$15 an Hour Minimum Wage

Syag,
In my field, caregivers and direct support professionals for special needs adults get paid minimum wage. Upping the minimum gives us more chance to hire qualified individuals who may actually stick around for more than 8 months

This makes no sense. If you benefit by paying more, then pay more. Why would it make a difference what minimum wage is?

CTL,
Having multiple businesses also has a cost. I knew someone who owned a hardware store and then decided to open a second store. He was working so long that his marriage fell apart. Then both stores failed. A healthy work-life balance also makes one a better worker. In fact, according to Halacha an employee may not moonlight without permission as it could harm his performance.

Government programs like food stamps to a large extent are actually subisidies for Walmart. Instead of paying their employees enough to live on the government chips in to pay part of Walmarts employees in the form of government benefits and tax credits.

JJ2020,

I presented a very simple example to demonstrate that government-mandated wage increases don’t automatically translate to a higher standard of living for all. You can lecture a “good business owber” about innovation, negotiation, “track margines” and “all kinds of stuff” but success ultimately comes down to profit. Increasing wages by 50%-100% will seriously eat into that profit and have undesired consequences. It’s obvious that you and the other proponents start with the premise that business owners are “rich and greedy” and need to be punished for exploiting the working class. That’s not capitalism, that’s communism and we all know what a successful economic model that turned out to be.

The free market and communism both don’t allow profit.

They aren’t paying enough for people to live in that’s why there are so many people who work full time at places like Wal Mart and are on food stamps and Medicaid. There are states and counties with higher minimum wages and their economies haven’t fallen apart. 50 yrs ago the minimum wage was higher and someone the economy grew.

JJ2020,

Nowhere in the Constitution is there a guarantee that everyone will earn a minimum salary of $30K per year. It shouldn’t be an employers responsibility to pay that much to menial workers, many of whom couldn’t be bothered to finish public high school, aren’t qualified to do anything else and make zero effort to better themselves. There are plenty of Walmart employees who started out by sweeping floors, worked hard and eventually became store mangers. If you don’t like it, then find a minimum wage worker and pay them out of your own pocket but don’t lecture hard working, job-creating business owners about their supposed moral obligations.

Soldiers are required to have a high school diploma.

From the Economist(!)

Everyone needs enough to live on. Many of those who drop out of the job market, or who work in the gig economy, struggle to get by. And too often, help for the poor comes in ways that are cruel, inefficient, paternalistic or complex..
There is greater concentration even in non-tradable industries such as housebuilding—in which nobody thinks the quality of output is high.. There is evidence that leading firms, and not laggards, are behind the slowdown. In some industries they may feel they do not need to invest to keep ahead. The tech giants do innovate, but their ideas do not seem to spread through the economy.

Truth,

My company and many others in the U.S. have hired veterans by the tens of thousands. They’re paid much more than $15 per hour because we owe it to them and they’re worth it. One thing I don’t do for the greater good of the country is paint job-creators as rich and greedy, then lecture them about their lack of moral responsibility. How about you? What have you done for your country, aside from criticizing it on the web?

Must be a market failure.

Abarbanel is an outlier? Apikorsut!

Chester A. Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, Warren Harding are consistently among the lowest ranking presidents. What other common denominator do they all have?
They were all the presidents who tolerated free reign capitalism predominance .
Now name those who ranked the greatest presidents. Every one of them, bar none, was considered anti capitalism in their day or at least lukewarm to what the capitalists desired.They were called by the capitalists “traitors to their class “,etc.

Socialism? Useful only as binary straw man. Socialism means government control and ownership of industry and business. Doubtful anyone wishes here for government ownership. Therefore it is nothing more than a cudgel.

When have national economic systems grown best? Not under capitalist regimes. Pull up every study
and/or graph.

Under,actually, fascism and progressivism [the economic form, not G-d forbid the social form]

Simple solution.
Instead of raising minimum wage, exempt all minimum wage salaries from all taxes fica included.
Have the government pay both sides of the FICA on minimum wage jobs.
Let the benevolent one spend its money on its benevolence instead of being benevolent on others accounts.
The minimum wage of 12 tax free will be worth more than 15-tax
Everyone wins
Let them try to raise taxes to cover the shortfall

Someone explain this to me please
Hypothetically
A guy opens an ice cream parlor on my corner
He charges 12$ for a small ice cream, pays his workers 12$ an hour and is packed because he created a modern look in his store.
He is making money hand over fist.
He is branded an evil capitalist and Must pay more to the vaunted worker.
He is making his money by convincing others to voluntarily part with their money. Nobody is forcing anyone to buy overpriced ice cream.

