Huff accidentally gets it right: Minimum wage.

[Andylusion]

As the Truism goes, a broken clock is right twice a day.

Proving this correct, the Huffington Post slipped up on their progressive left-wing filters, and let this absolute gem through to publication.

What to Pay the Babysitter | Jan Francisco

Now this is a mother who is trying to determine how much to pay the Babysitter. Look at what she says... this is amazing coming from the Huff.

I stated that my price for three hours with two kids was $15.

My position is that it is not a terribly hard job: I don't expect them to be the mom, I expect them to watch a movie with my kids and feed them a little pre-made dinner. Probably almost exactly what they would be doing at home for free. If I could afford to pay them more, I would expect them to do more, like clean my house, make the dinner and do the dishes. But I know my budget, so I tell them that I don't expect much extra and pray that it will go smoothly for them.

But but no one can live off $5 an hour!!! The government says the living wage is should be...........

He said that he usually earns $30-40 each time he mows someone's lawn. Then he said that some people pay $50 per time that he mows their lawn! FIFTY DOLLARS.

So the kids are saying, "This is so great! I am making so much money!" And the adults are saying, "Well, I guess if that is what people are paying, I had better stay competitive with what I pay too." And the price keeps inflating higher and higher. But what are the consequences?

First, I get a babysitter twice a year. I can't afford it otherwise. Other moms feel the same way. So the teenagers are potentially losing out on steady work and the commitment of holding a regular babysitting job because the going rate is more than many families can afford. My friends and I get around that by simply swapping kids with each other, which is fantastic and cheap. So we aren't the ones missing out in the situation -- it's the teenager who could have some money more often, rather than lots of money occasionally.

So let's review a second.... They are charging so much money, that parents are engaging in kid swaps, where I'll watch your kids when you go out, and you watch my kids when I go out, and we'll pay each other nothing.

The baby sitter earns ZERO. Hello.... insert minimum wage reference here.

She continues....

And second, we are creating an unrealistic expectation for kids in what their time and energy is actually worth to the working world.

I had one teen tell me that he hated his pizza place job because "they treat me like a trained monkey. I think they want to work me to death." Yes, real jobs are hard and often crummy. But they are stepping stones to greater things. Experience is important when are applying for a better job than the one you currently have. If they don't want to work at the pizza place in high school, and then they don't want to work at a college job (because they don't pay enough or they don't like cleaning bathrooms), how are they going to get a job out of college with absolutely no experience? We complain about paying the mechanic or the plumber for their labor and yet we freely overpay these unskilled teenagers to their own detriment. And it is not just teenagers that have this inflated self-conception. Everyone does.

Wow.... Just WOW.... This was on the Huffington Post. I bet you ANYTHING that if I copied this to the forum without a link reference, a bunch of left-wingers would say this came from Fox News.

Now, while I could go one, I want to tie this back to the minimum wage.

The only difference between this situation above, and the minimum wage, is that there is a CEO, or Company between the customer and the employee.

Say that instead of your neighbors kid, you were hiring a babysitter from Sitters-R-Us.

Now the parent is paying the company, and the company is paying the sitter. But magically people think the company should pay the sitter a "living wage".

The only thing that has changed is that there is a business or CEO between the customer and the employee.

But the economics have not changed. You drive up the wages of the employee, and the company has to drive up prices to the customer. As a result, the parents stop buying the service, and start kids swapping.

The employees are now unemployed.

This is exactly what happens in Restaurants, and stores, and so on. Everything this lady was talking about, is exactly why the minimum wage does not work. It always kills jobs. Always.

 

[Rikurzhen]

Crickets, crickets. Chirp, chirp. Ribbet, ribbet.

 

[The2ndAmendment]

The minimum wage was a Trojan Horse by Progressive scum.

It actually sets a bar so low that a truly skilled and ambitious worker can't negotiate a higher starting wage and live up to the expectations that they gave their boss.

Progressive riff-raff cry that the minimum wage should be $20 an hour, to some extent, this is true, a person who works hard should get about $20 an hour, but you know why they can't negotiate for $15 to $20 an hour? Because minimum wage is set to around $8 an hour.

Cry, scream and bitch all you want, your Progressive Plantation Owners will never raise the minimum wage to a level that would allow you to be self-sufficient, they want you to be forever dependent on them. They'll pretend that they want to raise it, but they'll never do it. If they actually wanted to raise it to $20 an hour, it would be VERY FUCKING EASY AND POPULAR to do.

So there you go Progressive trash, you accepted the Trojan horse, and now you've been subjugated and dominated.

Your best hope is the total ELIMINATION of the minimum wage.

 

[Politico]

Crickets, crickets. Chirp, chirp. Ribbet, ribbet.

Anything they get right is by accident. Chirp click.

 

[Noomi]

What kind of a stupid bitch mother thinks a babysitter is worth only five bucks an hour? Its not just watching a movie and feeding the kids - what about if there is an injury? What about an emergency? If you can't afford to pay more, stay home and look after the brats yourself.

