What will happen to the now $15-25 jobs if the min wage becomes $15?

it's not though and hasn't been so why are you against bumping it now to catch up and maybe even get ahead?

 

Nah, this needs to be a nationwide thing. Partial stop gaps don't help much.

It's not mindless, its well thought out and the reasoning for the dollar value is sound.

 

Then why are you against $15/yr which is where it would be if the minimum wage increased with inflation?

 

Agree on the apparent consensus -- a higher minimum wage would put upward pressure on wages the next tier up. Probably puts pressure on all wages, but weakening as it goes up the ladder. Prices will go up, especially in services, though it won't eat up all the extra wages. I expect it very slightly reduces the gulf of bargaining power between capital and labor. It will speed up automation to eliminate jobs. Which is why we're going to need UBI.

Immigration law was not strict in the '50s and '60s. We had a progressive guest worker program in the '50s to legalize and harness Mexican laborers coming in to supply our booming economy. That was abandoned in 1964, pushing migrant workers back into the illegal economy and setting us up for the current illegal immigration problem. The postwar period was boom times for the US because of the geopolitical upheaval of us becoming the global hegemon. The stupidest immigration policy in the world would still make the 1950s look like an idyllic time (for white people).

Probably ever in the history of the world.

 

Near zero.

Really?

 

The $15.00 an hour mantra has been going on for well over half a decade now. Are you really telling me that there has been zero inflation since this topic has been brought up?

We agree there is a wage issue.
But I am incorrect because I disagree with the way you suggest it should be done? Sure, lets double minimum wage every 10-15 years. that makes a lot of sense.

 

This is a silly argument.

Someone, sometime said hey minimum wage never adjusted for inflation, we need to catch up, because our people are suffering. It should be somewhere around $15 by now to have equal spending power as to what it was originally intended. Oh yea, and we should also peg it too inflation to stop this problem from happening again.

You expect every year the messaging to change from $15 minimum wage to "$15.42" to "$15.87".

The value itself is irrelevant, it is whatever it is, as calculated.

 

I can't agree with this at all. Wealth has absolutely dissipated over the thousands of years. The caste like systems found in many older societies says otherwise.

Hundreds of years ago, there was a massive difference between the ultra wealthy/powerful and everyone else. Food, shelter, protection was not an entitlement given to anyone who wasn't super wealthy.

The difference with wealthy people today is that its much easier to lose that wealth or gain that wealth.

 

So we are agreeing to the same thing. Why are you arguing with me?

$15.00 is not $15.42 or $15.87 or $15.01. No where ever did I say minimum wage should not catch up to current inflation. You guys are all implying that and I keep pointing out the ridiculous argument.

So answer me this. When did $15.00 catch up to inflation? 2014 when it first started coming up? or 2020 as we sit here and bicker about petty arguments?

 

This isn't quite right. The minimum wage, in real dollar terms, peaked in 1968 at what would currently be $11.55/hr.

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/business/us-minimum-wage-by-year/index.html

a $15 min wage would be 30% higher than the all-time high.

 

Ive always appreciated how you presented unbiased sources.

 

I think this is an issue with semantics.

Minimum wage should be the amount for a full time worker to earn to stay just above the poverty line. The difference here being that inflation rates and poverty line changes may not be equal.

 

Half a decade ago is not a lot of time. Inflation has stayed pretty steady for the last decade. If you have adjusted for inflation since 2013, $15 is now close to $16.

You got to start somewhere. Since the push, many states and cities have raised the local min wage above the fed level, some reaching up to $15 but many did not. Some of them also enacted auto raise based on inflation. As local, state, fed makes law, they can certainly calculate what should be the min wage. It probably would be very different for an auto inflation adjusted wage vs a new fixed min wage.

 

so if you think it should go up and i think it should go up and both of us think it will have a positive impact overall why argue about a couple of bucks?!?! non-partisan support would get something done at least while if you and others are not convinced and quibble about dollars then nothing will ever get done. no pressure applied to lifetime politicians to do something, a mandate to argue for dollars and cents while the people continue without. sounds familiar...

 

I can see that being a noble goal, but poverty and minimum wage only partly correlated, because people under the poverty line have access to all sorts of other government resources to supplement their incomes. The min wage today is way lower than its 1968 peak, but poverty rates are about the same thanks to the support net.

If we want to aim for the idea that anyone with a full time job is not in poverty - a noble goal - then that also means many of our social programs can be thrown out too - again, a good goal, but not sure that's what anyone is really clamoring for.

 

A "couple of bucks" when you're talking about $12 vs $15 is a 25% increase, which has massive economic impacts on both businesses and workers. It's not "quibbling" when it radically affects people's livelihoods (good or bad).

You could easily say why argue about a couple of bucks the other way and just increase to $10?

 

You're right in this way: we don't have bouts of mass starvation in this country now like we have seen a thousand years ago. We don't have the lawlessness and murder of the middle ages. But, the powerful did have to share enough of their wealth that the other classes could survive and replicate with perhaps a small premium for some to make sure they don't revolt and murder you. The cost of sustaining and replicating a person is mostly a fixed cost, but the network effect of extracting wealth creation from a larger and larger population is exponential. In ancient times, you might be able to exploit everyone in the kingdom, now we have access to everyone in the world -- and there has never been more of us. And intellectual capital is a multiplier on that wealth creation, while the cost to sustain and replicate a person remains mostly fixed, and we have more of that then ever too. Some of the most impactful bits of intellectual property in this regard are all the tools that find the cheapest workers on the planet, make each worker more productive -- which itself has grown exponentially the last 2 centuries -- or indeed make workers completely unnecessary, as we're seeing now with AI and automation.

We in the 99% are doing better than ever on an absolute basis. Global poverty has been greatly diminished and we bring food, infrastructure, education, and healthcare to the remotest corners. What we invest in the sustenance and replication of a person even in the bottom of society today is probably a good deal higher than what investment that person would have gotten a thousand years ago. But the pie has grown enormously and Alphabet shareholders are taking a penny out of every pocket on earth while that guy is still just scrounging for sustenance and replication. Only a fraction of human progress is shared and that fraction gets smaller as we go.

 

I don't think throwing out social programs out is a good idea, just to reduce the number of people who need them.

Having the government subsidize underpaid workers, is just in essence a tax break for companies.

I am a firm believer in having the price of something reflect its true cost.

If the cost of my pizza goes up from $10 to $13 because of new minimum wages and now less folks on government assistance, I am in favor of it.

 

Yea, up to $10 is better than nothing so let's do it! You see, I can and do tell my politicians to act, not quibble on details and leave the people in quick sand. Can you do it? Can your reps do it?

 

In 1986 Reagan signed off an a bill granting amnesty to 3 million people illegally in the country at the time. There were only about 3.4m illegals total at that time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control_Act_of_1986

I remember watching it on the news .... There was considerable backlash.

But that's the point at which things changed in regard to enforcement.

I remember the years before that , you would see immigration raids on places that hired them on a routine basis , literally every day on the news , round them up and ship them out.
When they came into contact with police , they were held and deported. Then there was a big deal about the Feds not paying counties for their keep and counties stopped holding them.

You no longer see that. Once they get beyond the border zone , they exist with pretty much impunity.


I lived in an area that had a large Hispanic population at the time , it was fairly common pre-1986 for Mexican nationals to pay young american men to marry their daughters / nieces so they could gain citizenship. I cant count the times I was offered several thousand dollars for that service. I never took them up on it .... but damn sure considered it. $5-$10k was a lotta money back then.