How minimum wage works.

[Plane]

  Where are fat cats crying poverty?

   That is no reason to object to the minimum wage.

    Prices can be raised just as fast as wages, there is practically a chain between them. Fat cats are going to be fine , especially if they keep on making money.

     The people hurt most are people with savings in cash, so this has become an unpopular thing to do with cash.

      If you must forget Weimar Germany , then observe Zimbabwe , when your wallet is a wheelbarrow you will understand a lot more about the minimum wage.

       Even the people who like the idea of the minimum wage a lot do not think that there can be a final top for it, they are going to want increases in the future, No?

[Xavier_Onassis]

We have had a minimum wage for a really, really long time. It used to be possible to earn enough to afford to put yourself through college. This is no longer the case, because the minimum wage is in much of the country not enough to live on.

[Plane]

We have had a minimum wage for a really, really long time. It used to be possible to earn enough to afford to put yourself through college. This is no longer the case, because the minimum wage is in much of the country not enough to live on.

   Examine this statement!

   Doesn't it fit my thesis that the mini wage is at fault for the situation as it is?

    It could be worse, the increases in the mini wage could have happened more frequently.

     They could even be made automatic. This would be a nightmare.

     What do you know about steam engines?

      Ever seen the "governor"?

   The governor is a device that gives negative feedback to control the speed of the machine, when it is too fast the governor throttles it back, when it is too slow the governor opens the steam valve to speed it up ;negative feedback.

    Imagine a steam engine that was fitted with a positive feedback governor. You might do this because your engine loved to get plenty of steam.  This would be a short lived and useless steam engine wouldn't it?

     

     Economic systems of positive feedback are pretty common in history , because they look good at first blush, but most of them do not last long.

     Check out the Israeli experience with  increasing wages and contract payments to match the rate of inflation, to  correct for inflation month to month.

.......and over 400 pen-cent during 1984.’ ....

.................the frequency of payment  of the cost of Living Allowance on wages increased from every six months in the mid—i 970s to
even’ month by the end of 1984........

........., the rate of indexation  for wages increased
from 70 percent in the mid — 1970s to 80—90 percent in the 1980s at the same time the rate of indexation
of tax brackets increased from 70 to 100%........

......................Price-setters decide how often to change prices
by comparing two kinds of costs associated with such
changes: (a) the cost of changing the price, including
possible reactions of customers, competitor’s and the
general public (or the authorities)’, and (b) the loss
associated with not adjusting the existing price in
view of changing market conditions, The price will be
changed when the latter outweighs the former................

  Lots more good stuff in that article   https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/86/05/Adjusting_May1986.pdf

     I think the data set produced by Israeli attempts to cure inflation by inflating represents one of the best experiments of its type ever done.

       We are trying to do the same thing , but there are enough of us who understand negative feedback to throw a drogue out and slow the spiral.

   I hope.

[sirs]

When folks start to grasp that the minimum wage was never designed or meant to "live off of", as in a living wage, we might be able to make some serious end roads, and even possible compromises

[Xavier_Onassis]

sirs, you don;lt know what you are talking about. That is a bloody lie.

In the 1960's you could actually live on 80 cents an hour. I had friends who did this. Some attended college as well.
It was possible to make it on the minimum wage until around 1970.

[sirs]

sirs, you don;lt know what you are talking about. That is a bloody lie.

No, it's actually not.  Even if you could live on .80/hr, the minimum wage was never imposed to be some form of living wage, that you could literally live off of:

The Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act of 1936 required that firms manufacturing goods for the government establish an 8-hour day and assure that the work would be done under safe and healthful conditions. It also authorized the Secretary to set minimum wages based on locally prevailing rates.

This Act prepared the way for a much broader labor standards bill, setting minimum wages and maximum work hours for most industrial workers.

Both the American Federation of Labor and the National Association of Manufacturers opposed it, but after a prolonged legislative battle the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) became law in 1938. Administered by the Department of Labor, the Act set a minimum wage of 25 cents per hour and a maximum workweek of 40 hours (to be phased in by 1940) for most workers in manufacturing

At no point was the minimum wage adopted with the criteria that it function as a living wage

[Plane]

  It is the decree of the government that all jobs smaller than a certain minimum shall be abolished.

    Because every single worker in the workforce is a head of household.

[Xavier_Onassis]

It does not matter what the criteria was in 1939. You could actually live on the minimum wage paid in 1962.
You might not live well, but it could be done and was done.

