What wage is just?

[YourNameHere]

Actually just the opposite. We see the commies are good at sticking to the working man. If wages do not go up, eventually we will have the same situation in this country that they do in Red China.

 

[Bushum]

Hypotheticals? You cite economy 101 but you clearly don’t understand it.

 

[vz71]

If small business owners must stick it to workers through low wages, then perhaps they need to go out of business.

This is an example of a false dichotomy fallacy.
Not being in support of raising the minimum wage does not necessitate ‘sticking it’ to workers.

 

[Bushum]

So free market capitalism is bad, communism is bad. What do you suggest then?

 

[YourNameHere]

I understand that for many, many hundreds of years, the working poor have been abused by the system.
The American Civil War had so much to do with slave labor. In the south, they just used slaves. In the north, they stuck it to Irish immigrants through low wages.

 

[YourNameHere]

Decent wages. Capitalism with regulations. People motivated through good wages will outwork the Communist slaves.

 

[vz71]

Hypotheticals always sound great. The real world, not so much. Take your widget factory to China or some other communist country where they have many slave laborers.

Driving businesses out of the country, thus losing employment opportunity in this country, is not the answer.
Unless the question is how do we create unemployment.

 

[tafan2]

I actually work at two jobs, and so do each of my daughters and my son-in-law. My husband is the only slacker who only has one job but he works very hard at his job and there is a lot of competition in his field and a lot of pressure for old-timers to retire if they can’t keep up. He keeps up and is very intelligent, and also very personable and good with customer service.

One of the unfortunate side effects of women entering into the work place in large numbers is that few employers now see themselves as in any way responsible for the needs of their employees. Our whole society is geared towards two income families. I do not want to go back where women have limited employment options.
I remember, a long time ago, of an episode of the Mary Tyler Moore show where Mary found out she was paid less than her co-anchor. She complained to her boss, I believe is name was Lou, and was told her co-anchor had to support a family. The show was written to make him look bad, not willing to pay a woman as much. But he was actually doing the right thing. He had two employees doing the same job, one was single and had not other responsibilities and one was married with kids, he paid the latter more due to the employee’s needs.

Now, this is the case not just with employers, but with our politicians. They want a higher, across-the-board minimum wage, not caring what it does to young, entry-level workers and kids trying to save Rerum Novarum.

 

[Bushum]

This is only true if you take actual facts and how the world economy does and has worked. What we need to do is throw all logic and human experience out the window and govern based on how we FEEL.

The false narrative of realists having no compassion is getting old. This world sucks, it’s hard, people struggle. This is why we do what we can for what really matters, eternity. There is no magic bullet on this earth. Everyone economic idea will have an unforeseen consequence. It always happens. Again, there will always be poor people. Business owners didn’t say this, GOD DID.

 

[CilladeRoma]

What is a decent wage?

And who gets to decide what a decent wage is?
And is a “decent wage” in “Smallville” USA going to be the same as it is in “Big City” USA?

 

[RuthAnne]

Why is the world so full of busy bodies and control freaks who want to run everyone else’s lives? Why is it your business what two people between themselves decide a certain labor is worth? The problem isn’t justice. The problem is do gooders who can’t mind their own business.

 

[Peeps]

Can you please cite some sources proving that increasing minimum wage does not put small businesses out of business?

Thanks.

In case you’re wondering, I think that you’re probably right–merely increasing minimum wage doesn’t put small businesses out of business. But I suspect what happens is that the business owner is forced to let people go, which deprives them of any earned wage, and eventually the few employees left may burn out and resign.

I also suspect that it’s the BENEFITS, especially health care, that can put a small business owner out of business.

Again, thanks for citing sources.

 

[Peeps]

I think employers should pay a minimum wage, but I do not think that a minimum wage should be enough to support a family.

I think that the public, private, and home schools in the U.S.A. should be mandated to provide from Kindergarten through 12th grade a rigorous career-oriented education, with the goal of providing every child of every learning ability with the tools and information they need to select a job field that will fit their personality and abilities AND provide them with a living wage.

