Minimum wages..raising the minimum question

by James Mixon 41 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  James Mixon

  Across the U.S the minimum wages are $5.15 in Wyoming to $9.50 in DC,

  average $8.00. Eve Montes in California pick grapes for $9.50 an hour and she

  can't make enough to feed her family. Montes is part of a growing economic problem

  in Calif. low-wage workers are getting poorer.

  My question, why not move? A minimum wage of $8.00 would go a lot further in Arkansas then

  California. If $15.00 minimum wage is passed here it California, in 2-5 years it will be same for

  those folks. That gap will never close.

  For you folks that live in another country, what are the minimum wage in your area, and has

  the gap widen today.
• 

  berrygerry

  IMO, min wage should be no lower than the poverty line (divided by 2,000).

  If poverty line is $16,000 for a single person, then min wage should be no lower than $8.00 per hour.
  
• 

  James Mixon

  California, $24.000 for a family of four is the poverty line, so $15.00 an hour

  is not that bad. But I can't see people living on that.
• 

  Simon

  People on minimum wage probably don't have the resources to "just move".

  Without a guaranteed job it's a huge risk as well as a huge cost.

  A higher minimum wage has been shown to be beneficial economically and for business. Why should badly run businesses survive of the backs of the underpaid?
• 

  adjusted knowledge

  A higher minimum wage has been shown to be beneficial economically and for business.

  Then the answer is simple, raise the minimum wage to $50 an hour. Problem solved.
  
• 

  bafh

  minimum wage should be enough to support a person, not a family. If a person doesn't have the skills to earn more than minimum wage, then they need to get the skills or work for themselves and stop having kids they can't support. How hard is that, really?
• 

  2+2=5

  If everybody just ate some food there would be no world hunger. It would be fantastic.
• 

  berrygerry

  minimum wage should be enough to support a person, not a family. If a person doesn't have the skills to earn more than minimum wage, then they need to get the skills or work for themselves and stop having kids they can't support. How hard is that, really?

  For many people, it is hard - but it is possible. For the disadvantaged, it is an impossibility.
  
• 

  James Mixon

  Some economist suggest that the minimum wage imposes a wage floor that

  prices cheap labor out of the market, reducing the pool of low-wage jobs.

  Daniel Mitchell of the Cato institute a libertarian think tank, suggests that

  "businesses are not charities and that they only create jobs when they think

  a worker will generate net revenue". Sound like the WT...

  If an employer needs someone to perform odd jobs, and he values the work

  at $8.00 per hour, he will not hire a person if the minimum wage is $15.00 per

  hour, thus keeping unemployment in low-wage brackets higher than it would

  otherwise be.
• 

  Village Idiot

  James Mixon:

  Across the U.S the minimum wages are $5.15

  Federal minimum wage in the U.S. is $7.25.

  adjusted knowledge:

  Then the answer is simple, raise the minimum wage to $50 an hour. Problem solved.

  In Denmark the minimum wage comes out to $20.

  bafj:

  minimum wage should be enough to support a person, not a family. If a person doesn't have the skills to earn more than minimum wage, then they need to get the skills or work for themselves and stop having kids they can't support.

  Individuals cannot support them selves on $7.25 an hour. They have to live with somebody else usually a working wife (who probably earns the same).

  Also getting skills is not a practical suggestion since the number of minimum salaries exceed the numbers of such jobs available. It also costs money to get a skill. There are many "overqualified" workers at low paying jobs.