Should all jobs be required to pay at least a living wage?

[dblack]

If a job paid a worker a living wage, then that worker would not need to collect food stamps and other forms of government assistance to feed their famlies and pay the rent. That reduces their dependency on government assistance programs, which should appeal to Republicans and the wealthy.

Not really, in as much as a living wage requirement would be, essentially, 'government assistance'.


But let me ask you something. The question has been put a number of ways in this thread, but advocates of living wage proposal have steered around it. If increasing the minimum wage would have no negative effects on others, or on the economy in general; if, as some here are suggesting, raising the minimum wage is actually net benefit to society, then why not raise it really significantly? Why not mandate a 'living well wage', and requiring that all workers make at least $100/hr? Then we'd all be rich, right?

The problem would be with inflation. If someone could go to Texas and make $100 an hour working in the oil industry, one can imagine what the cost of housing in Texas would be like. And also the cost of meals in good restaurants.

Ok, so you're not (as some here seem to be doing) insisting that mimimum wage laws don't have a negative impact?

 

[The Rabbi]

If a job paid a worker a living wage, then that worker would not need to collect food stamps and other forms of government assistance to feed their famlies and pay the rent. That reduces their dependency on government assistance programs, which should appeal to Republicans and the wealthy.

If the gov't mandated the wage then you are simply shifting the dependence from the gov't to the employer. I dont see that as positive in any way. ANd it also leave a huge number of people unemployed, and of course totally dependent.

 

[Bill Angel]

Not really, in as much as a living wage requirement would be, essentially, 'government assistance'.


But let me ask you something. The question has been put a number of ways in this thread, but advocates of living wage proposal have steered around it. If increasing the minimum wage would have no negative effects on others, or on the economy in general; if, as some here are suggesting, raising the minimum wage is actually net benefit to society, then why not raise it really significantly? Why not mandate a 'living well wage', and requiring that all workers make at least $100/hr? Then we'd all be rich, right?

The problem would be with inflation. If someone could go to Texas and make $100 an hour working in the oil industry, one can imagine what the cost of housing in Texas would be like. And also the cost of meals in good restaurants.

Ok, so you're not (as some here seem to be doing) insisting that mimimum wage laws don't have a negative impact?

Suppose one drew up a table about the impact of the minimum wage on inflation:

1. Minimum wage = $8/hr Negative Impact = none (no contribution to inflation)
2. Minimum wage = $XX/hr Negative impact is small contribution to inflation
3. Minimum wage = $100/hr Negative impact is large contribution to inflation

So the question becomes what would the amount XX be to yield the largest positive impact on the standard of living of workers, with a tolerable impact in terms of increasing inflation?

If someone knows the answer to that question, they could get an important job as a high level adviser to the government of China as well as the United States!

 

[dblack]

The problem would be with inflation. If someone could go to Texas and make $100 an hour working in the oil industry, one can imagine what the cost of housing in Texas would be like. And also the cost of meals in good restaurants.

Ok, so you're not (as some here seem to be doing) insisting that mimimum wage laws don't have a negative impact?

Suppose one drew up a table about the impact of the minimum wage on inflation:

1. Minimum wage = $8/hr Negative Impact = none (no contribution to inflation)
2. Minimum wage = $XX/hr Negative impact is small contribution to inflation
3. Minimum wage = $100/hr Negative impact is large contribution to inflation

So the question becomes what would the amount XX be to yield the largest positive impact on the standard of living of workers, with a tolerable impact in terms of increasing inflation?

If someone knows the answer to that question, they could get an important job as a high level adviser to the government of China as well as the United States!

Why do you assume a minimum wage of $8/hr would have no impact? Obviously it would have less than $100/hr, but the same principle is at work, right?

