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2013-08-23 Economy
Sarah Hoyt: A Living Wage
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Posted by g(r)omgoru 2013-08-23 04:50|| || Front Page|| [11128 views ]  Top

#1 Elsewhere the other day was an article about a new hamburger making robot; 'living' wage competition would open the door wide for it.
Posted by Glenmore 2013-08-23 06:03||   2013-08-23 06:03|| Front Page Top

#2 Excellent! Quite a comment string on poultry and animals with names, beginning with Holly.
Posted by Besoeker 2013-08-23 06:58||   2013-08-23 06:58|| Front Page Top

#3 Daughter has three chickens - I call them Eric, Jeff & Jimmy.
Posted by Glenmore 2013-08-23 07:44||   2013-08-23 07:44|| Front Page Top

#4 Here's the robot.

It's all dishonest. Wages as posted don't include the employers portion of social security, or unemployment and workers comp that the employer has to pay, not counting additional specific local fees and taxes tacked on. It's long beyond time in which all those fees go directly to the workers pay stub, so the worker can see what their labor is actually being paid for and how much the government really eats of it.
Posted by Procopius2k 2013-08-23 08:10||   2013-08-23 08:10|| Front Page Top

#5 That's a good read.

What P2K said, and also to pay people to prepare those wages, and then tax man paperwork, nevermind the good minds dinking around with paperwork instead of growing/innovating.
Posted by swksvolFF 2013-08-23 09:31||   2013-08-23 09:31|| Front Page Top

#6 My nominee for a non-living wage.
Posted by Besoeker 2013-08-23 09:37||   2013-08-23 09:37|| Front Page Top

#7 The Year is 1970:

Source Minimum Wage is $1.60

Cost of a new home: $26,600.00
Cost of a new car: $
Median Household Income: $8,734.00
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.06
Cost of a gallon of regular gas: $0.36
Cost of a dozen eggs: $0.62
Cost of a gallon of Milk: 1.15

Source The Year is 2013:

Minimum Wage is $7.25

Cost of a new home: $271,600
Cost of a new car: $30,303
Median Household Income: $52,762
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.46
Cost of a gallon of regular gas: $3.60
Cost of a dozen eggs: $2.68
Cost of a gallon of Milk: $3.43

So what should be the minimum wage ? I say $16.00
Posted by Full Moon Midnight Roasters 2013-08-23 09:38||   2013-08-23 09:38|| Front Page Top

#8 Have a buddy who through a series of whys ended up with a calf called B-4.

Pronounced, Beefer.
Posted by swksvolFF 2013-08-23 09:38||   2013-08-23 09:38|| Front Page Top

#9 The problem is that minimum wage is a starting wage because you have no skills yet and no proof you are dendable. Huge risk to hire you. High school kids should be getting it on their part time jobs not people with families who should still be that low on the career ladder.

My guess is anyone in their twenties or more on minimum wage isn't treating the job as a career and their employee responds accordingly, either that or they have something else going on (problems with citizenship papers or addiction).

The great thing is the left forces minimum wage increases in on us and at the same time promotes illegal immigration who work outside of the wage and safety laws so they undercut the people they are trying to help with the minimum wage in the first place. But few are watching the left hand so they get away with it.
Posted by rjschwarz 2013-08-23 10:12||   2013-08-23 10:12|| Front Page Top

#10 Second that.

Had a friend who bragged about being part of the underground economy, said he made so much more that way - his wages were not taxed, got paid in cash so no paper trail, and filed his paperwork for unemployment so got that too along with all the other bene's.
Posted by swksvolFF 2013-08-23 10:36||   2013-08-23 10:36|| Front Page Top

#11 Sorry, FMCR, the analogy doesn't work.

Your true "pay" isn't what shows up after taxes, or even what show up before taxes, on your W-2. Your true pay is whatever it costs your employer to create and continue your job.

This includes W-2 PLUS all of the mandated benefits PLUS all the mandated training PLUS all the regulatory compliance for the alphabet agencies at federal, state, and local levels.

Factor those, plus the inflation you mention, in, and I can guarantee that the total cost for an employer to maintain that job with today's minimum wage is no less than it was back in 1970. In fact it might be more.

How do I know? I own a business. I know.

