What you just said, in effect, is that you wouldn't be satisfied being poor and so you'd work your way out of it. And I agree: YOU would. But not most people. (Also, just for clarity's sake: my scenario doesn't involve being poor; it involves collecting a "liveable" stipend that puts the recipient above poverty.) Otherwise, why don't they do that now? Ever know someone working a full-time job and is barely making it? Ask what they do with the other 72 waking hours in the week. Do they take a class? Do they learn a useful skill? Do they read a book?
If you're barely making it, do you have the money to take a class? Is there a useful skill you can learn at no or little cost that's going to translate into a better career? Is there a job you can get by saying "I read a book the other day?"
Excuses, excuses, excuses. Don't have money for a class? Ask your parents, ask your friends, ask your employer! If you have a job, offer to learn something, show some enthusiasm, try harder, do better. If you're on the bottom level, first order of business is: get promoted. Second order of business: use any income above subsistence to improve further. No, nobody's going to hire you to be a civil engineer after you read that one book on architecture. But if you work in construction, how about spending a little time studying the building codes? Or in landscaping, learning about plants and trees? Or automotive repair, about anti-lock brakes or interpreting diagnostic codes. There's always something. This notion that you are forever trapped is HOGWASH. If nothing else, everyone gets a break of some kind sooner or later--use it. This isn't Horatio Alger bullshit, this is how it really works. You want something, you have to earn it.
Tell me, is this how you reached your position today? Or are you just throwing out empty platitudes to justify eliminating minimum wage?
There are no "empty platitudes" there. Everything I said is validated by experience and reason. You raised an objection and I answered it. Do you have any reasoned response to my argument, or is personal attack all you've got left in the bag? As far as the minimum wage goes, My "justification" for opposing it is based on the numerous economic and libertarian arguments against it.
What argument is that? That people in low paying jobs are content, even though no one here has ever been content in one? That anyone can get ahead if they read books and borrow money from their friends, even though you won't say that's how you got to where you are today? You're excellent at rhetoric, but the substance of your arguments is questionable at best.
Content probably isn't the right word. Complacent is better. Few people are ever content with where they're at, even if they're not in a low paying job. But if you're unwilling to do what's necessary to improve, then you're complacent. You're right, you've seen through my facade. No one actually gets ahead by making an effort. No one ever earned a promotion. No one ever borrowed money, invested it in an education, and got a return. Nothing you can learn will make you more valuable. Education is worthless. No one ever worked their way up in a business ever. Forget the millions of people who claim otherwise; it's all bullshit. The game is rigged against you, so don't even try. You don't know what my life has been like. But I will tell you this: I worked for opportunities and I got them. Then tell me how my arguments are wrong. You deny what I've experienced and what I see on a daily basis.
Probably not. (You could construe some extreme and highly unlikely cases in which one job pays a tiny but necessary part of the minimum survival wage, but takes an enormous amount of the person's energy and time. Effectively, you might be able to make an argument that one employer is subsidizing the other but the real question is why the wages are so radically different, and yet one of them remains necessary.) Though there are instances in which this sort of happens without switching employers. For instance, many publishing houses cross-finance some publications that won't sell very well, but are interesting to the company's vision, by also making lots of money on bestsellers. You could say that the persons working on the bestsellers are effectively "subsidizing" the guys working on the artsy stuff, and it would be clear what you mean, but the scare quotes are in order, because "subsidy" also implies some judgements about distribution of actions over agents. If nothing else also happens, the person will now die. This ends all consideration of subsidy with him as a factor. Otherwise, we need more information. Yes. You probably have a reason to ask this, but I think you'll have to spell out the consequences you see in order to pinpoint the difference in our thinking. In dollars? of course not. Neither is the bus fare. That doesn't mean you can't demand in general that people riding the bus should pay the bus fare. Same with employers and liveable wages. I think the reason you keep asking this question is because you think money is more real than facts such as survival versus death. I don't.
