Tsuga Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 Relevant article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35837712 Interesting. I have always thought that if you can't make money without your employees going hungry or sick, maybe you aren't such a great businessperson. We don't eat out where workers are abused. We shop Union. It costs more.m, but I have a crappy car, we don't have cable, we have trac phones. I refuse to fund my lifestyle on someone else's hunger and need. If you can't afford to pay a living wage, you can't afford it, in my book. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 Was working at McDonald's ever a living wage place? Yes, because the original point of the minimum wage was for it to BE a living wage. That was what it was for. So yes, at one point in time the idea was that working 40 hours at a minimum wage job was enough to live off of. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChocolateReignRemix Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 Yes, because the original point of the minimum wage was for it to BE a living wage. That was what it was for. So yes, at one point in time the idea was that working 40 hours at a minimum wage job was enough to live off of. Correct, and had it been indexed to the CPI it would look like a living wage now. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 A form of living wage introduced in the UK today: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35924293 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 Relevant article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35837712 From the article: Anita says she can't put up fees because most of her parents are entitled to 15 hours of free childcare which is paid by the government. She says this will mean she will have to close or cut back on toys or similar. Is the gov't really mandating increasing the minimum wage she must pay, but not increasing the amount she will be reimbursed for the free (pd by gov't) childcare she is supposed to provide? If so, something is seriously wrong with what is going on and a mistake in the law ought to be fixed, preferably by increasing the amount they reimburse to match so the owner doesn't have to take the hit or reduce what she offers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluegoat Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 More likely those businesses are attracting the best workers because they pay better, not making employees better by paying more. Though, when you put a lot of positive people together in a company, that's going to rub off on new employees too. No, it's the same employees. Paying them better shows an almost immediate increase in performance. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 From the article: Anita says she can't put up fees because most of her parents are entitled to 15 hours of free childcare which is paid by the government. She says this will mean she will have to close or cut back on toys or similar. Is the gov't really mandating increasing the minimum wage she must pay, but not increasing the amount she will be reimbursed for the free (pd by gov't) childcare she is supposed to provide? If so, something is seriously wrong with what is going on and a mistake in the law ought to be fixed, preferably by increasing the amount they reimburse to match so the owner doesn't have to take the hit or reduce what she offers. Yes, I think that this is what is going on. I think that the government is assuming that she will put up the fees for the non-government-funded hours - most children will not be there for only 15 hours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom2scouts Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 Yes, I think that this is what is going on. I think that the government is assuming that she will put up the fees for the non-government-funded hours - most children will not be there for only 15 hours. Wait, I'm confused. If the parents who get 15 hours free care are minimum wage workers, their pay will go up and their childcare costs beyond 15 hours will also go up? Isn't that likely to put them right back to where they started? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 Wait, I'm confused. If the parents who get 15 hours free care are minimum wage workers, their pay will go up and their childcare costs beyond 15 hours will also go up? Isn't that likely to put them right back to where they started? Yes and no. Say you make £6.70 now and it goes up to £7.20. For each of the free fifteen hours, you are going to get an extra 50p. So that means that you are 7.50 pounds per week better off. That £7.50 may cover the rise in price for the other hours of child care, leaving all the other 50p-per-hours available for other purposes, or it may not. It depends on the individual balance of hours worked and free/paid childcare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 Wait, I'm confused. If the parents who get 15 hours free care are minimum wage workers, their pay will go up and their childcare costs beyond 15 hours will also go up? Isn't that likely to put them right back to where they started? That's what I'm thinking... and worse, because the person they started the story with only works 18 or 19 hours (or something like that), so the owner is apparently expected to raise her fees quite a bit for those extra hours or take the hit herself. Not being able to stay sustainable in a situation like this hardly makes her a bad businesswoman. Childcare with mandated rates for X number of hours pretty much dictates a bit of what she has in. Raising the rates on the other hours doesn't mean her clients will stay, or if they do and they're minimum wage earners - there goes their raise. If the gov't raises what they pay for those 15 hours, then it should be able to work out, but without it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aura Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 Personally, I don't think it's the amount of minimum wage that's the problem. It's corporations that don't care about their employees, only their shareholders and the "royalty" at the top of the chain. It's shown in how they treat their employees, not it what they say. They offer minimum wage entry, with "competitive wages" and "regular raises." However, the competitive wages means that the person with a BA in accounting will never be hired to handle the accounting for a business that literally moves thousands of dollars per day. Instead, they hire a high school graduate with no experience and so they can pay minimum wage. Their regular raises consist of .05/hr per 6 months. They do not train their entry-level employees. They expect them to learn on the job...which is not necessarily bad, but when the person, who is dependable and hard working, makes a single mistake, they are fired....because that's the rules. The management of the actual store has to fight their own company to keep this person employed. The