And if you really want to get technical, the true minimum wage is whatever welfare recipients get (the amount the government pays you NOT to work). Think about it for a minute and you'll see the truth of it.
Posted by no mo uro 2013-08-23 11:04||   2013-08-23 11:04|| Front Page Top

#12 What no mo uro said. But, also, how do you think your employer is gonna pay for your raise? He's gonna raise his prices, that's how. How else would he do it? You think he's gonna take a cut in the business's profits? Nope. He's not running a charity, he's running a business...for profit, for money. And if he can't make a profit, guess what? You'll be unemployed!

But wait. There's more. When you get that extra money you're gonna want to buy more stuff. Now, of course you know what happens when there is more demand for more stuff. Do I have to say it? Maybe I do. Prices go up! IOW, inflation.
Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2013-08-23 11:22||   2013-08-23 11:22|| Front Page Top

#13 Minimum wage depresses startups. That's because it increases the distance between $0 per hour and minumum $ per hour.

When I was a tad you could get a shoeshine for a quarter (my Dad could get one for a dime, if he had a dime). The minimum wage went up to a buck an hour sometime around 1956. If I had gone into business as a shoeshine boy I'd have had to shine four pairs of shoes an hour at .25 to make minimum wage. There aren't any shoeshine boys left because at $7.25 per hour it's physically impossible to shine that many pairs of shoes. (29 pairs per hour, or one pair every two minutes.)

Remember when you could get a haircut for a buck? If you're old enough, you can remember those thrilling days of yesteryear. We went to the Waltz brothers, who had a shop on main street. Ozzie and Walt maintained two barber chairs and made a good living, cutting better than a head of hair apiece every hour for eight hours a day, closed on Monday and, of course, on Sunday. Barber shops have mostly been replaced by Shoppes de Beautè now, and if you can get your hair cut for $5 you can expect to come out looking... interesting.

Think of all the eentsy-weentsy one-man or -woman service industries, all the barely-skilled jobs in business, that have gone the way of the dodo, and blame their loss on the minimum wage and its accompanying regulation and mandatory benefits. The dressmakers are gone. The telephone operators are gone. Certainly the cooks and the maids are gone. And slowly the office boys, the secretaries, and the mail room clerks have gone.
Posted by Fred 2013-08-23 11:49||   2013-08-23 11:49|| Front Page Top

#14 
So what should be the minimum wage ? I say $16.00


I say $0.01 an hour. If that's all you have to offer the employer, too bad, so sad.
Posted by Rob Crawford 2013-08-23 11:50||   2013-08-23 11:50|| Front Page Top

#15 They're doing that, too. Who makes more? Someone making miniwage or an unpaid intern?
Posted by Fred 2013-08-23 11:56||   2013-08-23 11:56|| Front Page Top

#16 Nearly all [if not all] gov't involvement in business is a disincentive to free market enterprise and growth.
Posted by Besoeker 2013-08-23 12:02||   2013-08-23 12:02|| Front Page Top

#17 I was talking to a retired business manager the other day; she said that she made a pittance compared to her workers, because if she paid herself what she was worth, she wouldn't be able to pay the wages for the help.

I had an employee who couldn't do basic math. Checking out was frustrating to watch. Z out took 30 minutes (takes me 5 when on my own). Didn't want to clean, was aweful when she did (had to re-do her work). She was worth about $4 an hour, at best, how she made it through life I have no idea - wait, yes I do, she was public sector beforehand and never learned that her wage began with the customer.

People who work fast food have the easiest part of getting the burger in your tummy. They do not have to be out in the middle of winter to birth the cow, they do not have to do the dirty work to make a steer, do not have to raise the cow healthy, do not have to do the butcher, do not have to load or unload. They take a pre-formed patty put it on a monitored grill and take it off when the timer dings.

But they want a big thank you for not spitting on your food.

When I go to a local place for a burger I expect to pay more for a hand-made patty o'love. If I go to a joint and pay hand made prices for a pre-formed slopped together, I stop going because I can get that or better at the fast food for half the price.

Overpaid wages are a business killer. Double the wages of everyone who touches that patty to the grill and two things happen: prices go up and/or places shut down.

