment and less general wealth for the residents of that economy.
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On June 22 2010 11:24 kzn wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2010 10:54 daveydweeb wrote:Fun fact: Australia, with one of the highest minimum wages in the OECD, is also the only OECD country to have avoided recession over the last two years. We also have the lowest unemployment in the developed world. Completely unrelated facts. What, precisely, is your point?
Maybe you could make an argument, not just an assertion. 
Mine is that the minimum wage has contributed not only to our economic stability during a major economic crisis, and guaranteed a minimum quality of life even for the people most at risk. It has demonstrably not affected the "cost of everything" (which I presume to mean the cost of living), since we're right at the top of the pile even after one of the most economically stressful periods in years.
It doesn't, but it renders the economy affected by a minimum wage less competitive against imports, resulting in less employment and less general wealth for the residents of that economy.
Ah. So you're redacting your statement that it increases the cost of everything, then? Perhaps, while you're there, you should reconcile your statement that the minimum wage reduces employment with our current ~5% unemployment rate? :3 You actually quoted me saying that, so it's a little poor to ignore that statement and make another that opposes it without actually trying to reply.
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On June 22 2010 11:28 daveydweeb wrote:Maybe you could make an argument, not just an assertion.
I wasn't responding to an argument, there was nothing for me to make.
Mine is that the minimum wage has contributed not only to our economic stability during a major economic crisis, and guaranteed a minimum quality of life even for the people most at risk. It has demonstrably not affected the "cost of everything" (which I presume to mean the cost of living), since we're right at the top of the pile even after one of the most economically stressful periods in years.
In rough order:
You have no way of demonstrating that your minimum wage was a major contributing factor (or a factor at all) to your avoidance of a recession. It could well have been the result of an almost infinite number of alternate factors. Off the top of my head, the ones I'd look at first would be how small/self-contained the economy is, how reliant on imports it is, how active it is in worldwide financial markets, what the money supply looked like prior to the recession hitting other countries, and how much of the economic activity was generated by government spending.
Secondly, if you want to guarantee a minimum quality of life to people, thats fine. Thats a decision a country can and should be able to make. But it is not something that you can do free. It is a matter of logical necessity that if a change of any kind is required to guarantee a minimum quality of life, that change will impact the rest of the economy (negatively, also by matter of logical necessity). If that cost is worth it to the country in question, all the more power to you for making the right decision.
Thirdly, your position in terms of economic growth/whether or not you had a recession has nothing to do with whether or not a minimum wage increases the cost of everything. It rather demonstrably has, since the in terms of PPP Australia is more expensive than the US (and a vast list of other countries).
It is a matter of economic fact that a minimum wage will either do nothing at all, or render the affected economy less competitive against economies without a minimum wage. If data does not reflect this, the explanation is far more likely to be a mitigating factor elsewhere, not a failing of economic theory.
Ah. So you're redacting your statement that it increases the cost of everything, then? Perhaps, while you're there, you should reconcile your statement that the minimum wage reduces employment with our current ~5% unemployment rate? :3
1. No, I am not. It increases the relative cost of everything, as import prices will not change but people will be forced to buy what they need with less production to back it, and thus (again, by logical necessity) with less wealth to purchase it.
2. It is entirely possible to pass a minimum wage that has no effect on employment - but by default if you manage to do that, you never needed to pass the minimum wage in the first place. Unemployment measurements are woefully bad at capturing unemployment changes that occur at the lowest income levels, because the incentive to actively seek another job is much lower when your options for "another job" all pay tiny wages. I would put it to you that your unemployment is actually much higher than 5%, but because people who are cut out of jobs by a minimum wage law simply choose to stop looking for work, they are not measured. As far as I know, there's not actually any data that could confirm or disconfirm that hypothesis, so its basically up in the air as an empirical argument.
[edit] After investigating, the latest Australian data for underemployment (unemployment + those who want to work more) was fairly high at ~14% (granted not as high as the US), and that still misses most of the people I suspect are pushed out of jobs by a minimum wage.