entry-level person who quickly works their way up gets NO compensation. None. The bagger that moves to cashier is paid the same. That same bagger, who moves into supervisor position, still gets paid the same as she was making as a bagger. But you sure get more responsibilities and headaches! So in three years, the person who worked their way up from part-time to full-time, from entry level to supervisor, will only make $.30/hr more than when they started. IF you can survive six years of ridiculous rules and policies, then your pay does go up (almost double, I believe), but there is still NO security. If you miss-step against one rule, one time, you are out the door and out of luck. It doesn't matter how dependable or hard working or how well you did your job. I've seen this first hand with at least two large corporations. They like to talk about how much they care for their employees and how important they are...but their actions are in direct contrast to that. It is very clear that they ONLY care about their shareholders. Even their customers warrant little concern...again, it is only as far as it pays the paychecks of the royalty. There is much more I could say about the policies of large corporations, but it's just more of the same: They treat their employees like slaves, giving them only what is absolutely required and then boast about how well they treat them. Blech. All that to say that I personally believe that biggest problem is not the amount of minimum wage, but the policies of large corporations. There are a few out there that have more ethical policies and actually DO take care of their employees....but they are the exception, not the rule. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluegoat Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 Personally, I don't think it's the amount of minimum wage that's the problem. It's corporations that don't care about their employees, only their shareholders and the "royalty" at the top of the chain. It's shown in how they treat their employees, not it what they say. They offer minimum wage entry, with "competitive wages" and "regular raises." However, the competitive wages means that the person with a BA in accounting will never be hired to handle the accounting for a business that literally moves thousands of dollars per day. Instead, they hire a high school graduate with no experience and so they can pay minimum wage. Their regular raises consist of .05/hr per 6 months. They do not train their entry-level employees. They expect them to learn on the job...which is not necessarily bad, but when the person, who is dependable and hard working, makes a single mistake, they are fired....because that's the rules. The management of the actual store has to fight their own company to keep this person employed. The entry-level person who quickly works their way up gets NO compensation. None. The bagger that moves to cashier is paid the same. That same bagger, who moves into supervisor position, still gets paid the same as she was making as a bagger. But you sure get more responsibilities and headaches! So in three years, the person who worked their way up from part-time to full-time, from entry level to supervisor, will only make $.30/hr more than when they started. IF you can survive six years of ridiculous rules and policies, then your pay does go up (almost double, I believe), but there is still NO security. If you miss-step against one rule, one time, you are out the door and out of luck. It doesn't matter how dependable or hard working or how well you did your job. I've seen this first hand with at least two large corporations. They like to talk about how much they care for their employees and how important they are...but their actions are in direct contrast to that. It is very clear that they ONLY care about their shareholders. Even their customers warrant little concern...again, it is only as far as it pays the paychecks of the royalty. There is much more I could say about the policies of large corporations, but it's just more of the same: They treat their employees like slaves, giving them only what is absolutely required and then boast about how well they treat them. Blech. All that to say that I personally believe that biggest problem is not the amount of minimum wage, but the policies of large corporations. There are a few out there that have more ethical policies and actually DO take care of their employees....but they are the exception, not the rule. And some of that over-focus on money comes from the way the corporate world is structured, and that could be changed. Some of it is due to a rather nasty belief among some people that in business, company profit is the only important moral challenge. But it's also to some extent human nature, which is part of the reason for having a minimum wage - it helps prevent exploitation when people would be tempted otherwise. It also protects those who want to do well by their employees from being put out of business by those willing to exploit them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 Yes, because the original point of the minimum wage was for it to BE a living wage. That was what it was for. So yes, at one point in time the idea was that working 40 hours at a minimum wage job was enough to live off of. I am not seeing this. Average wages in 1950 were over $3,000 per year. Min. wage was .75. That is equivalent to half of the average wage. Today's average wage is $50,000. That is roughly $19K, almost half. Seems similar to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 I am not seeing this. Average wages in 1950 were over $3,000 per year. Min. wage was .75. That is equivalent to half of the average wage. Today's average wage is $50,000. That is roughly $19K, almost half. Seems similar to me. But with less income inequality, more people made about the average. Prices reflected that. Now, there are a very few skewing that average up quite a bit. Also, 19K is 500 a month less than half, which when you are on the edge is a HUGE difference. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FaithManor Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 Well, I think several things, none of which means I can reach a conclusion, LOL. I think that the more people paid a really decent wage, the more taxes that can be collected which would help the infrastructure, and the more people could participate in the economy in general which would help things pick up which would in turn create some more jobs which would in turn.....you get the picture. I think in many areas the COL is so high that wages are so bizarrely low that some companies/corporations/employers should be smacked with a big stick until their wallets come unhinged from their butts. However, there are jobs that simply no matter how you slice it are not skilled enough and therefore do not turn enough profit to be worth higher wages. No matter how you dice it, the profit margin is so thin that forced raising of the wages would simply result in a small business like a locally owned corner market, or flower shop in a small community to go under, and on a larger scale, prices for things that used to be pretty cheap and people liked it that way would go up dramatically which the general public would get in a hissy fit about. What we've got going isn't working that is for sure, and any meaningful change is going to hurt in the short term, possibly help in the long term, and shake things up a bit for certain. I'm not saying that doesn't need to happen. It does. I'm just saying that it isn't all posies and roses when one talks about living wage and there will be some hurt out there. As for fast food jobs, cashiering at the convenience store, gas station, etc., many jobs that have often times always been minimum wage those used to be jobs for high schoolers and college students. These really were not careers. These were not meant ever to raise a family on, but as full time jobs with benefits got shipped overseas, inflation way outpaced income increases, healthcare premiums skyrocketed, etc., they became lifelines that elderly folks, SAH parents, etc. glommed onto in order to increase income, and then the high school and vo-tech/college students had no jobs to help them get started. With entry level wages of skilled labor stagnate despite the ever increasing profits of so many companies/corporations while inflation continues, the newly trained who have a skill to offer are back to earning hardly any more than unskilled workers, and then one fights tooth and nail for every little pay raise to claw one's way up, the company not being particularly loyal to the employee most of the time these days. Small businesses could afford more if corporate welfare giants like Walmart weren't given ungodly tax breaks and corporate hand outs to move into communities, drive small businesses out, and then piddle around making 90% of their positions part time, minimum wage, no benefits job forever while the Walton family rakes in 20 billion a year per member! I mean that used to be considered a rather immoral thing to do and now it is accepted as perfectly normal. Of course youth unemployment is also a regional thing with some areas more affected than others. Ours is very, very badly hit. One way or another something has to give. However even with the best of statistical and economic models, it is hard to predict if there will be an ultimate benefit to a huge increase in minimum wage or if it will be an ultimate hurt because it is very hard to predict what businesses will go under, what ones will survive, how many workers will get the wage increase with full time hours, how many will land jobs with the bennies and the benefits, ie. insurance is just such a huge factor, etc. If they remain part time and get no insurance, the increase in wages may not help as much as we'd like to think. I know that repealing NAFTA or tariffing the absolute tar out of products that US companies have manufactured overseas would have a HUGE benefit to the American people. If nothing else collecting the tariffs would put more money in the coffers to help Americans and fix the infrastructure and if companies don't like it, then they can decide to employ people here to make their crap so they don't have to pay the tariffs. I mean it is so funny how the car companies shipped all of their manufacturing overseas, paid virtually nothing for labor costs, unemployed millions of Americans, and then complained about how few Americans were buying new cars. Well duh you idiots! If people are living on unemployment and then taking pay cuts some place else in order to survive, they sure as heck can't afford your $38,000 car! I mean sometimes I do not understand how such stupid people came to be on the board of directors and in the management offices of such companies. Well, okay they aren't that stupid. They know in the short term they can manipulate the numbers on paper, cash in their stocks when the stock price heads north in the short term, and then cash in their golden parachute clauses on their contracts and leave very wealthy without a care in the world for the people they devastated. Okay, after saying that, I realize that unless there is a return to morality in the present system, not much is going to save it. Feudalism is the future. I need chocolate. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 But with less income inequality, more people made about the average. Prices reflected that. Now, there are a very few skewing that average up quite a bit. Also, 19K is 500 a month less than half, which when you are on the edge is a HUGE difference. True, although I have a hard time believing many can make it on $25K and a family and not live with parents, have government assistance, etc.... Which I think was also true of the salary in 1950. I just don't think it was ever meant to provide a wage for a family. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeanM Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 True, although I have a hard time believing many can make it on $25K and a family and not live with parents, have government assistance, etc.... Which I think was also true of the salary in 1950. I just don't think it was ever meant to provide a wage for a family. This graphic (http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Media/Slideshow/2012/04/04/Minimum-Wage-and-What-It-Buys-You-1950s-to-Now?page=0) shows what the salary could buy in 1950 vs 2010 (2010 is the most recent that they have). I'm not sure how helpful it is because it is showing "median rent," which I guess is median for the country. That will vary hugely depending on your location. They show that working at minimum wage in 1950, it would take 56 hours to pay the "median rent." In 2010 it would take 109 hours to pay the "median rent." That is a significant difference to me. I thought it was interesting, but it would be nice to see food and healthcare prices there too. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reefgazer Posted April 2, 2016 Share Posted April 2, 2016 (edited) I generally see your POV on things of this nature, but with the exception of food, necessity costs have also gone up disproportionately higher (especially insurance and housing). That said, I don't think increasing the minimum wage is the answer; it will just speed automation and eliminate jobs that are on the lowest skilled rung and pass them off on employees that do higher-wage-worthy work in addition to the scut work. I think the answer, as FaithManor says, is to "tariff the tar" out of companies that exploit cheap overseas labor. I am not seeing this. Average wages in 1950 were over $3,000 per year. Min. wage was .75. That is equivalent to half of the average wage. Today's average wage is $50,000. That is roughly $19K, almost half. Seems similar to me. Edited April 2, 2016 by reefgazer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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