241–250 of 776 posts
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Assuming a perfectly spherical cow...
That's kinda the point. We define what a spherical cow is to be able to compare the real world against it. The problem for economists is that lay persons take that spherical cow to be truth and base whole ideological systems on those spherical cow.
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Is the freedom to accept a contract for poverty wages to avoid starvation a desirable feature in our society?
If labor costs less products as a result cost less. How do you reconcile your view with the success of Singapore? A country with no minimum wage and a comparatively free market. There is income disparity in every time and every place. The question to ask is do the rules of the game allow anybody to succeed. Minimum wage is a rule that says some people just don't get to play.
> Textbooks state that, in the absence of a minimum wage, a worker is paid his “marginal product of labour”, which means the value of what he produces. > Just as a monopolist can set prices higher than would be the case in a competitive market, a monopsonist can set prices artificially lower. A lot of economic arguments forget these ideas. The labor market is not a free market: companies have more power in negotiatio…
Minimum wage jobs should not be expected to be a long term viable career choice. Minimum wage jobs are a way for people to get their first experience, and then move one once they have gained valuable skills.
People like to twist reality by imposing arbitrary constraints e.g. workers need to be able to get paid 15 dollars an hour without needing to relocate or learn new skills. The world isn't a charity, and anyone disputing that price floors don't result in shortages is frankly uneducated.
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> companies have more power in negotiation, they have more information You're just asserting this without any argument or evidence. > and, most important of all, they can deal with a job opening not being covered most of the time. Workers can't usually live too much without finding a job. Workers don't specifically need a job at that company. Even if they need a job, they can go work somewhere else. And if that isn't…
>> Workers don't specifically need a job at that company. Even if they need a job, they can go work somewhere else. And if that isn't the case, you have bigger problems than minimum wage. This works in a theoretical perfect competition in an economics textbook. In real life people have financial handcuffs (vesting periods, mandatory option execution/abandonment on job exit), school districts for children, underwater…
We're talking about minimum wage jobs. None of that applies.
> school districts for children, underwater mortgages, 10% gross transaction fees on home sales/purchases.
Nobody says you have to move. Take a job from another employer in the same city.
Also, again, minimum wage employees? Typically not homeowners.
The only politically feasible alternative is increased welfare spending, which means a low minimum wage is just a way to have taxpayers cover employers’ labor costs. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/02/13/ron_unz_h...
Or a high minimum wage is a way to have employers cover the government’s welfare costs? Who really should front the bill for low earners to live above poverty, and why?
Specifically in the case of walmart, they CAN pay their employees a living wage. They drain about 6-7 billion from taxpayers (1) by way of workers on assistance. From 2006-2020 walmart has made over 10 billion/year every year except two (9ish billion and 6ish billion) (2)
(1) https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-...
(2) https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/net-in...
The direct effect of the minimum wage is to make certain low-productivity jobs illegal . Consider that for a moment: a person with limited skills and/or needs is simply prohibited from doing low-productivity work regardless of desire. The counter-argument is that many workers do not have a choice; they will always accept wages vs nothing, but have no power or ability to negotiate. With a minimum wage we've made the d…
I realize you're trying to say minimum wages limit economic opportunity for ad-hoc and casual labor that the poorest rely on. But you've fatally damaged your argument by presenting it in an untruthful way.
(can't read the article, but I've read and thought a lot about it) I'm on the fence about the net cost/benefit of localized minimum wages. I think that a federal minimum wage (or at least, a high one), and to some extent, state minimum wages, are a bad idea. The Fight for $15 movement came from expensive cities, and it might be the right policy for those places. But it would severely distort and crush lower-cost citi…
>The Fight for $15 movement came from expensive cities, and it might be the right policy for those places. But it would severely distort and crush lower-cost cities and states. The right policy for San Francisco isn't necessarily right for Birmingham. Your point is a valid one. At the same time, if you look at how these numbers actually play out in reality, $15/hour (assuming 40 hours/week -- certainly not a given an…
for comparison, I make quite a bit more than $15/hr, but $2100/month is pretty close to what it costs me to live a nice life in one of the most desirable neighborhoods in my city. I spend closer to $2500 in a typical month, but $200 of that is because I chose a nice apartment with a good view, and I could probably shave off another $200-300 by not shopping at whole foods and downgrading the alcohol I buy. a year ago, I was living in a detached home (with a driveway!) in the county with three other people and my monthly spending was well under $2000.
so imo, $15/hr is more than enough as an absolute floor for wages in most locales. probably not enough to support an entire household with n children on a single income, but I don't think that's a reasonable expectation for a minimum wage.
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Indeed we should - demand the repeal of Taft–Hartley Act and other laws which have nerfed collective bargaining power far from any "natural" point. Jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns are all part of the freedom to negotiate the terms of our employment,…
I can't tell if you're saying that sarcastically, but I do agree unironically.
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Walmart eliminated all greeters last year.
And yet this year I see people standing outside the front door with a box of masks, ensuring everyone is masked before entering, and greeting people at the same time.