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What harm do minimum wages do?

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Re: What harm do minimum wages do?

#421

Post by jefftk »

nobody9999 wrote: post #412
jefftk wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Figure in the 12%[0] Federal income tax You're forgetting the standard deduction: $12k for an individual. This brings taxable income to $18k. Per https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040tt.pdf that puts tax at $1,929, so $30k becomes $28k after Federal income tax and not $26k.

>You're forgetting the standard deduction: $12k for an individual. This brings taxable income to $18k. Per https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040tt.pdf that puts tax at $1,929, so $30k becomes $28k after Federal income tax and not $26k. A fair point. I'd point out (again) that many folks earning minimum wage don't get 40 hours/week. What's more, once you add in health care costs, not to mention any children or other d…

Children or other dependents will add more deductions, though, and likely qualify you for the earned income tax credit.

Re: What harm do minimum wages do?

#422

Post by ckocagil »

ccffpphh wrote: post #346
ckocagil wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If no one is entitled to anything why did humankind abolish slavery? Child workers? Indentured servitude? Think about it. Indentured servitude is nothing but a contract between two people. By your ideology it should be of no one else's concern. Yet, it is considered slavery and is illegal. Why? Because it turns out life isn't as simple as "you're not entitled to anything". This same sentence has been uttered by peopl…

Yes, the one thing we can all agree on is the right to self. Nobody other than themselves can control their body - by that I mean that no matter what you do, nobody can tell you what to think. You can be brainwashed by force, or conditioned to react a certain way to escape force, but you can never really know what another person thinks. Regardless, one has a right to their body. It is their property. More explicitly,…

>Regardless, one has a right to their body. It is their property.

To what extent? Does this principle apply to indentured servitude? How about work related accidents, should a company be legally required to prevent them? Should a mining company pay compensation for the lung damage sustained by their miners, even though that was not in their contract? How about the environment, does this principle imply I have a right to breathe fresh air? How about drinking water?

>Whether laws exist regarding private property (or the lack thereof), we can define a set of natural rights that any person has regardless of any local, regional, or global laws, constructs, or ideologies.

You can, but it doesn't mean I or anyone else will agree to them.

>We can all agree murder is wrong, rape is wrong, stealing is wrong, slavery is wrong

No, we can't. People used to think slavery was ethical. What changed? Raping and plundering used to be ethical for a victorious army. What changed? Today the majority of the world eats meat, and it is very possible that in a century we will be seen as primitive carnivores.

You are also not defining what constitutes these crimes. Is capital punishment murder? Is it murder to kill an enemy soldier? How about an enemy civilian? How about collateral damage? Is it slavery if a company destroys all your other options, forcing you to work for them on their terms?

Is it unethical for companies to collude and fix prices or wages? Is it unethical when workers do the same? Is it unethical when a company pays the local police to break a strike?

The thought that "you only own your body, and you have to earn everything else" falls down pretty quickly once you look outside that idealistic bubble and see historical or ongoing issues.

Re: What harm do minimum wages do?

#423

Post by throwaway894345 »

AmpsterMan wrote: post #384
throwaway894345 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a straw man in that no one in this thread is arguing that a free market is eminently desirable or otherwise making ideological arguments (contrary to the implication in your post). There's the chance that you weren't talking about "arguments made in this thread" and were simply digressing to "arguments made by other people elsewhere in the world" which is differently bad (off topic). To be clear, I wasn't remark…

Yeah, I was talking to the immediate commenter, not the parent. I can understand where you're coming from with my off-topic comment; it was not intended to imply anything about anyone on the thread as such, nor was it a response to the op. It was just a lament of a frustrated person when it comes to their field of study.

Fair enough, and thanks for the clarification. I empathize with your frustration about bad arguments. :)

Re: What harm do minimum wages do?

#424

Post by Broken_Hippo »

wdn wrote: post #407
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike, say, buying a game, most folks can't just decide not to work. If you need to eat, pay rent, child support, need health insurance, or a slew of other things - you can't say no. You must work. Period. The safety net isn't good enough not to take that minimum wage job, especially if you are a childless adult. The only real thing keeping you from being paid less is minimum wage, and that's there because companies…

No one is saying you shouldn't work at a job where you think it is unfair compensate to your skill sets. What I am saying is this, if I think I worth $50/hr and the only offer I got after 2 months of searching is $10/hour. If I desperately need some income, I will take the job and continue my job search. $10/hr is still better than $0. Next job offer may be $30/hr. Then the next one may be $50 or $60. No one is forci…

It never matters if you think you are worth $50/hour if the skills you have never pay that much in your area. A preschool teacher makes minimum wage or slightly above, despite needing an associates degree. You can be really good, too, but there is only so high that pays. A normal teacher starts out pretty low and if you are in the wrong area, you'll never get paid $50/hr and you'll get lucky to get half that with experience. Lots of jobs never pay a fair wage compared to skill sets. It just doesn't freaking matter most of the time.

The game is rigged. You can be stuck somewhere simply because they have good insurance and your kid is sick. It doesn't matter how good you are. Not everyone can improve themselves in ways that will get them paid more. Even if everyone did this, there are only so many jobs out there and you should hope not to have the disadvantage of wanting free time, time with children, or a health issue that puts any limits on your work.

Re: What harm do minimum wages do?

