07-24-2009, 10:14 AM
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#1
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Member
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Addison
Posts: 339
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Minimum Wage Increase
Don't know how I missed this but I just saw that minimum wage is increasing today to $7.25.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/24/news...wage/index.htm
Personally, this pisses me off. Helps out maybe the bottom rung, but screws the middle class. Just curious what everyone elses take on this is.
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F@*K THE SPURS!!
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07-24-2009, 10:23 AM
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#2
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Rooting for the laundry
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 21,342
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Don't even get me started.
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07-24-2009, 10:32 AM
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#3
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Basketball fan nirvana
Posts: 5,625
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I know I've said this here before, but if I could be an evil dictator for a day, I'd especially enjoy kicking poor people when they're down. I'd outlaw any and all jobs for people that paid below a certain amount (say, $7.25 an hour) and I'd call my law a 'minimum wage law.'
"ha! if you thought making $6.95 an hour was bad, just wait 'til your making $0.00 an hour."
(if I were both evil and clever, I'd make Robert Reich my secretary of labor and let him make the orwellian argument that my evil law increases employment)
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"It does not take a brain seargant to know the reason this team struggles." -- dmack24
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07-24-2009, 10:45 AM
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#4
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 5,249
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Quote:
Originally Posted by alexamenos
I know I've said this here before, but if I could be an evil dictator for a day, I'd especially enjoy kicking poor people when they're down. I'd outlaw any and all jobs for people that paid below a certain amount (say, $7.25 an hour) and I'd call my law a 'minimum wage law.'
"ha! if you thought making $6.95 an hour was bad, just wait 'til your making $0.00 an hour."
(if I were both evil and clever, I'd make Robert Reich my secretary of labor and let him make the orwellian argument that my evil law increases employment)
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Just go with Biden as your VP. "In order to lower unemployment, we've got to fire a crapload of people."
From there, it's an easy hop-skip to "Look at all the open job positions we have saved/created!"
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Is this ghost ball??
Last edited by DirkFTW; 07-24-2009 at 10:47 AM.
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07-24-2009, 10:54 AM
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#5
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Platinum Member
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: TX
Posts: 2,505
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To think, back when I started working hourly jobs, the minimum wage was $3.35 per hour.
I still laugh when I remember how much I was making a week and where I spent the money. Concerts, Parties...you know the typical High-School stuff.
After HS, I ran off to the military...where I really made Minimum Wage...trust me, you work more than 40 hours a week and when you calculate the hourly rate...$3.35 was freaking HUGE!!!
Look I empathize with those who rely on this for a living...the issue I have with it is seeing those who are grabbing part-time/summer/after school jobs just to have spending cash. MY KIDS INCLUDED. Why should they get $7.25 an hour?
At the end of the day, prices go up, or hours are cut...or more work is shoved over to salaried workers.
I've lost about 40% of my income this year...I wonder if I should take on a part-time night job to recoup some of income lost?
So a full time hourly worker can make around $15,000 per year GROSS. Can you imagine 4 single people splinting rent, combining for $60,000 per year...that's not bad money.
But again, who winds up paying for it?
You and I!!! Liberal/Conservative - Socialist/Republican...it doesn't matter we are all getting screwed...unless your young, debt free and just want some beer money...then enjoy your Min. Wage!!!
For the Single Mom's struggling...where's the DAD? He needs to own up to his part of the responsibility!!!
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07-24-2009, 12:28 PM
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#6
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Platinum Member
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 2,012
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 92bDad
To think, back when I started working hourly jobs, the minimum wage was $3.35 per hour.
I still laugh when I remember how much I was making a week and where I spent the money. Concerts, Parties...you know the typical High-School stuff.
After HS, I ran off to the military...where I really made Minimum Wage...trust me, you work more than 40 hours a week and when you calculate the hourly rate...$3.35 was freaking HUGE!!!
Look I empathize with those who rely on this for a living...the issue I have with it is seeing those who are grabbing part-time/summer/after school jobs just to have spending cash. MY KIDS INCLUDED. Why should they get $7.25 an hour?
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Because due to the inflation that's occurred in the last 25 years (and, as alexamenos pointed out, minimum wage laws are not the primary cause of inflation), there's not a whole lot of difference between $3.35 then and $7.25 now?
In 1981, when $3.35 was set as the minimum wage, its purchasing power was equivalent to what $7.55 is now ( http://www.westegg.com/inflation/).
I don't think minimum wage is necessarily the best solution to the problem. When corporations make profits, the executives reap the rewards. When corporations have to take hits, the workers take that hit. I think without a minimum wage of some kind, you'd simply see everyone who works part time getting paid dirt. I get paid minimum wage right now and can barely make my rent, because I'm limited in how much I can work. The increase that I'll now get will mean that I'll now be able to pay for utilities, as well, without borrowing from my parents, which is something I don't want to have to do.
