Let's discuss the minimum wage

Since China is taking all the jobs away from us, and virtually every department in Walmart sells alot of Chinese goods, maybe we need to emulate them? According to this site, their highest minimum wage is the equivalent of $73 per month. Lets see, if that is a 160 hours for 4 weeks, which probably isn't correct, as I don't know if they work 40 hours per week or 80, but anyway just assuming 40, as I am sure they would work at least that much, that translates into less than 50 cents per hour.

So if we want to compete in the world market and become successful again, maybe our minimum wage levels are way too high.

http://www.china.org.cn/english/BAT/102190.htm

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Wages alone don't tell the whole story. How about some cost-of-living comparisons?

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DrewDad wrote:

Wages alone don't tell the whole story. How about some cost-of-living comparisons?

Not just cost of living comparisons, labor productivity comparisons too!

If you compare the competitiveness of products and workers, what counts is unit labor cost, not labor cost per hour. For example, suppose a Chinese worker earning a dollar per hour takes ten hours to make a widget. Further suppose that an American worker earning ten dollars per hour takes one hour to make the same widget. In this case, although the Chinese worker's hourly wage is much smaller, both workers are equally competitive: They both work at a unit labor cost of 10 dollars per widget.

If Chinese wages are one tenth of American wages, it's a good guess that American workers are ten times as productive as Chinese workers. Not a certainty, but a good guess.

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DD
Just enjoy this before I print an answer to your above question

America's Workers
Become More Productive
Economists find,
Daily toil seductive.
They give it a name,
They call it ?'productive.'
They say that so great are the national stakes,
We must all labor harder, whatever it takes.

We're told this approach makes all of us richer,
But on this key point, I really must differ.
What economists find so clearly convincing,
Gets me kind of nervous, in fact, has me wincing.

Productivity seen from under the hood,
Where the work's really done, ain't always that good.
Ask yourself what you get, working longer and harder,
A marketplace hero or marketplace martyr?

It's balance we need here, not talking head blather,
To see what's important, what things really matter.
Are world markets now with their fierce competition
Just sinister games of human attrition?

********

©2007 Michael Silverstein

In 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) established a national minimum wage and maximum hour standard. The initial minimum
wage was 25 cents per hour, about 40 percent of the 1938 average manufacturing wage. Today the minimum wage stands at $5.15 an hour, about 33 percent of the 2003 average wage.

Unlike social security payments, the minimum
wage does not automatically increase to keep pace with inflation. Congress must act for it to rise.
Since 1938 Congress has done so 17 times, the
last time in 1996. At times almost a decade has passed between increases. During that time the effective purchasing power of the minimum wage can drop significantly. In real (inflation-adjusted) dollars, the value of the minimum wage peaked in 1968 at $8.46 (in 2003 dollars). Click here for a chart showing the minimum wage in current and constant dollars from 1938 to 2004.

The problem
The minimum wage has not increased in eight years. Its effective buying power has dropped to its lowest level since 1949.

http://www.americanvoice2004.org/minimumwage/index.html

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Rama, to some inhumane people, the poor, including poor workers, are scum to be assiduously ignored or laughed at. There is zero concern for their well-being or futures, or their contributions to the nation. They even joke about these poor people.

These inhumane people, on the other hand, have no problem with CEOs making 1,000 times more than their average employee, or with the elite rich being given wildly disproportionate government tax expenditures.

I guess that, at some point, the poor will organize in some fashion, and we will see discord.

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There you go again, Advocate. I thought the working man was honored in China? Shall we compare the standards of living? And how about comparing working conditions?

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Okie, I guess you saw yourself in my post. BTW, I was talking about the situation here.

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Advocate wrote:

Rama, to some inhumane people, the poor, including poor workers, are scum to be assiduously ignored or laughed at. There is zero concern for their well-being or futures, or their contributions to the nation. They even joke about these poor people.

These inhumane people, on the other hand, have no problem with CEOs making 1,000 times more than their average employee, or with the elite rich being given wildly disproportionate government tax expenditures.

I guess that, at some point, the poor will organize in some fashion, and we will see discord.

You continue to persist in your characterization of how some people might view the poor. Somebody's opinion about the minimum wage for example, or the tax code as another example, is not an indication of how someone views the poor. Has it ever occurred to you that some things, the minimum wage being one example, have unintended consequences when it is intended to help someone? You end up hurting the very people you intend to help. So Your comments are offensive at the very least.

We've discussed this before when you made comments about "scum." Such comments only reveal your own prejudices.

And your comments about the poor organizing is another weird statement. Are you prepared to lead a revolution with the "working class?"

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Excuse me
I wish to die in a land where
the elected/selected/appointed/approved leader
gets enough to live
and help the citizens like Nelson Mandela.
I wish not to live in a soup-kitchen power .
A country, sorry , a powerful country like for example USA
should pay the need based minimum wage for the leader to avoid the war.
Unfortunately the present resident of the LOBBY HOUSE-( i mean white house) is not getting the minimum wage like for example Enron Ceo's or any CEOs not excluding Bill Gate.

I am happy and I wish the same for all.

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In case you missed it, Enron went broke. Eat in a soup kitchen if you want, if thats what makes you happy, but most of us would rather work instead of sittin on our behind.