#425

Post by thomasahle »

umvi wrote: post #398
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #29

Look i get that USA has a lot of billionaires and the GDP per capita looks great for the USA but I want US citizens to please take a look at median wealth per adult and see how far you have to scroll down to find the USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe... This is a great way to rule out outliers. My home country Australia has 3X the median wealth per adult of the USA. This is similar to…

Does that take into account cost of living? In America you can buy a gallon of milk for $1.50 at Walmart. In Australia (after some brief googling[0]) it's more like $4.50. Same with gas, video games, you name it, a lot of things seem to cost 2-4x more in Australia. [0] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?cou...

Yes, you probably want to look at the Purchasing Power Parity Median: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per...

Or the household version: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income

Re: What harm do minimum wages do?

#426

Post by gjulianm »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #315
gjulianm wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you reconcile your view with the success of Singapore? A country general success does not equal the success of its poor people. There are not many income inequality stats of Singapore, but the ones I've seen [1] actually put Singapore with a similar income inequality to the US. Furthermore, it is a small country (5M people) with a pretty high GDP per capita (8th in the world). I don't think you can extract t…

In this discussion a country's population is irrelevant. For a small country with a GDP per capita higher than the United States only 55 years after independence I would say they are doing pretty damn good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... There is no requirement that everybody succeed at the same level. The measure of a country's success is improvement of society over time. Has the gen…

> In this discussion a country's population is irrelevant.

It's not. You'll see that a lot of the top companies in Singapore are operating at global level while headquartered in Singapore. It's a little bit like looking only at the economy of the main US cities.

> There is no requirement that everybody succeed at the same level. The measure of a country's success is improvement of society over time.

Inequality is a pretty important measure. What society is better, one where everybody earns two times a livable wage or another where 25% earn eight times a livable wage and the 75% remaining are in poverty?

Re: What harm do minimum wages do?

#427

Post by macspoofing »

B4CKlash wrote: post #390
macspoofing wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you getting all this stuff from? It's like you're only reading communist blogs where they engage in creating fictitious straw-men of every aspect of a market-based economy. This is not how the world works. >The labor market is not a free market: companies have more power in negotiation That's not what a free market means. And I don't know how you can say companies have more power in negotiation. They post t…

Ironic that you complain about the parent maintaining a particular set of ideology while maintaining a similar set of irrational beliefs... Just looking at your first point. Companies wield an extreme asymmetric information advantage about 'your' specific hiring cohort. They know who has applied to the job, the size, relative experience, and in many cases they know the expected salary range of those individuals. They…

>In today’s model potential employees are required to negotiate with themselves (as a result of being unaware of the qualifications, expected incoming, etc. of the pool). We wonder why salaries remain stagnant...

To be clear, you have no actual basis to believe that asymmetric bargaining power (as you defined it) is the reason for stagnant wages. This is just something you reasoned through and it feels right to you.. correct?

And you just say things ... what do you mean employees are unaware of the market - from other job seekers, to competitive? That is completely untrue. When you're looking for a job, you are very aware of the range of salaries you are expected to be offered for positions you seek. I literally just had someone decline a position because our offer was lower than what they were offered by other local company. Where was this asymmetric advantage you speak of?

I have no idea what CEO pay has to do with anything except that this is a kitchen sink approach to argumentation where you just throw anything against the wall and hope something sticks.

Re: What harm do minimum wages do?

#428

Post by wonnage »

collyw wrote: post #403
CJefferson wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between all the patents, it would be basically impossible to start a new mobile phone company from scratch which made its own chips, for example.

I went looking for a new phone recently, there were brands I hadn't seen before on the shelves. Why you would need your own chips is beyond me, when you can buy them for a pretty small price.

Not wanting to get Huawei-ed?

Re: What harm do minimum wages do?

#429

Post by AnotherGoodName »

umvi wrote: post #398
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #29

Look i get that USA has a lot of billionaires and the GDP per capita looks great for the USA but I want US citizens to please take a look at median wealth per adult and see how far you have to scroll down to find the USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe... This is a great way to rule out outliers. My home country Australia has 3X the median wealth per adult of the USA. This is similar to…

Does that take into account cost of living? In America you can buy a gallon of milk for $1.50 at Walmart. In Australia (after some brief googling[0]) it's more like $4.50. Same with gas, video games, you name it, a lot of things seem to cost 2-4x more in Australia. [0] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?cou...

Not quite that extreme. ~AUD$4 for the fnacy brand which is under USD$3. Less for the loss leader store brands.

Looks like 10% difference in cost of living by official figures but regardless the median wealth being so much higher isn't due to a few percent difference in cost of living or a small difference in average age as some suggested. Australia is objectively doing better on the wealth gap leading to a higher median (but not a higher mean). You can look at USA wealth historically too and see the USAs decline in median wealth over the years (but again mean wealth is doing fine). It all comes down to the thing we all know and have heard a lot. The wealth gap in the USA is increasing a lot. The lowest paid workers are now well into the poverty zone. The arguments against minimum wage are similar to the arguments for Asian clothing sweatshops.

Re: What harm do minimum wages do?

#430

Post by cmrdporcupine »

abvdasker wrote: post #74
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more correct to say that the Marxist (well, labour theory of value) perspective is not that the employer is incentivized as such, but they _have_ to. That the capitalist market _requires_ it or it doesn't work, business won't survive. It's intrinsic to the profit / wage-labour model, even if you switch to something like cooperatives or state ownership. The theory is that surplus value (which can become p…

Thank you for the more precise definition. Broadly I think Hacker News could use a little more discussion of Marx, which is why I brought it up.

Hah, here we go, a few minutes of meaningful conversation and then when I check back in the conversation... downvoted to -1 by a bunch of guys who read Ayn Rand when they were 16 and now know better than everyone. :-) I think that discussion you want will probably have to take place somewhere else.
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