Well it sounded good. ..

Westside Steve

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/03/gov-brown-abandons-15-minimum-wage-proposal/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

Surprise

WSS

gftChris

State-wide is pointless, for the reasons outlined. Needs to be national.

LogicIsForSquares

Yeah I don't know how they couldn't see that small businesses would have been screwed and large businesses would have dialed back their work force.

OldBrownsFan

Minimum wage is not enough to live on but it is not meant for that. Minimum wage jobs are starting points for students in high schools or college students on summer break. Many people start out at minimum wage then work their way up the ladder. Minimum wage jobs are usually starting point jobs. Probably the best proposal I have seen is a 2 tier minimum wage where those working and are depending on minimum wage as a living wage get a higher dollar amount versus the part time and students living at home making minimum wage.

Although I see the negative effects of higher minimum wage I also see negative effects with companies that should pay their employees a higher wage but don't. Then the employees who don't make enough to live on get food stamps and other government assistance programs to supplement and employers let taxpayers foot the bill for it instead of paying a living wage.

gftChris

@oldbrownsfan said:
Minimum wage is not enough to live on but it is not meant for that. Minimum wage jobs are starting points for students in high schools or college students on summer break. Many people start out at minimum wage then work their way up the ladder. Probably the best proposal I have seen is a 2 tier minimum wage where those working and are depending on minimum wage as a living wage get a higher dollar amount versus the part time and students living at home making minimum wage.

Because students deserve less?

gftChris

http://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/cps/characteristics-of-minimum-wage-workers-2014.pdf

It's a myth that minimum wage workers are all young. Minimum wage employees make up 2.5% of all workers at hourly rates. That breaks down to 0.9% under 25 and 1.6% over 25.

gftChris

64% of those on minimum wage are part time - presumably either actually working part time around college/school, or it's because that's all the hours they can get.

Meaning, 36% of those on minimum wage work full time.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/08/who-makes-minimum-wage/

OldBrownsFan

@gftchris said:
Because students deserve less?

No because there are negative effects to having a higher minimum wage such as job losses. Most people who start at minimum wage work their way up the ladder to higher paying jobs. If there are situations where people are depending on minimum wage to live on and have families then I see the wisdom of a 2 tier minimum wage.

gftChris

So yes, students deserve less because they might earn more in the future? That's assuming there isn't yet another economic crisis that drives mass unemployment.

Westside Steve

@gftchris said:
Because students deserve less?

Deserve?

WSS

gftChris

@westside-steve said:

Deserve?

WSS

Are worth? Should earn? However you care to phrase it.

Westside Steve

@gftchris said:
Are worth? Should earn? However you care to phrase it.

Actually I was wondering why somebody deserves more or less. If people are crying about not being able to take care of family with one person earning a minimum wage that would be a different situation than a kid working part time, woulldnt it?

Is the idea that minimum wage should support one person or four people?

Not to mention the fact that a job weeks or months or years to learn should be worth more than one you can begin today from square one.

WSS

gftChris

BTW, there's no correlation between minimum wage and unemployment, across the US.

If you take the minimum wage and unemployment percent and run a correlation, you actually get weak negative correlation, but that is in large part due to some states having no minimum wage. So take that out and you get a correlation figure of 0.06. For context, it can go from -1 to +1, strong negative to strong positive correlation. A figure of 0 means no correlation.

See the graph below for a visual demonstration.

Westside Steve

Uh okay. So what's your point again with the graph?

And why does it make what I just said right or wrong?

WSS

gftChris

@westside-steve said:

Uh okay. So what's your point again with the graph?

And why does it make what I just said right or wrong?

WSS

Didn't read what you said, was in response to the idea that higher minimum wage means higher unemployment.

To your point, you would have cal up in arms about such an idea - that you could earn more money just by squirting out kids, how very liberal of you. For me, I don't think it should be tied to how many people you need to support, it should be enough to comfortably support one person when working 40 hours per week.

Westside Steve

@gftchris said:

Didn't read what you said, was in response to the idea that higher minimum wage means higher unemployment.

To your point, you would have cal up in arms about such an idea - that you could earn more money just by squirting out kids, how very liberal of you. For me, I don't think it should be tied to how many people you need to support, it should be enough to comfortably support one person when working 40 hours per week.

No problem Chris. I thought you were responding to me.

I would guess, however, that if I owned a shop and needed a little bit of help raising my cost by 50% would be something of a hardship.

WSS

Westside Steve

For instance I've considered hiring a guy for fifty bucks a night to help me set up run sound etc, stuff that I do myself now.

I'd be hard pressed to pay the 50 bux but wouldn't even think about 75.

But even that is a smaller jump than from 7:50 up to 15.

WSS

gftChris

To be fair, a jump from $7.50 to $15 is crazy. The problem is, $15 (or $12, or $18 or whatever) is where it should be now, and the problem is it hasn't been raised for a long time. If there were a law that stated national minimum wage would increase with cost of living year on year, starting from somewhere everyone agreed was acceptable, this wouldn't even be a discussion.

Westside Steve

@gftchris said:

Didn't read what you said, was in response to the idea that higher minimum wage means higher unemployment.

To your point, you would have cal up in arms about such an idea - that you could earn more money just by squirting out kids, how very liberal of you. For me, I don't think it should be tied to how many people you need to support, it should be enough to comfortably support one person when working 40 hours per week.

I'm not the one beating the drum for the idea that you should be able to take care of a family on minimum wage.

But Cal is a good example, however many tomatoes he sells is his salary. With his bad knee he might choose to hire somebody to help but that means his salary is decreased by that much. So I assume he will get his teeth and limp through the tomato patch.

But realistically we give out food stamps and medical care to people who would earn only minimum wage, so there's a perk.

And depending where your living expenses vary by a wide margin.

WSS

gftChris

And if cal were to go out of business for not being able to sell enough tomatoes, we would all mourn for him, but that's the capitalist model that the US and UK are built on.