Trump doubles down on claim that US 'wages are too high

[Boss]

It also won't do anything to help anyone. For 82 years, since the day FDR signed the MW into law, the Democrats have promised this would raise the working poor up to a decent living wage... never has, never will. It's a carrot on a stick.

"In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls;and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living."~ FDR 1933

so, you support bringing the minimum wage up to $15 and you are going to send letters to your republican reps to support it? Is that your point?

No, because it doesn't work. Seems like 82 years of something not working would be enough.

If you raise the MW to $15, virtually all entry-level jobs will decline. So the young person out there trying to get into the workforce and gain experience will have less opportunity. The raise also creates a ripple effect through the mid-level pay scales as the all have to receive comparable adjustments to their pay. When it's all said and done, the increased labor costs are passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices. And yes, they also increase production per worker, scale back operations, lay off workers and cut corners on quality. The business objective will be to not let the extra cost effect the bottom line profit and it usually never does.

So what you do (and what you've been doing for 82 years) is make yourself feel good for a little bit. People get a little bigger paycheck and you think that relief has come. Only, the people quickly find a way to improve their lifestyle with the extra money and soon they are in the same boat again. Only now, the prices have risen and things are even worse.

If we follow your insanity to it's ultimate outcome, it becomes like health care and education... so overpriced due to your stupid boneheaded policies and massive regulations that no one can afford it... THEN you start squealing that the government needs to give it to your for FREE!

do you believe if we never gave minimum wage a raise, that we would not have inflation or do you believe inflation will take place, regardless of what we pay the minimum wage worker?

I understand what you are saying on the ripple effect, others that worked 10 years to get to the $15 are going to expect a raise too....

But honestly, I believe part of the reason that the skilled worker and experience guy is only making the $15 is because minimum wage has been artificially been kept low... if minimum wages had been going up with inflation all along, then that next layer up or two or three of skilled workers, would have been paid more...

AND THAT means, this could also be helping the middle class... get out of this rut of stagnate or even lower wages....

As long as you hold down those making the least, the pay of everyone else seems more acceptable, even though those people are losing ground on what they actually make in income and what they can buy with it, like a college education.... when I was young, working minimum wage through the summer full time and part time all winter, with just a little bit of help from the parents, could pay for 1 year of college at a State College, without having to take out a loan....

Why should a child today doing a minimum wage job not be able to purchase what a kid making minimum could 30 years ago? And it is not just college, but they should be able to buy the same amount of food as you could on that min wage or same amount of car insurance as you could or gasoline that you could on minimum wage years ago?

it should go up with inflation, like other wages.

I think the MW is one of the worst ideas we've ever had. I'm sure some might argue there have been other worse ideas and maybe so, this is just my opinion. I think the MW has served to baseline labor costs across the board for all capitalists and they love it. The individual has been removed from his freedom to negotiate because now there is an artificial and arbitrary rate the company can go by.

An example of what I am saying: Let's say there is a chain convenience store like 7-11 operating a location on St. Simon's Island in Georgia. It's a tourist area with a few very expensive homes and an above-average cost of living (on the actual island). Now, the convenience store needs a cashier, but the company policy is, all cashiers start at minimum wage. Well, you can't really live on St. Simon Island and work for minimum wage. In an open free market, someone would be able to negotiate a special higher wage to work there because of location and cost of living, but as it stands, they can't because... the minimum wage is what it is and that's 7-11s policy. They hire someone at MW but they don't live on the Island, so they have to spend more money to drive there and eat lunch there, etc. So, effectively, they're making LESS than MW but doing the same work as others who make MW.

Or let's say we're talking about a job that's not MW, but on up the ladder... let's say Tech Support... Pay is $15 an hour based on current MW. It doesn't matter that you are super bright and the best technician they've ever had, you still make $15 like all the other schlubs. You can't negotiate a higher wage because the wage is set according to the MW and that's just how they do it. Of course, without a MW, you could go to your boss and plead your case and you'd probably be able to negotiate a much more deserved salary.

You see... the MW works two ways. The capitalist uses it to avoid negotiations. It's a baseline for them on labor costs. They can put off raises or deny request for pay increases because hey... that MW thing. I understand that it was wonderful and great back during the depression when people were paid a nickel a bushel to pick oranges or kids were trapped in sweat shops for slave wages... understood... we had a serious problem and it needed to be corrected. I just think we did the wrong thing by establishing a national MW. It has effectively served as a ball and chain to our freedom of negotiation for the true value of our labor.

I agree with near everything you've said on 'paper' or in this case, my computer screen...it's a solid theory...again, on paper...and is the positive aspect of what it could be like, without a minimum wage...but i'm a realist, and a daily witness of humans and their nature, and see a drive to lower wages instead of raising them if without the minimum wage....

Businesses want to lower their labors costs, pay less....that's what this is about....

also, minimum wagers have no experience in negotiating for a higher salary and most people with 20 years in the workforce don't have experience in negotiating for a higher salary, they take the raises they get.... big guns have recruiters negotiate their salary packages.

a darn salary negotiation class should be mandatory to take in high school!

And it's so much more complicated than simply the wage, if an employer pays them less, then us tax payers pay more in safety nets for them...

if there are an excess of low wage workers due to illegal immigrants, then wages stay lower.... so many things are intertwined together with this M/W issue...no fault of the American citizen m/w worker but it still lowers their success in negotiating for higher wages if they have the guts to try.

Note! employers can hire a teen for $4+ something an hour for like 3 months, then they have to bring them up to an adult's minimum wage...or let them go if they can't cut it....

I think there are a lot of things we can do to improve wages in America without messing with the MW. I would really love to see us make the MW obsolete. Wouldn't that be nice? No one worries about it because everyone makes more already. So keep it low, where it is now, and grow new jobs to the point where demand for labor grows. That fixes the problem because that IS the problem.

Even back 82 years ago, the problem wasn't that wages were too low and we needed government to step in.. that's what happened, but the problem was no demand for labor. We had an unusual over-supply of labor and capitalists were exploiting that. If you increase the demand for labor the labor rates go up... that's free market capitalism, baby. It's how it works.

There is one more aspect to keeping wages low and Trump sort of touched on this. You need a mechanism to drive motivation in people. As long as all your needs are being met and you can exist comfortably in your present state, there is nothing motivating you to do better. It is the struggle of having to make it that drives our ambition and motivates us to improve our condition and we need that. Without it, we become complacent and content. We settle for what we've got and don't try any harder.

