EddieGriffin (and any other waiters), i'm curious about something with the income you make from tips (which i assume is not taxed, right?) does that come out to more, same as, or less than minimum wage? (roughly estimating, of course)
The MINIMUM wage is probably on a list of the worst ideas in American if not economic history. Only if you look at it from a purely economic point of view instead of a social & economic policy viewpoint. It's OK to sacrifice some net economic growth in order to keep the lower economic classes of society from falling apart.
In my opinion economic strength helps social policy and by allowing workers to get more than they are worth you are eliminating other jobs and increasing the unempoloyment rates and that net loss trickles all the way down to you and me paying more for goods and making it more expensive for those "minimum wage" people to live.
In my opinion economic strength helps social policy and by allowing workers to get more than they are worth you are eliminating other jobs and increasing the unempoloyment rates and that net loss trickles all the way down to you and me paying more for goods and making it more expensive for those "minimum wage" people to live. While the theoretical detriment to a minimum wage is a loss of jobs, that has never actually happened on any large scale in any of the previous minimum wage implementations. What tends to happen -- if anything -- is that the low-wage earners who spend the largest portion of their incomes get more income to spend. That then fosters economic growth which benefits everyone. It's basically the opposite of trickle-down economics -- instead, you trickle-up. Give money to the poor, and they'll spend it creating more demand and new jobs. The other issue with no minimum wage is that it will create a class-system to some extent. The rich will naturally get richer and the poor will get poorer. This is basically pure capitalism, which is fine in theory but doesn't really work in practice. You'll get a growing lower-class that becomes totally reliant on government for social support, which leaves society with two choices: have the middle and upper classes pay for their support in social programs (welfare, etc) or just let them starve and die. Neither of those is going to go over real well with most people. While that's the "extreme", it's what society would trend towards without a minimum wage. In less developed countries, that's the more common policy because, while the government doesn't have the money for social support, they also cannot afford to be picky when it comes to outside investment. In a more developed country, though, the health of all segments of society tends to benefit society as a whole, so we can afford to be a non-pure capitalist system. At least, that's my opinion.
Tips are taxable. I don't know how many people pay taxes on them, but that's another story. I get the feeling the rest of us have to pick up the slack from unreported income like that.
All I know about the minimum wage is when I was in high school and working part time at a little hamburger shop in Amarillo, I was really proud of myself when I worked hard and well enough to actually get a couple of raises over the course of my employment there. But that sense of accomplishment was dimished when the minimum wage was raised to an amount equal to my salary after my recent performance raises. So instead of making an amount above minimum wage like I had been, I was again just making minimum wage (as my salary was not increased after the minimum wage was increased). So despite my hard work, I ended up making the same as the worst workers at the restaurant again. To me, it almost felt like a salary decrease (and I guess it effectively was). Since then, nearly every job I've had has paid more than minimum wage, though (even those in restaurants). I did, however, have a job after that which effectively paid less than minimum wage. When I was hired as Media Relations Director for a certain minor league baseball team in Amarillo, Texas that shall remain nameless, I was paid slightly less than minimum wage when calculated on a 40 hour work week. But since it was a baseball team, we really worked more like 60 hours per week, so my salary worked out to significantly less than minimum wage on an hourly basis (since I was paid a set monthly salary rather than on an hourly basis). But I likely wouldn't have been able to get that job if not for the extremely low pay. If the team had to pay a higher salary, they would've wanted someone with more experience (or could've attracted someone with more experience). Since they had so little to pay, they were willing to take a chance on someone with less experience (or they were realistic enough to know that at that salary, there was only so much experience an interested applicant would have). Eventually, I actually was let go when a new boss decided to raise the salary for my position (they nearly tripled it). At that salary, they could attract someone with more experience (and that's what they did..... Of course, the person they hired is now dead, so maybe it's for the best that I was let go).