The rise of the food cars is a symptom. Certainly convienence is a factor, but with fewer regulations, taxes, and staff compared to a restaurant the overhead can be better managed. Big lunch boxes may have franchise assistance available, depending upon how the franchise would want to mitigate losses in favor of opportunity, but Joe's Diner has to convince the bank and doesn't get the nifty advertising during the football game or the easy traffic routes.
Posted by swksvolFF 2013-08-23 12:20||   2013-08-23 12:20|| Front Page Top

#18 *Apologies to any readers who take offense to the public sector comment, I know many here do good work. To be specific, school cafeteria worker. She had no opportunity to fail, so she had no opportunity to succeed, and thought her wages grew in Friday envelopes.

In fact, thinking about it, attitudes changed from simply changing payday from Friday to Monday. Same money, actually more because they proved their worth and dedication, just different tides.
Posted by swksvolFF 2013-08-23 12:27||   2013-08-23 12:27|| Front Page Top

#19 Minimum wage tells American workers that they are legally prohibited from competing with workers in other countries. That's why you can't buy a computer that's Made in USA anymore. It's cheaper to make them in China so they are all made in China and the people who used to make them in American are either out of work or had to find other jobs. Maybe they're flipping burgers.
Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2013-08-23 12:33||   2013-08-23 12:33|| Front Page Top

#20 The problem is that minimum wage is a starting wage because you have no skills yet and no proof you are de[pe]ndable

Minimum wage also factors into union salary. Contracts contain an agreement that the 'wage floor' is a multiple of whatever the minimum wage is. It's a nice way of getting an increase without having to renegotiate a contract.
Posted by Pappy 2013-08-23 13:16||   2013-08-23 13:16|| Front Page Top

#21 Really? - I didn't know that Pappy.

That would certainly explain why unions are so hell-bent on hiking the minimum wage.
Posted by CrazyFool 2013-08-23 13:27||   2013-08-23 13:27|| Front Page Top

#22 Pappy is exactly right, and THAT is what this is all-l-l-l about...
Posted by Steve White 2013-08-23 15:18||   2013-08-23 15:18|| Front Page Top

#23 CF -

Wall Street Journal article, February 2013
Posted by Pappy 2013-08-23 18:45||   2013-08-23 18:45|| Front Page Top

#24 The Year is 1970:

Source Minimum Wage is $1.60 - no I remember $1.35

Cost of a new car: $ 2 grand for a regular car 4.5 for a caddy.
Median Household Income: $8,734.00 depends on locale .. midwest maybe more toward 6-8k
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.06
Cost of a gallon of regular gas: $0.36 NO .....
Regular as low as .25 and real premium (today's racing octane) about .27 to .30 *
Posted by 3dc 2013-08-23 20:14||   2013-08-23 20:14|| Front Page Top

#25 But economics is a science, which means it’s something that studies nature to discover its laws. This means our laws cannot change nature. You can’t legislate economics, any more than you can legislate the weather.

2 + 2 = 4 is a scientific fact. You can legislate all you want, you can complain all you want that 2 + 2 should equal 3 or 5, but the reality of life is that 2 + 2 will always equal 4. It is a law of nature beyond our ability change.

In business accounting the left side of the equation must always equal right side of the equation. The total debits must always equal the total credits or something is malignant in the accounting process.

The Obama team from long before Obama was elected POTUS has strived to deceive the American public into believing economics and sociology are the same thing. They are not. The deception is what Sarah A. Hoyt calls ethoeconomics.

Economics is the scientific study of sound business priciples. It is NOT sociology. Economics is not sociology and sociology is not economics. Any attempt to co-mingle the two will invariably result in a malignant outcome from both the human and the business perspective.

As Sarah A. Hoyt points out, the employees receiving minumum wages probably did not take economics in college. And if they did it was likely to have been the chimera of ethoeconomics and not science.

Only one out of seven start-up business in the U.S. survive beyond five years. The vast majority fail due to of lack of positive cash flow within the business. Although they may be financially secure they simply run out of liquid assets to meet their daily expenses. Increasing the minimum wage will be the final straw that puts a great many of them out of business.

Anyone who has ever ran a business knows it is the size of the numbers on bottom row the company's balance sheet and income statement that determines what wages can be. Not the sociological complaints eminating from the backrooms of the business or screamed from the front pages and screens of the left wing dominated media.
Posted by junkiron 2013-08-23 21:14||   2013-08-23 21:14|| Front Page Top

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