I think minimum wage should be tied to the CPI so we don't see these huge jumps. But of course, I'd prefer a GMI, so what do I know.
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07-24-2009, 11:15 AM
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#7
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Member
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Addison
Posts: 339
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The added costs will also only trickle down and increase inflation. So now the grocery store has to pay the stock boy / cashier more money. This doesn't come from a magic safe in the back, they will raise the price on their products, thus raising the cost of living.
I also don't make a lot, but am salaried, well my pay didn't go up but now that the price of everything around me will to compensate, my pay effectively went down.
And about working, I used to buy into some of this crap about not being able to find ANY work. I agree you are not gonna get the job you might "dream" about but you can find work. I just started a second job, so I know work from 7 to 4 then wait tables a couple of nights a week. People can't find work, but I can find 2 jobs?
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F@*K THE SPURS!!
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07-24-2009, 11:37 AM
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#8
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Basketball fan nirvana
Posts: 5,625
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MX425
The added costs will also only trickle down and increase inflation. So now the grocery store has to pay the stock boy / cashier more money. This doesn't come from a magic safe in the back, they will raise the price on their products, thus raising the cost of living.
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I don't quite agree with this. Inflation is first and foremost (maybe only) a monetary thing - central bankers, who cause inflation, like to blame inflation on people's stubborn insistence on scratching out a living but that's not really the case.
Anyway...I'm not going to demand bread and milk because a stockboy got a raise, and breadmakers and milkmakers aren't going to supply less either. (well, they might if their costs go up to a point to where the supply curve shifts, but let's keep it simple....). If demand doesn't go up and supply doesn't go down then prices ought to remain about the same.
What's more likely to happen is that you and I are going to simply spend more time standing in line at the register or stepping over boxes sitting in the aisle because the grocery store doesn't hire somebody new to replace the last guy that quit.
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"It does not take a brain seargant to know the reason this team struggles." -- dmack24
Last edited by alexamenos; 07-24-2009 at 11:49 AM.
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07-24-2009, 11:49 AM
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#9
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Member
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Addison
Posts: 339
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I can respect that point regarding the wait time and such. I just still think once you raise the bottom line on the cost of running a business you either cut back the employees, i.e reduce production, and then supply drops, or you raise prices to cover your expenses.
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F@*K THE SPURS!!
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07-24-2009, 12:06 PM
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#10
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Basketball fan nirvana
Posts: 5,625
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MX425
I can respect that point regarding the wait time and such. I just still think once you raise the bottom line on the cost of running a business you either cut back the employees, i.e reduce production, and then supply drops, or you raise prices to cover your expenses.
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my point is that if a profit-maximizing grocery owner could raise prices, he'd do it whether or not he has to give a stockboy a raise. plausibly he'd have lower profits, but there's no reason to think a minimum wage hike causes inflation....
2ndly, the idea that rising wages cause inflation is phillips curve hooey, an attempt to explain inflation while ignoring the obvious cause of inflation (monetary inflation).
3rdly....I got distracted and forgot what 3rdly was...oh yeah, the most significant impact of minimum wage laws is upon the stockboy that didn't get hired when the old one quits, the jobs that aren't created and aren't replaced. It's sort of a quite, unseen attrition. Most folks can understand at a very deep level what would happen if minimum wages were $35 per hour instead of $7.25 - it would be you (me) that doesn't have a job. The same thing happens at $7.25 an hour, the number of people negatively impacted are just smaller and they're stupid kids and such anyway.
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"It does not take a brain seargant to know the reason this team struggles." -- dmack24
Last edited by alexamenos; 07-24-2009 at 12:08 PM.
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07-24-2009, 12:11 PM
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#11
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Moderator
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: 41.21.1
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Boo-hoo, just go hire some illegal Mexicans and pay them whatever the hell you want - Corporate America has been using that trick to circumvent wage laws for years now...
Sure, poor people might starve to death, but at least the middle class can still buy houses they can't afford!
Besides, we've got better uses for the poor:
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These days being a fan is a competition to see who can be the most upset when
your team loses. That proves you love winning more. That's how it works.
Last edited by Underdog; 07-24-2009 at 12:13 PM.
Reason: Christian Charity is a myth...
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07-24-2009, 12:20 PM
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#12
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Basketball fan nirvana
Posts: 5,625
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lol at soylent green and your very odd reasoning for editing the post
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"It does not take a brain seargant to know the reason this team struggles." -- dmack24
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07-24-2009, 04:14 PM
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#13
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 3,082
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Complain all you want but Obama didn't decide to do this increase, or last years. It was the previous president.
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07-24-2009, 05:57 PM
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#14
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Diamond Member
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Texas
Posts: 6,014
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it's just a political act, it has very litle real affect as only about 1.2% of all workers make minimum wage.
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