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Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

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Re: Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

#181

Post by moreira »

jkhdigital wrote: post #168
lmilcin wrote: post #59

I agree that minimum wages are too low but the argument that wages should track productivity is false from economical point of view, in my opinion. The argument would be true if how people contribute to economy did not change. But over time disparity in contribution to economy changed. Hundred years ago people had very similar jobs, mostly physical, manual, where each would contribute rather similarly. Nowadays compa…

If the goal is minimum standard of living, then the minimum wage is a stupid way to achieve this. Just give people money if their income is below a threshold. Why introduce this bizarre distortion in labor markets by setting a price floor on labor? I’m not going to cite anything so feel free to ignore this statement, but I’ve encountered a substantial body of evidence indicating that the minimum wage hits teen unempl…

In the UK at least, there is a separate minimum wage for people under different ages. Teens have a much much lower minimum wage precisely because of what you just said.

Re: Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

#182

Post by pydry »

BobbyJo wrote: post #137
pydry wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's both. Productivity has a very direct effect on the minimum amount they need to attract workers. Productivity only puts a ceiling on the amount they'd be prepared to pay for a worker. It doesn't affect the minimum amount required to attract them. That's determined by competition (i.e. who else is out there) and leverage (how much they need the job). This is why business leaders lobby hard to reduce public sector…

Your second paragraph refutes your first. Productivity is an input to the supply of competition, so it does more than create a ceiling, it also serves as an upward force on the floor. Do business leaders lobby to reduce public sector wages and benefits? That's not something I've heard before. In any case, whether or not there is competition from the government, if there is a gap between productivity and wages, then t…

How is productivity an input to competition among the minimum waged?

Re: Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

#183

Post by black_13 »

Jensson wrote: post #180
black_13 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And anyone can do javascript.

Companies wouldn't pay people who can do javascript six figure salaries if anyone could do javascript. Even if anyone could be trained to do javascript, that training still limits who you can hire to do the work today. Unskilled jobs means they require near zero training to do it, so a random person off the streets would deliver value within hours of starting.

Look i see constant arguments from how some guy cant do his start up without h1b labor. Here is what sets the limits : a fucking law. Frankly if it was possible and there would be slaves doind software development the only thing that keeps that from happening is the rule of law.

Re: Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

#184

Post by black_13 »

All the arguments about “no training” are wrong when a citizen shows up they had 12 years of training. They can presumably read write do basic arithmetic and reasonably socialized and understand a social hierarchy. The public school system did this an having a 28 dollar minimum wage would mean you would have the taxes from those from everyone making at least 28 dollars an hour. But saying they have “no training” is a lie and does a disservice to all the teachers and parents that got this person ready to work.

Re: Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

#185

Post by Jensson »

black_13 wrote: post #183
Jensson wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies wouldn't pay people who can do javascript six figure salaries if anyone could do javascript. Even if anyone could be trained to do javascript, that training still limits who you can hire to do the work today. Unskilled jobs means they require near zero training to do it, so a random person off the streets would deliver value within hours of starting.

Look i see constant arguments from how some guy cant do his start up without h1b labor. Here is what sets the limits : a fucking law. Frankly if it was possible and there would be slaves doind software development the only thing that keeps that from happening is the rule of law.

Why would they hire H1B when they could just go to the nearest McDonalds and poach the cashiers to write javascript? It isn't like the cashiers need a visa to work in USA.

The reason of course is that those cashiers can't write javascript. Meaning, not everyone can write javascript, you have to admit it requires at least a bit of training so it isn't an unskilled job.

Edit: And yes, I agree, company owners are very greedy. They wouldn't pay that much money to get people to write Javascript unless they had to. If they could pay minimum wage and still get code written they would. Hence we must conclude that you can't just take anyone and make them write javascript, since if you could companies would already do that. Hence javascript is not unskilled labor as you suggested before. Every job that pays more than minimum wage is thanks to labor shortage in that sector, if there isn't a labor shortage it means that companies doesn't have to compete for labor so there is no reason to pay more than minimum wage.

Re: Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

#186

Post by syshum »

varnaud wrote: post #169
syshum wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> FEE opposed the Marshall Plan, Social Security and minimum wages, among other American social and economic policies. AS do I, in a sane world, with a sane court none of those would be constitutional as they are completely outside the scope of the powers granted to the federal government. FDR had to literally extort the court to get them stop striking them down >>Yikes. Good rebuttal to all the points, you have con…

Yikes... But no seriously, you oppose social security and the minimum wage? We should let corporations exploit workers as much as they please and provide no care for the ones who can't work? What the conservative libertarian says: >Personal responsibility! The free market will fix everything if only it was truly free! Charity will provide for the miserables! Real capitalism was never tried, we just need less governme…

>> you oppose social security and the minimum wage? We should let corporations exploit workers as much as they please and provide no care for the ones who can't wor

At the federal level yes. State level is a different matter

See I am originalist when it comes to the constitution, and I see nothing in Article 1 Section 8 that grants the federal government the power to set a minimum wage, or provide for social security. I dont believe it is wise to simply ignore the constitution when it inconvenient to political goals

If the federal government needs the power the proper channel do that is via a constitutional amendment that would grant said power

Further on Social Security, I would actually go farther. I believe the execution of Social Security is highly unethical as is the funding source for it (income taxation). For public finance I support a Henry George Style single tax system. Such a system would not only be completely constitutional it would enable either a UBI or a Friedman style negative income tax that would serve not only for elder care, but also the poor in a way that is not unethical (like income tax clearly is) and is not unconstitutional

You have also incorrectly attributed me as being conservative libertarian. While it is true socially I am libertarian, economically when it comes to public finance I ascribe to Georgism making me Geo-Libertarian, not conservative libertarian.

