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

Call it what it is, Karl Marx.

If this post sums up your take on the matter, you've lost me for good. I make much more than that. I don't feel I have any to spare or feel I should give a hand out from a wage that I've established based on the market for my experience and expertise. Keep your paws of my stash, bro. If YOU want to give a hand out, feel free. This logic pisses most people off.

 

Yea, I can assure you that he is not talking about people like you.

 

If your post sums up what you feel then you have comprehension problems. I didn't say anyone should get a handout. We weren't talking about handouts we were talking about workers.

I didn't advocate giving a handout to anyone. That kind of ignorant misrepresentation causes a breakdown in communication. The wealth gap is growing. Those at the top make plenty off of the work of these $15 workers and those earning below. They have enough to spare that reconfiguring teh wages so those at the very top make a bit less and those at the bottom make a bit more.

The profit incentive is still there. The rich will still be rich. They will still make many times more than the minimum wage worker and many times more than the tier one step from that as well. My post wasn't about handing out anything to anyone. It was about a more fair value for the work and services provided by those at the lowest couple of tiers in the work pyramid.

The economic benefits of a strong middle class are immense. Our middle class is shrinking and has been. This is a way to help reduce that reduction.

 

Thank you. This claim that illegal immigration has been "a big contributor to the decline of the middle class" is a fantasy. Illegal immigrants haven't pulled down the quality of life of the middle class. They haven't led to it's decline. What has led to a decline in the middle class life that was accessible to those with either no or some college education in this country, a lower middle class and/or prosperous working class that existed in the 1950's and '60's that I witnessed myself, a class that could afford to buy a house, usually with help from the GI Bill, but not always, who had a TV and one or two cars, as well as a dream that they might be able to put their kids through college, even if they were unable to have that kind of education themselves?

What led to the decline of that "middle/working class?" That's what some of you are talking about. I'll tell you what I think had the greatest impact and it wasn't illegal immigration. It was the assault on the unions in this country. "Union busting." It was the truly astonishing increase in executive pay, which led to executives losing touch with their company's workforce and the wages they needed to have a decent lifestyle for their families. It was the obsession with the quarterly results and the impact on their company's stock.

When I was growing up, the electricians, plumbers, construction workers and the like - they supported their families, paid they bills, made their mortgage payments, at least in the Southeast Houston neighborhood we lived in. You will say it's illegal immigrants who have largely destroyed that segment of our economy. It isn't. It is the executives who were eager to hire cheap labor to increase their quarterly profits. Think about it. Those same executives supporting the current administration want you to believe that it's all the fault of illegal immigrants, when the fault is ultimately their own.

Now pardon me while I go do some things in "real life."

 

My bad... I took it out of context. Tax the rich - I agree. I misunderstood you to say to spread the pay and water down the skilled pay.

 

On that my father would give you a loud amen. He was a member of the painters' union and he still starts cussing whenever you invoke Reagan's name. Republicans broke that union and he watched conditions and pay wither away. He started his own company to keep more of the profits, but there wasn't much profit left. A lot of the work that would have been there for him as a union painter went to Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal. There was nothing left to prop up wages. These were oil bust years in Houston, so painters would bid low (even bidding jobs under their costs) just to grab a little bit of work. But he doesn't blame the Mexicans for taking the work, he blames the way the union was undermined to pit workers against each other in a race to the bottom. He complains about workmanship now because it's now an occupation whose remuneration does not justify investing in building skills or taking any pride in your profession.

 

Like I stated in the post you quoted ,

But having lived thru those times and seeing how it has changed multiple industries / job sectors - Its undeniable that it is a contributing factor.

Yes , outsourcing and automation are also contributing factors along with the decline of unions among others.

 

I don't think the bold can be overstated at all .... $15hr isn't a livable wage. A single individual might be able so survive on that living in relative poverty , but a family of 3 or more would be a near impossibility in most metro area's. Rent on a one bedroom apartment is a thousand bucks a month in just about any population center with some being 5x that.

That $15hr is $600 before taxes other with-holdings and then there's healthcare to come out. Take home might be $425 if you are lucky , that means working two plus weeks a month just to pay the damn rent.

Accept .... its not.

Just read the paragraph above in this very post and tell me its well thought out.

 

Um paying your rent and healthcare in 2 1/2 weeks is a huge step forward for most people.

 

For many people, its lifestyle choices. "most" people doesn't always include those with poverty wages.

 

Union busting was definitely a contributing factor - I'm a retired union fitter. I became an apprentice fitter after college on a completely unrelated degree. They gave me a working education - some of the math classes required are much more demanding than any college course I sat thru.