Okay. On to #2. Maybe not. Maybe he moves back in with his parents, maybe he sleeps on a friend's couch. Maybe he lives off some savings or sells something to get him through to the next job. People lose jobs they need all the time; the number of people reported to have starved to death or killed themselves in a fit of despondency doesn't come anywhere near covering them. So, it stands to reason that, somehow, the vast majority of people find a way. In any event, it seems clear that "losing a low-wage job" and "death" are hardly synonomous, even in the ruthless U.S. My point is this: you say in #1 that neither employer is subsidized. If one job ends, the employee has gone back to a single job that doesn't pay him a "liveable" wage (we still haven't defined "liveable" under what conditions). And you said working in such a condition is a subsidy to that employer. However, since nothing about that employer, the job, or the employee's work there has changed, your designation of subsidy is highly situational and arbitrary. Isn't someone who quits a job--in your view--forcing someone else to subsidize him? If not, why not? If so, then shouldn't it be illegal to force a subsidy on another without their consent? Look, you have to define what a liveable wage is. You don't have to tell me in DOLLARS You have to describe what LIFESTYLE such a wage allows. Is it living independently? Or can it involve roommates? How many? Does it involve car ownership? Public transportation? Bicycling/walking? What's the upper limit on commute times to work? Does it leave any money for savings? Retirement? Education? An occasional beer with the guys? "Liveable" means different things to different people. For a person who already has their needs met and who is seeking a second job for extra money, ZERO would "liveable." For a person renting an apartment on their own in Manhattan, $20/hour would be far too little. Don't try to make it about me. Stick to the argument. You say "survival." I ask "on what terms?" If you're going to argue for a "liveable" wage, you have to tell me what "liveable" means.
That's because you've also changed other factors. Again, if nothing else changes, the employee is no longer working for the first employer either, so that connection is out of the picture. I think what you really want to hear is that in a situation in which additional jobs are available, a part-time job only needs to pay a proportion of a liveable wage. In a situation in which additional jobs are not available to keep the employee able to work, the employee will cost the employer more money, much as an employee will cost the employer more money if in order to do that job, they have to live in an area where water and food are more expensive. That depends on all the other stuff going on. Are we talking about a country that "lets them die", as you insist you're not? Then I guess that is effectively true, for a very technical sense of "forcing". Though I wouldn't as readily use the word 'subsidize' here, as you're not talking about a business model anymore; though I guess you can colloquially say that people are subsidizing a lifestyle. Of course, we have now, not accidentally, moved from a scenario in which a person works 60 hours a week without earning enough to survive, on to a person who refuses to work at all. Interesting how your focus shifted there. But if we're going to discuss this new scenario you brought up, let's hear what your solution is for a person who flat out refuses to work. Should they be left to die? If not, does that mean you want to see other people forced to finance them? Look, I can answer all of those questions from my point of view -- namely no, yes, any number, no unless needed for the job (4x), cf. 60 hours above, no assuming unemployment insurance and except for the next yes, no unless needed for the job, no -- but that's not the point, because all of this is individually and culturally diverse, as you admit in the very next line: Again, the limit is set at the point where that person would not sustain that job without outside help.
Why is the employee no longer working for the first employer? Actually, I'm opposed to the concept of liveable wage altogether. All wages should be a mutual agreement between employer and employee. My expectation is that if there are fewer jobs, there is less demand for labor and that, therefore, the employee would cost the employer less. In any event, I don't see how--absent some state command--that the employee losing one job would result in the other job automatically paying him more. I agree with this last part--all else being equal, employees will cost more in areas where the costs-of-living are higher--but disagree that this same principle is at work when there are few jobs. Where there are few jobs, it is a buyer's market. I DO insist we're not. I'd be happy to consider evidence of deaths from unemployment that show otherwise. Well, if someone pays to keep someone else afloat, isn't that a "subsidy" by your thinking? You said that parents subsidize their kids, after all. But if the issue is subsidy, it's still very relevent. After all, if someone does not pay their own way, someone else MUST subsidize them. True? If yes, why should we allow an employee to choose "subsidy" (by quitting) but not an employer (by hiring)? If no, well, then we'd probably agree a lot more in this thread. Again, if the issue is subsidy--and subsidy is the basis for government to intervene in people's economic affairs--then we need to define who can CHOOSE subsidy and for what purposes. I'm not his keeper. If he won't--not CAN'T, WON'T--pull his own weight then he can die as far as I'm concerned. If he can find suckers who will finance his living, more power to him. But I bear ZERO responsibility for him. Quite the contrary. If no one wants to finance a person who won't work, I'm content that person should die. It's enough that you admit that the amount will vary from individual to individual or across cultures. A bureaucracy that fine-tunes every low-wage earner's salary to this exacting degree (and, of course, continuously re-evaluates it in the face of changing circumstances), runs into a lot of problems. As a hypothetical, let's say Joe works at X Co. And Joe is receiving his salary based on his needs as calculated by some third party. Suppose Joe wants to move across town to a bigger apartment he can rent for the same money. Does Joe now become eligible for a car? Is the board going to have to decide whether Joe needs a car? Are they going to deny him the right to move since he was surviving just fine where he was at? What if Joe moves closer to where he works? Does he have to forfeit a car he had when he lived farther away? What if one of Joe's roommates moves out/dies? Does Joe's salary go up? Is the rent commanded down? What if Joe's only working 40 hours a week? Is his employer only on the hook for 2/3rds of his "liveable" wage? What if Joe gets married? Must his wife work? If she doesn't have to, does Joe's salary increase to cover her needs as well? Is Joe's employer's "subsidy" increasing when Joe has children? This is only scratching the surface, but I think it suffices to illustrate that the kind of fine control you'd need for this would require a massive bureaucracy that would intervene in every economic decision in life. Such a "solution" would be far worse than the problem it's intended to solve. It's why you CAN'T give a straight-ahead definition of a liveable wage. There is NO SUCH THING. Or, rather, it's different things to different people. And people are (so far) free to adapt themselves to survive on what they receive.
