Seattle just passed a $15 minimum wage...

I always laugh when I read this.

Stupid woman. Want's all that fancy shit but doesn't want to pay for it.

I bet anything she expected the "rich" to pick up the tab for it.

I hate when people compare us to other countries and expect the results to be the same. "Oh look! Australia figured it out!" Yeah, Australia has 36M people. We have 10 times that many. Switzerland has 7M which is even worse. I live in Ohio and we have 11M here. The demographics are different, the geography is different and the infrastructure required isn't comparable.

I wonder if a proportional system would work better where there is a limit as to the amount of gap between the lowest paid worker and the highest paid worker. So if the low level peeps are making $20K per year, the CEO can only make $200K. I mean, we always hear attempts to raise minimum wage but no real effort to lower maximum wage.

Cue the cries of "Why do you hate the Job Creators?"

No, really, a cap on executive salaries (with some wiggle room for achievement, as in "How's about not running the corporation into the ground for that eight-figure salary?") would solve a raft of problems.

But we know that will never even be proposed seriously, and we know why.

Usually, people prefer to do skilled work rather than mop floors. "Easier" in the strictest sense isn't the only consideration that goes into motivation, reward for work, etc. If you're right, you'll see lots of dispatchers opt out in favour of taking cleaning jobs. I'm ready to bet that that won't happen. But the bigger picture is that we don't have to settle the bet; the market will, only now there won't be any jobs subsidized by charity

If it's all about "job creation", why do we lock up pimps?
Or drug dealers? Or drug kingpins? Or bootleggers?
They're making jobs for their community!
Don't you folks wanna help your community?

"But, Black Dynamite, I sell drugs to kids in the community!"

@frontline:

I'm confused, haven't you been arguing in this thread that people will take a pay cut if a lower paying but less stressful job becomes available? How does this statement bellow square with that?

To me, it looks as though you are now saying the exact opposite thing.

At the end of the day, however, a burger flopper doesn't have the satisfaction of knowing that they were able to save a life, dispatchers do.

Australia actually has 22M, are you thinking of Canada?

The USA is big yes, but basic economic principles are consistent across countries. Peoples wants and needs are largely the same. The different scale argument is irrelevant anyway when you consider we're talking about a minimum wage being operated on a city level in this case.

In response to the police dispatcher, I looked up a similar case here and the salaries of 000 (our equivalent to 911) operators. I picked New South Wales as that's generally the most expensive place to live in Australia.

Starting salary is AUD$54,813, which at current exchange rates works out to a smidge over US$51,000.

People tend to want better jobs even with a higher minimum wage because extra money is still a good thing, and most people simply don't want to work the jobs that are right at the bottom of the pay scale.

That's got to be a tough job.

Caller: Hello? 000? We're out of shrimp for the barbie!

000 Dispatcher: My God, mate! How could you let this happen?

Caller: I, I, don't know. I just looked down and they were all gone!

000 Dispatcher: Remain calm. I've informed rescue services of your location and they're on the way with more shrimp! They'll be there any minute now.

Caller: Oh, how can I ever thank you?

000 Dispatcher: No worries, mate. Just doin' me job.

<click>


<ring>

000 Dispatcher: 000 emergency service. What seems to be the trouble?

Caller: Its me wife!

000 Dispatcher: All right, mate. Remain calm. Please tell me what's happened to your wife.

Caller: She drunk a can of Fosters!

000 Dispatcher: And you didn't try and stop her?

Caller: I did, but she said that she knew what she was doing!

000 Dispatcher: All right, mate. There's an ambulance on the way, though I can't promise it'll get there in time. That Foster's is bloody dangerous stuff. Oh, and I'm afraid that I'm going to have to report you for spousal abuse for letting her drink that shit. The police should be getting there at about the same time as the ambulance, and I expect you to wait for them.

Caller: Its a fair cop.

<click>

Because the government shouldn't be in the business of forcing caps on salaries in private industry?

The question is, at least as it relates to income equality, what is labor's share of GDP in those countries versus the US. I'm trying to find the data but it's not easy.

When she says stuff like that one has to wonder if she would except caps on what she could make from a novel. How about caps on athletes? Movie stars?

Or is it only CEO types that are affected?

Summing up:

• The Prussion Mafia raises the issue of proportional limits
• garamet concurs
• Federal Farmer makes a comment about "force"
• Zombie asks Federal Farmer what he thinks garamet thinks, concluding by asking a third party that "garamet doesn't answer questions"

Now that is actually a salient point. When the city studied it they found that there was a general pressure on wages throughout the sub $20 range. Which is a good thing.

As to where that money would come from, let's flip it around. When wages were divorced from productivity (wealth creation) where did all surplus weath created go?



Possibly here:
Corporate Profits Hit A New Record High Last Year

Or maybe here:
Record High Inequality Threatens Growth

There is plenty of room in there for some higher wages.

I asked him the question because I know you wouldn't answer.

And I was right. Even though the questions were to him you felt the need to chime in about them but still did not take the opportunity to answer them.

My stress comes in spikes. It's my job to communicate to the 100k people that use our system every day. A lot of it non predictable but semi constant Rider Alert stuff. X street closed for Y parade/marathon/construction, use Z temporary stops instead. I use web/email/social media/text message/whatever medium I think is the best way to reach the target audience (without pissing off the people who don't give a shit and don't want to be spammed). I also have to translate what the project managers and service planners send me into something all our riders can comprehend (not as easy as it sounds). That's the normal everyday stuff. However 3 times a year we realign our service based on usage. Buses/trains, it all changes. That means all new printed materials, website overhauls, and most importantly, The Book.