Yet the richest corporation in the city by far, is free from all that.
I’m talking about the government.
They make money hand over fist by FORCING people to hand over part of their pay check for nothing in return!! (if they would just be covering police fire and Emergency services your taxes would be negligible)
Maybe they should pay their fair share to the poor and release them from their Tax burden
Then the poor would have more money to spend and the business owners would not have to fire people
A true win win.
It will never happen
Because it’s not about helping the pols.
It’s about beating the rich and keeping the poor, poor while making them think the demoncrats are trying to help them so they keep voting democrat

The impact of a $15 minimum wage will depend on the local economy. If in a given place, a worker can produce $15 or added profit every hour (actually the number is more like $20 due to taxes and benefits), the company will get rid of him. In New York or San Francisco wages and living costs are high, but in much of the country few unskilled workers can produce $20/hour of extra profit, and their livlihood will be in jeapordy.

The problem with raising the minimum wage beside increasing wages for the employer it also is bad for the employee. Most if not all of those working for minimum wage are on government programs which are based on income. If an employee’s gross income goes up his government benefits are reduced. Many times the reduction in benefits is greater than the increase in salary. The only people it benefits are those who work off the books as they get extra money without a reduction in benefits.

CA

I didnt search for the article but I do remember the discussion. My position was that it is not so simple, leading economists are divided on the issue. thank you for supplying more support for my position, but it really isnt neccesary, Ive read both sides and looked at both side’s data to see that it isnt at all starightforward notr black and white.

The article you quoted shows exactly that ” Both numbers [ie unemployment nationally and at the state level] have remained relatively steady during the past year.” This in spite of the fact that “New York City’s minimum wage has increased three times for employers with at least 11 employees in the past three years. At the end of 2016, the hourly rate rose to $11 from $9 an hour. In 2018, the minimum wage jumped to $13 from $11 an hour.”
So the article YOU cited shows that raising minimal wage does NOT lead to greater unemployment. This of course supports the research of Card and Krueger in their classic 1992 study comparing employment in fast food chains in PA and NJ (ie same geographic location) when NJ raised their minumum wage.

Of course don’t be so confident in your find since as I mentioned there are economists and data that disagree.

Ubiquitin,
The fact that unemployment did not go down when the minimum wage goes up means nothing. It might have gone up or gone up more if not for the minimum wage going up. In fact, when NYC raised its minimum wage restaurant owners looked to both cut staff and raise prices (the other result of minimum wage increases). See online em>Restaurateurs Are Scrambling to Cut Service and Raise Prices After Minimum Wage Hike. See also (online) No, Krueger Didn’t ‘Prov[e] that Raising the Minimum Wage Doesn’t Increase Unemployment’ by Thomas Firey/

Avi K
“The fact that unemployment did not go down when the minimum wage goes up means nothing. ”

Of course it means nothing. Youre mind is made up and no amount of data that points the opposite direction will change it.

I still remember your bizarre assertion that the Torah supports pure free market capitalism, ignoring the fact that the torah opposes many many pure free market ideas (eg charging interest, permanently selling property (in most cases), price gouging – ona’ah, long term loans (all loans become dissolved at shemita according to the Torah), unregulated competition – hasagas gvul, undercutting someone else – ani hamehapech bechararah etc)

now while not directly related to his topic, I bring it up because in spite of all these indisputable facts, you still cling to your bonkers notion.

As to the actual topic at hand, I am not arguing You mention “See also (online) No, Krueger Didn’t ‘Prov[e] that Raising the Minimum Wage Doesn’t Increase Unemployment’ by Thomas Firey/”
Yes, as I said I saw that, as I said: “Of course don’t be so confident in your find since as I mentioned there are economists and data that disagree.”

and of course unlike you I read the article you cite here are some choice quotes: “So, are Card and Krueger’s conclusions certainly wrong? No,” … “However, even if minimum wage increases contribute to disemployment, that doesn’t decide whether a minimum wage increase is good policy. That decision is a matter of values, not economics. Reasonable and honorable arguments can be made both for a low minimum wage (or none at all) that promotes a large number of low-paying jobs to complement the many higher-paying jobs in the economy, and for a higher minimum wage that forces a shift to higher-paying, albeit fewer, jobs.”

