Any thoughts about increasing Minimum Wage?

journey-on

Some people want to up the minimum wage to $10 - $12 per hour! What are your thoughts about this?

OnTheWayOut

Minimus gets paid for posting here?

Oh, minimuM. Never mind.

I have mixed feelings on minimum wage. It's not supposed to be the wage
of a family head to support a family. That's what setting it is trying to make
it into. Yet, many find themselves in jobs that pay minimum wage when
they are in a tough situation.

I agree that it needs to be set somewhere, needs to be raised from the
ridiculously low place it is at, but I don't think it should be set so that people
feel it is right and high enough to be satisfied. I think there needs to be
incentive to move on to better jobs and find some satisfaction from work.
That, or minimum wage would have to be the salary of one person in a family
where other members work also.

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

Here's my take as a small business owner having a state minimum wage higher than the national minimum wage.

All my adult employees receive above the national and state minimum wage. They are worth it and I'll increase, just so I don't lose my best.

However, since the last raise of state minimum, I've had to cut back on any new hires to keep on budget. I would like to hire some part-time teenagers, but even at the allowed 50 cents below the minimum for under 18, it's way more than any schoolkid is worth.

I'm not in an area with a booming economy. Around here, it appears that the increased minimum wage is making it harder for kids to find part-time work. And it makes it harder for small businesses to comply with all government requirements. I stay legal, but I already know of many other businesses nearby that pay 'under the table' below minimum. Otherwise, the employees wouldn't have any jobs, and the businesses would fail. Increasing the minimum wage to $10-12? Around here, unemployment would skyrocket and businesses would move out of the country. I know that I would either have to raise my prices, go illegal, or go under.

Frankly, the state minimum wage here is still not enough to support a family with. On the other hand, the state minimum wage is already too high to expect businesses to rationalize hiring kids, the handicapped, or anyone else that just wants a simple job to earn a few more bucks to suppliment the family income.

Sure, it would be great to see everyone make a lot more money and to require places like WalMart pay their "associates" more since the company certainly can afford it. But to be fair, forget state or national, why not legislate a global minimum wage? With everything that gets imported from Asia and looking at the poverty in Africa, should there be a global minimum wage of $4 per hour?

journey-on

Ummm.....a global minimum wage. That's interesting.

I asked a guy recently that wanted a huge minimum wage increase if he understood what an employer actually

pays. Of course, he didn’t. He was not aware that the 7.65% taken out of his pay for social security taxes

also had to be matched by his employer (that’s 15.30% total). On top of that, the employer

has to pay FUTA and state unemployment taxes which percentage is based on gross pay to employees. On top of that,

the employer also has to have workmen’s comp insurance paid for out of his own pocket. On top of that, many employers

absorb most or some of your medical insurance and even provide additional benefits.So, if a small business has 15 or 20 employees

making minimum wage, can you see what the additional cost is? That means higher prices to the consumer for their service or product.

When someone is opposed to huge increases in the minimum wage, it’s probably someone who is a small business

owner with several employees and just trying to get by themselves and keep their employees working. It's a real concern.

jaguarbass

Some people want to up the minimum wage to $10 - $12 per hour! What are your thoughts about this?

I am for people making enough money to live on.

If they increase the wage to 10 -12$ per hour, inflation will cause everything else to be so high that it will probably be the same ratio that it is now.

I would like to see everyone have health insurance and everyone have enough money.

But that would kind of be like paradise or utopia.

So I'm not going to hold my breathe.

Junction-Guy

How about requiring India,China, and Mexico to raise their minimum wage to meet ours, then we will see how fast our manufacturing base will recover.

WTWizard

Here's what needs to be done:

(1) Abolish the minimum wage totally.

(2) Abolish the laws that make it difficult to impossible for upstart businesses to form.

If both are put in place, you will have the big, lazy, dishonest, and greedy companies trying to exploit the workers by paying them next to nothing. At which point, the good workers would quit without giving any notice and start their own businesses. New hires at a penny an hour would not want to take that kind of money if they were really worth it, because they would either start their own businesses or would bid up the wages to free market levels on their own. At the same time, those that really want to create value would be able to do their thing, driving prices down.

Soon, everyone would get what they were worth. Employers that dragged their feet in giving deserved raises would soon (and I mean in days, not months) find themselves looking for a replacement for those workers, who would likely do crap work. People would seek to improve their workmanship, since they would be swiftly rewarded for doing so (or they would simply go elsewhere). And, once again people would be able to earn a living wage on one job, while the crap workers would be the ones that would be poor.

funkyderek

Minimum wage increases tend to spur technological changes, as automated solutions become effectively cheaper. Which is great, of course, except for those who inevitably lose their jobs as a result. It might seem that a high minimum wage causes problems for employers or even for everybody equally, but ultimately it is the under-educated and inexperienced who suffer most. Anybody who's worth less than the arbitrary minimum will be unable to find employment. Of course that's when welfare kicks in and everyone who still has a job suffers.

Minimum wage - great for manufacturers of devices to automate menial tasks; bad news for everyone else.

owenfieldreams

Raising the minimum wage is like raising the price of stamps--it doesn't matter how much you raise it, the same group clamoring for a raise will want it raised again and again and again and again.....

So.....I say we raise it to $20.00/hr. But why stop there? Why don't we also require that everyone that works has, at a minimum, a lexus or mercedes to drive. After that, we set a minimum housing law, and require that everyone working has a three-bedroom house to live in.

My point is--where do you draw the line?

worldtraveller

Here in B.C. there is tons of crappy wage jobs that go unanswered. Our minimum is 8 bucks and it is really hard to fill them. However here we hav little Mexican influence and the average price on a home is now 500,000.00 dollars.

Home Depot pays a measly 12 bucks to start and they are always begging for people.

The market in our situation seems to be solving our problem here, but in areas with really high unemployment, a "cola" allowance might be in order.

Problem south is that 12 million work under the table for cash so it makes no difference there.

Any thoughts about increasing Minimum Wage?

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