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Okie
Thanks for your quick-fix retort.
The topic is about minimum wage.
I beg you to stick to the topic

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Okie, save your crocodile tears on the unintended consequences. It's BS and you know it. There have been 18 increases without great consequence. Gee, you may have to pay two cents more for a burger.

Interestingly, when congress banned children from working in factories, the owners testified that this would be the end of our economy.

What about the unintended consequences of our growing plutocracy. I haven't heard a word from you on this.

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Advocate
I care a jot about politics.
I care a lot that one should get a decent admosphere to bite his bread.
NEED BASED minimum wage and nothing else.

Or
Stopping the contagerous rascals pay who manipulate the economy.
A politician works 18 hours perday and get less than the criminals.
System is rotten to the core.
Let there be a death for this system

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Advocate, put your thinking cap on, if you have one. How high would the minimum wage need to be raised before jobs begin to be lost? Or would no jobs ever be lost at any point? Just apply the laws of basic economics.

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okie wrote:

Advocate, put your thinking cap on, if you have one. How high would the minimum wage need to be raised before jobs begin to be lost? Or would no jobs ever be lost at any point? Just apply the laws of basic economics.

It's not that no jobs are ever lost; there are some businesses who run next to the bleeding edge of profits, who would lose jobs if you raised minimum wages by 1%.

It's a question of 'not many' jobs being lost due to minimum wage increases. I haven't seen evidence that the very modest increases in minimum wage that we've had over the last 20 years (much less than inflation, btw) have lead to a large loss of jobs for folks.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

okie wrote:
Advocate, put your thinking cap on, if you have one. How high would the minimum wage need to be raised before jobs begin to be lost? Or would no jobs ever be lost at any point? Just apply the laws of basic economics.

It's not that no jobs are ever lost;

And so how high can you raise the minimum wage above natural market price of a job before serious losses of jobs?

Quote:

there are some businesses who run next to the bleeding edge of profits, who would lose jobs if you raised minimum wages by 1%.

So do you want those businesses to charge more for their services and run the risk of losing business and going broke, thus laying off all of their employees? And what good is a 1% rise in minimum wage, which amounts to less than a dime an hour for minimum wage? Yet you say a 1% rise would cost jobs, so why would you want people being laid off when a 1% rise is of little benefit to the employee? So if you raise minimum wage by 50 cents or a dollar an hour, you are saying alot of jobs will be lost then?

Quote:

It's a question of 'not many' jobs being lost due to minimum wage increases. I haven't seen evidence that the very modest increases in minimum wage that we've had over the last 20 years (much less than inflation, btw) have lead to a large loss of jobs for folks.

Cycloptichorn

How do you know it hasn't changed the type of jobs, after all, manufacturing is going to other countries. You already said a 1% rise would cost jobs, so a 10% rise would cost alot more jobs according to your reasoning. Why do you want people to go without jobs?

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Re: Advocate

Ramafuchs wrote:

I care a jot about politics.
I care a lot that one should get a decent admosphere to bite his bread.
NEED BASED minimum wage and nothing else.

Or
Stopping the contagerous rascals pay who manipulate the economy.
A politician works 18 hours perday and get less than the criminals.
System is rotten to the core.
Let there be a death for this system

You are complaining about the wages for politicians? You speak in cryptic terms, so you need to be a bit more cogent, but if I understand you correctly, you think politicians work 18 hours a day and make less than criminals? For starters, has it ever occurred to you that they are sometimes one and the same, but beyond that, I would challenge you to provide some proof of your apparent source of your unhappiness with life. You cause me to suspicion that you might be a politician and you think you are overworked? If so, maybe you should go rob a bank and go to jail, so you could live higher on the hog, and work less hours per day.

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okie wrote:

Advocate, put your thinking cap on, if you have one. How high would the minimum wage need to be raised before jobs begin to be lost? Or would no jobs ever be lost at any point? Just apply the laws of basic economics.

Which laws are you referring to okie? There is a difference between the reality of economics and the theories put forth by conservatives.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

okie wrote:
Advocate, put your thinking cap on, if you have one. How high would the minimum wage need to be raised before jobs begin to be lost? Or would no jobs ever be lost at any point? Just apply the laws of basic economics.

It's not that no jobs are ever lost; there are some businesses who run next to the bleeding edge of profits, who would lose jobs if you raised minimum wages by 1%.

It's a question of 'not many' jobs being lost due to minimum wage increases. I haven't seen evidence that the very modest increases in minimum wage that we've had over the last 20 years (much less than inflation, btw) have lead to a large loss of jobs for folks.

Cycloptichorn

In fact the opposite has occurred. Jobs have been created after the minimum wage was raised.

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parados wrote:

okie wrote:
Advocate, put your thinking cap on, if you have one. How high would the minimum wage need to be raised before jobs begin to be lost? Or would no jobs ever be lost at any point? Just apply the laws of basic economics.

Which laws are you referring to okie? There is a difference between the reality of economics and the theories put forth by conservatives.

Have you heard of the law of supply and demand? Maybe not? As prices of goods rise, demand typically declines, given other factors are fairly static, while supply usually increases, at least for a time until the reduced demand causes the price to come down again. Labor is another commodity that responds in a similar manner. As I said, basic economics that even hillbillies and hicks without a high school diploma have figured this out, so you don't even have to take Economics 101 to learn it. If you don't agree with this, how come you haven't learned the most basic of all principles of an economy, Parados?

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Let's discuss the minimum wage

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