Thread: Minimum wage....

The way it is here now: Widget A used to be made in USA or Japan or Germany. Sold for $20. Now Widget A is made in China and still sells for $20. Wages here didn't go up, people lost jobs, but the same item still sells for $20 (despite lower cost, and, of course lower quality). The end result is the big corporations' profits went up by squeezing the wage percentage down. If there were no MW would the jobs have remained in the USA? That's the $64 million question.

"But it's cheeeeeeeep!" - Homer Simpson

I generally refuse to buy things made in China unless there's no alternative. This is what angers me the most about corporate America: sometimes we have no choice in product selection.

But those who demand cheap (low cost) products are to blame for many of the wage issues because employers not only have to pay their workers' wages but must pay taxes to the government on those wages. That's money the MW earner will never see because some group of Demotax got together to pass some new entitlement through Congress or some group of NeoRethuglicans got together and decided we should wage a fake war.

Originally Posted by surasak

This is another problem with having a minimum wage: a person working a few hours per week shouldn't automatically make the same as one working 40 hours per week.

Assuming you are on about hourly rate? Well, they don't automatically, not in Germany, anyway.
Part-timers below a certain number of hours don't fall under the same legislation as full-timers.

That is what we refer to as the MW here: the minimum hourly wage unless there's some exception (generally limited nationwide only to tipped employees).

You have to remember that the United States is a hodge-podge of 50 different sets of laws. The applicable law for where I live is posted below:

http://www.oregon.gov/BOLI/WHD/docs/...er_English.pdf

Originally Posted by surasak

I generally oppose mandatory minimum wages; I think there are better ways for the government to help the poor (such as tax credits) rather than an across the board mandatory hike. Mandatory bottom wages mean that everyone at the bottom get paid the same whether they work hard or are lazy and incompetent; it takes the competition out of wages for those who really work well and makes the owner pay them and the incompetent the same amount of money for unequal work done.

couldnt have put it any better myself.

Originally Posted by surasak

Using your argument does the person working as a youth to earn a few bucks to buy an iPod deserve the same exact hourly wage as a person supporting a family

yes I beleive they should both get the same rate - just because someone's a youth doesn't mean they only need the money for an ipod - they may be supporting a girlfriend and kid as well.

Originally Posted by texpatriate

$7.25 isn't enough for single parent homes (

If you are making minimum wage you have no buisness producing hell-spawn.
You shouldn't be allowed to have a dog.Wages should be determined by the marketplace not by slacker socialists.

-texpatriate

I love this one.

The solution is obvious. People who have a family and are working minimum wage jobs can survive and prosper by eating their children. As you rightly point out they have no business procreating without the bucks.

Shustraya - when you use words like 'taking over' and 'taking jobs off locals' this is just ignorance. The point I am making is that immigrants are making a positive contribution to the UK economy and unemployment is nothing to do with immigrant workers.

I dare say if you wanted to go and work in Poland you could - how much do you know about the situation there?

Originally Posted by Shustraya

Originally Posted by surasak

Using your argument does the person working as a youth to earn a few bucks to buy an iPod deserve the same exact hourly wage as a person supporting a family

yes I beleive they should both get the same rate - just because someone's a youth doesn't mean they only need the money for an ipod - they may be supporting a girlfriend and kid as well.

Well, then, you changed the goal posts. First it was a youth (which would imply someone not out of high school) and now it's a youth with a girlfriend and a child. Which brings me to the point I brought up earlier: tax credits are a better way to handle that. With a child and (should be a wife) a person could qualify for a tax credit that would essentially raise one's wages $2-$4 per hour. It would make more sense to use a tax credit to directly affect that person's income rather than a blanket wage increase that causes more problems overall than it solves.

People who perform identical duties, perform identically, and have the same work history should get the same amount of money.

What about the person who prior to the MW hike was making $2-$4 per hour more and now failed to get a pay raise? Is it fair to them that the gap has been closed....that the government mandated a raise for one group of people but not others?

Someone just hired should never have the same wages as someone else doing outstanding work and working for the same employer for several years.

See, the problem is this: a person who is doing a very good job likely can't get the extra wages he or she is entitled to because another person who only does the bare minimum required to keep from getting fired is legally entitled to the same wages. That's not right. Instead of one person making $12 per hour and the other making $4 per hour both are mandated to at least make $8 per hour. Is that fair?

If wages really were set according to market conditions, experience, and job performance I should be making $12 per hour at the job I'm at right now while a new hire who does nothing more than the bare minimum should only get $3 per hour. But the money I should be getting is being taken from me to support someone else's wages because the government decided to meddle in business affairs.