This is becoming ludicrous, since you demand answers to situations that simply don't happen in real life. I'll go through them this once, but I won't play this game indefinitely. Well, in this extremely unlikely and unrealistic scenario you have invented, we know that he is working in a job that pays less than he needs to survive, and we know that absolutely nothing else happens to keep him alive. In that unrealistic scenario, he is now dead. Yes, that would be your expectation. How does the employee survive according to your expectation? Remember, we are in your hypothetical cul-de-sac in which there is no financial support for him outside of working, there is only this job available, and this job pays too little for him to survive. Nothing automatic about it, but if the employer wants to keep benefitting from the employee's work, he'll need the employee to be alive. How can I? The market you describe has never existed in reality. If you want to label it that way. I took pains only to label the kid's business as subsidized if it wasn't keeping afloat without his parent's help. If we're just going to use "subsidize" as a word for "pay for", then the only alternative is for the person to die, yes. I don't see how we can stop either from making that choice, but we needn't make it easy or likely. Great. You've answered your own scenario. What exacting degree? I pointed out right at the start that I wasn't in favour of one specific dollar amount as a minimum wage for everyone. That would indeed be a bureaucratic nightmare, but that's because bureaucracies don't work. It doesn't change that people need a minimum amount of income to survive, and can't work when dead. I'll just choose this one of many parallel examples from your post. We're assuming here that Joe can't replace the roommate, right? And can't afford to keep any home sufficiently close to his workplace without having a roommate? (Because if either of those options exists, the solution is easy.) At that point, Joe will have to move on to a different job. Only if he can't will he stay, homeless but, I guess, fed at least. Only if he has no alternative, that is, will he keep working at a job that does not pay a liveable wage. What else can happen?
I think I understand. For the record, I'd still want to improve my circumstances if I was collecting a liveable stipend. I would strive for having enough money to travel, buy luxuries, etc. It doesn't mean I don't have a brain. Why doesn't who do the what now? Some do, some don't.
I'm not doing this to jerk you around. I'm asking because your positions demand answers to these questions. Well, who's being unrealistic now? Let me put it this way: if your position is that those who are just making a liveable wage fall below that, they die, THEN... If people making LESS than what you consider a liveable wage lose their jobs all the time and somehow don't die... THEN either your position is wrong, or what you consider "liveable" is wrong. You're stacking the deck to make "unemployment" = "death." But that's NOT realistic. You may as well have him be working on the Moon and his only supply of oxygen is from his employer. That's not how people work. They have families, friends, even organizations in their communities they can turn to. They have stuff they can sell. If all else fails, they've got charity or government assistance. You've conflated "living" with "surviving." Yes, the employer MAY have to pay more (e.g., in the circumstance the loss of the other job was going to force the employee to move away)...but this only happens if the employer (1) truly values the employee enough to pay the higher price and (2) there is no alternative worker available at the original wage. Since we're talking about people at the very low-end of the wage scale, I suspect the worker would simply be replaced. And yet we don't require businesses to pay a "liveable" wage. So, what problem are we trying to fix then? And would you say it's better for someone to choose to pay for someone else rather than be forced to pay for someone else? As for the guy quitting, how can you stop him? And if you threaten to withhold his benefits unless he complies, how is that different than leaving him on his own? Except people don't want to die; they're HIGHLY motivated to not do that. They find another job or get help from others or find something to keep them going. That's the rub. Either it's one specific amount for everyone--which is, of course, ridiculous as people's needs vary tremendously--or it's uniquely tailored to each individual, which is going to require the resources to determine that individual's needs. So, if Joe can't cover his needs, Joe will have to find himself a different job? That's my whole point. If Joe's income falls below Joe's needs, Joe is indeed in a troubling position. At this point, he better have friends or family to fall back on; if not, he can seek assistance from the government.