This book is mine:
http://www.soundtransit.org/Documents/pdf/rider_guide/RTW_June2014.pdf

All of it is mine (including the error on page 104 where I have the same time for two different time points [thankfully time point one is the least used stop on our second most least used route]). All 111k copies. The Feb book was partially mine and partially the guy I replaced. This one I completely reorganized/rewrote in a rider focused way (instead of agency focused), added some really cool information (which has made the local news, people are really glad to have it) all while cutting printing costs by $20k a year and moving to 100% recycled paper. Yeah. I did that.

And people use the shit out of my book. Yesterday I was on a different agencies bus going to a doctor's appointment and noticed that the bus driver thought my book was important enough that he had gone and got a stack of them and stocked his bus with them for his riders. While standing in the back I watched a mom with a crying child pull MY BOOK out of her purse and give it to her kid with along with a pen which caused him to calm down and start drawing. Yeah, not how it was intended, but still, the mom thought my book was worthwhile enough to have in her purse, and it served a purpose, got the kid to stop screaming.

People can get satisfaction from their job, even if doesn't pay the best (I'm working on it, been told they are going to reassess my position this summer) and can be extremely stressful. I love my job. I'm making stuff better for people in my area every day. I help them get to work. I help move people away from SOV usage and on to public transit. Yeah it's really stressful sometimes (especially when you aren't trying to be Johnny on the Spot for other departments to get your name out and show your importance) but it's damn satisfying.

No way in hell would I take a $7 pay cut to flip burgers.

Sure, if someone else is paying more for the same job.

I don't believe that. But if it were true, dispatchers' wages would increase. That's a function of a free market, and it can work more accurately once subsidies for sub-minimum wages are removed. It's only a general problem if you think that at equal pay, janitor is the most desirable job in the world, bar none.

You're talking unskilled workers here though. And unfortunately, a person with no skills is not on the right side of the supply/demand chart. I feel that a majority of these people should bear some responsibility for being this way. You can attend trade schools, you could graduate high school, get an associates degree, etc.

But there are a few points to consider:

• Half of those making minimum wage were under 25
• Half of those making minimum wage work in hospitality, restaurants or food services where a lot of their pay is supplemented by tips.
• Of all hourly workers only 5.2% make at or below the federal minimum wage.

But that's not the scenario. We're talking about people taking a 30% pay cut for less stress. I don't see many making that choice.

I agree with you here, but the problem is that the market is already anything but free. It is weighted heavily in favor of the employer when it comes to wage negotiation, for the simple reason that employers have better access to information. There are also some regulatory reasons, essentially many state and local governments being happy to subsidize corporate activity for fear of relocation.

I disagree that this wouldn't be the free market at work. While it is admittedly not technically 100% free, that is never true, not in the private sector, not at any time nor in any place in history. Competition, supply and demand still apply. Yes, taxes would either have to be raised or reallocated; if the employer were private, it would have to charge more for its services or reallocate resources as well. (In fact, as a thought experiment, one could easily imagine outsourcing dispatch to a private contractor, and the same results would show up under the same conditions.)

Are dispatchers in the USA substantially different from 911 operators?

Let's say that out of all the calls a dispatcher takes in a year, only one of them winds up in such a way that they know they were able to save a life. I can assure you, having spent more years than I care to think about, working in fast food, that this is way fucking more than any fast food worker will ever know. Because I seriously doubt that anybody has ever saved a life by timely delivery a Big Mac or whatever.

But, to address your other point that this will cause people's taxes to go up. I'm actually very sensitive to this issue. You've heard of the clothing store chain The Limited? Back in the late '80s the president of The Limited bought my home town of New Albany, Ohio. No, I'm not kidding. The bastard bought the little farming community of less than 5K people where I grew up, and promptly proceeded to bulldoze everything and replace it all with multi-million dollar McMansions. At the same time as this was going on, my then 70 year old mother was forced to sell the home I grew up in for a pittance because she could no longer afford the property taxes. (She got ripped, BTW, selling the property for less than 1/3rd of its actual value. She didn't tell me or my brothers about any of this until it was too late, so there was nothing any of us could do about it.)

So, yeah, my heart bleeds for anyone who finds themselves homeless because they could no longer afford to pay their property taxes, but what are those property taxes going for? How much of the taxes are going for things like improvements to the wages of city employees, how much are going to improve roads, etc.? Those are all, IMHO, reasonable expenditures for tax dollars. They benefit the entire community. Your link to the artist complaining about the level of property taxes in Austin, Texas doesn't discuss what's been spent on things like making sure the high school football team has things like cushy buses to ride on, etc. Remember, high school football in Texas, is a goddamned religion. Yes, there are benefits to supporting athletics in schools, but when that support comes at the expense of academics (and you'd better believe it does in many school districts around the country), then it is a detriment to society. When we can have an honest discussion about what tax dollars go for (Do we really need "friendlier" street signs?), then we can make progress in how our tax dollars are spent.

With all due respect to you folks that have worked in food service...don't go there. If you screw up, somebody gets a free meal. You ma get yelled at.

If a Dispatcher screws up, people die. Apples and comets, folks.

Don't we go on about this over teachers regularly?