Miami archbishop: raise the minimum wage [CC]

[Ridgerunner]

Somebody please help me. I think I have painted myself into a logical corner and might have to reverse my position. Here is how it happened, but I warn you it is filled with my own personal opinions/biases:

I declared: "What I can’t see for the life of me is how a modest raising of the minimum wage puts people out of work. "

I listed the following considerations:

• I can see how studies show that a raising of the minimum wage is generally accompanied by a reduction in jobs, but I don’t think a causal relationship has ever been established.
• I can see how some businesses might respond to an increase in the minimum wage by reducing their workforce, but that is only one possible way to deal with the added wage expense.
• I can see how pressure from stockholders might influence management to maintain present earnings by reducing the workforce, although this may backfire, since fewer workers may not be able to maintain profit levels.
• I can see how upper management in some cases might refuse to take a hit on large salaries as a way to avoid layoffs.
• I can see how a business might be reluctant to raise the price of products or services to make up for any reduction in net income.
• I can even see how a business model can be constructed that depends on being able to pay poverty level wages to some in order to be profitable, but I see this as a business model that is not in the public interest as it tends to institutionalize poverty.

And I reaffirmed: “But I can’t for the life of me see how a modest raising of the minimum wage causes people to be put out of work.”

I then noted the obvious, that the moral objective of raising the minimum wage can be frustrated by elements of the business community that place profits, either company or personal, over moral considerations.

So, the question then became, “Should I support an action that if cooperated with would achieve an overall moral good, or not support it because others are almost sure to frustrate that moral objective? Is the moral thing to do tantamount to the practical thing to do, or should I persist in my efforts despite the opposition that will almost surely negate my efforts?”

I then thought of an analogous situation. In an election, three parties might run for the office of President. If one candidate stands for nearly everything I stand for including all the moral issues, but has little chance of winning, should I vote for him anyway, or should I vote for another candidate who has a good chance to win and who stands for some of what I stand for, including all of the moral issues? In actual life I choose the latter because I am wasting my vote on the first candidate and by voting for him helping to elect the worst candidate. In this way, I think I have answered my own dilemma about the minimum wage, that the moral thing in both cases is the practical thing to do, based on one’s estimate of the “probable” results.

Is my logic wrong, or must I be forced to eat my humble pie? )

I agree that it is better to oppose clear evil even if one would personally prefer ineffective support of what one thinks of as perfection.

As to the minimum wage, I don’t think anyone knows for sure what the effect of a raise in it will cause. But when an organization like the CBO says it will result in job losses, raising a few out of poverty and significantly benefitting those whose family earnings are several times the poverty level, it ought to give one pause.

Regardless, it seems to me this should be a decision of a deliberative body like congress, and not the decision of one man, particularly of one man whose every action is motivated solely by its political effect as he (and/or his advisors) perceives it.

I don’t purport to be an expert at any business other than my own and those of business friends I have who I talk to. The main thing business people do not presently have is a “forward-looking” approach to hiring and investment. Typically, business people calculate how hiring and investment will improve their businesses in the longer run. But presently, few are doing it because the current government comes up with new, obstructive, “social change” policies constantly, and business people know they are on the paying end of all that.

And that’s exactly why we presently have a slow motion “recovery” that is a Depression-style recovery. There were peaks and valleys in it as well. Lots of businesses went under back then, but even more of them didn’t. They just froze, like now. But imagine what things would be like without all the welfare programs. We would have soup lines longer than we had in 1936. That’s sobering.

Now, when business people are simply preserving a “stable state” in their operations, it’s easy to throw it off by adding some new burden to it. And it’s extremely easy to stifle any expansionist ideas by constantly advocating or imposing destabilizing measures.

 

[freeRadical]

I didn’t say “we would”, I said, “we may”. Do I need to remind you that we have had times when some businesses did pay what amounted to slave wages? It was memorialized in the following lyrics:

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don’t you call me 'cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store

But I do understand what you are saying.