If a person can only get a minimum wags today, it is clear that he cannot support himself on such a puny amount. Whet is he supposed to do? Live in a refrigeratir box? Sleep in the park? Feed himself from dumpsters?

[Plane]

It does not matter what the criteria was in 1939. You could actually live on the minimum wage paid in 1962.
You might not live well, but it could be done and was done.

If a person can only get a minimum wags today, it is clear that he cannot support himself on such a puny amount. Whet is he supposed to do? Live in a refrigeratir box? Sleep in the park? Feed himself from dumpsters?

Be a young teen living with his parents , whose real skills cannot generate fifteen dollars an hour of value ?

  You must be able to make enough value to support yourself independently and decently , else you are not permitted to work as an employee.

   The minimum wage doesn't provide anything for someone who hasn't got a job .

     And it destroys a lot of jobs.

      Worst is the national version of the minimum wage, which is plenty to live on in some states , and not half enough in some states.  Leaving us like the guy with his feet frozen in an iceblock and his head in a furnace, on the average he was comfortable.

      The minimum wage being national is too high some places and too low to be realistic in others, are we going to fix this by making Mississippi match Manhattan or more likely vice versa?

[sirs]

It does not matter what the criteria was in 1939. You could actually live on the minimum wage paid in 1962.
You might not live well, but it could be done and was done.

If a person can only get a minimum wags today, it is clear that he cannot support himself on such a puny amount. Whet is he supposed to do? Live in a refrigeratir box? Sleep in the park? Feed himself from dumpsters?

You're making my point.  Whether you could or couldn't live off a minimum wage, that was never it's function or mandate.   Its not meant to keep someone from sleeping in the park.     

[Xavier_Onassis]

So, you think that a country where people are so poor they can work full time and still be unable to live indoors and feed themselves is okay?

When the starve and freeze to death, then we will be rid of their sorry, unproductive souls, right?

Thank you Ebenezer Scrooge.

[Plane]

So, you think that a country where people are so poor they can work full time and still be unable to live indoors and feed themselves is okay?

When the starve and freeze to death, then we will be rid of their sorry, unproductive souls, right?

Thank you Ebenezer Scrooge.

  You keep missing the point and defending the cruelty.

    The minimum wage does nothing to produce a single job anywhere.

      (although it has moved a lot of jobs overseas)

     It means that people who do not need a self sufficient wage , and cannot produce that much value , cannot have a job.

     You meanie!

      Teens all over the country are idle and inexperienced and playing videogames in their homes when they could be employed and learning how work works.

     But the Cruel cruel CRUEL minimum wage make this impossible.

      It also makes the black market of jobs work, there really are a lot of people working for less than the minimum , and keeping quiet about it.


        Most people who have more than two years on the same job are getting more than minimum wage without government mandate, people with work experience are actually worth more to hire.

[Xavier_Onassis]

The minimum wage is too low in nearly all of the country. It is not too high anywhere.

If there were no minimum wage, most present minimum wage earners would be making less.

When I was in HS, I asked this guy that ran a gas station for a job. This was when the minimum was 80 cents an hour. He told me, "That depends on who pays for you to learn the job."  I already knew how to pump gas. I was seriously considering it when a friend told me that his brother had worked at the same gas station as some sort of "intern" for three months and was never paid a dime. The old fart did not even own the station, he just wanted to sit back and take it easy.

Here in Miami, what sewing jobs there are are all piecework. The operators farm out particular parts of a garment (sew on 500 pockets at 3 cents each, hem 1000 skirts at 2 cents each) to women who take the work home and have to have their own industrial sewing machines. All they give you is is the pieces and the thread.  They claim that a professional seamstress can make over the minimum wage at what they pay. This is pure nonsense.  Of course, the women have to pick up and deliver the work, and sometimes the shop is closed or will not accept it. Then they delay with the checks for three weeks, and sometimes the check bounces.

Most of the women doing this are illegal immigrants.  The man will screw you until you drop and them will screw you again.

[Plane]

If there were no minimum wage, most present minimum wage earners would be making less.

  Probably not!

http://www.minimumwage.com/

Could you point to the years that the minimum wage was raised and how much this had co-relation to reductions in poverty rates?

It is kinda hard to find , perhaps there is no correlation?

[Xavier_Onassis]

You need the date the new minimum took effect and the poverty figures for that time period.

Some people will lose a job if the minimum is raised, but most will not.

Others will take jobs that are offered because there is no longer any uncertainty about whether and how much the minimum will be raised.