It turns into jerking around because you have to desperately avoid looking at the things you can't admit, such as here: YOU are the one who has excluded reality from this situation by demanding that no other source of income should apply. In reality, other sources do apply: Either other jobs, or various other kinds of income. The former will lead to abandoning this job, the second will lead to subsidizing it. Either way, the job only continues to exist by means of subsidy. Only because you refuse to name other sources of income, as they would mean either abandoning this job, or accepting funds from outside to make the job viable. These are the things you excluded by postulating that you can't name anything that will happen to this person except losing his job. And you HAD to exclude them, too, because as soon as you named one specific possibility, you'd have to agree that all scenarios that keep the job viable do so by having it subsidized. What you're trying to do is say "there are many different things that can happen, so we don't have to consider any of them". But that doesn't work. All things that can happen will either keep the job through a third party's money, or abandon the job. The one thing that can't happen to a job that doesn't keep its worker alive is that it supports itself. Yes, the employer MAY have to pay more (e.g., in the circumstance the loss of the other job was going to force the employee to move away)...but this only happens if the employer (1) truly values the employee enough to pay the higher price and (2) there is no alternative worker available at the original wage. Since we're talking about people at the very low-end of the wage scale, I suspect the worker would simply be replaced.[/quote] You have defined a situation in which the job does not allow a human being to live. Replacing it with another equally dead human being will not rectify the problem. Subsidies. That isn't a real alternative. If I choose for them to pay voluntarily, I might as well choose for the employer to pay a higher wage voluntarily. Try again. By paying him a sustainable wage. There you go. Nope. Again, that's what a free market is for. We can easily tell how high wages have to be for the worker to keep working by seeing when he stops (or threatens to stop). You know this; you have said the exact same thing over and over again. You just don't want to admit it works against your employer as well. And so, the job that won't sustain his life disappears. (Remember, we're assuming there is NO chance of other means of sustaining the job, so it won't get any better with any other employee.) No alternative means no alternative. You are now changing the scenario by reintroducing alternatives, which you had previously excluded because they would subsidize the unsustainable job. But reintroducing them after running three circles around the situation doesn't change what you're doing: You're having friends, family or the government pay to sustain the job the employer won't sustain.
I'm not sure what you want me to see here. Do you want me to acknowledge that if some hypothetical someone has an income below what he needs to survive and that there is absolutely no other way for him to get additional income or assistance that he will die? Fine. Acknowledged. But you need to acknowledge this hypothetical isn't reality. People earning low wages lose jobs all the time and they don't die. Because (1) things are very seldom THAT desparate and (2) they fall back on others like family or friends. I thought that was YOUR demand. My take has always been "Need money? Get another job." I won't call it a "subsidy," but I agree the person must find other sources of income. I've never denied that. In fact, I've insisted on it. If the person needs money and, say, his family provides it to him, they may be subsidizing him; they are not subsidizing the business. I have no problem with a job that doesn't pay enough for the worker to support himself. I don't view the employer as owing the employee all of his needs. And we're going in circles. I guess I can't make it any plainer: The worker has the responsibility to look after his own needs. The employer has the obligation to pay only what the market allows and what is freely negotiated, the employee's needs notwithstanding. If the worker's income is inadequate to his needs, it is incumbent on him to pursue alternatives. If the worker is unable to meet his own needs, he should ask for the help of others. "I choose to pay" and "I force someone else to pay" are hardly the same thing. I presume you meant "low." It does and the market balances out both interests. The employee seeks to get as good a wage as he can, the employer seeks to pay the least that he can. The employee will not settle for a low wage if he can get a higher one elsewhere, and the employer will not settle for a high wage employee if comparable lower wage ones are available. Everyone is constrained. We're back to the hypothetical that doesn't resemble reality. Where did I set this as a condition of the hypothetical? Provide a linked quote and I'll concede the point. In any real world scenario, there are always alternatives. I never took out alternatives. Every one of my posts on this topic has suggested that there are ALWAYS alternatives: the employee could seek another job, get money from friends and family, etc. The employer only needs to pay the market value for the labor. If the worker's needs are more than that, it is incumbent upon him to find a better situation.
No, the problem would be that companies like McDonalds and Walmart would cut their wages to almost nothing. Many states force their servers to take $2.50 an hour because of expected tips. What do you think will happen when government starts subsidizing wages? Large businesses would start cutting wages with the attitude of "get more from the government". The only thing keeping those companies somewhat honest is the minimum wage.
Having worked at Wal-Mart, I'm pretty well convinced, they'd flat out ENSLAVE people if there were no laws against it.