 

[Oldstyle]

What proponents of a higher minimum wage can't seem to grasp is that when you artificially raise the low end of a wage scale you will raise wages across the board. If I now have to pay a dishwasher $15 an hour instead of $8...I'm also going to have to raise the pay for line cooks who now make $15 an hour to $20-$22 an hour to keep them happy. When I raise all my labor cost in such a way I'm going to have to pass those costs along to my customers. The dinner that I now charge $25 for...I'm going to have to get $35 for. It's going to be that way for everything. You're going to see spikes in the cost of everything that you buy. So what happens to those living on fixed incomes? You need to legislate in cost of living increases for them as well or they'll be eating cat food under your new minimum wage laws. Same for those collecting unemployment and food stamps. THEIR cost of living would go through the roof as well.

 

[pinqy]

What proponents of a higher minimum wage can't seem to grasp is that when you artificially raise the low end of a wage scale you will raise wages across the board. If I now have to pay a dishwasher $15 an hour instead of $8...I'm also going to have to raise the pay for line cooks who now make $15 an hour to $20-$22 an hour to keep them happy. When I raise all my labor cost in such a way I'm going to have to pass those costs along to my customers. The dinner that I now charge $25 for...I'm going to have to get $35 for. It's going to be that way for everything. You're going to see spikes in the cost of everything that you buy. So what happens to those living on fixed incomes? You need to legislate in cost of living increases for them as well or they'll be eating cat food under your new minimum wage laws. Same for those collecting unemployment and food stamps. THEIR cost of living would go through the roof as well.

It depends. For minimum wage jobs their are a group of people loosely attached to the labor force...students, stay-home spouses, retirees...who don't necessarily need a job but may decide to take one. By raising the minimum wage you attract more of thes people and and you can also get more competition from those holding jobs that were at or below the new minimum wage but above the old one...IF their jobs did not increase in pay, then they now are at least equal in switching to a min wage job.

So with a greater supply of labor, but no ability to lower price, the employers can be a lot choosier about who to employ and more free to fire less productive employees. This can cause productivity to increase and if the productivity increase at least matches the wage increases, there's no need for sales prices (cost of living) to go up.

Will this necessarily occur? Of course not. Can and does it occur? Yep.

 

[dblack]

What proponents of a higher minimum wage can't seem to grasp is that when you artificially raise the low end of a wage scale you will raise wages across the board. If I now have to pay a dishwasher $15 an hour instead of $8...I'm also going to have to raise the pay for line cooks who now make $15 an hour to $20-$22 an hour to keep them happy. When I raise all my labor cost in such a way I'm going to have to pass those costs along to my customers. The dinner that I now charge $25 for...I'm going to have to get $35 for. It's going to be that way for everything. You're going to see spikes in the cost of everything that you buy. So what happens to those living on fixed incomes? You need to legislate in cost of living increases for them as well or they'll be eating cat food under your new minimum wage laws. Same for those collecting unemployment and food stamps. THEIR cost of living would go through the roof as well.

It depends. For minimum wage jobs their are a group of people loosely attached to the labor force...students, stay-home spouses, retirees...who don't necessarily need a job but may decide to take one. By raising the minimum wage you attract more of thes people and and you can also get more competition from those holding jobs that were at or below the new minimum wage but above the old one...IF their jobs did not increase in pay, then they now are at least equal in switching to a min wage job.

But surely you can see how this is offset coming from the employers perspective. There's a class of jobs 'loosely attached' to the labor market - jobs that aren't critical, but worthwhile if they can get done on the cheap (e.g. - flag holders or dept. store greeters). But if employers can't get those jobs filled cheaply, they'll simply do without (or asked other employees to pick up the slack). So, in that case, you don't necessarily get the inflationary push, but you get higher unemployment.

I haven't seen any compelling argument for the notion that minimum wage laws are a benefit to the economy as whole. They only make sense as an income redistribution scheme, but - and here's the kicker - that doesn't happen as advocates often imagine. I think they see it as redistributing wealth from rich business owners to poor workers, but it doesn't work that way. The cost of artificially inflating the lowest wages impacts all of us, even the poor people it's supposed to be helping, in the form of higher prices and increased unemployment.