 

[Boss]

Businesses want to lower their labors costs, pay less....that's what this is about....

Capitalism is always about profit. Their number one objective is profit, followed closely by their number two and three objectives which is more profit. Of course they want low labor costs. As low as they can get away with and still keep quality productive people. But you see, the solution is not to mandate through government authority they fork over more wages, it is to use the free market principles that will work effectively in a free market capitalist system, since that's what we have.

This means, the solution is to increase demand for labor. When there are such a selection of jobs available that someone doesn't want to settle for $7.50 an hour, guess what the capitalist will do... even though he may not want to? He will offer $10 or $15... whatever it takes to attract labor which is in demand. My sister is making $30 an hour as a nurse... why? Because they need nurses bad! Supply and demand. We have to increase demand for labor.... (AND we can also reduce supply by deporting millions who are here illegally.)

 

[edthecynic]

If libs cared about wages they wouldnt be importing masses of illegals to drive them down

Except it is the Right-wing GOP supporting Chamber Of Commerce that is importing the illegals.
Try again.

 

[edthecynic]

My sister is making $30 an hour as a nurse... why?

Because she is in a union.

 

[Boss]

My sister is making $30 an hour as a nurse... why?

Because she is in a union.

No she's not. Nursing is just in very high demand right now, there is a nationwide shortage.

She does have 20 years experience which goes a long way in getting her that nice wage but it's still supply and demand. There is more demand for her skill than there is supply... so she makes bank.

 

[edthecynic]

My sister is making $30 an hour as a nurse... why?

Because she is in a union.

No she's not. Nursing is just in very high demand right now, there is a nationwide shortage.

She does have 20 years experience which goes a long way in getting her that nice wage but it's still supply and demand. There is more demand for her skill than there is supply... so she makes bank.

Like anything you say is believable.

 

[mudwhistle]

Please...allow me...
Donald Trump said wages are 'too high' in his opening debate statement | Business Insider

Obviously he was talking about minimum-wage and costs.

Obviously YOU are changing Trump's words as if he is a LOSER to STUPID to know what words he wants to use.

He's correct. Once again, a simple fact in America becomes a major issue because of Democrat policies that are damaging the economy.

When it comes to immigration, if it weren't for the need for low-wage workers and the Democrats taking advantage of this by bringing in millions of illegals, we wouldn't have an immigration problem.

The fact is, government is doing their part of contributing to this problem by massive spending and raising taxes. Without that, much of the costs of doing business wouldn't exist.

Really Democrats bringing millions of illegals? I missed that... Do you have link?

What happened Mudw.....did you disappear? Where is Boss on this argument? Scared to counter act from a lightweight?

Some of us have lives......

What are you babbling about now?

 

[Campbell]

The problem with debating minimum wage with conservatives and especially republican conservatives is the issue is not about fairness or morality, it is rather about ideology and opposition involving perceived assumptions about who would get the raise. Underlying the opposition is economic agitprop from corporations whose only concern is next quarter earnings, and the Pavlovian response to anything that helps all Americans. It is part of a mindset created by business for over sixty years. The conservatives are well trained and facts have no place when the idea is an embedded belief. Tell them Clinton raised the rate and all went well and you have sufficiently countered them, but they still follow, as again it is not about rationality but rather about opposition based on ideology. Belief systems run deep for some. See book at bottom.

'Nearly 3 years, and counting: Minimum wage increase helps working families and the economy'
Nearly 3 years, and counting: Minimum wage increase helps working families and the economy

Raising the Minimum Wage to $12 by 2020 Would Lift Wages for 35 Million American Workers

"It turns out that the Wall Street bonus pool in 2014 was roughly twice the total annual earnings of all Americans working full time at the federal minimum wage." http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-inequality-is-a-choice.html

"And yet over the course of the decade the old skepticism toward business that had been born in the Great Depression and reawakened for a new generation in the Vietnam era finally began to disappear. The economic transformations of the decade would be interpreted through the framework of the free market vision. The 1970s campaigns to revive the image of capitalism among college students bore fruit in the 1980s. Universities created new centers for the study of business themes such as entrepreneurship. Students in Free Enterprise, a group started in 1975 to bring students together to "discuss what they might do to counteract the stultifying criticism of American business," thrived on small college campuses, funded by companies like Coors, Dow Chemical, and Walmart (as well as the Business Roundtable). The group organized battles of the bands, at which prizes would be doled out to the best pro-business rock anthems, helped silkscreen T-shirts with pro-capitalist messages, and created skits based on Milton Friedman's writings, which college students would perform in local elementary schools. In the workplace, the decline of the old manufacturing cities of [he North and Midwest and the rise of the sprawling suburbs of the Sunbelt metropolises marked the rise of a new economic culture, dominated by companies such as Walmart and Home Depot and Barnes & Noble." Kim Phillips-Fein ('Invisible Hands')

You all want FAIR. go take out a loan and OPEN your own businesses. then you won't have to worry about anyone else being FAIR to you. you people IN the left/democrat/commie party are an ugly joke. you can't win in politics of Ideas, the people don't want what you're selling. so instead you run on nothing but hate, smears, fear mongering and LIES

You write bullshit like Romney spouted from his right wing asshole.......I mean mouth.

People who have it made don't have much use for folks born into poverty who start out scratching shit with the chickens. It's like the two faced Christians. They do their Sunday morning car and clothes show while nearly a billion people, mostly children, suffer and starve from malnutrition. While nearly one out of every seven humans alive on the face of the earth don't have enough to eat...85 individuals have more wealth than the poorest half of the population. It takes a cruel, insensitive individual who fails to see the injustice in that scenario.

 

[Boss]

The problem with debating minimum wage with conservatives and especially republican conservatives is the issue is not about fairness or morality, it is rather about ideology and opposition involving perceived assumptions about who would get the raise. Underlying the opposition is economic agitprop from corporations whose only concern is next quarter earnings, and the Pavlovian response to anything that helps all Americans. It is part of a mindset created by business for over sixty years. The conservatives are well trained and facts have no place when the idea is an embedded belief. Tell them Clinton raised the rate and all went well and you have sufficiently countered them, but they still follow, as again it is not about rationality but rather about opposition based on ideology. Belief systems run deep for some. See book at bottom.