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On June 22 2010 11:15 jcarlsoniv wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2010 10:54 daveydweeb wrote:Given that minimum wages are (unfortunately) already here to stay, just answer the OP's question instead of launching into this kind of ill-argued economically illiterate nonsense. Fun fact: Australia, with one of the highest minimum wages in the OECD, is also the only OECD country to have avoided recession over the last two years. We also have the lowest unemployment in the developed world. How does it increase the cost of imported goods? That is quite an interesting fact... Here in Connecticut, minimum wage is $8.25, one of the highest in the states I think. Right now I'm getting $10/hr, working 10 hr days. It's rough, but it's good money for a kid between his freshman and sophomore years of college...
there's almost no job in my town that pays less than 11, i think one or two fast food places maybe but even most of them pay atleast 11. Though it's not the actual minimum it pretty much is for this town
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Personally I say stick to it and work your way up specially if this is your first real job am 23 and still in university I worked as a diesel mechanic for 3 years radio DJ for 1 and I been working as a busboy for the past 2 years the funny thing is that I make more money cleaning tables than in my previous two jobs if you are smart and can figure things out stick to jobs where you get compensation my base pay is 4.25 but once I add up the tips I run at $18 because I figured things out just learn how to exploit the system... working in kitchens is great experience imo
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Here (Canada) the minimum wage is 9.5$, which is current about 9.28 USD.
But yeah, you should wait for a paycheck or two before giving up. Also, you're better off being payed slightly below the minimum wage than not being payed at all if you really need the money (if it took you 30 applications to get a job, is it easy for you to get another one?).
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On June 22 2010 03:52 RoosterSamurai wrote:
If you want more money, make yourself more marketable. Go get an education, get a degree, and THEN if you are still not making enough, post a thread.
WTF? So you recommend to everyone not to work before they get a degree? How the hell do you want get served at McDonalds? 
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On June 22 2010 11:04 Too_MuchZerg wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2010 11:03 FreshVegetables wrote:On June 22 2010 11:01 Too_MuchZerg wrote:
Stop complaining about minimum wages... we don't even have that... In Finland? Oh yes we do. No we don't.
Well theorically you're right but in reality there's still a minimum wage here. I'm actually quite surprised that there isnt a set minimum wage here, as I have heard people talk about it before.
What i'm saying is there isn't a set minium wage by law. But as a fellow finnish man you would know that "TES - työehtosopimus"* has a minimum wage.
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On June 22 2010 11:41 kzn wrote:
You have no way of demonstrating that your minimum wage was a major contributing factor (or a factor at all) to your avoidance of a recession. It could well have been the result of an almost infinite number of alternate factors. Off the top of my head, the ones I'd look at first would be how small/self-contained the economy is, how reliant on imports it is, how active it is in worldwide financial markets, what the money supply looked like prior to the recession hitting other countries, and how much of the economic activity was generated by government spending.
By the same logic, due to the complexity of any economy, what evidence do you have that the minimum wage is damaging in any way?
On June 22 2010 11:41 kzn wrote:
Secondly, if you want to guarantee a minimum quality of life to people, thats fine. Thats a decision a country can and should be able to make. But it is not something that you can do free. It is a matter of logical necessity that if a change of any kind is required to guarantee a minimum quality of life, that change will impact the rest of the economy (negatively, also by matter of logical necessity). If that cost is worth it to the country in question, all the more power to you for making the right decision.
Aren't there many ways that providing a minimum standard of living can massively benefit an economy? For example, instead of struggling to make ends meet in their spare time and being depressed and stressed, workers have a good enough standard of living to do their job properly.
Currently I'm living and working in China, so I can see the day to day effect of people living without any of the benefits we'd be accustomed to. As far as I can see, lack of rights actually massively screws up the quality of work. People work more hours for sure, and there is no shortage of competition for any job. But in almost every field, quality and professionalism is just much lower. Perhaps this is down to other factors, but so far my experience is heightening my scepticism of the free market.
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On June 23 2010 02:55 Tal wrote:By the same logic, due to the complexity of any economy, what evidence do you have that the minimum wage is damaging in any way?
My evidence, such as it is, is the fact that commonly accepted economic theory requires that it is.
On June 22 2010 11:41 kzn wrote:Aren't there many ways that providing a minimum standard of living can massively benefit an economy? For example, instead of struggling to make ends meet in their spare time and being depressed and stressed, workers have a good enough standard of living to do their job properly.
That is already a concern for employers - but the fact is, there are some jobs where the improved work ethic (or whatever you want to call it) doesn't outweigh the fact you are overpaying for the work. It is, quite simply, not worth paying someone $7.50/hour to lace shoes, or put together peripherals, or whatever the sweatshop work of choice is.
