Minimum wage

Thank you for your deep insight into my life. I make $11/hour at my current job working for one of those podunk papers people warn you about on here.

$10/hour is not minimum wage.

 

You shouldn't be raising a family on $6 or $7 an hour. Having children isn't a right. If you can't afford to have children, you shouldn't be having them. Simple as that.

Besides, minimum wage jobs are ENTRY level jobs for teenagers. Having an artificially inflated wage means that the same amount of payroll is chasing less workers. The reason why those jobs aren't lucrative is because the skills required to perform the job are not scarce. Anybody with less than a high school diploma can flip burgers or de-head shrimp. And besides, since most minimum wage jobs are with small businesses, forcing them to pay workers more than what their job is worth in a free market affects them more.

Rare skills like a 95 mph fastball and being able to play a cello like Yo Yo Ma result in much higher wages.

 

That's the logical conclusion to this discussion. I'm weary of the "in that case we won't hire anyone" response to every discussion about increases in minimum wage. Everyone who works a 40-hour week should be able to afford basic shelter, heat, food and medicine. Even teen-agers who may want to contribute their share of the family income in difficult times.

 

So if I lose my journalism job, I can drop the kids off at your house, since I presumably would lose my rights to be a parent in your world?

Just give me your address and leave the key under the mat, please.

 

I've never known a business that hired minimum wage workers to ever have more than the absolute bare minimum employees that cold possibly keep operations going. They aren't cutting jobs.

 

Apples and oranges. You actually had a job that paid enough to support kids. Losing your job was beyond your control.

That's a lot different than some burger jockey who asks PBO for some "more better benefits" and has two different kids by two different women.

 

Now I get where you're coming from.

 

Egads.

 

At least.

 

Or if you are a business owner, you can get off your ass and get to work. I own a small service-oriented business and pay employees well-above min wage. Could I get by and make more money with paying less? Yeah, but I need dependable employees and the one thing that everyone responds to is being paid well. I think it might be a little different in this economy, but I need people who are dependable and I have found that better paid employees = happy employees. I still put in a lot of hours (that's on top of my journo job) but you do what you gotta do. If I can do it, a fracking CEO, CFO or other top executive can get his hands dirty.

 

Actually, a true capitalist understands that to provide the best products available to your customer, you have to have the best employees.

To have the best employees, you have to pay them a quality wage.

Theoretically, if I pay better than my competitor down the street, I will have better employees and therefore be more productive and turn a better profit.

My competitor may be able to underprice me, but my hope is you'll see better value in my superior product.

The market finds equilibrium, and wages are certainly there.

Unskilled labor -- e.g., "minimum-wage jobs" or "entry-level jobs" are going to be poorly-paid jobs, because they require the least amount of skills and education and therefore the market of workers (supply) is substantially greater than the amount of jobs available (demand), which drives down the price of employment.

In theory, a minimum wage artifically inflates the equilibrium price for the lowest rung of unskilled labor jobs, therefore creating an artificial scarcity of jobs.

But it's very obvious that American companies -- most of them -- pay their unskilled workers well above the current $6.55/hr or $7.25/hr minimum wage, so the effect of the minimum wage on employment is negligible. Even when I worked at McDonald's in high school, their starting wage was $1.75/hour above minimum wage (for 16-year-old part-timers), and they gave raises *at least* every 6 months. Not surprisingly, in the midst of a ton of fast-food places, we did *by far* the best business, in part because we provided superior service (because we had better employees, in part because they were better-paid).

 

On this topic, I don't know what Chik-Fil-A pays, but they seem to consistently have a harder-working group of employees with good attitudes -- and among the best food and service.