But to say illegal immigration has little or not effect is plain wrong , its affected more than those former union jobs but literally the entire residential construction industry along with landscaping and a good chunk of food service and much of the domestic services industry.
After I left my union job and started my own company in construction - both residential and commercial , I watch as the industry changed over the course of 3 decades and had to deal with the changes and pains of cheap labor. I was forced to adapt my business model from construction to service or go out of business because I couldn't compete with the prices of those who hired that cheap illegal labor.

It's also played a big role in wage depression as the pay in those fields is nearly identical today to what it was 20 years ago.

You just don't dump 10-15 million people into the economy without consequences and those consequences are magnified when they are all largely in the same socioeconomic group of the working poor.


Those consequences reach beyond employment too - its affected real estate prices - they have to live somewhere (not the only factor but a contributing one) and literally everything we consume - the simple law of supply and demand. Our resources are relatively finite.

 

For "Most People"? Really ?


Just google average hourly wage ....

 

Far enough, I just think you overestimating illegal immigration’s influence. Illegal immigration built up over two decades not just ten million within a few years, no? Reagan amnesty then we stopped enforcing labor laws because “business friendly”.

Like I said, over the last 50 years we have had this almost endless supply of cheap labor entering the global economy.

 

What are you trying to argue here? You are all over the place.

My point: Min wage to 15 = good

Are you trying to say it should be higher?

 

I think the minimum wage should reflect the local economics. It should be higher in a SF/NY versus a Houston. And it should be kept in pace

 

$15 min wage is for places like NYC and SF. Where the cost of living has spiked tremendously. But I think overall it should be around $11-$12

 

Depends on your the definition of tough, location, and other things. A lot of people with what I consider tough jobs make less than $25 a hour or $50,000 a year in the Texas

teachers
firefighter
police, deputies, jailers
mechanics
maintenance workers
the list goes on

 

C'mon dude. you're moving the goal posts.

You are now being pragmatic.

 

Do you know how averages work.


out of 20 people that I know maybe 5 are making that much.

 

Yes , it built up over time and in two parts - pre 86 and post 86. There were ~3.4m illegals pre 86 , over 3m of those were granted amnesty.

Reagan's amnesty bill is what made hiring illegals .... illegal , prior to that businesses weren't punished for the practice , the illegals were just rounded up and deported. It wasn't suppose to be "business friendly" it was suppose to protect the American worker , that was suppose to be the trade off for granting the amnesty.

Then post 86 , we start that period with ~400k and end up with somewhere between 11-15m in 2007 which according to the gubmint was the peak. So over a period of two decades we there was an average of between 550k and 750k per year entering the country.

The problem with Reagan's amnesty bill was the lack of enforcement of both labor laws and deportations from the interior.
In the years leading up to the amnesty bill , it was common practice for illegals who came into contact with law enforcement to be held by that city / county at the Feds expense until they were picked up and deported. After that point in time , the Feds were always slow to pick them up and not paying these cities and counties expenses for holding them. This is when cities just stopped cooperating with the Feds and stopped holding illegals who hadn't been charged with felony. Basically a blind eye was turned ... they were free to live and work without fear of deportation due to the Feds inaction.

These people aren't the only problem with wages / economic equality but they have been a major contributor to the problem.



Sub prime loans really didn't help the situation one bit - that allowed investors to be predatory in property acquisition - buying up properties in default at a discount and accumulating large amounts of properties.
Gentrification is another huge contributor - all those inner city government housing projects are gone and in their place stand high rent modern homes and businesses while those that formerly inhabited those places are now scattered across other low rent area's.

Union busting didn't help , taking the collective bargaining power away from workers in dozens of industries.

Outsourcing has been a massive contributor .... sending those jobs overseas , I remember when the Japanese auto makers were trying to break thru into the American market and hearing "Buy American". Now even if you buy American its made in Japan and assembled here.

Automation , why pay a human who makes mistakes when you buy a machine that's a hundred times more accurate and twice as productive ?!

These huge companies like Walmart , Amazon , home depot , corporate owned eateries .... they have replaced most of the independently owned anything in recent years. The corporate heads take home vast profits while the people doing all the work make peanuts.

And don't forget about Wall Street adding nothing of value but taking huge chunks while manipulating the markets and being bailed out by the gubmint when they screw up.

Low interest rates have made us a charge it economy and given people with funds a huge advantage in asset acquisition.

Yeah , there's a lot of things that contribute to our economic issues .... none of them have simple solutions.