“(It’s an anecdote but I assume that’s what you were looking for)”
Not exactly. I don’t even know if you can extrapolate what happened in American Samoa and the Mariana Islands to mainland US cities and states.
Not trying to directly compare raising the minimum wage to X level in the 50 states to raising it to that same level in American Samoa. But when the minimum wage is raised too high for an area it causes unemployment. That’s an example where it happened.
Can you give me a better indication of what you’re looking for exactly?
No, because there is not enough data, IMO, to come to any conclusion yet. It’s all speculation at this point. I have heard the same arguments every time the minimum wage has increased for the last 50 years and the doomsayers have been wrong every time. Maybe this time they will be right, but maybe they will be wrong again.
Yup, and that just may be cause to file in federal court that such a cost increase interferes with out of state commerce since the masses who will be affected are ‘national’ chains with headquarters outside of NY. (Not a lawyer, but I can foresee the suit now.)
I think it’s BS that min wage should be high enough to support a family.
I think a reasonable min wage is a wage that a person working a 40 hr week can earn half the median family income, such that 2 min wage partners can support a family.
@GMTplus7, I’m not sure why you would want that. That seems like a sure fire way to drop the birthrate, and with the US fertility rate already below replacement level, we’ll soon have too few workers, not too many.
@PurpleTitan
I’m slow today & not following your logic. Plz explain.
@gmtplus7, harder to have kids if 2 people need to work to earn the same amount of money because of childcare costs.
I don’t see how raising the minimum wage is going to make it worse for 2 two people to support a family, compared to what the abysmally low min wage is now.
“I think a reasonable min wage is a wage that a person working a 40 hr week can earn half the median family income, such that 2 min wage partners can support a family.”
What about the single parent? With the min wage so low that person is certainly going to need gov’t assistance. Why do tax payers want to pay for gov’t assistance for all these working people? Why are they so willing to let corporations like McDonald’s off the hook?
Why do you think it’s McDonald’s responsibility to cure cancer & solve world hunger?
I’d rather the taxpayers assist single parents on an ad hoc basis, than force businesses to pay a blanket ++$20/hr min wage.
“Why do you think it’s McDonald’s responsibility to cure cancer & solve world hunger?”
Nice deflection. It’s not, however, it is their responsibility to pay their employees a living wage.
So then you must be okay with your employer cutting your salary to the point where the taxpayer has to pay for your assistance? Maybe everyone should make only the minimum wage - think how great that would be for all corrporations!!!
Employers can’t just arbitrarily cut wages to min wage. The wages for challenging jobs need either a higher wage to attract takers (garbage collector), or a higher wage to attract requisite talent (engineer).
My guideline for setting the level of min wage would make it ~12 bucks/hr (i.e. 24k/year). Are people here seriously complaining about a $12 min wage???
“Employers can’t just arbitrarily cut wages to min wage.”
Of course they can. They are under no obligation to pay anyone a higher wage then the minimum. All the corporations in the world can get together and decide that $7.25.hour is what they are going to pay.
Lol, I’d like to see my employer just try to replace me with a person willing to do the job for min wage.
When I gave notice to my previous employer, they tried to counter the competition’s offer to me. Suffice to say it was no where near min wage.
US anti-trust laws already prohibit price fixing among companies doing business in the US.
"Lol, I’d like to see my employer just try to replace me with a person willing to do the job for min wage.
When I gave notice to my previous employer, they tried to counter the competition’s offer to me. Suffice to say it was no where near min wage."
Good for you, but there is still nothing stopping corporations from paying everyone the minimum wage.
“US anti-trust laws already prohibit price fixing among companies doing business in the US.”
Paying everyone minimum wage isn’t price fixing. Corporations are allowed to pay anyone what they want as long as it’s no lower than the minimum wage.
Walmart raised their minimum wage and Target & TJX followed suit. There is nothing to prevent that from happening in the reverse. In fact, it happened in the auto industry - when non union auto plants became the norm, the union plants eventually followed suit by getting their unions to agree to reduced compensation - under threat of going out of business.
@GMTplus7, don’t want you to think I am bailing on this conversation. Having root canal done this morning and don’t know how i’ll feel after - so may not be around for most of the day.
Because if the minimum wage is too high now one or both of them may lose their job.
$7.25 (or $8.75 if we’re talking about NYC) is more than $0.
You’re just being silly now.
Uh, no, they cannot, at least in the U.S. (We have federal laws against that type of collusion.) In other words, they cannot “get together…” on this issue.
I’ll bite. IMO, it is not McDonald’s or Pizza Hut’s or the local fast food vendor in NYC – who does NOT have to pay the increase wages* — responsibility to replace “government assistance.” If we taxpayers provide the “gov’t assistance”, we should pay for it.
*how does your pov reconcile the fact that some fast food places HAVE to pay the larger wage, but others do not. What about the “single parent” working at those establishments? “Why do tax payers…” have to provide government assistance to those who work in a fast food joint or restaurant that does not happen to be a part of a national chain?
“Uh, no, they cannot, at least in the U.S. (We have federal laws against that type of collusion.) In other words, they cannot “get together…” on this issue.”
Ok. They can all independently decide to only pay their employees the min. wage.
“I’ll bite. IMO, it is not McDonald’s or Pizza Hut’s or the local fast food vendor in NYC – who does NOT have to pay the increase wages* — responsibility to replace “government assistance.” If we taxpayers provide the “gov’t assistance”, we should pay for it.”
It may not be their responsibility but why does no one seems to care that they can pay their employees so little that they need the assistance taxpayers pay for? It’s funny that no one seems to mind paying for the gov’t services these employees need because their employers are too cheap to pay them a decent wage - but got their panties in a twist over having to pay for their health care. I assume this means you don’t mind expanded medicaid and health insurance subsidies for employees who won’t provide them health insurance. Good to know you are on the side of ACA - I seem to remember from the ACA thread that you were pretty opposed to it.
“*how does your pov reconcile the fact that some fast food places HAVE to pay the larger wage, but others do not. What about the “single parent” working at those establishments? “Why do tax payers…” have to provide government assistance to those who work in a fast food joint or restaurant that does not happen to be a part of a national chain?”
Just like in ACA they carved out exceptions for business who employ less than 50 people. Do you believe McDonalds et al cannot afford to pay their employees more? I can see how mandating an increase in minimum wage can hurt the small business but these companies can easily absorb it. Mcdonalds 2014 profit was $1.07 Billion. BTW, the CEO of McD’s made $13.8 million in 2013 - 800 times what a typical worker at McD makes.