Kansas Crimson

ousdahl wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 9:11 am And let’s not forget the collateral damage from low wages - lower employee retention, higher turnover, increased costs of constantly having to train new staff, compromised service to customers, larger socioeconomic factors involving poverty and crime and on and on.

Job creators treat their staff like a fungible commodity, then feel sorry for themselves when the staff don’t stick around.

Those companies should pay their employees more money.

TDub wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 9:18 am Your utopia where everyone gets a significant pay raise without the negatives that inevitably come with that just isnt realistic. It doesnt exist.

But it DOES exist. Just for the top 10 percent.

Since Reagan, the “negatives” have simply been passed along to the other 90 percent?



https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiswoodh ... 71435b19ea

PhDhawk wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 9:43 am

ousdahl wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 9:11 am And let’s not forget the collateral damage from low wages - lower employee retention, higher turnover, increased costs of constantly having to train new staff, compromised service to customers, larger socioeconomic factors involving poverty and crime and on and on.

Job creators treat their staff like a fungible commodity, then feel sorry for themselves when the staff don’t stick around.

Those companies should pay their employees more money.

I just forwarded this to the HR department.

https://www.epi.org/publication/raising ... n-workers/

...Yet since the late 1960s, lawmakers have let the value of the minimum wage erode, allowing inflation to gradually reduce the buying power of a minimum wage income. When the minimum wage has been raised, the increases have been too small to counter the decline in value that has occurred since 1968, when the minimum wage hit its peak in inflation-adjusted terms. In 2018, the federal minimum wage of $7.25 was worth 14.8 percent less than when it was last raised in 2009, after adjusting for inflation, and 28.6 percent below its peak value in 1968, when the minimum wage was the equivalent of $10.15 in 2018 dollars.

This decline in purchasing power means low-wage workers have to work longer hours now just to achieve the standard of living that was considered the bare minimum half a century ago. Since the 1960s, the United States has achieved tremendous improvements in labor productivity that could have allowed workers at all pay levels to enjoy a significantly improved quality of life (Bivens et al. 2014). Instead, because of policymakers’ failure to preserve this basic labor standard, a parent who is the sole breadwinner for her family and who is earning the minimum wage today does not earn enough through full-time work to bring her family above the federal poverty line.

Restoring the value of the minimum wage to at least the same level it was at a generation ago should be uncontroversial. But such a raise would be insufficient. The technological progress and productivity improvements that the country has achieved over the last 50 years have not benefited all of America’s workers. This means lawmakers must strive to enact minimum wage increases that are bolder than the typical legislated increases in recent decades.

On January 16, 2019, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) announced that they would introduce the Raise the Wage Act of 2019, a bill that would raise the federal minimum wage in six steps to $15 per hour by 2024. Beginning in 2025, the minimum wage would be “indexed” to median wages so that each year, the minimum wage would automatically be adjusted based on growth in the median wage. The bill would also gradually increase the subminimum wage for tipped workers (or “tipped minimum wage”), which has been fixed at $2.13 per hour since 1991, until it reaches parity with the regular minimum wage.

ousdahl wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 9:58 am

PhDhawk wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 9:43 am

ousdahl wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 9:11 am And let’s not forget the collateral damage from low wages - lower employee retention, higher turnover, increased costs of constantly having to train new staff, compromised service to customers, larger socioeconomic factors involving poverty and crime and on and on.

Job creators treat their staff like a fungible commodity, then feel sorry for themselves when the staff don’t stick around.

Those companies should pay their employees more money.

I just forwarded this to the HR department.

Thank god. I was shocked to find out that they were waiting to give raises until the government required it. You let them know that they could give raises on their own then?

Instead, because of policymakers’ failure to preserve this basic labor standard, a parent who is the sole breadwinner for her family and who is earning the minimum wage today does not earn enough through full-time work to bring her family above the federal poverty line.

A vanishingly small percentage of the workforce.

PhDhawk wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 10:04 am

ousdahl wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 9:58 am

PhDhawk wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 9:43 am
Those companies should pay their employees more money.

