Is anyone pushing for lowering minimum wage to help lower unemployment %. As a small business owner I have a hard time hiring an unskilled laborer at $8 dollars put I would consider hiring 2 at $5. Wouldn't that be a controversial campaign message! LOWER MINIMUM WAGE 2010!
"It takes a revolution, to make a solution. Too much confusion, so much frustration" Bob Marley
I say get rid of minimum wage COMPLETELY
There would be literally millions more jobs available and much lower prices on goods and services to consumers.
The Heart of Conservatism is Libertarianism - Ronald Reagan
As much as I'd like to comletely eliminate minimum wage, that wouldn't be a position you could campaign on no matter how much logic you use.
People don't use logic when they elect someone. They only want to elect someone who will give them more materially. Even if you explain to them that it would improve the economy and create more jobs, people would just blabber on about "OMG YOU HATE POOR PEOPLE!".
"Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces."-Étienne de La Boétie
Half the issues you take libertarian stances on you can't compaign on. That's how $#@!ed up the country is....Originally Posted by Vessol
If everyone took economics there wouldn't have ever been a minimum wage to begin with. One of the worst ideas in the last century.
The Heart of Conservatism is Libertarianism - Ronald Reagan
Minimum wage is an example of an issue that is hard to repeal once it is passed because of the "social meaning" to sheeple that don't understand economics. It would be very hard to explain to someone working at McDonalds why we want to pay them less.
Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito
Illegal aliens work for $25-30 for a 10 hour day. Some of them a very skilled. Otherwise, I don't know how you would get someone at $5.00 an hour unless you paid them a salary.
"..and on Earth anguish of nations, not knowing the way out...while men become faint out of fear and expectation of the things coming upon the inhabited Earth." -- Jesus of Nazareth
I am not so sure that it will not work in all situations. For instance, I was able to convince some people in my econ class that eliminating minimum wage would increase jobs and overall prosperity (even for poor people), using the crystal clear economic logic that everyone on this board understands. I did not even bring out the fact that price levels would be lower overall, either. Right now I think would be the perfect time for a debate on minimum wage in states and regions where unemployment is the highest. While debating on principle that there should be no minimum wage should be the number one priority, I think that we need to also say that a decrease in the minimum wage would show some benefits and is a good first step towards possible elimination.
http://www.ronpaul2012.com/
But what about that high school kid who gets a summer job and is being paid 2 dollars an hour. He'll make absolutely no money! And what if he never gets a raise, how is he supposed to make any decent money like that?
Doesnt the minimum wage somewhat protect the less skilled work force by setting that number where they cant make less?
Repealing the minimum wage at this point would be very difficult not just for the social aspect but for the economic one as well. Prices would not go down as fast as the cost to produce goods, so people that got pay cuts would have a VERY difficult time buying things for a while. That would hurt the economy very badly and put a lot of people in a bad situation. At this point, the best thing to do would be to just stop raising the minimum wage and keep it where it is.
However, there are practically no jobs for those types of people right now because of the minimum wage. If we eliminated the minimum wage, then McD's could start hiring for a few bucks/hr again, and the meals would then cost less because it is cheaper to produce their products. The same goes for pretty much every low-end retail/service business. Prices can be significantly cut due to decreased costs in the factors of production for these businesses, which is where teenagers and other low-paid workers shop primarily anyway.
The primary consequence of eliminating the minimum wage will be to move a significant number of impoverished, non-working individuals into working poor status, which will increase overall societal prosperity.
http://www.ronpaul2012.com/
Suppose the minimum wage is $7. Suppose the productivity of the kid is worth $6 an hour for the company. The company can hire him for $6 an hour. Above that, they lose money. They won't hire the kid.
The effect of a $7 minimum wage is that all people whose productivity is worth less than $7 per hour won't get hired. And the people who would've been hired, even for two bucks, would've gained experience and skills to get better jobs in the future, but they cannot join the job market due to the minimum wage.
In short, the minimum wage makes it illegal for low skilled workers to get jobs. (more specifically, workers whose productivity per hour worth is below the minimum wage)
Last edited by low preference guy; 08-03-2010 at 09:57 PM.
Why when we can just keep extending unemployment benefits?
*common liberal response*
im all for it
This is where a conservative libertarian approach differs from a radical libertarian one. The radical libertarian wants to have a revolution and overthrow the system overnight. The conservative understands that rapid change leads to social anarchy and total disorder that can only make things worse, not better, as per the French Revolution (out of which the modern conservative movement sprang). It is much better to stop the downward slide to socialism, and then to gradually move back into a republican commonwealth.
http://www.ronpaul2012.com/
Here is a video of Schiff discussing minimum wage, very good and insightful as to the unintended consequences to a law that is supposed to help people.
YouTube - The Minimum wage argument & SchiffForSenate.com
YouTube - American Samoa: The real story 60 Minutes missed
Prove it.
Would you work for 2 dollars an hour? Probably not I doubt anyone would. But you might bag groceries for 5 and hour, but by law a business has to pay you 7.25 so the business says "Oh well, cant afford that, Ill just make my cashiers bag groceries" and there is a job eliminated by the minimum wage. Sure, 5 bucks aint much, but your just bagging groceries. I bagged groceries in high school, now those jobs dont even exist anymore. And they wonder why teens are out selling weed and coke?
abolish the minimum wage
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hornberge...berger180.html
if wages go down far enough, people might stop looking for employment and start entrepreneurial activities, which would add goods/services to the economy, thus enhancing our standard of living.