'Nearly 3 years, and counting: Minimum wage increase helps working families and the economy'
Nearly 3 years, and counting: Minimum wage increase helps working families and the economy

Raising the Minimum Wage to $12 by 2020 Would Lift Wages for 35 Million American Workers

"It turns out that the Wall Street bonus pool in 2014 was roughly twice the total annual earnings of all Americans working full time at the federal minimum wage." http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-inequality-is-a-choice.html

"And yet over the course of the decade the old skepticism toward business that had been born in the Great Depression and reawakened for a new generation in the Vietnam era finally began to disappear. The economic transformations of the decade would be interpreted through the framework of the free market vision. The 1970s campaigns to revive the image of capitalism among college students bore fruit in the 1980s. Universities created new centers for the study of business themes such as entrepreneurship. Students in Free Enterprise, a group started in 1975 to bring students together to "discuss what they might do to counteract the stultifying criticism of American business," thrived on small college campuses, funded by companies like Coors, Dow Chemical, and Walmart (as well as the Business Roundtable). The group organized battles of the bands, at which prizes would be doled out to the best pro-business rock anthems, helped silkscreen T-shirts with pro-capitalist messages, and created skits based on Milton Friedman's writings, which college students would perform in local elementary schools. In the workplace, the decline of the old manufacturing cities of [he North and Midwest and the rise of the sprawling suburbs of the Sunbelt metropolises marked the rise of a new economic culture, dominated by companies such as Walmart and Home Depot and Barnes & Noble." Kim Phillips-Fein ('Invisible Hands')

You all want FAIR. go take out a loan and OPEN your own businesses. then you won't have to worry about anyone else being FAIR to you. you people IN the left/democrat/commie party are an ugly joke. you can't win in politics of Ideas, the people don't want what you're selling. so instead you run on nothing but hate, smears, fear mongering and LIES

You write bullshit like Romney spouted from his right wing asshole.......I mean mouth.

People who have it made don't have much use for folks born into poverty who start out scratching shit with the chickens. It's like the two faced Christians. They do their Sunday morning car and clothes show while nearly a billion people, mostly children, suffer and starve from malnutrition. While nearly one out of every seven humans alive on the face of the earth don't have enough to eat...85 individuals have more wealth than the poorest half of the population. It takes a cruel, insensitive individual who fails to see the injustice in that scenario.

Tell us about the work you've done this year to help the unfortunate? You don't have to elaborate much, just give us the main highlights... I want to see how a real caring person cares.

 

[Sallow]

so, you support bringing the minimum wage up to $15 and you are going to send letters to your republican reps to support it? Is that your point?

No, because it doesn't work. Seems like 82 years of something not working would be enough.

If you raise the MW to $15, virtually all entry-level jobs will decline. So the young person out there trying to get into the workforce and gain experience will have less opportunity. The raise also creates a ripple effect through the mid-level pay scales as the all have to receive comparable adjustments to their pay. When it's all said and done, the increased labor costs are passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices. And yes, they also increase production per worker, scale back operations, lay off workers and cut corners on quality. The business objective will be to not let the extra cost effect the bottom line profit and it usually never does.

So what you do (and what you've been doing for 82 years) is make yourself feel good for a little bit. People get a little bigger paycheck and you think that relief has come. Only, the people quickly find a way to improve their lifestyle with the extra money and soon they are in the same boat again. Only now, the prices have risen and things are even worse.

If we follow your insanity to it's ultimate outcome, it becomes like health care and education... so overpriced due to your stupid boneheaded policies and massive regulations that no one can afford it... THEN you start squealing that the government needs to give it to your for FREE!

do you believe if we never gave minimum wage a raise, that we would not have inflation or do you believe inflation will take place, regardless of what we pay the minimum wage worker?

I understand what you are saying on the ripple effect, others that worked 10 years to get to the $15 are going to expect a raise too....

But honestly, I believe part of the reason that the skilled worker and experience guy is only making the $15 is because minimum wage has been artificially been kept low... if minimum wages had been going up with inflation all along, then that next layer up or two or three of skilled workers, would have been paid more...

AND THAT means, this could also be helping the middle class... get out of this rut of stagnate or even lower wages....

As long as you hold down those making the least, the pay of everyone else seems more acceptable, even though those people are losing ground on what they actually make in income and what they can buy with it, like a college education.... when I was young, working minimum wage through the summer full time and part time all winter, with just a little bit of help from the parents, could pay for 1 year of college at a State College, without having to take out a loan....

Why should a child today doing a minimum wage job not be able to purchase what a kid making minimum could 30 years ago? And it is not just college, but they should be able to buy the same amount of food as you could on that min wage or same amount of car insurance as you could or gasoline that you could on minimum wage years ago?

it should go up with inflation, like other wages.

I think the MW is one of the worst ideas we've ever had. I'm sure some might argue there have been other worse ideas and maybe so, this is just my opinion. I think the MW has served to baseline labor costs across the board for all capitalists and they love it. The individual has been removed from his freedom to negotiate because now there is an artificial and arbitrary rate the company can go by.

An example of what I am saying: Let's say there is a chain convenience store like 7-11 operating a location on St. Simon's Island in Georgia. It's a tourist area with a few very expensive homes and an above-average cost of living (on the actual island). Now, the convenience store needs a cashier, but the company policy is, all cashiers start at minimum wage. Well, you can't really live on St. Simon Island and work for minimum wage. In an open free market, someone would be able to negotiate a special higher wage to work there because of location and cost of living, but as it stands, they can't because... the minimum wage is what it is and that's 7-11s policy. They hire someone at MW but they don't live on the Island, so they have to spend more money to drive there and eat lunch there, etc. So, effectively, they're making LESS than MW but doing the same work as others who make MW.

Or let's say we're talking about a job that's not MW, but on up the ladder... let's say Tech Support... Pay is $15 an hour based on current MW. It doesn't matter that you are super bright and the best technician they've ever had, you still make $15 like all the other schlubs. You can't negotiate a higher wage because the wage is set according to the MW and that's just how they do it. Of course, without a MW, you could go to your boss and plead your case and you'd probably be able to negotiate a much more deserved salary.

You see... the MW works two ways. The capitalist uses it to avoid negotiations. It's a baseline for them on labor costs. They can put off raises or deny request for pay increases because hey... that MW thing. I understand that it was wonderful and great back during the depression when people were paid a nickel a bushel to pick oranges or kids were trapped in sweat shops for slave wages... understood... we had a serious problem and it needed to be corrected. I just think we did the wrong thing by establishing a national MW. It has effectively served as a ball and chain to our freedom of negotiation for the true value of our labor.