 

[pinqy]

What proponents of a higher minimum wage can't seem to grasp is that when you artificially raise the low end of a wage scale you will raise wages across the board. If I now have to pay a dishwasher $15 an hour instead of $8...I'm also going to have to raise the pay for line cooks who now make $15 an hour to $20-$22 an hour to keep them happy. When I raise all my labor cost in such a way I'm going to have to pass those costs along to my customers. The dinner that I now charge $25 for...I'm going to have to get $35 for. It's going to be that way for everything. You're going to see spikes in the cost of everything that you buy. So what happens to those living on fixed incomes? You need to legislate in cost of living increases for them as well or they'll be eating cat food under your new minimum wage laws. Same for those collecting unemployment and food stamps. THEIR cost of living would go through the roof as well.

It depends. For minimum wage jobs their are a group of people loosely attached to the labor force...students, stay-home spouses, retirees...who don't necessarily need a job but may decide to take one. By raising the minimum wage you attract more of thes people and and you can also get more competition from those holding jobs that were at or below the new minimum wage but above the old one...IF their jobs did not increase in pay, then they now are at least equal in switching to a min wage job.

But surely you can see how this is offset coming from the employers perspective. There's a class of jobs 'loosely attached' to the labor market - jobs that aren't critical, but worthwhile if they can get done on the cheap (e.g. - flag holders or dept. store greeters). But if employers can't get those jobs filled cheaply, they'll simply do without (or asked other employees to pick up the slack). So, in that case, you don't necessarily get the inflationary push, but you get higher unemployment.

Like I said, it depends. Those displaced from the jobs that are now overpriced will either compete for the other min wage jobs, as I said, or drop out of the labor force altogether, since the majority of those jobs are secondary jobs or held by those loosely attached.

I haven't seen any compelling argument for the notion that minimum wage laws are a benefit to the economy as whole.

Again, it depends. Sweden, for example, has no minimum wage, but it does have strong unions and has no problem without a minimum wage. But in many third world countries, and in some industries in the US before min wage laws, they do provide a minimum degree of protection.

In the idealized Econ 101 model if a salary isn't high enough, no one will take it and wages will rise to meet supply. But in the real world, there's not always such a choice, employers aren't always rational, and min wage laws can (but not always do) provide protection for workers.

 

[RightNorLeft]

If most jobs dont pay a living wage, either by amount paid or hours allowed the result is millions of people that want to work and do work but cant feed their kids and dont make enough to meet their basic needs and you will have more people on food stamps...and if you stop that you will have alot more criminals stealing to feed their family.
You push anything into a corner it will try to kill you to survive. This is a damned if you do damned if you dont. If companies are going to continue to increase their bottom line by reducing hours to and making other employees do more for less and pay less for the same job they used to pay more for. Then their supporters need not whine about people needing govt assistance.
You either pay them enough for being willing to work or you put them on the dole and you pay anyway.

 

[Oldstyle]

What is the definition of a "living wage"? When I was just starting out working, I lived at home and had few bills so the entry level job I started out with was more than sufficient for me to live on.

This notion that someone should be able to support a family of four on a minimum wage job is ludicrous and trying to force the labor market to conform with your notion of what "fair" is, will end up hurting those people with few jobs skills or no job history. The truth is...if you raise minimum wage to the point where you CAN support a family of four...you will cause hundreds of thousands of people just entering the job market to have ZERO chance of finding work. And when you deprive young people of the experience of working for a paycheck you make them dependent on others for their needs. Is that what you REALLY want? Think long and hard about this because it's basically going to "flush" an entire generation down the economic toilet. You think you have income inequality NOW? It's going to get much worse instead of better if this legislation was ever passed.

