This is what someone on another message board said. They also said if salaries were inflated because of increasing everyone’s salary that would devalue the dollar. This person actually voted for Biden, but does have some very "interesting" views.
I did tell them I’m not an economics major, so don’t know all the details. I did point out that making sure people make a living wage like going from $20,000 to $30,000 doesn’t mean that people making $100,000 also get a raise to $120,000.
So overall I don’t think all other wages would go up.
Also, on a micro level there’s that CEO that took a pay cut so all his employees made 70k, I believe. As far as what I read I don’t think the cost of their products went up. There are certainly large companies that make so much money and pay their upper staff so much money, that they likely wouldn’t have the raise the price on their goods if their million and billionaire leaders took a small pay cut to make sure all their employees had a living wage.
This is where the true problem lies. Raising the minimum wage and even the "middle" wages, doesn't necessarily HAVE to raise the price of the products. But, it will necessitate the 1% to make less and the profit margins to lower, which will anger the shareholders, and heaven forbid we do that. That's why the stock market is booming still. Corporations care more about the shareholders than the employees that generate those revenues. And unfortunately, I don't see a way out of it. Because if the lower paid get the raises, they won't do the "right" thing explained above, they'll raise prices and piss off the working and middle class and blame socialism.
Right, this is the real problem. The example above about someone at Target making $15 an hour and an EMT making $17 an hour is correct ... to attract more EMTs salaries will have to be increased, but someone pays for that. Municipalities usually can't increase wages without increasing taxes and then both the EMT and the Target employee get priced out of the market and the ability to live where they work. The folks in the lower and middle are fighting over the same slice of pie instead of us working out a way to make the slices larger and more equitable. Executive pay is out of control and has been raised way out of proportion to the amount that other salaries are being raised. At the same time I believe that good work deserves good pay for ANY job and we demand more and more accountability and function out of the people at the top and they want to be paid for it. But still I wonder to myself if we pay a CEO salary plus benefits that equal $4million instead of $5million ... is that truly not enough for anyone??? Why do we keep dumping more and more money? Someone has to say enough's enough, but this is how a capitalist society works so....we're stuck fighting over that same slice of pie.
If your tea company or whatever can’t afford to pay employees fairly it needs to not exist. If your medical office that provides necessary services can’t afford to pay employees fairly we need to look at why that is and fix those problems.
Everyone who is responding with sentiments such as these are making very good points.
I mean, somebody has to bath the people in the nursing homes. Or cook them dinner and then wash all of their dishes. Or wash their sheets. So, if the employees' wages increase and the nursing home is no longer profitable for the nursing home operator, who pays for this?
I am going to use an example from my office as this has been on my mind. I don't think this is flammable, hear me out.
My state is already on track to get to $15/hour. I have always hired at least one or two high school students to work at just above minimum wage. This was $8/hour 5 years ago. These positions are now at $12/hour and currently I have 3 college students at this rate part-time. Two of them are completing a certification that will earn them raises very soon and the third one is just biding her time until she starts grad school in the fall.
In the mean time, I am a Medicaid provider. I am very much in the minority by accepting Medicaid in my private practice. Most private dental offices don't want anything to do with Medicaid. I take it because of my philosophy and more importantly I can still afford to take it because I graduated back when school was dirt cheap so I don't have sky high student loans of $3K/month or more. They have not raised my reimbursements since I started taking it which was 9 years ago. Every time I ask, it's always "we can't. No money." Yet wages for me to employ people just keep going up. With the minimum wages going up, the skilled workers formerly at $14 - $20/hour are going to want more as well when they see minimum wage is $15/hr. This means I have to raise fees for my private patients in an attempt to keep up.
The economics of this goes beyond raising the price of a burger or a pizza.
While I know it's more complicated that this, the argument that works the best for me with folks like this is, essentially, "capitalism." If an EMT currently earns, say, $17/hr and the grocery store starts paying $15/hr, some folks will keep the EMT job because they love it, but others will say, "Why the heck am I putting my life on the line? I'll just go get a job at the grocery." That doesn't mean we won't have EMTs- it means that companies will have to pay EMTs more to attract and retain the best talent.
