Labor Pains In Colorado

Of course the employer doesn't set the price. Don't be stupid.

Actually more than two. I was hoping someone else would bring this up, but I guess I will: Guaranteed Minimum Income

Really? So when I go to the grocery store who decides what to put on the price tags?

Good link. You'll notice that minimum wage is the most applicable aspect of the guaranteed minimum income, along with a safety net, generally referred to as welfare.The other aspects, pensions (or SSI) and student grants and loans, only apply to the elderly and college students.If you're advocating the "Basic Income" approach, where the state pays out an income to everyone that is enough to live on, it sounds gtreat in theory, but I'm curious where the government would get the funds for this.

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There is no means test; the richest as well as the poorest citizens would receive it.

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This would mean that taxes, of some sort, would need to go way up. If the US population is 313,218,000 people, and we assume that say $15,000 is considered the minimum needed to live on (this is probably low), that comes to $4,698,270,000,000, or more than 4.5 trillion dollars.

Well, you exempt the base amount from taxes and then yes, increase taxes on progressive rate basis. The annual Gross Domestic Product is approaching 15 trillion dollars annually.

And 1/3 of that could be paid to all Americans? It sounds like it would be great, I fully support the concept, but it seems like it would be impossible to enact in this country. Republicans will campaign against it, conservatives in and out of politics will be against it, libertarians will scream about socialism.Raising the minimum wage would be much easier (though not easy). That's not to say we couldn't try to work towards a day that a guaranteed income could be enacted, but in the mean time, we need to do what we can to help people who need help now.

I guess you dont seem to contemplate the math. Twenty years ago, people made $4.00 an hour for bagging groceries.
Factoring for inflation, they would be making $10.00 an hour today. They only make $8.00 however. If you go any lower than that, you dont even have enough money for the bus pass to get to work. (Or the gasoline for your car) My point is that you cant expect people ---except maybe any teenagers humble enough to do so--to work for such low amounts of money. This is not Indonesia, after all.

Americans who need it. Of course. I never said my proposal would be at all acceptable to anyone, and I fully expect most people to reject it on the stupidest of grounds. The problem with this is that it takes quite a bit of money to raise a family. And there are many jobs out there where people simply don't do enough work to actually earn the minimum wage (as it is) and would certainly not be doing enough work to earn a much higher minimum wage.

But what value do grocery baggers add to the company? How much money do they earn for the company compared to what they cost the company? Quite honestly, myself, and many other people I know, cannot stand grocery baggers because they are stupid snot-nosed teenagers who don't give a flying fuck about your groceries and can't even grasp the simple concept of cold with cold and hot with hot.I prefer to shop places where I am not harassed or guilted into letting someone else bag my groceries.I think grocery bagging is an occupation of the past and needs to stop being counted as 'employment' and relied upon to pay bills. Except for folk living in states with special laws, how many people actually see pumping gas at a service station as a realistic option for employment? Bagging groceries, of course, isn't work.JonEdited by Jon, : No reason given.

The courtesy clerks do a lot more than simply bag groceries. They push endless rows of buggies strewn all over the lot back in to the store, 8 at a time. They help bring new product up from the back of the store and refill all of the endcaps and depleted shelves. They wash the bathrooms which can become quite nasty at times, and they empty all of the stores garbage. They work as hard as any fast food worker does..as for Checkers, we too work quite hard. We no longer sit like a statue at our registers, but we help stock, restock produce and Dairy, and move and relocate displays. The starting wage for checkers is $9.50 an hour, which is no fortune is this economy unless you live in a trailer in the Appalachians.

Yeah, but it also drives inflation. The price of goods will have to be increased to compensate for the rise in the cost of the workers making them. Well here's the actual numbers:

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Jan 1, 1978
$2.65 for all covered, nonexempt workers

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Jan 1, 1979
$2.90 for all covered, nonexempt workers

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Jan 1, 1980
$3.10 for all covered, nonexempt workers

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Jan 1, 1981
$3.35 for all covered, nonexempt workers

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Apr 1, 19904
$3.80 for all covered, nonexempt workers

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Apr 1, 1991
$4.25 for all covered, nonexempt workers

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Oct 1, 1996
$4.75 for all covered, nonexempt workers

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Sep 1, 1997
$5.15 for all covered, nonexempt workers

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Jul 24, 2007
$5.85 for all covered, nonexempt workers

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Jul 24, 2008
$6.55 for all covered, nonexempt workers

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Jul 24, 2009
$7.25 for all covered, nonexempt workers

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History of Federal Minimum Wage Rates Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938 - 2009 | U.S. Department of Labor

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So it has gone up significantly. There was a ten-year gap there...You could compare that to how much inflation has caused prices to rise and/or the value of the dollar, or whatever, and figure up if its due for another bump or not if you really cared about it that much. To me its about protecting the worker from bad working conditions, not about providing them with the means to raise a family. But it also costs me more to produce those goods now, so I'll have to raise the prices accordingly. Too, it doesn't promote an environment where people stive to better themselves if the minimum they can make is good enough already. Also, people who are at the very bottom of the skill-set, or those who aren't capable of bettering themselves, are going to fair worse as the least of the jobs are taken up. Then you're not looking. The "textbook" analysis is about finding the equilibrium between the demand for labor and the supply of workers: Minimum wage - Wikipedia Dude, I included other options besides that right there in the text you quoted. Its better than allowing them to neglect them to death. Raising the minimum wage to family raising levels would cause more problems than it would solve. You kinda are... Its not. What makes you think it is? What percentage of the people who decided to have a child lost?

Did you actually do the math for that? Yeah, well how much are elevator operators making these days? How much do you think hotel rooms would cost if they all still had elevator operators that were making enough money to raise a family on?Edited by Catholic Scientist, : missed a word

I wonder how many of you are well-off white males that live in nice neighborhoods. I'm going to guess all of you. Now, how many of you know someone living at or near poverty? If the answer is "not me", what makes you a judge of how easy it is to be there? Do you have ANY idea what it is like to get OUT of poverty? For most, it is a life long struggle. For many lower income areas, it is near impossible to better yourself. People that grow up in poverty don't have the options that even lower-middle class have. Now factor in the racism that is still rampant and the difficulty to get a good education, and you can see why. Many poverty stricken areas do not have jobs available that make much more than minimum wage, so it's not about "how bad do you want to better yourself", it's about how we treat the lowest members of our society and what options are available to them. Go to one of these neighborhoods and tell me how many banks you see. Now, tell me how many payday loan places do you see.It's easy to sit back in your easy chair in middle america being a white dude with a decent job and you've never had much trouble with money, but there are PLENTY of people out there who struggle just to get themselves or their children fed and clothed.So sure, let's abolish minimum wage and abolish social safety nets so we further hamper those that need it most.

I am poor.I come from a poor family.I receive various forms of government assistance (my healthcare, for example).I was raised as a child on various forms of government assistance (WIC).Advocating for an alternative to the minimum wage system doesn't require that one be a rich, stuck-up, dickhead. Just the opposite in fact. Anyone who has ever made at or near minimum wage knows full-well how poorly the minimum wage system works (pun intended). The same goes for people who are unemployed because there isn't $7.25/hour worth of work to be done in many places, even if there is $6.50/hour worth.The minimum wage system is probably the worst way to solve the problem of underpaid labor. But it's easy enough to implement; easy enough to enforce; and you can say you're doing something without ever having to make sure it's actually getting doneit's great politics but horrible economics.Jon

LOL. No need to be so sneaky, Phat; we can all see the Ace dropping from your sleeve.You mentioned bagging groceries and that is what I replied to. But what you've described here is a full-blown maintenance position