The only problem with that surasak is that the company will then start ROLLING OVER its employees in order to keep the wages at a bare minimum !!

take a look at the Philippines for a prime example--Most employees are temporary working on short term contracts because if the employer prolongs their employment past the contract date then the employee will then be eligible for benefits, so they just keep ROLLING OVER the employees. then the employee goes to another company ( many times owned by the same person or mother company ) and works till the new contract is up, then its back to the first company. they just PING-PONG back and forth always working for VERY LITTLE but hey have no choice

Originally Posted by Wallace

The point I am making is that immigrants are making a positive contribution to the UK economy and

4p a week is hardly a 'positve contribution'

having to put up with the overuse of public resources and lack of jobs for young or unskilled local people is far worse then this pathetic net gain to the economy

Originally Posted by Wallace

I dare say if you wanted to go and work in Poland you could - how much do you know about the situation there? __________________

I know they pay near to Thai wages so it hardly grabs me.

Having some immigration is good to fill labour shortages etc.. but when a British builder or plumber that has been earning 10 pounds and hour for the last few years is now only able to get 6 because of all the Poles is hardly a good thing.

Originally Posted by surasak

But the money I should be getting is being taken from me to support someone else's wages because the government decided to meddle in business affairs.

I would say , in all likliness, that it's the employer who is taking money from you and using the smokescreen of the MW to blame it on the government.

Originally Posted by surasak

tax credits are a better way to handle that. With a child and (should be a wife) a person could qualify for a tax credit that would essentially raise one's wages $2-$4 per hour. It would make more sense to use a tax credit to directly affect that person's income rather than a blanket wage increase that causes more problems overall than it solves.

Isn't this done as well already? This is not directly related to MW, but part of family politics.

Originally Posted by KID

The only problem with that surasak is that the company will then start ROLLING OVER its employees in order to keep the wages at a bare minimum !!

Correct, this is happening in Germanu as well, for example, companies prefer to employ part-time and short-term workers to avoid legislation which protects regular full-timers, whereever they can, which effects mostly unskilled and low-skilled labour in the service sector.
Another way of sayng it, is that Surasak still won't get his deserved pay, he'd simply be unemployed.

Originally Posted by Shustraya

I would say , in all likliness, that it's the employer who is taking money from you and using the smokescreen of the MW to blame it on the government.

Yes, I also agree with this.

Originally Posted by Shustraya

Originally Posted by Wallace

The point I am making is that immigrants are making a positive contribution to the UK economy and

4p a week is hardly a 'positve contribution'

having to put up with the overuse of public resources and lack of jobs for young or unskilled local people is far worse then this pathetic net gain to the economy

It's 4p for each UK citizen, do the maths!

Originally Posted by Shustraya

So this mass immigration nonsense is great for the upper middle class home owners who can now get plumbers, cleaners , electricians etc (ie: servants) for rock bottom prices but your average working class tradesman is now becoming worse off.

Craftspeople hardly count at "servants", - certainly not at the obscene prices they've been charging, even for minor repair jobs.

It's not only rich folks' electric which needs to be done, you know?
It's one of the things which needed to change, IMO.

Originally Posted by Shustraya

Originally Posted by surasak

But the money I should be getting is being taken from me to support someone else's wages because the government decided to meddle in business affairs.

I would say , in all likliness, that it's the employer who is taking money from you and using the smokescreen of the MW to blame it on the government.

The changes took place the same day the MW was raised, so, the two are related.

It's not just me...the same thing happened in other businesses in other states that also raised the MW. This is why I oppose the government meddling in wage controls.

Originally Posted by stroller

Originally Posted by surasak

tax credits are a better way to handle that. With a child and (should be a wife) a person could qualify for a tax credit that would essentially raise one's wages $2-$4 per hour. It would make more sense to use a tax credit to directly affect that person's income rather than a blanket wage increase that causes more problems overall than it solves.

Isn't this done as well already? This is not directly related to MW, but part of family politics.

The earned income tax credits are available to the following people: single, married, married or unmarried with one child, or, married or unmarried with two children.

If the person or family truly is poor then the tax credit is a more efficient and better way of directly helping those who need it as the credit is non-taxable (unlike wages...which require 'contributions' by both employee and employer in the US) and unlike the minimum wage hikes doesn't interfere with market conditions nor does it pressure businesses with low margins to raise prices (which directly affects everyone making minimum wage).

I strongly support a means of helping those who need it; I disagree strongly with an across-the-board scheme that is inherently unfair, unbalanced, and unneeded.

Earned income tax credit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by Shustraya

Any kid leaving school wanting to learn a trade now has all these foreign fuckers to compete with for a pittance - how is that a good thing I ask?

You are starting to show your true colours. Vote for the BNP do you? Britain would be a sad and desperate place without all the hard-working immigrants who have been coming to the UK for several hundred years. You won't make any friends on this forum with stupid comments like this.

Originally Posted by Shustraya

So this mass immigration nonsense is great for the upper middle class home owners who can now get plumbers, cleaners , electricians etc (ie: servants) for rock bottom prices but your average working class tradesman is now becoming worse off.

I hardly think electricians and plumbers are 'unskilled' labour. A lot of the immigrants do jobs such as cleaning and general labouring on building sites and farms, but ignorance is bliss, eh?