Currently I'm living and working in China, so I can see the day to day effect of people living without any of the benefits we'd be accustomed to. As far as I can see, lack of rights actually massively screws up the quality of work. People work more hours for sure, and there is no shortage of competition for any job. But in almost every field, quality and professionalism is just much lower.
And the fact that this continues to be the case suggests that companies have looked at the costs and benefits of raising pay to raise quality/professionalism, and have decided its not worth it. That is their decision to make, not the workers.
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Good answers, thank you.
I guess I would like to move towards a world without the option for cheap labour - where everything is of higher quality and of course higher price. I think having people impelled by circumstance to work below minimum wage is damaging to society.
Obviously, there are enormous practical problems with this. As you point out, there is a lot of evidence that many companies will profit more by ignoring workers rights than by respecting them.
But, I don't think society should be run according to business profits.
Breaking news: Having just looked at the latest UK budget, it seems the Tory/Libdem government are pretty much entirely on your side. At least I won''t be home for a while...
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On June 23 2010 11:10 Tal wrote:I guess I would like to move towards a world without the option for cheap labour - where everything is of higher quality and of course higher price. I think having people impelled by circumstance to work below minimum wage is damaging to society.
Barring eugenics/genetic engineering, there will always be people who are worse "people" (for want of a better word) - they will not have the talent/intelligence/strength to do the jobs that pay a lot. They will always be worse off than the people who got lucky in the genetic lottery - and to be sure, this isn't really fair.
But when I see proposals that are supposed to change this, they never accept reality. Talk of workers rights and such just makes no sense - these people are not worth being paid more than they are paid, or they would be paid more. If you want to improve their quality of life by improving their pay, someone else, somewhere, has to take a corresponding drop in pay, and thus a drop in quality of life (although the latter drop will not be of corresponding size).
I don't think that option is any more fair than the default, but that, at least, is an opinion, and thus something you can just hand to a country with a referendum and see what they say.
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On June 23 2010 14:24 kzn wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2010 11:10 Tal wrote:I guess I would like to move towards a world without the option for cheap labour - where everything is of higher quality and of course higher price. I think having people impelled by circumstance to work below minimum wage is damaging to society. Barring eugenics/genetic engineering, there will always be people who are worse "people" (for want of a better word) - they will not have the talent/intelligence/strength to do the jobs that pay a lot. They will always be worse off than the people who got lucky in the genetic lottery - and to be sure, this isn't really fair. But when I see proposals that are supposed to change this, they never accept reality. Talk of workers rights and such just makes no sense - these people are not worth being paid more than they are paid, or they would be paid more. If you want to improve their quality of life by improving their pay, someone else, somewhere, has to take a corresponding drop in pay, and thus a drop in quality of life (although the latter drop will not be of corresponding size). I don't think that option is any more fair than the default, but that, at least, is an opinion, and thus something you can just hand to a country with a referendum and see what they say.
wow you are a huge asshole.
Do you really think CEO's are worth 200-500x the average workers salary? Get real.
I had a job that paid $15 after getting experience that any bum off the street could do. I worked no harder or had any other skill than when I was being paid $7.00 at the country club here in Lansing.
You are really full of complete shit. There comes a point in society where you can make money by simply having money. Two of the big wigs in lansing here just sold the state police headquarters for a $40 million dollar profit. They did absolutely nothing but provide capital for the building to be built and in turn made $40 million dollars while all the engineers and project managers/builders did the damn work.
Dont give me that shit about being paid what you are worth and having to do with talent or skill. Thats complete bullshit.
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WEEEEEEE
A thread originally about a part-time job just became a politics thread.
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On June 23 2010 01:44 FreshVegetables wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2010 11:04 Too_MuchZerg wrote:On June 22 2010 11:03 FreshVegetables wrote:On June 22 2010 11:01 Too_MuchZerg wrote:
Stop complaining about minimum wages... we don't even have that... In Finland? Oh yes we do. No we don't. Well theorically you're right but in reality there's still a minimum wage here. I'm actually quite surprised that there isnt a set minimum wage here, as I have heard people talk about it before. What i'm saying is there isn't a set minium wage by law. But as a fellow finnish man you would know that "TES - työehtosopimus"* has a minimum wage.