I agree with near everything you've said on 'paper' or in this case, my computer screen...it's a solid theory...again, on paper...and is the positive aspect of what it could be like, without a minimum wage...but i'm a realist, and a daily witness of humans and their nature, and see a drive to lower wages instead of raising them if without the minimum wage....

Businesses want to lower their labors costs, pay less....that's what this is about....

also, minimum wagers have no experience in negotiating for a higher salary and most people with 20 years in the workforce don't have experience in negotiating for a higher salary, they take the raises they get.... big guns have recruiters negotiate their salary packages.

a darn salary negotiation class should be mandatory to take in high school!

And it's so much more complicated than simply the wage, if an employer pays them less, then us tax payers pay more in safety nets for them...

if there are an excess of low wage workers due to illegal immigrants, then wages stay lower.... so many things are intertwined together with this M/W issue...no fault of the American citizen m/w worker but it still lowers their success in negotiating for higher wages if they have the guts to try.

Note! employers can hire a teen for $4+ something an hour for like 3 months, then they have to bring them up to an adult's minimum wage...or let them go if they can't cut it....

I think there are a lot of things we can do to improve wages in America without messing with the MW. I would really love to see us make the MW obsolete. Wouldn't that be nice? No one worries about it because everyone makes more already. So keep it low, where it is now, and grow new jobs to the point where demand for labor grows. That fixes the problem because that IS the problem.

Even back 82 years ago, the problem wasn't that wages were too low and we needed government to step in.. that's what happened, but the problem was no demand for labor. We had an unusual over-supply of labor and capitalists were exploiting that. If you increase the demand for labor the labor rates go up... that's free market capitalism, baby. It's how it works.

There is one more aspect to keeping wages low and Trump sort of touched on this. You need a mechanism to drive motivation in people. As long as all your needs are being met and you can exist comfortably in your present state, there is nothing motivating you to do better. It is the struggle of having to make it that drives our ambition and motivates us to improve our condition and we need that. Without it, we become complacent and content. We settle for what we've got and don't try any harder.

Bullshit.

There is plenty of demand for labor and methods to keep wages artificially low.

One is importing people from other poor countries.

Another is off shoring.

 

[charwin95]

My sister is making $30 an hour as a nurse... why?

Because she is in a union.

No she's not. Nursing is just in very high demand right now, there is a nationwide shortage.

She does have 20 years experience which goes a long way in getting her that nice wage but it's still supply and demand. There is more demand for her skill than there is supply... so she makes bank.

Like anything you say is believable.

Boss is correct except that a nurse with 20 years of experience making 30/hour is very low. I'm not sure what state your sister reside but California, Seattle, New York, Florida newly graduate makes $35 and up. Kaiser start at $52.

 

[Campbell]

The problem with debating minimum wage with conservatives and especially republican conservatives is the issue is not about fairness or morality, it is rather about ideology and opposition involving perceived assumptions about who would get the raise. Underlying the opposition is economic agitprop from corporations whose only concern is next quarter earnings, and the Pavlovian response to anything that helps all Americans. It is part of a mindset created by business for over sixty years. The conservatives are well trained and facts have no place when the idea is an embedded belief. Tell them Clinton raised the rate and all went well and you have sufficiently countered them, but they still follow, as again it is not about rationality but rather about opposition based on ideology. Belief systems run deep for some. See book at bottom.

'Nearly 3 years, and counting: Minimum wage increase helps working families and the economy'
Nearly 3 years, and counting: Minimum wage increase helps working families and the economy

Raising the Minimum Wage to $12 by 2020 Would Lift Wages for 35 Million American Workers

"It turns out that the Wall Street bonus pool in 2014 was roughly twice the total annual earnings of all Americans working full time at the federal minimum wage." http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-inequality-is-a-choice.html

"And yet over the course of the decade the old skepticism toward business that had been born in the Great Depression and reawakened for a new generation in the Vietnam era finally began to disappear. The economic transformations of the decade would be interpreted through the framework of the free market vision. The 1970s campaigns to revive the image of capitalism among college students bore fruit in the 1980s. Universities created new centers for the study of business themes such as entrepreneurship. Students in Free Enterprise, a group started in 1975 to bring students together to "discuss what they might do to counteract the stultifying criticism of American business," thrived on small college campuses, funded by companies like Coors, Dow Chemical, and Walmart (as well as the Business Roundtable). The group organized battles of the bands, at which prizes would be doled out to the best pro-business rock anthems, helped silkscreen T-shirts with pro-capitalist messages, and created skits based on Milton Friedman's writings, which college students would perform in local elementary schools. In the workplace, the decline of the old manufacturing cities of [he North and Midwest and the rise of the sprawling suburbs of the Sunbelt metropolises marked the rise of a new economic culture, dominated by companies such as Walmart and Home Depot and Barnes & Noble." Kim Phillips-Fein ('Invisible Hands')

You all want FAIR. go take out a loan and OPEN your own businesses. then you won't have to worry about anyone else being FAIR to you. you people IN the left/democrat/commie party are an ugly joke. you can't win in politics of Ideas, the people don't want what you're selling. so instead you run on nothing but hate, smears, fear mongering and LIES

You write bullshit like Romney spouted from his right wing asshole.......I mean mouth.

People who have it made don't have much use for folks born into poverty who start out scratching shit with the chickens. It's like the two faced Christians. They do their Sunday morning car and clothes show while nearly a billion people, mostly children, suffer and starve from malnutrition. While nearly one out of every seven humans alive on the face of the earth don't have enough to eat...85 individuals have more wealth than the poorest half of the population. It takes a cruel, insensitive individual who fails to see the injustice in that scenario.

Tell us about the work you've done this year to help the unfortunate? You don't have to elaborate much, just give us the main highlights... I want to see how a real caring person cares.

About $1500 to Smile Train and over $2000 to UNICEF. But see......I'm not religious. I'm a sure fire Agnostic. It's the Christians who are supposed to be taking care of everyone.

 

[Campbell]

No, because it doesn't work. Seems like 82 years of something not working would be enough.

If you raise the MW to $15, virtually all entry-level jobs will decline. So the young person out there trying to get into the workforce and gain experience will have less opportunity. The raise also creates a ripple effect through the mid-level pay scales as the all have to receive comparable adjustments to their pay. When it's all said and done, the increased labor costs are passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices. And yes, they also increase production per worker, scale back operations, lay off workers and cut corners on quality. The business objective will be to not let the extra cost effect the bottom line profit and it usually never does.

