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Lately everybody is screaming for more money and even some of the politicians are proposing enormous minimum wage increases. In a recent copy of the Coast, a $20/hour minimum was suggested. Everybody wants to make big bucks, but nobody has given any thought to where that money is coming from. Yes some business can afford to pay employees more, but lots of small businesses can barely keep their doors open as it is. Increased wages means increased operating cost and that means reduced profits or higher prices. I don’t see very many businesses claiming they make too much money. In fact, over the last few years branches from some businesses have closed not because they are losing money, but because they aren’t making enough. A so called living wage for everybody would be wonderful, but raising the minimum wage will force up prices or increase unemployment. So the next time you demand a higher wage give some thought as to where the money is coming from. —Tired of Hearing It
This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2015.
It was a simple study. A piece of research of which the findings were such whereby the finding of a living wage was established.
No one is coming to take your money.
I suggest a joint and an episode of the Simpsons.
I like the concept of a guaranteed minimum income. It puts money in the hands of the people who need it most and they spend it locally.
It’s interesting that even the conservatives in the US back it as a concept because it replaces a big chunk of the “helping” bureaucracy by consolidating the many programs and simplifying eligibility. It would not cost the taxpayers any more but would help the poor and low waged enormously.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/why-arent-reformicons-pushing-a-guaranteed-basic-income/375600/
Minimum Wage is simply relevent to the structure of society. If MinWage goes up, so will the price/cost of things.
Do you really think that the local college here will survive if no one has to go there to make a decent wage upon graduation?
The impact of rasing the minimum wage is so complex in the Malthusisian model of survival, it’ll never happen.
It pure distraction to entertain such a thing. And while you all are consumed with the left handed starlit fantasies of a better income, take a step back and see what the other hand is doing.
Hey, that’s my line Cumonalready!
So where is the money coming from?
Well if we were to consider Son of Egghead’s post, the money would come from cutting social assistance programs and replacing them with a minimum guaranteed income. Seems feasible from a high level view, I’m sure the details would be messy. That’s the kind of change no politician would have the guts to push for.
http://aattp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/0…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nU2zvWsmM…
I love that the ad I got when opening that video was for mcdonalds.
SO WHER’S THE MONEY COMING FROM?
My question, “So where’s the money coming from?” was not meant as a simplistic exercise in monetary exchange, as something “even the conservatives in the US would back as it replaces a large chunk of the ‘helping’ bureaucracy,” but rather one relating to the nature of our capitalist society itself in which the managerial class, in the interests of their undeviating devotion to the profit motive, continues to oppress the working class. In other words, in spite of the celebration of their subjection and oppression in current capitalist society – a cringing celebration one witnesses continually on this site in the form of an unquestioning obedience to the forces of exploitative capitalism in the person of the “boss” and his demands – the oppressive structure of capitalism itself remains intact and unchanged.
My question, rather, was directed at wealth broadly conceived rather than just about money which is little more than a medium in which wealth is exchanged. So where does the wealth of any society come from? Not from right-wing capitalist apologists such as the present bitcher – no doubt a grasping low-level marginal “entrepreneur” driven by his all-consuming lust for profits – but rather ultimately from the land itself which is a common possession and which no one, not even the grasping entrepreneur, owns.
However, do not despair. Current Marxist theory maintains its belief that under capitalism the driving profit principle, together with an unchecked environmental degradation of which it is the product, eventually breaks down resulting in capitalism’s demise. For the contradictions in the mode of production under capitalism – in essence the exploitation of one class (the working class) by another (the capitalist class) – results in widespread alienation for which revolution rather than tinkering reforms such as the minimum wage is the only answer. For capitalism will never go quietly into that good night.
A pleasure as always,
Cheerio!
If you can’t afford to pay your employees $15/h, that’s YOUR fault as their shitty employer. Your ability to ONLY pay your employees the bare minimum is a reflection of your goals and ambition as a business owner. I’ll let you in on a little secret that your employees, family and friends probably won’t tell you… If you can’t take pride in being able to provide a DECENT living, with benefits, (sometimes this may even require you to make personal sacrifices) for the people who operate your business for you, nobody wants to work for you. The ones that do will only do the bare minimum not to get fired and make fun of you as soon as you leave the room.
Another one who thinks there’s a money tree out in the back yard/ I hear people saying it’s ONLY $4.00/hr more. Well that is $32/day. $160/wk, $640/mt, which is ONLY $8,320/yr. Yeah, it’s no problem for a business to handle an extra eight grand a year, per employee.
Jebus, if the population spends all their money on rent, power and food, there is no money left over to buy extra things to support businesses other than those that provide the basic necessities. It’s short sighted fools that think businesses will close because people have more disposable income. For example, if my income went up, commensurate to a minimum wage hike, that extra $5/h would be going to a new roof, kitchen and having my driveway repaved. That’s not going to happen, so that will have to wait. Those are local businesses that would see my support, but instead I will be doing as much work as I can myself to save money. Who loses, Tim? Not the big guys like Home Depot, but the local business owners.
^^^ Good point Harper.
Henry Ford said, “”There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.”
Ford was smart enough to know that his employees needed to be prosperous enough to buy the cars they were making.
It’s important to understand that what people really exchange in our economy is labour. Money is simply a device for trading that labour. When you buy a cup of coffee you are using money to exchange the work you did to earn it for the work people did to grow the beans, make the cups, brew and serve the coffee, etc. And, as Harper pointed out, increases in minimum wage help the local economy because people on the lower end of the income scale spend a higher proportion locally on goods and services. In contrast, extra money in the hands of the wealthy is typically invested elsewhere and does little for the local economy.
So, a minimum wage that enables a reasonable standard of living is a good thing for everyone.
I am in favour of higher wages for skilled work.
The Minimum wage will always be the very lowest bottom-rung wage, paid for the least-skilled/most miserable jobs. If the minimum wage was $100 an hour, all the higher-tier wages and salaries would be raised accordingly, all the way up to the top of the social scale, and the person earning minimum wage would still be just barely scraping by.
Minimum wage is a trap. Minimum wage will ALWAYS suck because it’s the minimum that a person can be paid per hour AND it can limit a person’s freedom in making choices that could improve their situation.
Minimum wage was originally intended to be for the most basic entry-level jobs anyway; it was never intended to support a person–let alone a couple or a family– over the span of a lifetime.
If they pay with Monopoly money it will work.
Long as they have rent control too! Yeah, I’m not buying the it hurts businesses thing, I saw the owner of a Tim’s Franchise wearing a Rolex today, and I see convenience store owners driving late model luxury cars, Maybe they should become doctors or dentists if they want those types of things, Not live off cheap labor!
I’m curious, Calico . . . if you opened up your own convenience store, what hourly wage would you pay the employees?
Would you be willing to match a modest professional salary of, oh, let’s say, anywhere between 40,000 and 60,000 a year? Also, what benefits would you provide?
How much would the usual products cost at your store–the milk, the bread, the snack foods, the canned soups, etc–more or less than what I’d pay at another store?
Tell us how you would do it–because not only would I like to see such a miraculous business succeed, I am sure a lot of people would actually like to work there.
Yup, if this foolish $15/hr minimum wage comes through it will cost an employer an extra $8,200 plus a year for every full time employee hours, whether it is one full time employee or two employees with half hours or four employees at quarter hours.