 

[Noomi]

I babysat two kids next door when I was seventeen. I am nearly thirty one now. I watched TV with them, pretended to be a horsey to take the younger child to bed, and read a story to them both.
For that, just under 90 minutes of babysitting, I earned myself $35.

Babysitters over here routinely charge around $15 an hour. $5 an hour and you'd be laughed at.

 

[Geaux4it]

Minimum wage debate relative to improvement in the economy is a red herring.

We are talking about just less than 1% of the working demographic. Minimum wage has zero impact on improving the economy while reducing the companies bottom line.

-Geaux

 

[Andylusion]

What kind of a stupid bitch mother thinks a babysitter is worth only five bucks an hour? Its not just watching a movie and feeding the kids - what about if there is an injury? What about an emergency? If you can't afford to pay more, stay home and look after the brats yourself.

She already said that she does NOT go out simply because she can't afford it. So chill out a little, she's taking your advice already.

Or alternatively, she's doing kid swaps, where she gives her kids to a friend while she goes out, and then she takes her friends kids, while they go out. Thus neither of them hire a teenager to sit and watch TV.

I babysat two kids next door when I was seventeen. I am nearly thirty one now. I watched TV with them, pretended to be a horsey to take the younger child to bed, and read a story to them both.
For that, just under 90 minutes of babysitting, I earned myself $35.

Babysitters over here routinely charge around $15 an hour. $5 an hour and you'd be laughed at.

Actually, I also did a few baby sitting jobs, and was paid about $5 an hour, and honestly it was worth about that much. Watching TV isn't a skill oriented task, requiring $20/hr.

Additionally, I only posted the parts of the article I considered relevant to my thread... if you had read the entire thing, she said very specifically that she did not expect them to tuck them into bed, or read stories, or play games. She expected her to play one of the movies, give them a pre-made dinner she had already prepared, and that was it. She'd be back and take care of send them to bed.

She openly admitted, that if she expected more to be done, then she would pay them more. If she had kids that were problematic, she would pay them more.

At my own home growing up, I did it for free. If there was an emergency, I still wouldn't be much help. I would end up calling 911, to summon the people who are paid $100/hr. Is dialing 911 a skill requiring $20/hr? I don't think so.

You may disagree, and that's ok. We can disagree, and still be friends.

We don't even know where this chick is. She could be in some low cost-of-living area, where $15 is a fair sum. Obviously if she's in New York city, she's crazy. Over in the hills of West Virgina, that might be a good price.

My point was, the economic implications are dead on accurate. The higher the price goes, the fewer people use the service, and the more people avoid the service.

She would likely go out more often, if the price for hiring a babysitter was more reasonable. Instead she goes out seldom.

Alternatively she is doing the kid swap thing, and avoiding hiring a babysitter altogether.

The same thing happens throughout the economy, when wages are driven up by government. The rational behind driving up the wages, doesn't matter. The economic effects will happen regardless of the rational.

 

[rdean]

When I think of minimum wage, I think of a paycheck. Not baby sitting and mowing lawns.

 

[Andylusion]

Minimum wage debate relative to improvement in the economy is a red herring.

We are talking about just less than 1% of the working demographic. Minimum wage has zero impact on improving the economy while reducing the companies bottom line.

-Geaux

That is not exactly true. Not entirely. If it was true... then Unions would never be in favor of the minimum wage, but there, and often are.

Why would the Unions not be in favor of the minimum wage, when virtually none of the Union jobs, are minimum wage?

The answer is simply that minimum wage drives up the wages throughout the lower end of the economy, including Union jobs.

Minimum wage jobs, at fast food joints, is always reserved for part-time employees. When I was working there, decades ago, my assistant store manager was paid $8/hr.

Today (in ohio the minimum wage), the part time employee that works 20 hours a week, is paid $8/hr. You think assistant store managers are still paid $8/hr? Of course not. The full time people are paid a little more than those part timers. The shift managers are not going to work for the same as full time people. And the assistant manager isn't going to work for the same pay as the shift managers.

So the increase in pay filters up through the levels of employment.

Now obviously at some level, it stops. A guy earning $60,000 a year, is not going to demand another 25¢/hr because the minimum wage went up.

So I would argue that it does effect more people, that just the lowest 1% of wage earners.

But where I disagree with people, is that the effect is a net positive. In the short term it's nice, but in the long term, customers migrate away from higher costs.

It doesn't matter how they vote at the polls, when they ultimately vote with their feet, to not buy a product that is more expensive. You can vote the minimum wage to be a Million dollars an hour, and when the customers stop showing up at the store, those minimum wage employees earn the new lower wage of ZERO.

 

[R.D.]

What kind of a stupid bitch mother thinks a babysitter is worth only five bucks an hour? Its not just watching a movie and feeding the kids - what about if there is an injury? What about an emergency? If you can't afford to pay more, stay home and look after the brats yourself.