We don't need to set minimum wage because unions controls wages.
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On June 23 2010 14:34 Sadist wrote:wow you are a huge asshole.
The arguments!
Do you really think CEO's are worth 200-500x the average workers salary? Get real.
Yes, they are.
I had a job that paid $15 after getting experience that any bum off the street could do. I worked no harder or had any other skill than when I was being paid $7.00 at the country club here in Lansing.
Gonna need more than your word to believe that.
You are really full of complete shit. There comes a point in society where you can make money by simply having money. Two of the big wigs in lansing here just sold the state police headquarters for a $40 million dollar profit. They did absolutely nothing but provide capital for the building to be built and in turn made $40 million dollars while all the engineers and project managers/builders did the damn work.
Because putting a large amount of capital at risk should have no benefits. Thats a good idea.
Oh, wait.
Dont give me that shit about being paid what you are worth and having to do with talent or skill. Thats complete bullshit.
You're gonna need more than a doubtful personal experience and an anecdote that doesn't even support your claims to establish that.
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In Alberta minimum wage is $8.80 and my starting wage when I worked at Dairy Queen was $12.00... Damn the situation in the US sucks.
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On June 23 2010 14:50 kzn wrote:The arguments! Show nested quote +Do you really think CEO's are worth 200-500x the average workers salary? Get real. Yes, they are. Show nested quote +I had a job that paid $15 after getting experience that any bum off the street could do. I worked no harder or had any other skill than when I was being paid $7.00 at the country club here in Lansing. Gonna need more than your word to believe that. Show nested quote +You are really full of complete shit. There comes a point in society where you can make money by simply having money. Two of the big wigs in lansing here just sold the state police headquarters for a $40 million dollar profit. They did absolutely nothing but provide capital for the building to be built and in turn made $40 million dollars while all the engineers and project managers/builders did the damn work. Because putting a large amount of capital at risk should have no benefits. Thats a good idea. Oh, wait. Show nested quote +Dont give me that shit about being paid what you are worth and having to do with talent or skill. Thats complete bullshit. You're gonna need more than a doubtful personal experience and an anecdote that doesn't even support your claims to establish that.
My point was that they had no talent or skill and yet made a 40 million dollar profit simply because they have the money to do so. Providing capital isnt a skill. Getting a contract for the state police to build a building isnt a skill either. They pay lawyers to handle things like that. One is a real estate guy the other owns the biggest trash collecting business in town.
Business owners make a disproportionate amount of money compared to their workers. I argue that in a lot of cases its bullshit because they dont actually do anything when they are making their top money. Sure some may have to grind it out in the early going, but when the big bucks start coming in they can sit on their ass and hire someone to do their job.
And as far as my personal experience......ya data entry and sitting on a computer 8 hrs a day is much harder than bussing tables.
Grow up. I hope you arent one of those upper middle class libertarian white kids because you come off as one =)
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On June 22 2010 11:41 kzn wrote:
It is a matter of economic fact that a minimum wage will either do nothing at all, or render the affected economy less competitive against economies without a minimum wage. If data does not reflect this, the explanation is far more likely to be a mitigating factor elsewhere, not a failing of economic theory.
A failing of economic theory? Nooo, not possible.
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On June 18 2010 11:10 3clipse wrote:When I delivered pizzas I got minimum wage ($8.40) plus delivery fee ($1.25) plus tips. I'm surprised it's legal to pay you a base salary below minimum wage. Those wacky Americans. Show nested quote +On June 18 2010 11:04 revy wrote:
It is illegal to be paid less than minimum wage. Yes there is a minimum wage for tipped people, but you have to report tips. If your hourly+tips does not add up to be minimum wage the employer must make up the difference to get you to minimum wage. This is how it works for wait staff too, back when I waited tables I was paid $4.50 an hour and had to declare a minimum of $3 per hour otherwise the restaurant would have to make up the difference to $7.50 an hour.
Well that makes more sense.
Waiters actually don't report shit besides that minimum thus they don't pay taxes off their tips. Trust me, they are not suffering. Most places you can pull 100$ a night no problem, when it's real busy you can make anything up to 300-400$$, all of it is cash, goes right into your pocket. Considering most cooks make 8-12$/hr waiters should never complain, they are annoying enough as it is.
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EPT