So what you do (and what you've been doing for 82 years) is make yourself feel good for a little bit. People get a little bigger paycheck and you think that relief has come. Only, the people quickly find a way to improve their lifestyle with the extra money and soon they are in the same boat again. Only now, the prices have risen and things are even worse.

If we follow your insanity to it's ultimate outcome, it becomes like health care and education... so overpriced due to your stupid boneheaded policies and massive regulations that no one can afford it... THEN you start squealing that the government needs to give it to your for FREE!

do you believe if we never gave minimum wage a raise, that we would not have inflation or do you believe inflation will take place, regardless of what we pay the minimum wage worker?

I understand what you are saying on the ripple effect, others that worked 10 years to get to the $15 are going to expect a raise too....

But honestly, I believe part of the reason that the skilled worker and experience guy is only making the $15 is because minimum wage has been artificially been kept low... if minimum wages had been going up with inflation all along, then that next layer up or two or three of skilled workers, would have been paid more...

AND THAT means, this could also be helping the middle class... get out of this rut of stagnate or even lower wages....

As long as you hold down those making the least, the pay of everyone else seems more acceptable, even though those people are losing ground on what they actually make in income and what they can buy with it, like a college education.... when I was young, working minimum wage through the summer full time and part time all winter, with just a little bit of help from the parents, could pay for 1 year of college at a State College, without having to take out a loan....

Why should a child today doing a minimum wage job not be able to purchase what a kid making minimum could 30 years ago? And it is not just college, but they should be able to buy the same amount of food as you could on that min wage or same amount of car insurance as you could or gasoline that you could on minimum wage years ago?

it should go up with inflation, like other wages.

I think the MW is one of the worst ideas we've ever had. I'm sure some might argue there have been other worse ideas and maybe so, this is just my opinion. I think the MW has served to baseline labor costs across the board for all capitalists and they love it. The individual has been removed from his freedom to negotiate because now there is an artificial and arbitrary rate the company can go by.

An example of what I am saying: Let's say there is a chain convenience store like 7-11 operating a location on St. Simon's Island in Georgia. It's a tourist area with a few very expensive homes and an above-average cost of living (on the actual island). Now, the convenience store needs a cashier, but the company policy is, all cashiers start at minimum wage. Well, you can't really live on St. Simon Island and work for minimum wage. In an open free market, someone would be able to negotiate a special higher wage to work there because of location and cost of living, but as it stands, they can't because... the minimum wage is what it is and that's 7-11s policy. They hire someone at MW but they don't live on the Island, so they have to spend more money to drive there and eat lunch there, etc. So, effectively, they're making LESS than MW but doing the same work as others who make MW.

Or let's say we're talking about a job that's not MW, but on up the ladder... let's say Tech Support... Pay is $15 an hour based on current MW. It doesn't matter that you are super bright and the best technician they've ever had, you still make $15 like all the other schlubs. You can't negotiate a higher wage because the wage is set according to the MW and that's just how they do it. Of course, without a MW, you could go to your boss and plead your case and you'd probably be able to negotiate a much more deserved salary.

You see... the MW works two ways. The capitalist uses it to avoid negotiations. It's a baseline for them on labor costs. They can put off raises or deny request for pay increases because hey... that MW thing. I understand that it was wonderful and great back during the depression when people were paid a nickel a bushel to pick oranges or kids were trapped in sweat shops for slave wages... understood... we had a serious problem and it needed to be corrected. I just think we did the wrong thing by establishing a national MW. It has effectively served as a ball and chain to our freedom of negotiation for the true value of our labor.

I agree with near everything you've said on 'paper' or in this case, my computer screen...it's a solid theory...again, on paper...and is the positive aspect of what it could be like, without a minimum wage...but i'm a realist, and a daily witness of humans and their nature, and see a drive to lower wages instead of raising them if without the minimum wage....

Businesses want to lower their labors costs, pay less....that's what this is about....

also, minimum wagers have no experience in negotiating for a higher salary and most people with 20 years in the workforce don't have experience in negotiating for a higher salary, they take the raises they get.... big guns have recruiters negotiate their salary packages.

a darn salary negotiation class should be mandatory to take in high school!

And it's so much more complicated than simply the wage, if an employer pays them less, then us tax payers pay more in safety nets for them...

if there are an excess of low wage workers due to illegal immigrants, then wages stay lower.... so many things are intertwined together with this M/W issue...no fault of the American citizen m/w worker but it still lowers their success in negotiating for higher wages if they have the guts to try.

Note! employers can hire a teen for $4+ something an hour for like 3 months, then they have to bring them up to an adult's minimum wage...or let them go if they can't cut it....

I think there are a lot of things we can do to improve wages in America without messing with the MW. I would really love to see us make the MW obsolete. Wouldn't that be nice? No one worries about it because everyone makes more already. So keep it low, where it is now, and grow new jobs to the point where demand for labor grows. That fixes the problem because that IS the problem.

Even back 82 years ago, the problem wasn't that wages were too low and we needed government to step in.. that's what happened, but the problem was no demand for labor. We had an unusual over-supply of labor and capitalists were exploiting that. If you increase the demand for labor the labor rates go up... that's free market capitalism, baby. It's how it works.

There is one more aspect to keeping wages low and Trump sort of touched on this. You need a mechanism to drive motivation in people. As long as all your needs are being met and you can exist comfortably in your present state, there is nothing motivating you to do better. It is the struggle of having to make it that drives our ambition and motivates us to improve our condition and we need that. Without it, we become complacent and content. We settle for what we've got and don't try any harder.

Bullshit.

There is plenty of demand for labor and methods to keep wages artificially low.

One is importing people from other poor countries.

Another is off shoring.

The biggest thing is when Reagan fired the PATCO union. That initiated a negative movement in the country and now at any company at the first rumor of an attempt to organize the companies start firing people. The only time ordinary working Americans had an honest day's pay for an honest day's work was when the unions were nearly everywhere in the country:

 

[Boss]

No, because it doesn't work. Seems like 82 years of something not working would be enough.

If you raise the MW to $15, virtually all entry-level jobs will decline. So the young person out there trying to get into the workforce and gain experience will have less opportunity. The raise also creates a ripple effect through the mid-level pay scales as the all have to receive comparable adjustments to their pay. When it's all said and done, the increased labor costs are passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices. And yes, they also increase production per worker, scale back operations, lay off workers and cut corners on quality. The business objective will be to not let the extra cost effect the bottom line profit and it usually never does.