When were these times when businesses paid “slave” wages? Can you give some examples? What year was it? What was the price level then? What was the purchasing power of a dollar? Isn’t a “slave” wage essentially $0 an hour?

Again it doesn’t matter the dollar amount you receive for your labor. Money is just a convenient medium of exchange. You trade your labor for money and buy goods with that money. You are essentially trading your labor for goods using money as a medium of exchange. The dollar amount of your wage is not the true value of your labor, the true value of your labor is how many goods you can purchase with your labor. The purchasing power of your dollar and the price level are much more important then the dollar amount of your wage.

Would you mind getting paid $2.00 an hour if everything was .10 cents?

 

[JamesCaruso]

I agree that it is better to oppose clear evil even if one would personally prefer ineffective support of what one thinks of as perfection.

As to the minimum wage, I don’t think anyone knows for sure what the effect of a raise in it will cause. But when an organization like the CBO says it will result in job losses, raising a few out of poverty and significantly benefitting those whose family earnings are several times the poverty level, it ought to give one pause.

Regardless, it seems to me this should be a decision of a deliberative body like congress, and not the decision of one man, particularly of one man whose every action is motivated solely by its political effect as he (and/or his advisors) perceives it.

I don’t purport to be an expert at any business other than my own and those of business friends I have who I talk to. The main thing business people do not presently have is a “forward-looking” approach to hiring and investment. Typically, business people calculate how hiring and investment will improve their businesses in the longer run. But presently, few are doing it because the current government comes up with new, obstructive, “social change” policies constantly, and business people know they are on the paying end of all that.

And that’s exactly why we presently have a slow motion “recovery” that is a Depression-style recovery. There were peaks and valleys in it as well. Lots of businesses went under back then, but even more of them didn’t. They just froze, like now. But imagine what things would be like without all the welfare programs. We would have soup lines longer than we had in 1936. That’s sobering.

Now, when business people are simply preserving a “stable state” in their operations, it’s easy to throw it off by adding some new burden to it. And it’s extremely easy to stifle any expansionist ideas by constantly advocating or imposing destabilizing measures.

And businesses are not the only ones preserving a stable state, the banks are, too. We all thought with the tremendous debt the U.S. is incurring that we would have runaway inflation by now. But my friend, who is a professor of economics at a leading university, says that so long as the banks sit on all this debt, nothing will happen. So it looks like we have stability instead of prosperity, full employment, and minimal government welfare, plus we have the threat of future economic collapse looming over us due to our unsustainable, huge national debt.

 

[JamesCaruso]

When were these times when businesses paid “slave” wages? Can you give some examples? What year was it? What was the price level then? What was the purchasing power of a dollar? Isn’t a “slave” wage essentially $0 an hour?

Again it doesn’t matter the dollar amount you receive for your labor. Money is just a convenient medium of exchange. You trade your labor for money and buy goods with that money. You are essentially trading your labor for goods using money as a medium of exchange. The dollar amount of your wage is not the true value of your labor, the true value of your labor is how many goods you can purchase with your labor. The purchasing power of your dollar and the price level are much more important then the dollar amount of your wage.

Would you mind getting paid $2.00 an hour if everything was .10 cents?

Do undocumented workers count? My point is that some employers will pay slave labor if they can get away with it. This is the very first article I googled. Why look further, as any example will do.

Rosa Torres was 17 when she crossed the border illegally from Mexico in 1986. She got a job picking squash on a farm in Carlsbad, Calif.

After a year, she was able to legalize her immigration status through the 1986 law that gave amnesty to more than 1 million undocumented farm workers. She said she earned about $180 to $200 a week, working 10 hours a day, or about $3.60 to $4 an hour. In all, she said she earned about $6,000 a year.

Daniel González, The Arizona Republic
7:43 p.m. EDT July 29, 2013

 

[Tomdstone]

My point is that some employers will pay slave labor if they can get away with it.