That is a matter of simple economics. The product being produced at the new costs for labor will not hit the market until after the labor costs have been reduced. Similar to the reason why we have not had prices increase two or three times since the money supply has been increased by that much: That money hasn't fully hit the market yet. Otherwise, we'd already be in hyperinflation due to the upwards spiral.
http://www.ronpaul2012.com/
I just don't know what went wrong!
Nearby where I live, there's a part time employment office called Labor Ready. Workers are supposed to show up at 5:30 AM, sign in, then be on call for several hours until a construction company or whatever calls up the company and says they need somebody. I know this because I went there one time earlier this year (after getting fired from another job and needing rent money) and waited 3 hours for work before saying "$#@! it" and leaving (and never showing up again), but plenty of others continued to sit and wait.
Min. wage where I live is $8.40. Let's say somebody got a gig for the day after hour 3 and did 4 a four hour job (I believe you'd get paid for a minimum a four hours as jobs can sometimes be done more quickly - such as a moving job). For simplicity's sake, we'll say someone actually did work 4 hours after waiting for 3, so that's a total of 7 hours of your time (not counting transportation). 4 hr x 8.40 = 33.60. 33.60/7 hr = $4.80 per hour of your time (and that's assuming you didn't wait more than 3 hours).
If someone else was offering $5 hr and said you wouldn't have to wait around for work but agreed to pay a minimum of 4 hrs/day, you'd only be making $20 a day instead of 33.60, but you'd be making more per hour, so suddenly $5 hr doesn't sound so bad. And let's say there was an employer who sweetened this $5 an hour pot by offering a fixed location every day (which you'd be more likely to accept if it was near your home) and a 40 hour week with a fixed schedule. No more jackassing to the employment office as 5:30 AM every day and then jackassing over to wherever the hell it is that they send you (and that's IF they have somewhere to send you at all that particular day). No more waiting around every for work. Suddenly $5/hour is starting to sound pretty damn palatable.
So in summary, yes I do think you'd likely be able to find a legal resident resident ready and eager to work for $5.
I hate to say it but, we could leave everyone at the current min wage alone, but any new employees would be subject to the lower min wage, just to soften the public perception. Or would that be discrimination of some sort.
"It takes a revolution, to make a solution. Too much confusion, so much frustration" Bob Marley
That makes sense as long as businesses don't anticipate the reduced income of buyers. If the wages were lowered, a good business man would know that reduced income reduces demand which reduces the price. Then he would reduce the price accordingly to maximize his profit.
Last edited by mediahasyou; 08-03-2010 at 10:24 PM.
However, a reduction in the minimum wage would not necessarily reduce demand or income. As someone pointed out earlier, all the minimum wage does is eliminate the jobs for those whose labor is worth less than minimum wage. So, in theory at least, everyone who was working before will get to keep their previous wage (however, they may work somewhere else), and only new people/jobs will get added into the labor market, thus creating a higher average income. This will eventually force prices down because of a lower cost of a factor of production, but it will not happen instantaneously.
http://www.ronpaul2012.com/
For anyone who hasn't even taken an intro-econ class, here's a totally different way of viewing it:
Wealth is simply work done by people. People will only do work and thus create wealth if they get paid i.e. wash dishes at a restaurant if they get a check every 2 weeks.
With a minimum wage, businesses will hire less people, because it costs more to hire them. It's like if you see chocolate bars at the store on sale for 2 cents each, you'll buy 100....but if they're 50 cents each, you might buy 2. Same thing goes for businesses, they'll hire less people AND give each person less hours to work, because it's more expensive.
So in the end you have less people working, and those people not working are instead sitting at home applying for jobs and NOT creating wealth by working.
End result is less wealth for everyone.
This is 1 way to prove minimum wage stops wealth from being created.
I didn't mention the literally millions more jobs available and way lower prices for consumers.
Everything is much more efficient and it benefits the vast majority.
The Heart of Conservatism is Libertarianism - Ronald Reagan
Minimum wage has always been one of my personal pet peeves. I hate the damn thing. The effects it has on the people, the implications implied by it and the principles behind it. BUT we cannot lower/abolish minimum wage without first lowering welfare/unemployment benefits. If we do one, but not the other, people will stay on welfare instead of seekign a job.
Thats just my theory though.
Minimum wage has been a proven deterent to employment for teenagers and other unskilled workers, espeically in the black community. The original minimum wage law was created to keep blacks from being employed because they were willing to work less than whites. By forcing them to take higher wages and be paid the same, many business owners just hired whites instead of blacks.
Last edited by djdellisanti4; 08-03-2010 at 10:46 PM.
Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system. - Bruce Lee
can the crash just happen tomorrow, today's government just sucks. lets expedite the process, have our fat govt get a heart attack and stroke, and start all over.
Wanting the system to collapse... doesn't seem smart.
If the awful set of beliefs most Americans hold drove us to this situation... why would they magically change once the whole social/economic system collapses? What will most likely happen is that the United States as a whole will ingloriously become a third world country. And stay like that.
A few states will implement smart policies and become successful, just like most third world countries have nice/successful cities to live in. But there won't be massive improvement in the country as a whole, and you might die in the transition.
Last edited by low preference guy; 08-15-2010 at 10:53 PM.
Just remember that a repeal of the federal minimum wage won't affect most states that have their own state minimum wage set at near the same level or above.
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