That is a tricky scenario because as we have seen in recent times that many of the lower income groups have the highest borrowing rates as well. The US has always been a consumption based society with the lowest savings rates of many first world nations, Greenspan warned against this because it promotes future borrowing leading to increased spending towards interest which is non-beneficial. The fact is that the society's standard of living is so high, and it is so reinforced by corporate society, that people are living above their means at considerable rates, especially the lower level income group, forcing themselves into bad debt with companies all the while more willing to give them more. There will always be classes (economically speaking), and economics will always derive pay, basically, an employer will pay you what you are worth, otherwise don't work there. And if you don't accept, then you're not worth that much or go learn some more skills. A minimum wage makes economic loss and takes much efficiency away from the system that is already rattled by numerous government inefficient methods to "socialize" and conform us in their continued attempts to grow the governement by any means.
There will always be classes (economically speaking), and economics will always derive pay, basically, an employer will pay you what you are worth, otherwise don't work there. And if you don't accept, then you're not worth that much or go learn some more skills. A minimum wage makes economic loss and takes much efficiency away from the system that is already rattled by numerous government inefficient methods to "socialize" and conform us in their continued attempts to grow the governement by any means. Minimum wage is basically a welfare program that is funded by business instead of government. If you take it away, government will increase substantially in size because poverty will increase. All the Burger King workers making $5/hr right now will start making $2/hr and need additional welfare assistance. To pay for that, the government raises taxes which has the same effect as a business raising prices to pay the higher wages. The minimum wage is an extraordinarily efficient alternative to the welfare system because it requires virtually no bureaucracy, check writing, etc and is basically fraud-free. Of course, this assumes we want to provide a basic welfare system for all the newly impoverished people. The alternative is to let all those people starve and die (if you take away the government social support).
Maybe. Maybe not. I know the local fast food places in my neck of the woods tend to pay more than minimum wage simply to attract workers willing to work there. There's also the fact that a not insignificant number of workers who work for minimum wage salaries are teenagers or others simply working for extra money. If I had been paid $1.50 per hour at Doodles in Amarillo instead of $3.35 (the then minimum wage), I still wouldn't have needed welfare to offset that lower wage. Our household income was not affected by the amount I was paid. And on a different point, prices aren't necessarily determined one way or another by the price of labor. Depending on my industry, I may not be able to pass on an increase in the cost of labor to my customers. Instead, I may well learn to get by with three employees instead of being more comfortable with four employees. In that scenario, the end result may well be one fewer available job (to use my baseball team example once again, when I was let go for the more experienced person, the job was also combined with another. So even though the wage for my old job went up, there was one fewer job available at that company.)
Maybe. Maybe not. I know the local fast food places in my neck of the woods tend to pay more than minimum wage simply to attract workers willing to work there. True, but keep in mind they are competing with other people paying minimum wage of $5. If the base wage is $0.50, then they could raise their wages to $0.75 to attract workers. Regardless of the actual numbers, wages would presumably go down without a minimum wage -- if that were not the case, then the minimum wage would be irrelevent. There's also the fact that a not insignificant number of workers who work for minimum wage salaries are teenagers or others simply working for extra money. Agreed -- and these are the people that don't really need the minimum wage setup. The problem is that there are also a significant number of people who use minimum wage jobs as their primary income source. Most people immediately getting off welfare have these types of jobs. And on a different point, prices aren't necessarily determined one way or another by the price of labor. Depending on my industry, I may not be able to pass on an increase in the cost of labor to my customers. Instead, I may well learn to get by with three employees instead of being more comfortable with four employees. In that scenario, the end result may well be one fewer available job (to use my baseball team example once again, when I was let go for the more experienced person, the job was also combined with another. So even though the wage for my old job went up, there was one fewer job available at that company.) This is true and definitely industry-dependent. But past studies have shown that when the minimum wage is increased, the net loss of jobs is negligible or non-existent. I don't know the details of the studies though. Of course, you have to make sure the minimum wage levels are not an excessive burden on business. If it was $20 / hr, you'd have tremendous loss of jobs and many businesses going under. But the small amounts that currently exist haven't really impacted business significantly as far we can tell. Lowering the wages of the lowest paid economic classes of society ultimately has to result in either more poverty or more social support.