Unfortunately, yes this is true. This is why we desperately need the federal government to step in and protect low income people by requiring a steep increase in the minimum wage. I don’t see any other way to protect low income families from this type of immoral abuse.

 

[freeRadical]

First off

Do undocumented workers count? My point is that some employers will pay slave labor if they can get away with it. This is the very first article I googled. Why look further, as any example will do.

Rosa Torres was 17 when she crossed the border illegally from Mexico in 1986. She got a job picking squash on a farm in Carlsbad, Calif.

After a year, she was able to legalize her immigration status through the 1986 law that gave amnesty to more than 1 million undocumented farm workers. She said she earned about $180 to $200 a week, working 10 hours a day, or about $3.60 to $4 an hour. In all, she said she earned about $6,000 a year.

Daniel González, The Arizona Republic
7:43 p.m. EDT July 29, 2013

First off , her math is a little fuzzy. If she made $180 to $200 a week then she made $9,360 to $10,400 (gross), assuming she worked all 52 weeks. The poverty threshold in 1986 for one person, under 65, was $5,701. So she was above the poverty level. How is that “slave” wages?

 

[pnewton]

Unfortunately, yes this is true. This is why we desperately need the federal government to step in and protect low income people by requiring a steep increase in the minimum wage. I don’t see any other way to protect low income families from this type of immoral abuse.

Those that violate the current minimum wage law will just as easily violate any minimum wage law. Raising the minimum wage will not affect that that cheat one bit.

 

[JamesCaruso]

First off

First off , her math is a little fuzzy. If she made $180 to $200 a week then she made $9,360 to $10,400 (gross), assuming she worked all 52 weeks. The poverty threshold in 1986 for one person, under 65, was $5,701. So she was above the poverty level. How is that “slave” wages?

I assume you can’t pick squash 365 days a year. I wonder what other jobs there are Carlsbad, CA in off-season for experienced squash pickers?

The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.
A full-time minimum wage employee earns $15,080 annually.
In 2014, the poverty threshold for a single person is $11,670. For a family of three with one child it is $19,790. I think it’s safe to assume that many people in this country are receiving below poverty level wages.

 

[markomalley]

I assume you can’t pick squash 365 days a year. I wonder what other jobs there are Carlsbad, CA in off-season for experienced squash pickers?

The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.
A full-time minimum wage employee earns $15,080 annually.
In 2014, the poverty threshold for a single person is $11,670. For a family of three with one child it is $19,790. I think it’s safe to assume that many people in this country are receiving below poverty level wages.

Migrant farm workers (like squash pickers) don’t get an hourly wage. They are paid on a piece work basis.

Like the farmers, upon whose land they work, they get paid when the crops are harvested.

As far as the amount try get paid, yes, it’s low. Sadly, with the country allowing virtually uncontrolled entry for the purpose of doing this stuff, there is usually not a problem finding plenty of folks perfectly willing to pick fruit or veggies for 50¢ a bucket. If they actually tried to control immigration, then a farmer might be forged to pay $1 a bucket…and that would be passed on to the ag companies, who would then pass it on to us consumers.

A minimum wage wouldn’t help these people…controlling immigration would.

 

[estesbob]

Migrant farm workers (like squash pickers) don’t get an hourly wage. They are paid on a piece work basis.

Like the farmers, upon whose land they work, they get paid when the crops are harvested.

As far as the amount try get paid, yes, it’s low. Sadly, with the country allowing virtually uncontrolled entry for the purpose of doing this stuff, there is usually not a problem finding plenty of folks perfectly willing to pick fruit or veggies for 50¢ a bucket. If they actually tried to control immigration, then a farmer might be forged to pay $1 a bucket…and that would be passed on to the ag companies, who would then pass it on to us consumers.

A minimum wage wouldn’t help these people…controlling immigration would.

