I'm going to ignore the fact that the Federal Minimum wage is blatantly un-Constitutional and pretend that we are talking about States increasing their minimum wage. In the kind of welfare state that we have, raising the minimum wage to at least the poverty level is a good Conservative move. It gets working people off the welfare rolls. Now I know that the vast majority of minimum wage workers either have other sources of income or aren't the primary breadwinner, but some are the only source of household income. Best readily available example is the single mother. Many have to take jobs below their top earning power because of their kids. Sometimes, this is at or near minimum wage. If they don't have sufficient child support, their only other potential source of income is welfare. And while we, as a country, justly deny welfare to those who continually refuse to work, we typically continually support the working poor. People working at below the poverty level, while they are contributing to the economy, they are taking more from the government than they are directly giving back. Raising their income to the poverty level gets them to at least net zero direct impact. The only negative about increasing minimum wage is that it has always shown to increase inflation. But in a growing economy, that is a risk worth taking.
It is working to a degree for most sectors. But the lowest sectors are the one's that need protecting. That was also the case when that lack of regulation failed before during the robber-baron period of our nation's history. Just because it works for some sectors doesn't mean it wasn't a failure.
do you really want to strict construct your way into whats unconstitutional? how about waging a war without congressional approval for starters.
They might not have wanted to perform that service, not that theres anything wrong with it One dirtydetail that is overlooked is that a lot of Union contracts are pegged to minimum wage. so for example, 4 X 5.25 is a lot different than 4 X 7.50...
Yeah, actually I do. Waging a war without Congressional approval was wrong. But that can't be completely undone now. Federal Minimum Wage can be.
No one "forces" anyone into desperate situations - that's the liberal mindset of social responsibility for other ills. Life is tough. You can get run over by a truck and be unemployable one day. You can get eaten by a crocodile, or contract so exotic disease and die. You might get hit by lightning. You might be born into a poor family that would rather see you try to play football then get good grades. Point is, that's life. And it's not anyone responsibility at the end of the day. Everyone has a responsibility to get a job and work a hard days work and survive. You got choices. You can do what you want. If you want to secure a future and make good money, you better get educated. You goof odd as a kid, you get pregnant, or you just don't bother going to college - expect a tough life later on. If you don't got skills - you will get minimum wage. No one forced that upon them except maybe their parents. You want to fix things, talk about education reform, not paying people 10% more for unskilled labor.
LOL. That's like saying we can ignore Einstein because Newton's theory works... unless things are really small or really big.
What specifically about it do you find unconstitutional? It seems consistent with the Supreme Court's interpretation of the commerce clause.
By blatant you must mean there is language in the Constitution that says this... please point it out ot me. If it is blatant, then why hasn't this unconstitutional action been struck down by the Supreme Court? They've only had since 1938 and several actions by Congress to make that determination.
Not really, the reason it can't be said that it is working for the lowest sector (unskilled labor) is because there is a minimum wage. Even in that case, there are people who are willing to work for less than minimum wage, and there are people that for whatever reason do not work. I only meant that it wasn't being tested at the lowest level, not that it wasn't working.
But just to meet halfway, sort of a compromise so business owners don't have to completely fold. They don't have to pay as much to their workers cause the govt will help out in taking out some of the taxes. The worker gets his/her money anyways and shouldn't care where it comes from.
actually, if you're at the low of income, you can earn an earned income credit...basically the government gives you a check for working. Personally, I'd rather see this program get expanded rather then wage increase. Makes it easier on businesses. As a small business owner, I know all my employees that make the $7.25 are going to want a reasonable bump, and it wouldnt' suprise me if it was for a similar spread over the old min wage (i.e, 7.25 vs 5.15, so now 9.35 vs 7.25). To think I won't try to pass some of this cost increase on to customers is nuts since I know all my competitors will hopefully have this same cost increase. We'll probably try to offset some of the cost by cutting some hours here and there as people in this thread alluded to. One benefit I haven't seen mentioned is that this could lure some people back to work instead of being on welfare since welfare becomes less attractive (assuming welfare isn't pegged to min. wage). I remember we had one woman who had to quit b/c it would be a net loss (or very marginal gain) for her to work due to the loss of some benefits. Anyone that thinks this doesn't have a negative impact on inflation or an increase in unemployment is frankly ignoring business level decisions. Now, the price of those negative impacts versus the benefit of people making higher wages is a different topic. I'm not sure how I stand on it b/c I hate seeing the government interfering. I know the tax benefits they try to offer to offset are going to be just more paperwork, so I'd rather just see them expand the earned income credit since that program's already in place.
its not that simple. first of all its a tax credit. there are tax credits for tuition and other things so its not that uncommon. secondly its mostly for people making under 15k. its also basically only if you have kids (without kids i think it caps under 500 bucks). in fact EITC is wonderful for reducing poverty. not as good as social security is for old people but its good. while EITC is fantastic and i think it should be expanded a bit the whole notion that this is going to increase unemployment considerably just has little basis. sure that'll happen in certain places and the government should absolutely attempt to hedge that but the fact remains that most people that are paid the minimum wage are in fields where increase of minimum wage will put more money into those businesses.
Eh, I agree with Rocket River on this. It's the survival of the fittest in the natural world out there. The definition of the fittest have changed over time, but at the end of the day, we're still all animals trying to survive and fulfill our urges. Our current (and any good) legal and social structure is condusive in ensuring those with certain skills survive (or in humans, have a higher standard of living). However, one must realize that the legal and social structure of a society is dependent on continous willing participation of all participants in the society. "Skills" is an ambiguos term that changes as the situations within that society changes. I.E. no matter how educated and smart you're, if you're living in Ruwanda, you probably aren't gonna do as well for yourself as a soldier with a gun. A good society will have to look out for the poorer/lower class because there's an unspoken agreement with those that are less fortunate to continue to go along with the system as is.
he sounds like a first year law student full of moxie who has decided to take a hard core Lochner approach to revamping the constitution after reading a few cases....very cute.