So what you do (and what you've been doing for 82 years) is make yourself feel good for a little bit. People get a little bigger paycheck and you think that relief has come. Only, the people quickly find a way to improve their lifestyle with the extra money and soon they are in the same boat again. Only now, the prices have risen and things are even worse.

If we follow your insanity to it's ultimate outcome, it becomes like health care and education... so overpriced due to your stupid boneheaded policies and massive regulations that no one can afford it... THEN you start squealing that the government needs to give it to your for FREE!

do you believe if we never gave minimum wage a raise, that we would not have inflation or do you believe inflation will take place, regardless of what we pay the minimum wage worker?

I understand what you are saying on the ripple effect, others that worked 10 years to get to the $15 are going to expect a raise too....

But honestly, I believe part of the reason that the skilled worker and experience guy is only making the $15 is because minimum wage has been artificially been kept low... if minimum wages had been going up with inflation all along, then that next layer up or two or three of skilled workers, would have been paid more...

AND THAT means, this could also be helping the middle class... get out of this rut of stagnate or even lower wages....

As long as you hold down those making the least, the pay of everyone else seems more acceptable, even though those people are losing ground on what they actually make in income and what they can buy with it, like a college education.... when I was young, working minimum wage through the summer full time and part time all winter, with just a little bit of help from the parents, could pay for 1 year of college at a State College, without having to take out a loan....

Why should a child today doing a minimum wage job not be able to purchase what a kid making minimum could 30 years ago? And it is not just college, but they should be able to buy the same amount of food as you could on that min wage or same amount of car insurance as you could or gasoline that you could on minimum wage years ago?

it should go up with inflation, like other wages.

I think the MW is one of the worst ideas we've ever had. I'm sure some might argue there have been other worse ideas and maybe so, this is just my opinion. I think the MW has served to baseline labor costs across the board for all capitalists and they love it. The individual has been removed from his freedom to negotiate because now there is an artificial and arbitrary rate the company can go by.

An example of what I am saying: Let's say there is a chain convenience store like 7-11 operating a location on St. Simon's Island in Georgia. It's a tourist area with a few very expensive homes and an above-average cost of living (on the actual island). Now, the convenience store needs a cashier, but the company policy is, all cashiers start at minimum wage. Well, you can't really live on St. Simon Island and work for minimum wage. In an open free market, someone would be able to negotiate a special higher wage to work there because of location and cost of living, but as it stands, they can't because... the minimum wage is what it is and that's 7-11s policy. They hire someone at MW but they don't live on the Island, so they have to spend more money to drive there and eat lunch there, etc. So, effectively, they're making LESS than MW but doing the same work as others who make MW.

Or let's say we're talking about a job that's not MW, but on up the ladder... let's say Tech Support... Pay is $15 an hour based on current MW. It doesn't matter that you are super bright and the best technician they've ever had, you still make $15 like all the other schlubs. You can't negotiate a higher wage because the wage is set according to the MW and that's just how they do it. Of course, without a MW, you could go to your boss and plead your case and you'd probably be able to negotiate a much more deserved salary.

You see... the MW works two ways. The capitalist uses it to avoid negotiations. It's a baseline for them on labor costs. They can put off raises or deny request for pay increases because hey... that MW thing. I understand that it was wonderful and great back during the depression when people were paid a nickel a bushel to pick oranges or kids were trapped in sweat shops for slave wages... understood... we had a serious problem and it needed to be corrected. I just think we did the wrong thing by establishing a national MW. It has effectively served as a ball and chain to our freedom of negotiation for the true value of our labor.

I agree with near everything you've said on 'paper' or in this case, my computer screen...it's a solid theory...again, on paper...and is the positive aspect of what it could be like, without a minimum wage...but i'm a realist, and a daily witness of humans and their nature, and see a drive to lower wages instead of raising them if without the minimum wage....

Businesses want to lower their labors costs, pay less....that's what this is about....

also, minimum wagers have no experience in negotiating for a higher salary and most people with 20 years in the workforce don't have experience in negotiating for a higher salary, they take the raises they get.... big guns have recruiters negotiate their salary packages.

a darn salary negotiation class should be mandatory to take in high school!

And it's so much more complicated than simply the wage, if an employer pays them less, then us tax payers pay more in safety nets for them...

if there are an excess of low wage workers due to illegal immigrants, then wages stay lower.... so many things are intertwined together with this M/W issue...no fault of the American citizen m/w worker but it still lowers their success in negotiating for higher wages if they have the guts to try.

Note! employers can hire a teen for $4+ something an hour for like 3 months, then they have to bring them up to an adult's minimum wage...or let them go if they can't cut it....

I think there are a lot of things we can do to improve wages in America without messing with the MW. I would really love to see us make the MW obsolete. Wouldn't that be nice? No one worries about it because everyone makes more already. So keep it low, where it is now, and grow new jobs to the point where demand for labor grows. That fixes the problem because that IS the problem.

Even back 82 years ago, the problem wasn't that wages were too low and we needed government to step in.. that's what happened, but the problem was no demand for labor. We had an unusual over-supply of labor and capitalists were exploiting that. If you increase the demand for labor the labor rates go up... that's free market capitalism, baby. It's how it works.

There is one more aspect to keeping wages low and Trump sort of touched on this. You need a mechanism to drive motivation in people. As long as all your needs are being met and you can exist comfortably in your present state, there is nothing motivating you to do better. It is the struggle of having to make it that drives our ambition and motivates us to improve our condition and we need that. Without it, we become complacent and content. We settle for what we've got and don't try any harder.

Bullshit.

There is plenty of demand for labor and methods to keep wages artificially low.

One is importing people from other poor countries.

Another is off shoring.

There is demand for labor in certain fields. As I said earlier, my sister is making $30/hr. as a RN.

But across the board, there is an over-supply of labor, especially unskilled labor.

You can get your panties in a wad about HB-1 visas, illegal immigration or offshoring... that's not going to fix the problem... it may help, and that's fine if we do the right thing. Right now, we're doing nothing and your party wants to do the opposite of what we need to do.

 

[Boss]

My sister is making $30 an hour as a nurse... why?

Because she is in a union.

No she's not. Nursing is just in very high demand right now, there is a nationwide shortage.

She does have 20 years experience which goes a long way in getting her that nice wage but it's still supply and demand. There is more demand for her skill than there is supply... so she makes bank.