Controlling immigration wouldn’t have helped this lady! She would have been stuck in Mexico making far less if she hadn’t been able to get across the border.

 

[markomalley]

Controlling immigration wouldn’t have helped this lady! She would have been stuck in Mexico making far less if she hadn’t been able to get across the border.

You’re right.

But it would help all of the poor Americans harvesting crops.

Oh, wait.

 

[estesbob]

You’re right.

But it would help all of the poor Americans harvesting crops.

Oh, wait.

In short it a lot more complicated than “close the borders” and enforce a minimum wage. People come here for a reason-usually because they can make a lot more money than they can at home. but the are also exploited-not just in low wages but in working condition and just about every facet of their lives. The fear of being deported is held over them all the time. I I dont know what the solution is but I tend to lean towards open borders and think the idea of deporting 11 million people is ludicrous.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Controlling immigration wouldn’t have helped this lady! She would have been stuck in Mexico making far less if she hadn’t been able to get across the border.

I agree that poverty in the US is better than poverty in Mexico, but that’s almost like saying losing an arm at the elbow is better than losing it at the shoulder. It’s a distinction without much difference. OF course in this case as was pointed out, she’s not actually at the poverty level, she’s a few hundred above it-- which seems to me to be another distinction without much difference.

 

[freeRadical]

I assume you can’t pick squash 365 days a year. I wonder what other jobs there are Carlsbad, CA in off-season for experienced squash pickers?

The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.
A full-time minimum wage employee earns $15,080 annually.
In 2014, the poverty threshold for a single person is $11,670. For a family of three with one child it is $19,790. I think it’s safe to assume that many people in this country are receiving below poverty level wages.

I asked for an example of a business that paid a person “slave” wages. The example you gave was in 1986 so we need to talk about 1986, not 2014. She claims she made $6,000 dollars a year in 1986. That’s above the poverty level. How is that a “slave” wage? Also she claims she made $3.80 to $4.00 an hour. The minimum wage in 1986 was $3.35 an hour. So she made above the minimum wage. How did the minimum wage help her? Also, a $1 in 1986 has the same purchasing power as $2 in 2014. So in 2014 dollars she made $12,000 a year or $7.60 to $8.00 an hour. Still above poverty level and still above minimum wage. You claimed that the minimum wage keeps businesses from paying “slave” wages but she made above the minimum wage both in 1986 dollars and 2014 dollars. How did the minimum wage help her?

I wonder what kind of income she made in Mexico? I wonder what kind of quality of life she had? When she became legal she benefited from our police services, our schools, our public amenities and she could vote. She could get a quality education here. I wonder how much the government took from her in taxes, that’s the real travesty here.

Also, you mention that in 2014 a minimum wage worker makes around $15,000 a year. How is that a “slave” wage? It’s above the poverty level.

And I wish you would define what you mean by “slave” wage. To me, a “slave” wage is $0 an hour. I think you mean, what you consider, very low wages.

I am still waiting for proof that without a minimum wage, businesses would pay what you call “slave” wages.

 

[markomalley]

In short it a lot more complicated than “close the borders” and enforce a minimum wage. People come here for a reason-usually because they can make a lot more money than they can at home. but the are also exploited-not just in low wages but in working condition and just about every facet of their lives. The fear of being deported is held over them all the time. I I dont know what the solution is but I tend to lean towards open borders and think the idea of deporting 11 million people is ludicrous.

Are they less exploited our more exploited at home?

 

[estesbob]

Are they less exploited our more exploited at home?

I dont know.

 

[markomalley]

I dont know.

It would seem to me that the individual in question prefers to be exploited here in the US, rather than at home.

I would think that exploitation here in the US is logically better than exploitation in her country of origin (otherwise why would she be here? There’s no allegation of her being kidnapped and forced to work as a slave – unlike some illegal aliens from other countries)

If a day laborer here can get $100 a day for his services (her services), that’s what he/she will demand. If only half the people show up at the pick-up point, they may try to get as much as $200 a day. If, all of a sudden, twice as many men are standing in front of the 7-11, and people start offering $75 (and no more), then that’s what they’ll take. And so on…until it is no longer financially feasible to remain in that line of work at that location.