His point was not simplistic. Maybe you'd prefer vacillation and nebulous "answers" that ultimately propose nothing, but that's not how problems get solved. But not by nearly as wide a margin as you're comfortable with, apparently.
I once worked at a McDonalds so I know where you're coming from. The franchise I worked at cut their management and promoted crew members so that they could start them all out at $9.00 an hour. One of the ones fired was a store manager who had been working for them for 14 years and was making $14.00 an hour. I knew right then that loyalty meant nothing to the owner and found me another job as soon as possible.
This is just plain stupid, so, of course, it came from Dicky. WalMart and McDonalds ain't no fool. Every business wants quality employees. How do you attract them? Pay them well and give them good benefits. If you offer slave wages, what kind of employees will you attract? If you offer $2.50 an hour, what kind of response will you get to your help wanted ad? Offer $10 a hour to start and you attract a better class of employee. My company has need of competent, highly skilled people as corporate research can be a complex and very stressful position. What kind of people do you think we would attract if we only offered $2.50 an hour? Every business owner understands that if you want quality people, you have to attract them with competitive wages. Only a fool business owner will offer slave wages and expect to attract decent help. You no longer work at WalMart? Why not? Didn't like the pay or the hours? So you quit to try your hand at something better? That, son, is called Free Market Economics. Would you have stayed at Wally's World if they would have offered you $15 an hour? If so, could you have produced at least $15 a hour in goods or services to justify your paycheck? That is how it works in the Real World, which is something the State never understands. In my job, I get paid $20 an hour and with all my benefits, it's probably closer to $30 an hour, which comes to around $230 a day I earn. I produce and average of $600 a day in profit, which means I generate much more than the $230 my company pays me, so I earn my paycheck. My company pays be $20-$30 an hour because I can produce at least that much an hour. The rest goes for profit so my company can invest in new equipment, maintain our 4 branch offices, pay state and federal taxes, offer holiday parties and other perks, etc. Minimum wage, entry level workers tend not to generate nearly as much of a profit margin for their employees. Flipping burgers or greeting people at WalMart generates relatively little revenue. Ditto for running a cash register or stocking shelves on third shift. Those kind of jobs are not SUPPOSED to pay you enough for a mortgage and two cars. They are supposed to allow young people to find their first job so they can get experience and build a resume. My oldest son turns 16 next month and as soon as he gets his driver's license, he can start looking for work. Of course, he has no work history or real marketable skills (yet) so finding that first job will be hard. Delaware may raise it's minimum wage to $8.25 and that will hurt him from landing that first job as a potential employer will ask "Can this 16 year old produce enough revenue to justify his paycheck?" It ain't easy at $8.25+ an hour. He'd be willing to take $5 to start, just to earn SOME money, but that is illegal where a minimum wage exists. The minimum wage makes it illegal for a employer and employee to negotiate such a contract. That's why the minimum wage ultimately hurts the poor and unskilled worker. It makes the politicians feel good and the low-information voter likes it, but those who have even a rudimentary understanding of economics know better. Paladin and ecky said it better than I can. Naturally, they win the thread. A great discussion- good enough to draw me out of retirement.
1 2 3 Yet... 1 2 3 Quite simply, the number of people who cannot take part in the economy due to sub poverty wages is growing. Instead of a "living wage" from their employer, they require charity, social assistance, or all too often crime, to survive. What I don't get is why you guys seem to want to continue subsidizing payroll for zillionaires like the Waltons?
Still no answer? "Paladin agrees: Of course you would. So would I. So would ANYONE with a brain." Since you and Scorpy seem to be on the same page but he seems to keep missing this thread, maybe you'd like to step in? Since anyone with a brain would jump on such a life if they got 18k a year guaranteed, why do so few who make more than that now not do so and just pocket the difference or buy a Lotus or whatever have you?
Indeed. You'd love that lifestyle if you had 18k per year, but you would refuse it if it paid more? That's strange, but to each his own. If it's the additional money that makes this dream life of yours less attractive, just take out your 18k and send me any excess cash. I'm happy to help.
"All wages should be set by the market. Minimum wage laws should be abolished. Wage subsidies? No way. Make everyone comfortable regardless of their effort and effort will be very low." We tried that experiment before. We got the Depression and the near collapse of the free enterprise system when wages collapsed, and even those still nominally employed had hardly any money to buy anything and nothing was being sold. Want to relive those days, or would you rather have at least some minimal standard to ensure that people's labor wasn't massively exploited by a dysfunctional sweatshop economy? I'm not ready to see our final descent into a disorderly, dystopian third world society. It almost happened in 1932 and, apparently we've forgotten, nearly happened again in 2007-2008. We can't afford that short a memory...
