What are your thoughts on raising the minimum wage?
I see a lot of people on here making ~40k/50k in entry-level analyst positions, and a lot of these jobs require you to work weekends/nights, or overall excessive hours. Let's say you're a team leader at Target making $18.50 an hour, and you even pick up a second job, so in total you work 50 hours a week. You'll make $48,100 a year, which is more than some of these analyst jobs. Is this fair? What do you guys think?
I personally think it should be lower but it doesn't look like raising it has done much damage in growing economies so whatever.
Also that team leader at Target is probably 5-15 years into working floor level retail at that point, and there isn't much room for growth from there. Sure they can get a bachelors and move up to corporate, but most of the time that doesn't happen. The analyst is just starting out and within 5-15 years of their career will be miles ahead of this guy.
MonopolyMoney's second comment hits the nail on the head. It's all about the earning potential and career growth. That same analyst in a $50k job now can easily clear six figures in a few years. The same cannot be said about the retail store manager whose compensation is flatter.
Raise your skill set to make yourself more valuable and thus get paid more. Raising minimum wage does nothing but incentive people to become more lazy while demanding more money.
Flawed logic
Everyone in blue-collar jobs raise their skill levels -> Everyone competes for the same white-collar jobs since we all got degrees and shit now -> wages fall for those jobs since let’s face it, 95% or white-collar jobs require little more than a pulse so supply and demand does its job -> wages rise for blue-collar shit jobs to require filling them -> we re-establish equilibrium at a higher wage for those shitty jobs everyone here puts down.
Logically, your “logic” sucks ass. Someone needs to do service jobs. It’s our responsibility as a society to take care of everyone who contributes, even if you don’t directly value it because they’re not pushing papers around.
:(
How is anyone supposed to move to another country on $9/hour. No one chooses to be born so yes we owe everyone “shit”
It's obviously a bad idea. If you aren't skilled enough to produce the cost of paying you minimum wage, you're SOL, because why would anyone pay you more than the value you produce, and worse, it'll be tough to develop such skills when no one will hire you.
But of course, massive companies like Walmart, McDonald's etc. love minimum wage, because they can afford to pay their employees more than the mom and pop shop that doesn't have crazy resources at their disposal, which in turn drives these small shops out of business, and ultimately, drives less competition.
From a basic economics point of view, the minimum wage should be zero.
That said, the effects of raising to $15 are still being measure where they're put into effect.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/26/new-study-casts-…
Seattle, San Francisco and NYC are already expensive cities. I'd wager that the negative effects in those cities will be easier to adsorb compared to lower cost of living cities.
Hours are already being shortened in some areas so the net effect for a worker is practically 0. There is also the other questions when price controls are being put into effect which is: "What's the unseen effects?". It's impossible to tell home may jobs will not be created due to the price of labor being too high. Labor needs to be allocated by prices just like capital. Too many price controls and we start running into major problems.
Having been someone who's spent a significant portion of his life in either retail or labor jobs, I can sympathize with people in those positions. What I would advocate, instead of minimum wage increases that would hurt small and medium-sized business, would be that the larger ones offer some sort of career advancement training hat has accreditation like a regionally accredited college. This way, someone with potential in the company can build a skill base that's also transferable outside the job they're working in.
I believe they put something like this on the Obamacare mandate (can someone correct me if I'm wrong please?). It was along the lines of "if you have over x amount of employees you're required to offer health insurance. This made the focus on bigger companies which the same could be incorporated here.
You're correct. It was 50 employees.
The problem with things like this is that while, the idea, I suppose, is a noble one; things you can't calculate are massive. For instance, they might think that put a 50 employee minimum won't hurt small business formation. The problem with that type of thinking is that a lot of companies that are started small don't always intend to always stay small. Medium-sized business are also hurt as they're always the ones that have to take the brunt of the damage without the huge compliance and accounting departments to handle things like the ACA.
I can level with the idea that larger companies have to have some sort of responsibility to their workforce. The problem is that ultra high minimum wages or healthcare mandates, while hurt their margins a little bit, they tend make it up in market share as other companies shut their doors.
The alternative I gave in my prior posts let's their small and mid-size competitors benefit should those employees choose the leave the larger companies for the smaller ones.
:(
Credible according to who?
The minimum wage should be benchmarked to a cost of living metric in a specific metro. Minimum wage in a high cost of living area should be higher than in a low cost of living area. "$15" seems like an arbitrary number for everyone to rally behind.
All that said, I feel for the people living on minimum wage. I don't know how anyone lives that way. It's too easy for people on this website pulling down six figure salaries or paying six figure tuition at top schools to look at low intelligence, low skilled people from atop their ivory palaces. Life is exponentially more difficult for them.
Well, I mean, it IS an arbitrary number to rally behind. It's much easier to get people on board with "I want THIS number for the min wage" than saying "I want the min wage to be calculated based upon current economics conditions of the surrounding environment."
Negative income tax to get people to a certain income threshold would be more efficient than a minimum wage in terms of skewing business incentives toward capital over labor. Constitutionally, states and locales can still implement minimum wages if prices are particularly high in those areas
I don't see how someone making the choice to earn more money bother yous. How do you feel about the people who work no jobs and still make more money than most people from inheritances? I'll admit I get salty at times too.
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