 

[Oldstyle]

I'm sorry but you can't "guarantee" success for people in a free market economy. All you CAN do is provide opportunity. The rest is up to individuals. Every year hundreds of thousands of people enter the job market. Some of them are gifted and hard working. Some of them are lazy and untalented. Now you can "try" to legislate fairness into the equation but why mess with what made this country so successful? Opportunity and competition. That's the American formula for success. Trying to legislate a level salary playing field for different people with different work ethics is a fool's errand. It's nice in theory and never works in real life.

 

[RightNorLeft]

What is the definition of a "living wage"? When I was just starting out working, I lived at home and had few bills so the entry level job I started out with was more than sufficient for me to live on.

This notion that someone should be able to support a family of four on a minimum wage job is ludicrous and trying to force the labor market to conform with your notion of what "fair" is, will end up hurting those people with few jobs skills or no job history. The truth is...if you raise minimum wage to the point where you CAN support a family of four...you will cause hundreds of thousands of people just entering the job market to have ZERO chance of finding work. And when you deprive young people of the experience of working for a paycheck you make them dependent on others for their needs. Is that what you REALLY want? Think long and hard about this because it's basically going to "flush" an entire generation down the economic toilet. You think you have income inequality NOW? It's going to get much worse instead of better if this legislation was ever passed.

No one expects a minimum wage job to support a family of 4. Look there are always going to be the uneducated and unskilled, that is not going to change its going to get worse as there are less and less jobs available. So heres the question, how do they eat ? It must be nice to be a corporate entity that doesnt have to care about anyone or anything but cash and send jobs to china india and the phillipines or anywhere else they can save a buck and make more profit and let ALL other taxpaying americans subsidize those they made unemployed and those they underpay and those that they make work part time. So they can cry even more they pay to many taxs...one day americans hopefully will wake up to this unreal conjob they believe in.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Should all jobs be required to pay at least a living wage?

of course not. All jobs should pay a few cents an hour and taxpayers should make up the difference.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

I'm sorry but you can't "guarantee" success for people in a free market economy. All you CAN do is provide opportunity. The rest is up to individuals. Every year hundreds of thousands of people enter the job market. Some of them are gifted and hard working. Some of them are lazy and untalented.

Are any of them lazy and gifted, or hard working an untalented?

 

[pinqy]

If most jobs dont pay a living wage, either by amount paid or hours allowed the result is millions of people that want to work and do work but cant feed their kids and dont make enough to meet their basic needs and you will have more people on food stamps...and if you stop that you will have alot more criminals stealing to feed their family.

For 2011, there were 3,829,000 people who earned at or below minimum wage (does not include overtime or tips). About half were age 16-24 (and 92% of them were unmarried). 2/3ds were part time workers. Married women made up a large chunk, too. Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers 2011

The thing is that very few people make at or near minimum wage. If you're young, single, starting out you get paid less because you don't need as much.

A "living wage" is completely different for a 16 year old high school student who lives at home. My "living wage" when I was 16 was Zero. Married with kids is a lot higher.

Trying to pay a living wage will massively overpay many people much more than they need/want, and that's amazingly inefficient.

And again, what about Sweden? No minimum wage at all, yet they don't have the horrors you imagine.

 

[Oldstyle]

What is the definition of a "living wage"? When I was just starting out working, I lived at home and had few bills so the entry level job I started out with was more than sufficient for me to live on.

This notion that someone should be able to support a family of four on a minimum wage job is ludicrous and trying to force the labor market to conform with your notion of what "fair" is, will end up hurting those people with few jobs skills or no job history. The truth is...if you raise minimum wage to the point where you CAN support a family of four...you will cause hundreds of thousands of people just entering the job market to have ZERO chance of finding work. And when you deprive young people of the experience of working for a paycheck you make them dependent on others for their needs. Is that what you REALLY want? Think long and hard about this because it's basically going to "flush" an entire generation down the economic toilet. You think you have income inequality NOW? It's going to get much worse instead of better if this legislation was ever passed.