I just forwarded this to the HR department.

Thank god. I was shocked to find out that they were waiting to give raises until the government required it. You let them know that they could give raises on their own then?

Just got an email from HR.

Everyone's fired. Kiosks and drones start this afternoon.

was that email dated 5 years ago?

I'm still waiting to see costs go down from self checkouts.

It's dated a day after every hike in the minimum wage.

It still boggles my brain that people think that you should be able to support a family with a minimum wage job. The minimum wage should be enough to support the minimum, which is just yourself. If you wan to support MORE than the minimum then you should educate/train yourself at a more than minimum level.

twocoach wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 11:16 am It still boggles my brain that people think that you should be able to support a family with a minimum wage job. The minimum wage should be enough to support the minimum, which is just yourself. If you wan to support MORE than the minimum then you should educate/train yourself at a more than minimum level.

easier said than done for many

imo, if you can't afford to support a family then you shouldn't have a family...it's worked well for me that way

but again, easier said than done

check out some of the statistics from the last link i posted...it may change your ideas about the groups that work for minimum wage, a substantial proportion of which are 55 and over (a group for which health care costs are staggering, obviously)

DCHawk1 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 10:25 am Instead, because of policymakers’ failure to preserve this basic labor standard, a parent who is the sole breadwinner for her family and who is earning the minimum wage today does not earn enough through full-time work to bring her family above the federal poverty line.

A vanishingly small percentage of the workforce.

Opioids killing them off?

twocoach wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 11:16 am It still boggles my brain that people think that you should be able to support a family with a minimum wage job. The minimum wage should be enough to support the minimum, which is just yourself. If you wan to support MORE than the minimum then you should educate/train yourself at a more than minimum level.

I get that, and I agree that it’s not realistic to expect to raise a family on one minimum wage job.

But at the same time, especially for an individual, what about the ideal that no Merican willing to work full time should still have to live in poverty?

ousdahl wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 12:30 pm

twocoach wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 11:16 am It still boggles my brain that people think that you should be able to support a family with a minimum wage job. The minimum wage should be enough to support the minimum, which is just yourself. If you wan to support MORE than the minimum then you should educate/train yourself at a more than minimum level.

I get that, and I agree that it’s not realistic to expect to raise a family on one minimum wage job.

But at the same time, especially for an individual, what about the ideal that no Merican willing to work full time should still have to live in poverty?

Depends. Does he got to church?

Who, Johnny Hotshot?

Unlikely.

ousdahl wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 12:30 pm

twocoach wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 11:16 am It still boggles my brain that people think that you should be able to support a family with a minimum wage job. The minimum wage should be enough to support the minimum, which is just yourself. If you wan to support MORE than the minimum then you should educate/train yourself at a more than minimum level.

I get that, and I agree that it’s not realistic to expect to raise a family on one minimum wage job.

But at the same time, especially for an individual, what about the ideal that no Merican willing to work full time should still have to live in poverty?

You can live. You just have to live within your means, which at minimum wage is virtually zip. Americans have a problem "doing without". You can't have a family at minimum wage. You can't buy a car. You can't have a new iPhone every year. You can't save. You can't DO much when you dont make much and many people seem to have a problem with that because many people seem to feel they are entitled to a comfortable life without earning it.

The lowest end of the wage scale matches up with the lowest end of the "living" scale. If you live above your means you will quickly find yourself in trouble.

I, for one, don't mind if the things that I enjoy cost a bit more if it helps society as a whole.

jeepinjayhawk wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 12:44 pm I, for one, don't mind if the things that I enjoy cost a bit more if it helps society as a whole.

Sounds like socialist commie talk...

I’ll reiterate my suggestion for economic policy:

1. An income tax rate based on an exponential curve. Everybody pays some, and the more you make, the more you pay. No loopholes and crap.

2. National sales tax. So we’re taxed not only based on income, but also on consumption. Rates could be lower for things like bread and milk, and higher for things like vacation homes and yachts.