ETA: Even if my salary as a professor doesn't increase in the way that my administrative assistant's does (and it shouldn't) my job security actually goes up because more people can afford to go to college (and buy cars, and travel, and purchase more widgets...)
@@ This is what we hear in my field (early childhood) all the time. “I could go work at Target and make more money.” Yes, you could, and if that’s what you feel you need to do, we’re not going to stop you. So, our management team has spent months/years trying to reconfigure our pay structure and just recently (Jan 1) started paying employees with a degree more than the minimum wage discussed in this thread. (We never paid anyone the actual minimum wage, I believe our starting pay is $11-12 for people with no experience.) Our margins are slim and we certainly cannot pass the costs on to families who are already paying top dollar for care. We are certainly going to feel the pinch, however we believe it is essential to invest in our staff. I’m really curious to see how this all impacts what we’ve just put in motion. I firmly believe that people working a full time job, especially those with a degree, should be able to cover their monthly expenses.
@@
I dropped out of the ECE field because of pay and benefits. At one center, Ihad been there about two years, taken on way more responsibilities, and had matched the pay of the person that had been there 13 years.
It was only $9/hour, no benefits. And I have a degree. The other teacher hadn’t had a raise in years. Just before I left, the owners made it clear they would never pay high than $9/hour unless the government forced them.
The idea of being in the same field for a decade and not getting a raise or other acknowledgment of my work just smacked me in the face. It wasn’t any better anywhere else, so I shifted careers.
I think getting ECE’s to a place where they are financially successful for both workers and parents is going to require the government to step in.
Honestly, to me it’s similar to how dental insurance isn’t included in regular health insurance even though dental health has clear impact on whole health. I don’t understand why we continue to separate ece from k-12. Our work force has changed and it’s clearly needed to support that, and ece is the most important time in education.
Post by seeyalater52 on Jan 23, 2021 12:34:46 GMT -5
The examples being given in this thread don’t persuade me that minimum wages shouldn’t be set as a livable wage and increase with the cost of living. They illustrate why health care should not be a business.
The examples being given in this thread don’t persuade me that minimum wages shouldn’t be set as a livable wage and increase with the cost of living. They illustrate why health care should not be a business.
I don't know what the answer to this is given the highly profitable health insurance industry we have. I feel like any practical solution is going to be at their expense and their lobbies just won't let it happen.
The examples being given in this thread don’t persuade me that minimum wages shouldn’t be set as a livable wage and increase with the cost of living. They illustrate why health care should not be a business.
I don't know what the answer to this is given the highly profitable health insurance industry we have. I feel like any practical solution is going to be at their expense and their lobbies just won't let it happen.
Well, one way to make it happen would be to stop allowing it to be a “whatabout”ism in the minimum wage conversation. 🤷🏻♀️
Post by arehopsveggies on Jan 23, 2021 12:48:23 GMT -5
This is a brain dump from someone who is barely making ends meet.
My husband makes $20 an hour. He works for a small business with two employees. Business is down with covid, there isn’t any more money to give him more. If the other employee needs a raise to $15.... I don’t know what’s going to happen? And then honestly yes there’s some bitterness that my husband has been there 20 years and worked up from $5.25 and then the new guy who knows none of the skills yet gets $15 when he only gets $20
I worry. He worries. His boss worries. This year is already going to break a lot of small businesses
It reminds me of my college job paying me $7. And then I graduated with a degree in that field and still made $7. And then minimum wage went to $7.25 and I got a “raise” but it just made me sad because I had a degree and was making minimum wage.
Or the @@@@@ teaching job I had that never actually raised any salaries but starting salary. So each year I got a $300 bump to the new starting salary. But I always made what a brand new teacher made. And it was so low that I literally couldn’t afford @@@@daycare and had to quit
Also- how does a $15 minimum affect families that get Medicaid etc. If the income limits stay the same I think that could make a lot of people end up worse off
Thanks SwimDeep for posting this thread because I too struggle with this. Also, one thing I see and hear a lot is that these minimum wage jobs aren’t meant to be lifetime jobs. A lot of people think they should just be stepping stones for growth. Obviously, I find that mindset to be quite privileged and out of touch, but I struggle with how to respond with fact based information in a way that might make someone change their thoughts.