I think that the days of the “classical” education, in which literature, arts, Latin and Greek, etc. are gone with the wind. I have no objection to students being exposed to and learning these subjects, and there will be students who will excel and turn their love of the arts into a career that pays an adequate living wage. I have a daughter who loved theater from the time she was 3 years old; she’s in her mid-30s now and has successfully worked in theater, earning a living wage (in New York City!).

But I think that a much greater push should be made to make sure that all students from all backgrounds, especially those students with disadvantages (single parent, below poverty level, learning disabilities, etc.) should be taught the necessity of working for a living, and given information about many different careers, and the pathways that will get them to those careers.

My husband and I educated our two daughters about the working world at home. Even from toddlerhood, they were expected to “contribute” to the family by cleaning up, helping with little chores, and thanking us when we gave them a gift or a treat. The older they got, the more they were expected to contribute; e.g., they were doing their own laundry by the time they were 8 years old. And of course, we expected them to work hard in school, stay out of trouble, and get the best grades they were capable of.

By the time they were 13, I stopped buying clothing for them, other than underwear and required school gym suits. They had to find a way to earn the money to buy clothing themselves. My older daughter was clever–she started shopping at Goodwill and Salvation Army! My younger daughter found a job at a Subway, which used to hire teens below age 16.

And from the time they were toddlers, we exposed them to many different workers, who were happy to talk about the job/profession. When my younger daughter expressed an interest in physical therapy, we suggested that she volunteer at Muscular Dystrophy camp, and she loved it–it was definitely a factor in her career choice.

I realize that many children do not receive this kind of training at home, and that’s why I think that the schools (public, private, and home co-ops) should be doing this with the kids. I think kids would actually respond better to “boring” school subjects if they were taught how these subjects relate to various “jobs.”

 

[niceatheist]

Exactly. And when you keep increasing the minimum wage, you put small businesses out if business.

No businesses, no jobs. And considering around 75% of the job makers in the US are small businesses, the more burden you put on them, the less jobs, and less tax revenue you will have. It’s all pretty simple economics.

That’s far too simplistic to be meaningful. Some small businesses will be disadvantaged, to be sure, some may even close. By the same token, much of the Western world is now suffering a serious demographic shift which means wage pressures are upward. To my mind, if a business cannot afford to pay a fair wage, defined by statute and/or by market, then the business model they have is inherently flawed. Perhaps it simply means that the business is not viable, and relying on low wages to maintain profitability means, quite frankly, that it is not a viable business.

Leaving things purely to market forces really means leaving it to employers, and there’s a pretty long history of abusive labor practices. The reason for a minimum wage is to create at least a lower end that to some extent protects workers. The market is not some sort of a god that makes sure all outcomes are positive.

 

[RuthAnne]

The market is not some sort of a god that makes sure all outcomes are positive.

The market makes sure that those with bad ideas and bad services or products have outcomes which are negative. As it should be.

 

[esieffe]

If the agreed upon wage is less than $5, what is the problem?

Well… we don’t want people living in their cars. Five dollars an hour isn’t very far from exploiting some woman from Angola to become a household slave. Desperate people will do anything to survive, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t exploitation. Greed, avarice, that’s the problem.

That same family will be willing to pay an au par ten dollars an hour for a governess, if that indeed is what they are looking for. Somebody saw the wisdom of this argument or there would not be a minimum wage at all.

 

[Theo520]

If there were no national minimum wage, some people would try to hire folks to work for less than $5 an hour.

Do you imaging people aren’t being hired under the table for below minimum wage?

You also failed to address the issue raised, that artificial minimums increase unemployment.

 

[maryjk]

The problem is that you are assuming that the person making the $5 an hour is only making that, and that they are the only person supporting themselves.

I would be happy to work for $5 an hour, if I was doing $5 an hour work.

My husband is the major breadwinner, my income simply supplements his.

 

[esieffe]

I would be happy to work for $5 an hour, if I was doing $5 an hour work.

My husband is the major breadwinner, my income simply supplements his

And that would be a perfect fit for the two of you. However your scenario is not typical. A minimum wage, something we have had for quite a while, under which western civilization continued to prosper, is there to prevent exploitation.

 

[YourNameHere]

During the Great Depression, there were not jobs to be had. People wanted to work.