************** excerpt ************ There are two problems. First, real wages for young Americans with a bachelor's degree have declined by almost 8% over the past three years. Nobody knows the reason for sure, but some economists suspect that global competition has something to do with it.
*************************************
From a left wing pinko rag??? Try Business Week for rest of article see
formatting link
Unka' George (George McDuffee) .............................. Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be "too clever by half." The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.
John Major (b. 1943), British Conservative politician, prime minister. Quoted in: Observer (London, 7 July 1991).
Yeah, but you missed the real reason for decline in wages. Wanna guess ? Hey! I'm pecking on one right now. It is the PC !!!! It all goes back to "supply and demand" economy. Now-a-days just about any clerk who can memorize the location of few plastic pads on a keyboard and maybe a dozen "buzz words" is an engineer.
80% of the US thinks that the minimum wage is a good idea.
That many probably think that 3.2% alcohol is one of beers ingredients unchanged with water added to the glass. The concept of a ratio is beyond most.
Likewise concepts needed for associating the lost jobs and downsized or bankrupt companies are beyond the average person's grasp of minimum wage.
Government interference with price ceiling cause a surplus and price limits create a shortage. It has been that way for thousands of years. The popularity of the interference is well grounded in ignorance, and is beyond the moral or intellectual judgment of politicians.
In the early 70's senior US Senator Scoop Jackson said, ~ If anyone thinks that higher prices will reduce gas consumption if prices go up, they are crazy. ~
But some get it, to quote William Buckley, "The demand is not constant."
Likewise, when a teen age gardener costs more, we will hire less of them. More teen age gardeners will be out of work. They can do breaking and entering instead. Thank you, minimum wage.
============ And just how does the minimum wage level cause a 8% reduction in new collage graduate [4 year] compensation in 3 years, particularly as the MW has not changed, other than due to inflation, and then it dropped?
FWIW -- I have run a regression analysis of national unemployment data by month from 1954 [earliest available] through sept 2006, against month number [to track systemic/ general change], the cpiu adjusted constant value minimum wage and political party of the president. There is no general trend with time, and there is no correlation with the cpiu adjusted [CV] minimum wage. The only statistically significant correlation is the political party of the president.
for download [xls format] click on
formatting link
or goto
formatting link
for this data file and other neat stuff.
The seasonally adjusted average/aggregate unemployment rate is
4.75% and a Republican president results in an additional 0.6% unemployment on the average. Similar results are obtained for the base/unadjusted unemployment data and the probit transforms.
While it sounds good that a higher minimum wage results in more unemployment in the aggregate, 52 years worth of data does not support this.
If low wages are good for the people on the bottom and the economy, low wages on the top for the ceos should be even better for them and the economy, say a 200k$ per year cap. (More than the POTUS makes)
Unka' George (George McDuffee) .............................. Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be "too clever by half." The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.
John Major (b. 1943), British Conservative politician, prime minister. Quoted in: Observer (London, 7 July 1991).
Its all over in 10 years . Educational institutions will disappear in about 6 years . The USA will print a $1000 bill in 2013 , Unemployment will be so hi , govt will no longer keep track .
But its all for the better ........to improve human existance .
After the govt is no longer able to BUY its way back into power , it will evaporate . No police , no border gaurds , no smoke stacks , no Detroit Mechigan , no NYC .... Only rich allowed ! You will learn how to make $$ in a pure supply/demand market or you will find a job in Honduras !
in about 2018 , the USA will have lost 250 MILLION people ALL refugees ! All because the govt has been making phony jobs ! Buying another day ...... No govt , no more jobs ..
The genes of ALL poor people will END in 100 years . Those Rich , will pay the females to cut tubes . The Rich will typ have 3 or 4 GF's and they will tell the female if they are wanting children . That female is told not to cut her tubes . There is NO divorce , no written law ....He is law . There will be NO blacks nor browns nor Asians on earth . This , because the "freeing" of the white male .
He gets rich , he buys land , he buys more land to get richer and richer ( no govts to slow him ) he buys sterilization of all black and brown females he buys their country for 38 Billion $ , he sends them off to another African country , later bought by his neighbor .....
This IS reality ! Its science !
We will compete ( natural competition ) , everyone of us , everyday .
we will live here for another 100,000 years , w/o govts , w/o religion , w/o marriage , w/o divorce , w/o overpopulation ,
No Doctors ( health is perfect by natural gene improvement ) No freeways . all travel by train . No TV , life is too good to waste sitting in a chair ! Homes are spaced 1 mile apart ( Rich ppl )
No one complains . Bad ideas are punished .