Like anything you say is believable.

Boss is correct except that a nurse with 20 years of experience making 30/hour is very low. I'm not sure what state your sister reside but California, Seattle, New York, Florida newly graduate makes $35 and up. Kaiser start at $52.

Well this is Alabama... so.... lol

 

[francoHFW]

No link, no basis for the title. No substance at all.


Yup, you're a liberal. See sig for further information

Change the channel and get some news.

 

[Boss]

The problem with debating minimum wage with conservatives and especially republican conservatives is the issue is not about fairness or morality, it is rather about ideology and opposition involving perceived assumptions about who would get the raise. Underlying the opposition is economic agitprop from corporations whose only concern is next quarter earnings, and the Pavlovian response to anything that helps all Americans. It is part of a mindset created by business for over sixty years. The conservatives are well trained and facts have no place when the idea is an embedded belief. Tell them Clinton raised the rate and all went well and you have sufficiently countered them, but they still follow, as again it is not about rationality but rather about opposition based on ideology. Belief systems run deep for some. See book at bottom.

'Nearly 3 years, and counting: Minimum wage increase helps working families and the economy'
Nearly 3 years, and counting: Minimum wage increase helps working families and the economy

Raising the Minimum Wage to $12 by 2020 Would Lift Wages for 35 Million American Workers

"It turns out that the Wall Street bonus pool in 2014 was roughly twice the total annual earnings of all Americans working full time at the federal minimum wage." http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-inequality-is-a-choice.html

"And yet over the course of the decade the old skepticism toward business that had been born in the Great Depression and reawakened for a new generation in the Vietnam era finally began to disappear. The economic transformations of the decade would be interpreted through the framework of the free market vision. The 1970s campaigns to revive the image of capitalism among college students bore fruit in the 1980s. Universities created new centers for the study of business themes such as entrepreneurship. Students in Free Enterprise, a group started in 1975 to bring students together to "discuss what they might do to counteract the stultifying criticism of American business," thrived on small college campuses, funded by companies like Coors, Dow Chemical, and Walmart (as well as the Business Roundtable). The group organized battles of the bands, at which prizes would be doled out to the best pro-business rock anthems, helped silkscreen T-shirts with pro-capitalist messages, and created skits based on Milton Friedman's writings, which college students would perform in local elementary schools. In the workplace, the decline of the old manufacturing cities of [he North and Midwest and the rise of the sprawling suburbs of the Sunbelt metropolises marked the rise of a new economic culture, dominated by companies such as Walmart and Home Depot and Barnes & Noble." Kim Phillips-Fein ('Invisible Hands')

You all want FAIR. go take out a loan and OPEN your own businesses. then you won't have to worry about anyone else being FAIR to you. you people IN the left/democrat/commie party are an ugly joke. you can't win in politics of Ideas, the people don't want what you're selling. so instead you run on nothing but hate, smears, fear mongering and LIES

You write bullshit like Romney spouted from his right wing asshole.......I mean mouth.

People who have it made don't have much use for folks born into poverty who start out scratching shit with the chickens. It's like the two faced Christians. They do their Sunday morning car and clothes show while nearly a billion people, mostly children, suffer and starve from malnutrition. While nearly one out of every seven humans alive on the face of the earth don't have enough to eat...85 individuals have more wealth than the poorest half of the population. It takes a cruel, insensitive individual who fails to see the injustice in that scenario.

Tell us about the work you've done this year to help the unfortunate? You don't have to elaborate much, just give us the main highlights... I want to see how a real caring person cares.

About $1500 to Smile Train and over $2000 to UNICEF. But see......I'm not religious. I'm a sure fire Agnostic. It's the Christians who are supposed to be taking care of everyone.

Ooo... $3,500 is that for this year alone? With your UNICEF contribution, are you sponsoring a child? If so, tell me something about them? Post a picture if you have one, I would like to see and hear about this. Thanks for what you do, we need more people like you who put their money where their mouth is.

 

[francoHFW]

The problem with debating minimum wage with conservatives and especially republican conservatives is the issue is not about fairness or morality, it is rather about ideology and opposition involving perceived assumptions about who would get the raise. Underlying the opposition is economic agitprop from corporations whose only concern is next quarter earnings, and the Pavlovian response to anything that helps all Americans. It is part of a mindset created by business for over sixty years. The conservatives are well trained and facts have no place when the idea is an embedded belief. Tell them Clinton raised the rate and all went well and you have sufficiently countered them, but they still follow, as again it is not about rationality but rather about opposition based on ideology. Belief systems run deep for some. See book at bottom.

'Nearly 3 years, and counting: Minimum wage increase helps working families and the economy'
Nearly 3 years, and counting: Minimum wage increase helps working families and the economy

Raising the Minimum Wage to $12 by 2020 Would Lift Wages for 35 Million American Workers

"It turns out that the Wall Street bonus pool in 2014 was roughly twice the total annual earnings of all Americans working full time at the federal minimum wage." http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-inequality-is-a-choice.html

"And yet over the course of the decade the old skepticism toward business that had been born in the Great Depression and reawakened for a new generation in the Vietnam era finally began to disappear. The economic transformations of the decade would be interpreted through the framework of the free market vision. The 1970s campaigns to revive the image of capitalism among college students bore fruit in the 1980s. Universities created new centers for the study of business themes such as entrepreneurship. Students in Free Enterprise, a group started in 1975 to bring students together to "discuss what they might do to counteract the stultifying criticism of American business," thrived on small college campuses, funded by companies like Coors, Dow Chemical, and Walmart (as well as the Business Roundtable). The group organized battles of the bands, at which prizes would be doled out to the best pro-business rock anthems, helped silkscreen T-shirts with pro-capitalist messages, and created skits based on Milton Friedman's writings, which college students would perform in local elementary schools. In the workplace, the decline of the old manufacturing cities of [he North and Midwest and the rise of the sprawling suburbs of the Sunbelt metropolises marked the rise of a new economic culture, dominated by companies such as Walmart and Home Depot and Barnes & Noble." Kim Phillips-Fein ('Invisible Hands')

You all want FAIR. go take out a loan and OPEN your own businesses. then you won't have to worry about anyone else being FAIR to you. you people IN the left/democrat/commie party are an ugly joke. you can't win in politics of Ideas, the people don't want what you're selling. so instead you run on nothing but hate, smears, fear mongering and LIES

Ridiculous, hater dupe. You still on assistance lol?