No one expects a minimum wage job to support a family of 4. Look there are always going to be the uneducated and unskilled, that is not going to change its going to get worse as there are less and less jobs available. So heres the question, how do they eat ? It must be nice to be a corporate entity that doesnt have to care about anyone or anything but cash and send jobs to china india and the phillipines or anywhere else they can save a buck and make more profit and let ALL other taxpaying americans subsidize those they made unemployed and those they underpay and those that they make work part time. So they can cry even more they pay to many taxs...one day americans hopefully will wake up to this unreal conjob they believe in.

I beg to differ with you...but there are many that are calling that the "standard" of what a "living wage" should be.

 

[Delia]

You do know that once upon a time, those cashier workers made a living wage don't you? In fact, they were considered very well paid. Come to think of it, most workers were paid decently way back when. It's only since the 70's and changes in corporate law that we've become a country of the rich and the poor.

Oh, we've been a country of rich and poor long before the 70's. It still doesn't change the fact that people should not have to subsidize lazy bums with no ambition.

My friend has been working as a maid for 30 years. She's not a lazy bum and she does have ambition, but things don't always work out the way you want. She deserves a LIVING wage. Everyone working in the richest country in the world DESERVES a living wage. No one DESERVES 500 times what their employees are making and I seriously doubt you deserve what you are paid. I don't think you know what hard work is, if we paid according to how hard the work was, those people you disparage would be making a lot more than you.

 

[The Rabbi]

If most jobs dont pay a living wage, either by amount paid or hours allowed the result is millions of people that want to work and do work but cant feed their kids and dont make enough to meet their basic needs and you will have more people on food stamps...and if you stop that you will have alot more criminals stealing to feed their family.
You push anything into a corner it will try to kill you to survive. This is a damned if you do damned if you dont. If companies are going to continue to increase their bottom line by reducing hours to and making other employees do more for less and pay less for the same job they used to pay more for. Then their supporters need not whine about people needing govt assistance.
You either pay them enough for being willing to work or you put them on the dole and you pay anyway.

So the alternative is to mandate to companies what they must pay. Then companies lay off workers, so they have no jobs and declining job skills, and we get to foot the entire bill for people's lazy existence.
No thanks.

 

[The Rabbi]

Oh, we've been a country of rich and poor long before the 70's. It still doesn't change the fact that people should not have to subsidize lazy bums with no ambition.

My friend has been working as a maid for 30 years. She's not a lazy bum and she does have ambition, but things don't always work out the way you want. She deserves a LIVING wage. Everyone working in the richest country in the world DESERVES a living wage. No one DESERVES 500 times what their employees are making and I seriously doubt you deserve what you are paid. I don't think you know what hard work is, if we paid according to how hard the work was, those people you disparage would be making a lot more than you.

Probably because you don't deserve what it is you are getting.

 

[Delia]

Define "living wage".

A wage that allows a person to be self-sufficient and have all basic needs met for an extended period of time. For this thread assume:

Transportation
Food
Clothing
Shelter
Healthcare

Without relying on anyone else.

OK, let's go with that:
Food and shelter. Period. Anything else is not a basic 'need'. I mean, why don't you include entertainment, technology (periodically updated to remain current), companionship, travel/vacation?

I propose a more novel concept, one that became outmoded when government got involved, how about you live within your means? If you can't afford to rent (or buy) a McMansion, you rent a modest apartment. If you can't afford a spanky new car, you don't have one, you walk or use public transportation. I you can't afford the latest cell phone or computer, you don't have them. If you can't afford to shop at Old Navy, you go to Salvation Army. No one is entitled to have what someone else has if they have not earned it.

I've yet to find an employer who's okay with me showing up in either rags, or no clothing at all.

What's the furthest you feel is a logical expectation that somebody should walk to work? What if there is no metro bus system, or said system doesn't have a bus stop in your neck of the woods, OR doesn't run the hours you work?