Or as I put it ” My position was that it is not so simple, leading economists are divided on the issue.” .
Many economists disagree with him, and even the expert you cite who does oppose minumum wage concedes that there is room for disagreement (though not from an economics view per se in this case)

No ubiq you sidestepped my question
My point is simply this.
Before the government gets free with my money by upping my workers salary so that he has more money in his pocket, let them free him from any taxes on his salary. I’m English we call that put your money where your mouth is.
When they make me give my worker more money, they also get a raise, effectively they are giving themselves a raise. And they are by far the richest “corporation “in New York.
If they were actually concerned about the poor workers take home pay, the first step would be to free him from his entire tax burden. Then you can move forward from there, perhaps raising the minimum wage also.
But to just force an employer to pay more while at the same time continuing to stick your hands into, and now deeper into, the pocket of the very person you claim to be trying to help, is blatant hypocrisy.
Additionally, not every employer can afford to give his workers a 25% raise.

My point of the ice cream parlor was not an economic point.
It’s to point out the injustice of the legislation on a human level.
You have a mega wealthy entity (government) that gets its money through force (rule of law + threat of punishment)
Telling someone who got his money through others voluntarily surrendering it to him (luxury voluntary purchases aka ice cream)
The following :
Mr worker doesn’t have enough money at the end of the week. Give him more.

Now let’s remember the law applies to all employers including those whose businesses are barely profitable.

I ask you, is that not backwards? Immoral?
Shouldn’t the one who has more money, and got their money through force, without doing anything to deserve it, and is the one claiming to be bothered by the injustice of paying someone what they agreed to, be the one to fork over the extra money???

But no. Tell the guy who got his money by people happily “donating “(meaning voluntarily paying for his merchandise) it to him ,
You pay more while we sit pretty and collect even more now from the guy we claim to be worried about.

BTW why would I be against WIC Food stamps et al …?

Ubiq
I understand their position fully
Are you claiming they will only force you to pay more To your workers if they commit to spending it in your stores??? Really??
I hope not.
So what you mean is so he CAN spend it if he so desires. Perhaps even in your store.
In shorthand that would be called “he has more money in his pocket “(I guess since I understand money in my pocket, as up to me what to do with it , the two are the same. Those who feel that money in one’s pocket is sortt of evil, would rather phrase it as spending it in your store since that’s what they feel you should be doing with it.)

But again you are still sidestepping the main question.
Why isn’t the first step, to exempt all minimum wage earners from all taxes ????

Simple question.
The government position is that it’s not enough money to live on.
So why are they taking some away from those workers through taxes?????

(by the way, the government does not have piles of $$$ because they squander it. Much as many athletes who earned billions over their careers are bankrupt . That doesn’t mean they weren’t rich. They were rich and are stupid. Much like the government.
Someone who makes millions and wastes it all will still get hit at tax Time with a huge bill and can’t Say I’m poor.
So too the government they are mega rich.

The argument against minimum wage is on the one hand is complex, yet on the other it’s pretty easy to understand.

The positions on the low end of the scale are generally the ones that do not require much education nor much skills. If any training is required it is usually basic and can be provided by the employer on the job.
As such they are considered “entry level jobs”.

They are available for teens looking for summer work, college kids who want to work their way through college, or people without training who wish to jump right into the workforce.

For those that have not had the ability to get training be it in school or expensive courses they are practically the only way to get a foot into the company.

More so no employer in good conscience will pay these workers more then a minimal salary since they have no skills to speak of.

Now for those who only wish a summer job it’s fine.

But what about those that need to support themselves or a family?

Well the thinking goes that once they have gained entry to a company and have a job then by dint of hard work and conscientiousness they will work themselves up, so while they may start at an entry level position they will wind up at one far better.

However if the entry level position is unavailable they have no way of getting hired in the first place.

On Automation,

This is fact is one of the reasons hiring the minimum wage is so deadly for unskilled laborers.

The more basic and repetitive a task the easier and cheaper it is to automate it. While the more complex a task the harder and more expensive it is to automate it.

Now the more basic tasks are the ones usually done by minimum wage employees.

My company is located in a state that is gradually raising the minimum wage to 15$ an hour.

While I actually was paying more then minimum wage I was not paying 15$ an hour nor can I afford to pay people 15$ an hour to do the most basic work that I have because it will throw my entire compensation structure off.

As such I am now looking into purchasing the robotics needed to automate much of the basic repetitive tasks and will lay off employees on the lower end when it is finalized.

In my personal case raising the minimum wage in the long term will actually cost jobs.

It will however only play out on the margins for me since financing the equipment will cost more or less the same in the short term but it will provide me with a degree of security and insulation from future wage hikes and hopefully in the long term will save me money, even if in the shorter it would not have been the best investment had the minimum wage stayed the same

Good point but I believe the supply of people controls this. Namely you cant let more people into the country at any time if it exceeds the jobs available as this will cause a surplus of people and allow the companies to fight their way down.