Labor Pains In Colorado

There are alternatives to minimum wage. Since I've only once responded to Perdition in this thread, I am not sure how you could regard any of my treatment of his points as 'repeated'.Jon

And it is stupid to pay workers more than what their work earns the employer.Jon

If the government believes it is in the best interest of the nation to have adults with families earning more than teenagers for the exact same work, then it is the government that should pick up on paying those extra earnings.

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

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.

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

How much it costs to raise a family has nothing to do with how much a certain amount of work is worth. I posted the link while in a hurry without explaining it. I do not agree with everything written on Wikipedia, but I thought it was a nice starting point. I already mentioned that a workable solution would likely be least acceptable to most of the folk involved.

I gave a link to this article: Guaranteed Minimum Income. Through my various posts before and since, I've somewhat laid out a position advocating a need-based basic income system that doesn't rely on minimum wage.If, as part of such a system, you decide to set a minimum wage, that can be okay, so long as you don't set the minimum so high that it encourages unemployment (which definitely means it cannot be large enough for someone to raise a family on). Obviously allowing businesses to run free and wild, doing what they please to whom they please, is a horrible approach. And that is why I have not suggested going that route at all.JonEdited by Jon, : Major code fail...

The only factor to consider is how much income the work can generate. Other factors will affect how much someone can actually get for doing a certain amount of work (such as the labor pool size for the given occupation, etc.), but as far as actual worth, there is only one consideration.Jon

*ahem*

We already have systems in place that determine eligibility for need-based government assistance. So this would hardly be a sticking point for what I've proposed. Remember: If a minimum exists at all in the system I've proposed, it will still only be a part of the package. There are many ways to implement it.The pay out could be in the form of monthly checks (which is already done under Social Security and cash assistance); or it could be paid out yearly (which is already done with tax refunds).There are already many frameworks in place that could carry the extra duties of ensuring basic incomes for the poor, and many such programs already exist (rental assistance, energy assistance, food stamps, education grants, healthcaresome states, etc.). All of these programs are 'basic income' programs, with the caveat that the income granted is required to be used toward the purchase of certain goods.So I'm a little baffled that people see this as something so radical. The system I'm proposing already exists; I'm just proposing to make it better.Jon

No; not necessarily. Chances are that many people played a part in bringing in that deal, and many other company resources were devoted to the task as well. So an individual laborer cannot claim credit for the whole amount.