Unless there is some very real threat, many business owners will have no problem with paying people cash (the same as what happens with day laborers). And there are plenty of people in this world who would rather be exploited at $5 an hour (cash) than to get paid $5 a day back home.

You know how much a person getting paid $5 an hour (cash) will get paid if they raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour?

Yup, $5 an hour, cash.

And you know how likely a person who gets paid $5 an hour cash is going to complain to the government about being exploited? About as likely after a minimum wage increase as before. (Why? Because although he may get the employer in trouble, he will owe a TON of tax…only left-wingers are stupid enough to not know that for themselves)

Like you, Bob, I am not a fan of mass deportations. I would rather that they actually enforce I-9 requirements…and VERY publicly frog march employers who are intentionally disobeying the law…as well as those folks who manufacture fake documents. That includes employers who pick up day laborers without checking their papers. A consistent and very public effort (to include enlisting support for state and local agencies) will take care of the problem without any involuntary deportations.

(Then there are things that can be done to allow more people to have some better opportunity to come here legally…but that’s a different thread)

If we have closed borders and actual enforcement of I-9 requirements within the borders, the availability of labor will shrink (or, at a minimum, it won’t grow). The more scarce labor is, the more it will bring on the open market. That’s not just me hypothesizing, that’s what happens. Happened in the past…will happen in the future.

A combination of open borders and an increased minimum wage will just increase the strength of the magnet drawing people here…and will increase the temptation for employers to do the wrong thing.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Controlling immigration wouldn’t have helped this lady! She would have been stuck in Mexico making far less if she hadn’t been able to get across the border.

Wages in Mexico are about 1/3 what they are here. So is the cost of living. The advantage to working here is that your U.S. dollars go a lot farther in Mexico than they do here. (Ever look at the line of Hispanics buying money orders at the post office on payday to send them back home?) It’s like U.S. oil workers who go over to Kuwait and make the big bucks then come here to be “ahead of the Joneses”.

Mexico’s unemployment rate is lower than ours.

 

[JamesCaruso]

I asked for an example of a business that paid a person “slave” wages. The example you gave was in 1986 so we need to talk about 1986, not 2014. She claims she made $6,000 dollars a year in 1986. That’s above the poverty level. How is that a “slave” wage? Also she claims she made $3.80 to $4.00 an hour. The minimum wage in 1986 was $3.35 an hour. So she made above the minimum wage. How did the minimum wage help her? Also, a $1 in 1986 has the same purchasing power as $2 in 2014. So in 2014 dollars she made $12,000 a year or $7.60 to $8.00 an hour. Still above poverty level and still above minimum wage. You claimed that the minimum wage keeps businesses from paying “slave” wages but she made above the minimum wage both in 1986 dollars and 2014 dollars. How did the minimum wage help her?

I wonder what kind of income she made in Mexico? I wonder what kind of quality of life she had? When she became legal she benefited from our police services, our schools, our public amenities and she could vote. She could get a quality education here. I wonder how much the government took from her in taxes, that’s the real travesty here.

Also, you mention that in 2014 a minimum wage worker makes around $15,000 a year. How is that a “slave” wage? It’s above the poverty level.

And I wish you would define what you mean by “slave” wage. To me, a “slave” wage is $0 an hour. I think you mean, what you consider, very low wages.

I am still waiting for proof that without a minimum wage, businesses would pay what you call “slave” wages.