I support a VERY VERY limited government, distributed in power where the most impactful government to an individual should be as close tot hat individual as possible, as such I believe most things should be done at the city, county and state level. With very little being done at a Federal Level.

I believe income based taxation is unethical and is akin to labor theft that in other context would be viewed as a form of slavery.

I believe socialism is untenable as an economic construct that has always and will always fail unless we get to the point where we have Star Trek levels of technology and resources are with out most limits. However while we are constrained to this planet, with a limited set of resources socialism can never work. Socialism @ our technology level will falter when a community gets to be about 100-200 people. Small socialist communities can work, large ones cant, national ones generally devolve to mass suffering and death

Re: Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

#187

Post by dnautics »

BuckRogers wrote: post #98
dnautics wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Instead of the employer/owner running your gas station, the employees that actually work it have 1 share each." This is laughably naive. The power, then, devolves to whosoever authority gets to conjure the legal definition of "actual work". How can I be that person, and how can then use my power to enrich my friends and cronies and screw BuckRogers over? After all, all employees are equal, but some employees are equ…

Calling the idea "laughably naive" doesn't seem appropriate when many businesses today are ran this way, some of them producing billions of dollars a year. That makes me question your age, as anyone with some life experience knows about worker co-ops. They're all over the western world. GE and Microsoft are fully aware of them, they've researched this extensively, sending representatives around the globe to figure ou…

nobody is saying that NO companies should be run that way. I have a lot of respect for worker co-ops. But to say that ALL companies should be run that way is silly. Look at the companies where co-ops are successful: They have either 1) very predictable revenue streams or 2) are in an enterprise where there are almost no material costs (costs are entirely personnel or upkeep/personnel-infra costs).

In this universe are often high-capital-expenditure endeavours. You WANT the wealthy to take the risk on those, and not the workers.

For example, a co-op of 20 needs a million dollars to create a factory to build widget X. Where does this co-op get the money from?

What happens when widget X fails? Are the losses evenly distributed among the co-op members?

What co-op-ing everything winds up doing, in effect, is either 1) socializing the losses of adventures of politically-connected "wantrepreneurs" who are adept at converting political capital, or 2) making participating in risky ventures only accessible to the economically wealthy.

So in the long run enforcing it is likely to cause more economic disparity, not less.

Re: Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

#188

Post by timbit42 »

frankbreetz wrote: post #127
BurningFrog wrote: post #120

Whenever a minimum wage argument uses 1968, you know you don't need to take it too seriously. That was an outlier year with the highest historical value. First Google graph: https://www.today.com/money/good-graph-friday-minimum-wage-w...

1968 appears to be when the correlation between minimum wage growth and productivity growth stopped. You could use any year between the late 40s and early 70s (it's hard to be precise with the chart in the article) and you would get a similar result.

This is when gold was decoupled from the dollar and money printing began.

Re: Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

#189

Post by fred_is_fred »

sophacles wrote: post #105
fred_is_fred wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If lower-paid people had more income they would be paying down debt, buying a better used car, paying for daycare, and maybe going on a trip or to. Personal shoppers and life coaches I think kick in a lot higher than you do.

At first they would pay down debt, and buy a car that actually works, and other stuff that should have always just been available to them. Once that debt is paid off, and the car is not a constant source of worry - they have money to do those other things. For example going on a trip is the same type of "luxury" as shoppers, life coaches, etc - its spending money on something other survival.

I make probably 5x US median income and I've never paid for a life coach or personal shopper and I never will. I think you may be applying some Bay Area logic to the average American.

Re: Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity

#190

Post by BobbyJo »

ashtonkem wrote: post #176
BobbyJo wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your second paragraph refutes your first. Productivity is an input to the supply of competition, so it does more than create a ceiling, it also serves as an upward force on the floor. Do business leaders lobby to reduce public sector wages and benefits? That's not something I've heard before. In any case, whether or not there is competition from the government, if there is a gap between productivity and wages, then t…

> Productivity is an input to the supply of competition, so it does more than create a ceiling, it also serves as an upward force on the floor. This is trivially disprovable. Did grocery stores increase the wages of their clerks once self checkout was a thing, or did they keep wages the same and lay off some of them? Productivity only affects wages when there’s competition for labor, not when there’s competition for…

> This is trivially disprovable. Did grocery stores increase the wages of their clerks once self checkout was a thing, or did they keep wages the same and lay off some of them?

That doesn't disprove anything. Productivity is an input to and has an effect on demand, but it's not the only factor. It doesn't need to be the only factor to matter. Lots of things matter. Economics is a complex field.

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