To survive , you must establish a very good reputation . You must convince your peers you are very productive ,
You are preaching to the choir there, I never bought Disney stock in the 1990s, as I did not want my profits going to Eisner at 100 times the rate a better leader would have been hired.
Stock holders get screwed by CEO wages many multiples higher than it would cost for better men.
That is industry's fault.
The public's minimum wage ignorance is the medias fault. The minimum wage existence is the fault of silly populist politicians.
When did a raise in the minimum wage ever hurt the economy, Clark? That's just a scare tactic used by business for the past 50 years. The public is wise to it now. That's why they support it -- even though it has nothing to do with the income that most of them enjoy.
It does not hurt the economy, Ed, as much as it hurts the marginal business and employees that can not work when the minimum wage is imposed.
If the minimum wage were a trillion dollars an hour, no one would have any work. [That would wreck the economy, if it were not for the underground economy and our armed citizenry.] It is a monotonically decreasing function of trouble all the way down from a trillion dollar interference with the labor market to interfering with the market by one penny.
Today, illegal aliens that do not speak English standing in front of Home Depot every morning get a market rate of $15/hour. Those that do not get jobs because of minimum wage market interference are almost all teen agers that live with their parents.
When the liberals bar those teen agers from work with a minimum wage law, they can find underground work as prostitutes, shop lifters, or crack corner look outs. When they go to prison, the will make good victims for MSNBC.
=================== Where's the data that this is the case? As Will Rogers observed "It ain't what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you know that just ain't so." While this seems plausible, without data it remains conjecture.
Using the BLS data for the last 52 years, it can be demonstrated that there is *NO* correlation between the national/aggregated inflation adjusted [CV$] per hour minimum wage and the unemployment level. (FWIW - the peak minimum wage in September
2006 CPI-U dollars was $9.49/hr in Feb 1968. If we could pay it then, why can't we pay that now?)
Here we have a problematique, that is two [or more] contradictory conclusions can logically be reached from the same starting facts and assumptions. Traditionally this has been regarded as a disaster, but in fact problematique resolution offers good opportunities for insight into tacit/covert, even subliminal, assumptions, multiple meanings for the same word, and multiple words with the same meaning.
In any [urban] area, there is a "fixed cost" per resident for things such as public safety, public health, and education, etc. When a resident makes so little they are unable to pay this "fixed cost" in taxes, the other residents (possibly in other states through Federal cost shifting) must pay more. Other subsidy costs include public housing, food stamps, and even NGO food banks and clinics.
There would be cries of outrage if it were discovered that the utility companies were providing electricity and gas at rates below their cost of production to the "marginal businesses," and were charging the profitable business more to make up the shortfall. The same reasoning applies to materials, machines, consumable tooling, and all other business inputs.
Why then is the general public expected to subsidize labor costs so that marginal businesses paying marginal wages exist? People with no money and no health insurance still get sick and get old. As a society and nation we do not [yet] allow them to die in the streets, but rather provide health care through our emergency rooms and social security. Not only does this cost huge sums of money [e.g. a major portion of all hospital budgets is un-reimbursed charity care] but also clogs our emergency medical facilities with routine health care, and has resulted in death for the "real" emergency cases, such as heart attacks.
In too many cases the myth of small business job creation is based on these "subsidies" and "externalized costs," and the businesses and jobs they create is actually a sump into which the economy must continually pump money.
Indeed, IMNSHO it appears that there should be a law that corporations and companies that are unprofitable, e.g. pay no net Federal income taxes for any consecutive three year period, automatically go into Chapter 7 liquidation (e.g. Ford and General Motors).
To put it another way, if your business, over 3 to 5 years, is not a net contributor to the area economy, we don't need/want your company in our community. This is true whether you can't or won't pay a living wage, or are providing a destructive good or service such as crack cocaine, gambling, or prostitution, although these have traditionally provided considerable "employment." These are in fact net negatives for the CDP [Community Domestic Product], and thus we can improve the CDP by simply emiminating these activities.
The problematique resolution seems to be that you reach one conclusion from the point of view of the individual small business owner and quite another from the perspective of the entire community when everything [all costs, quality-of-life, etc.] is included.
Unka' George (George McDuffee) .............................. Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be "too clever by half." The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.