Slave Wages

Wage slavery refers to a situation perceived as quasi-voluntary slavery,[1] where a person’s livelihood depends on wages, especially when the dependence is total and immediate.[2][3] It is a pejorative term used to draw an analogy between slavery and wage labor by focusing on similarities between owning and renting a person. The term wage slavery has been used to criticize economic exploitation and social stratification, with the former seen primarily as unequal bargaining power between labor and capital (particularly when workers are paid comparatively low wages, e.g. in sweatshops),[4] and the latter as a lack of workers’ self-management, fulfilling job choices and leisure in an economy.[5][6][7] The criticism of social stratification covers a wider range of employment choices bound by the pressures of a hierarchical society to perform otherwise unfulfilling work that deprives humans of their “species character”[8] not only under threat of starvation or poverty, but also of social stigma and status diminution.[9][10][11]

Similarities between wage labor and slavery were noted in ancient Rome by Cicero,[12] while the pervasive practice of voluntary slavery in medieval Russia indicates the previous historical coexistence of slavery and voluntary choice.[13] Before the American Civil War, Southern defenders of African American slavery invoked the concept of wage slavery to favorably compare the condition of their slaves to workers in the North.[14][15] With the advent of the industrial revolution, thinkers such as Proudhon and Marx elaborated the comparison between wage labor and slavery in the context of a critique of societal property not intended for active personal use,[16][17] while Luddites emphasized the dehumanization brought about by machines. The United States abolished slavery during the Civil War, but labor union activists found the metaphor useful. Lawrence Glickman finds that in the Gilded Age, “References abounded in the labor press, and it is hard to find a speech by a labor leader without the phrase.”[18] You can read more at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery

In 2011, 28.0 percent of workers earned poverty-level wages ($11.06 or less an hour). - See more at: stateofworkingamerica.org/fact-sheets/poverty/#sthash.pEP1Ygfm.dpuf

 

[JamesCaruso]

I asked for an example of a business that paid a person “slave” wages. The example you gave was in 1986 so we need to talk about 1986, not 2014. She claims she made $6,000 dollars a year in 1986. That’s above the poverty level. How is that a “slave” wage? Also she claims she made $3.80 to $4.00 an hour. The minimum wage in 1986 was $3.35 an hour. So she made above the minimum wage. How did the minimum wage help her? Also, a $1 in 1986 has the same purchasing power as $2 in 2014. So in 2014 dollars she made $12,000 a year or $7.60 to $8.00 an hour. Still above poverty level and still above minimum wage. You claimed that the minimum wage keeps businesses from paying “slave” wages but she made above the minimum wage both in 1986 dollars and 2014 dollars. How did the minimum wage help her?

I wonder what kind of income she made in Mexico? I wonder what kind of quality of life she had? When she became legal she benefited from our police services, our schools, our public amenities and she could vote. She could get a quality education here. I wonder how much the government took from her in taxes, that’s the real travesty here.

Also, you mention that in 2014 a minimum wage worker makes around $15,000 a year. How is that a “slave” wage? It’s above the poverty level.

And I wish you would define what you mean by “slave” wage. To me, a “slave” wage is $0 an hour. I think you mean, what you consider, very low wages.

I am still waiting for proof that without a minimum wage, businesses would pay what you call “slave” wages.

Poverty Level Wages

Another useful dimension of the wage structure to analyze is the proportion of workers earning low, or poverty-level, wages. Figures 4E and 4F stateofworkingamerica.org/subjects/wages/?reader page 192] present these trends by gender and race/ethnicity, respectively. The measure presented in these figures is the share of workers earning equal to or less than the “poverty-level wage,” the hourly wage that a full-time, year-round worker must earn to sustain a family of four at the official poverty threshold. The poverty wage was $11.06 in 2011 (in 2011 dollars), based on the official poverty level for a family of four in 2011 of $23,010. The poverty-level wage is roughly equal to two-thirds of the median hourly wage.

Women are much more likely to earn poverty-level wages than men. In 2011, 32.0 percent of women earned poverty-level wages or less, significantly more than the share of men (24.3 percent). Overall, 28.0 percent of workers, more than one in every four, earned poverty-level wages in 2011.