 

[Wyatt earp]

It also won't do anything to help anyone. For 82 years, since the day FDR signed the MW into law, the Democrats have promised this would raise the working poor up to a decent living wage... never has, never will. It's a carrot on a stick.

"In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls;and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living."~ FDR 1933

so, you support bringing the minimum wage up to $15 and you are going to send letters to your republican reps to support it? Is that your point?

No, because it doesn't work. Seems like 82 years of something not working would be enough.

If you raise the MW to $15, virtually all entry-level jobs will decline. So the young person out there trying to get into the workforce and gain experience will have less opportunity. The raise also creates a ripple effect through the mid-level pay scales as the all have to receive comparable adjustments to their pay. When it's all said and done, the increased labor costs are passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices. And yes, they also increase production per worker, scale back operations, lay off workers and cut corners on quality. The business objective will be to not let the extra cost effect the bottom line profit and it usually never does.

So what you do (and what you've been doing for 82 years) is make yourself feel good for a little bit. People get a little bigger paycheck and you think that relief has come. Only, the people quickly find a way to improve their lifestyle with the extra money and soon they are in the same boat again. Only now, the prices have risen and things are even worse.

If we follow your insanity to it's ultimate outcome, it becomes like health care and education... so overpriced due to your stupid boneheaded policies and massive regulations that no one can afford it... THEN you start squealing that the government needs to give it to your for FREE!

do you believe if we never gave minimum wage a raise, that we would not have inflation or do you believe inflation will take place, regardless of what we pay the minimum wage worker?

I understand what you are saying on the ripple effect, others that worked 10 years to get to the $15 are going to expect a raise too....

But honestly, I believe part of the reason that the skilled worker and experience guy is only making the $15 is because minimum wage has been artificially been kept low... if minimum wages had been going up with inflation all along, then that next layer up or two or three of skilled workers, would have been paid more...

AND THAT means, this could also be helping the middle class... get out of this rut of stagnate or even lower wages....

As long as you hold down those making the least, the pay of everyone else seems more acceptable, even though those people are losing ground on what they actually make in income and what they can buy with it, like a college education.... when I was young, working minimum wage through the summer full time and part time all winter, with just a little bit of help from the parents, could pay for 1 year of college at a State College, without having to take out a loan....

Why should a child today doing a minimum wage job not be able to purchase what a kid making minimum could 30 years ago? And it is not just college, but they should be able to buy the same amount of food as you could on that min wage or same amount of car insurance as you could or gasoline that you could on minimum wage years ago?

it should go up with inflation, like other wages.

I think the MW is one of the worst ideas we've ever had. I'm sure some might argue there have been other worse ideas and maybe so, this is just my opinion. I think the MW has served to baseline labor costs across the board for all capitalists and they love it. The individual has been removed from his freedom to negotiate because now there is an artificial and arbitrary rate the company can go by.

An example of what I am saying: Let's say there is a chain convenience store like 7-11 operating a location on St. Simon's Island in Georgia. It's a tourist area with a few very expensive homes and an above-average cost of living (on the actual island). Now, the convenience store needs a cashier, but the company policy is, all cashiers start at minimum wage. Well, you can't really live on St. Simon Island and work for minimum wage. In an open free market, someone would be able to negotiate a special higher wage to work there because of location and cost of living, but as it stands, they can't because... the minimum wage is what it is and that's 7-11s policy. They hire someone at MW but they don't live on the Island, so they have to spend more money to drive there and eat lunch there, etc. So, effectively, they're making LESS than MW but doing the same work as others who make MW.

Or let's say we're talking about a job that's not MW, but on up the ladder... let's say Tech Support... Pay is $15 an hour based on current MW. It doesn't matter that you are super bright and the best technician they've ever had, you still make $15 like all the other schlubs. You can't negotiate a higher wage because the wage is set according to the MW and that's just how they do it. Of course, without a MW, you could go to your boss and plead your case and you'd probably be able to negotiate a much more deserved salary.

You see... the MW works two ways. The capitalist uses it to avoid negotiations. It's a baseline for them on labor costs. They can put off raises or deny request for pay increases because hey... that MW thing. I understand that it was wonderful and great back during the depression when people were paid a nickel a bushel to pick oranges or kids were trapped in sweat shops for slave wages... understood... we had a serious problem and it needed to be corrected. I just think we did the wrong thing by establishing a national MW. It has effectively served as a ball and chain to our freedom of negotiation for the true value of our labor.

I agree with near everything you've said on 'paper' or in this case, my computer screen...it's a solid theory...again, on paper...and is the positive aspect of what it could be like, without a minimum wage...but i'm a realist, and a daily witness of humans and their nature, and see a drive to lower wages instead of raising them if without the minimum wage....

Businesses want to lower their labors costs, pay less....that's what this is about....

also, minimum wagers have no experience in negotiating for a higher salary and most people with 20 years in the workforce don't have experience in negotiating for a higher salary, they take the raises they get.... big guns have recruiters negotiate their salary packages.

a darn salary negotiation class should be mandatory to take in high school!

And it's so much more complicated than simply the wage, if an employer pays them less, then us tax payers pay more in safety nets for them...

if there are an excess of low wage workers due to illegal immigrants, then wages stay lower.... so many things are intertwined together with this M/W issue...no fault of the American citizen m/w worker but it still lowers their success in negotiating for higher wages if they have the guts to try.

Note! employers can hire a teen for $4+ something an hour for like 3 months, then they have to bring them up to an adult's minimum wage...or let them go if they can't cut it....

Just a question where have you been the past few years, hiding under a rock?

You do know unemployment was sky high , me thinks you live in an alternative universe...

Also how was wages kept artificially low? When you have one million people applying for a job at Mcdonalds and they only hired 62,000 as in 2011?

 

[idb]

So, the way to compete with China getting all of our manufacturing is to bring USA wages DOWN to China's wages?


What a STUPID comment and thoughtless idea.

What amazes me is how backward-looking and devoid of vision the policy of simply reducing costs to compete with the rest of the world is.
Why do you want to bring your population's living standards down to those of Third World standards so that you can compete with them?

Surely a better and more visionary approach is to invest in your workforce, R&D, engineering resources and produce stuff that the rest of the world needs. wants and is happy to pay for.

If they can afford to produce it at a reasonable price.

You left that part out.

Let other countries make the cheap shit.
Don't try to compete with them on plastic trinkets and high volume/low margin crap.
Get America producing high value goods and services.
Why wouldn't you want that for your country?