John Major (b. 1943), British Conservative politician, prime minister. Quoted in: Observer (London, 7 July 1991).
A majority of economists believe that raising the minimum wage hurts the economy. If raising the minimum wage is great why not raise it to something like $1000/ hour. It should be obvious to the most casual observer that raising the minimum wage helps not the minimum wage earner as much as those that do skilled labor. For example when I was working at building houses, the minimum wage was about $3. and a backhoe cost about $18 dollars an hour or 6 times what a manual laborer cost. Raising the minimum wage meant we hired a backhoe instead of a laborer. When the minimum wage went up, so did the cost of a backhoe. It helped the backhoe operator and hurt the manual laborer.
The only time raising the minimum wage does not hurt the economy , is when the mimimum wage is way below what the actual price for unskilled labor.
Washington State has the highest minimum wage and New York has the second highest minimum wage. Raising the federal minimum wage will mean that Washington State and New York will be more competitive than they are now. New York really needs the help as the population of New York is going down because companies in New York have a much harder time competing.
Just because they are unprofitable doesn't mean there is no positive influence on the community. How much money are they paying to employees in that community? How much in taxes are the employees paying?
I'd be in favor of a minimum wage that gets automatically adjusted for inflation. Do liberals want such a thing or do they prefer the current situation? The way it is now, they can bring up the minimum wage topic whenever they need it for political purposes. GW
Actually, tieing it to the COL was the big battle the conservatives put up in districts that had it on the ballot..CO and another state IIRC? Claimed if it were adjusted automatically, it could end up at $50 an hour and put people out of business (manure shovel time!) Your comment shows that you are in such "blame lefty" mode that you got off track on the subject.
As has been stated here several times, the fact is that a nominal increase DOESN"T kill the economy and there is some evidence that the economy even gets better after. Yes, there are some poor business people who will be hurt but the majority see no problems relative to their competitors. Everyone is in the same boat (excluding imports but that's another subject).
There are some decent arguments to be made for NOT raising it..We already know that killing the economy is historically inacurate as is broad death of small businesses...What else ya got? I'm actually interested (gawd that sounds like I'm trolling but I LIKE to hear thoughtful arguments from the other side...can't learn unless I listen)
I don't have anything against a reasonable minimum wage. Those high school kids work hard down at McDonalds. I do, however, get the "feeling" that sometimes the left doesn't want a problem solved by a president with an R in front of his name. For example, the way they dug in their heels over the proposals for saving Social Security. As I remember, Bush's proposal was actually taken from a liberal who wanted to get a lot of the money from "the rich". I thought they wanted that but NOOOOO. They came up with this "privatization" slogan. I know that there were bad points to letting people voluntarily invest a small portion of SS but it just seemed like the Dems didn't even want to work things out. Kinda like if someone was going to save Social Security they sure wouldn't let it be a Republican. Call me a righty blaming lefty if you want but that's the way it seemed. You don't suppose that our leaders would actually put politics ahead of the good of the country, do you?
=========== Again with the high class baffle gas from the astrologers, er.. economists. We are literally killing people and communities based on a theory and baffle gas.
Where is the data? What are the coefficients of regression? What is the F-ratio? If no correlations can be found in the data between un- or lower employment and higher minimum wages, there is nothing to discuss except the "invidious comparison" streak in management. If you don't know what "invidious comparison is, its the attitude that if you have less [than I do], then I'm better off.
Unka' George (George McDuffee) .............................. Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be "too clever by half." The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.
John Major (b. 1943), British Conservative politician, prime minister. Quoted in: Observer (London, 7 July 1991).
Didn't you know that if you say anything against capitalism or the American business community you are automatically labeled a lefty, commie, pinko, anti-American?
No it's not. It is the result of experience. We have tried both. For most of the country's history there was no minimum wage. Then in the early 20th century it was created. A look at history shows that far more people are better off when a minimum wage is mandated than without one. You can make all the ideological statements you want about how it's unnecessary in a free market economy but we already tried it and not very successfully, number one, and number two, there is no such thing as a free market economy any more. Without the minimum wage businesses exploit too many weak and helpless people. As a people we don't believe in allowing people to live below certain standards. By mandating a bare minimum it ameliorates the worst proclivities of unethical businesses, of which we have ample experience with. Appeals to the invisible hand of the "free market" are pretty silly nowadays and that is all being against a minimum wage is offering.
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.