This one

You think you deserve $15 to play with my kids, eat my food, talk to your friends and chill at my house? You crazy

 

[Andylusion]

When I think of minimum wage, I think of a paycheck. Not baby sitting and mowing lawns.

That's our point. When it's a customer directly paying the employee... you don't think of the minimum wage.

Why? Because you grasp that if you mandated that baby sitters were paid $50/hr, no one would hire baby sitters, and they would earn nothing.

What you don't realize, is that there is not one thing different between that situation above, and a store.

Nothing has changed economically. Not one thing. The only difference is there is this "company" between the customer and the employee.

But economically.... every penny you pay the employee, has to be paid by the customer.

If you want the Whopper Flopper at Burger King to be paid $15/hr, then you have to charge the customer $15 a burger.

The customer has to pay the cost, of that wage.

Increasing the price of whopper flopping, is the same as increasing the price of baby sitting. Same deal.

Price goes up, and she stops hiring babysitters. She starts trading services, by kid swapping, and hires no baby sitters. The baby sitters earn a new wage of ZERO.

Price goes up, and people stop buying Whoppers. They start cooking their own food, *OR* the store replaces employees with machines, like they have already done in Europe. The Whopper Floppers earn a new wage of ZERO.

Same deal.

 

[NLT]

I babysat two kids next door when I was seventeen. I am nearly thirty one now. I watched TV with them, pretended to be a horsey to take the younger child to bed, and read a story to them both.
For that, just under 90 minutes of babysitting, I earned myself $35.

Babysitters over here routinely charge around $15 an hour. $5 an hour and you'd be laughed at.

90 min = $32.56 US Dollars= .36 per minute and noomi raped her customer

 

[SAYIT]

What kind of a stupid bitch mother thinks a babysitter is worth only five bucks an hour? Its not just watching a movie and feeding the kids - what about if there is an injury? What about an emergency? If you can't afford to pay more, stay home and look after the brats yourself.

Don't you lefties like to pretend you are the compassionate ones?

 

[Andylusion]

I babysat two kids next door when I was seventeen. I am nearly thirty one now. I watched TV with them, pretended to be a horsey to take the younger child to bed, and read a story to them both.
For that, just under 90 minutes of babysitting, I earned myself $35.

Babysitters over here routinely charge around $15 an hour. $5 an hour and you'd be laughed at.

90 min = $32.56 US Dollars= .36 per minute and noomi raped her customer

Well no I disagree with that. The value of the labor is determined by the customer.

If the customer is willing to pay $50 an hour to watch their kids, than that is how much the labor is worth to them. It is entirely possible that Noomi is a fantastic sitter, that was very punctual and reliable, and did an extensive job, and thus her customers were more than willing to pay a goodly wage.

And no, I am not sucking up to Noomi unless she askes me to.

My point is, in the free-market, Noomi and the customers determine what her labor is worth, thus she can charge what the customers deem her labor value is.

What I'm against is if the customers are saying she's only worth $30 an hour, and the government says "That's not a living wage! She needs $50! All sitters must be paid $50"

Then what happens is, customers don't hire Noomi, and she's screwed out of a good part time job, and the customers are screwed out of a valuable service.

That's the problem.

 

[whitehall]

If you are young enough, get off your ass and do something. Join the Military and get the freaking GI bill. Get an education somehow. If you are middle aged and still working for minimum wage... get used to it.

 

[1776]

Raising the minimum wage is simple...

1) A company either passes the increased labor cost to their customers with higher prices, which in the long run screws the workers with higher priced goods.
2) A company goes out of business if they can't take on the increased labor cost.
3) They fire some workers to pay the remaining workers more each hour.

 

[Missouri_Mike]

What kind of a stupid bitch mother thinks a babysitter is worth only five bucks an hour? Its not just watching a movie and feeding the kids - what about if there is an injury? What about an emergency? If you can't afford to pay more, stay home and look after the brats yourself.

Yeah man! That greedy mother is just hording all of her coupons in an off shore account and parading around in her slightly used mini-van all because she hates baby sitters. In a just world she should be forced to share her coupons and van with the baby sitter she is currently crapping on as well as provide decent benefits!

The left has some crazy ideas about what people are worth paying for certain jobs.

 

[itfitzme]

"But economically.... every penny you pay the employee, has to be paid by the customer.

If you want the Whopper Flopper at Burger King to be paid $15/hr, then you have to charge the customer $15 a burger.

The customer has to pay the cost, of that wage.

...l.

Uh, no...this is absolutely not how it works. Cost isn't the only driving factor in prices. You have heard about this thing called " profit"?


See, price is the result of both the supply and demand for a product. Cost only puts a lower limit on the price. Product demand most certainly will raise price well above the cost of wages, equipmment, and materials. That is how things work, economically.

 

[OnePercenter]

The story is about the Mom not being able to afford paying for it, which is something the 'I've got mine so fuck everyone else sociopaths' can't understand.

The Mom is working. She can't afford it. Think about it.