This is a hard one to address in a way that does not end up sounding too condescending. You first have to get them to agree that different people have different skill levels. There are also issues with opportunities, but it is even harder to convince them of this. So, for example at one grocery store near me there are several employees with either health or mental difficulties, who would not be able to perform higher order work. If you have a local example it makes it more "real" to the person. Ask them what job they expect them to perform. They will not have an answer, but will try to deny that these people even exist.
You can also just go from a population statistics model and mention the number of people working and the quantity of non-service jobs.
But in reality, the people who argue this do not care, they just want to not feel bad about treating people like they are less than them.
Thank you to all who are sharing informed thoughts on this issue.
One thing that I’ve been trying to figure out is how this works with all of the different costs of living in the country. $15/hr in a small Midwest town results in a very different quality of life than $15 in HCOL. A “livable wage” in rural IL is much different than in even mid-sized cities. The result may end up where $15/hr means someone is still just scraping by in some areas, but living quite comfortably in others.
I wonder why the discussion has never been to base the minimum wage on a calculation that considers COL rather than a blanket amount. (Or maybe it has and I just haven’t seen it?)
Thank you to all who are sharing informed thoughts on this issue.
One thing that I’ve been trying to figure out is how this works with all of the different costs of living in the country. $15/hr in a small Midwest town results in a very different quality of life than $15 in HCOL. A “livable wage” in rural IL is much different than in even mid-sized cities. The result may end up where $15/hr means someone is still just scraping by in some areas, but living quite comfortably in others.
I wonder why the discussion has never been to base the minimum wage on a calculation that considers COL rather than a blanket amount. (Or maybe it has and I just haven’t seen it?)
I'm going to guess the answer is the same as to why everyone gets the same amount for a stimulus check - there just isn't the budget in the federal government to pay a department to figure this out.
Thank you to all who are sharing informed thoughts on this issue.
One thing that I’ve been trying to figure out is how this works with all of the different costs of living in the country. $15/hr in a small Midwest town results in a very different quality of life than $15 in HCOL. A “livable wage” in rural IL is much different than in even mid-sized cities. The result may end up where $15/hr means someone is still just scraping by in some areas, but living quite comfortably in others.
I wonder why the discussion has never been to base the minimum wage on a calculation that considers COL rather than a blanket amount. (Or maybe it has and I just haven’t seen it?)
I'm going to guess the answer is the same as to why everyone gets the same amount for a stimulus check - there just isn't the budget in the federal government to pay a department to figure this out.
Or because no matter the COL, there isn’t actually a single place in this country where $15/hr is living “quite comfortably”? I mean, I find that statement pretty insulting, honestly. Particularly because the places where I think people find this to be the case are likely the same places that haven’t seen a minimum wage hike in forever and have been suffering serious economic despair for a long time. Yes, an increase to $15/hr might double the minimum wage in those places and yes, it might be life changing for those people to make $30k. Shouldn’t that be the goal? It’s still not going to bring people to where they live very comfortably.
I don't know what the answer to this is given the highly profitable health insurance industry we have. I feel like any practical solution is going to be at their expense and their lobbies just won't let it happen.
Well, one way to make it happen would be to stop allowing it to be a “whatabout”ism in the minimum wage conversation. 🤷🏻♀️
Yeah I think Canada has a higher federal/provincial minimum wage. Of course they still do have poverty, but there are examples from other countries around the world that do have capitalism that we can take examples/lessons from instead of saying it won’t work.
Post by ellipses84 on Jan 23, 2021 15:04:54 GMT -5
I think the issue is that poor working class and middle class people are all underpaid. The solution is for the rich to be taxed more and for CEOs to pay their employees more instead of taking 6-figure+ bonuses. Also, paying someone else $15/hr is hardly going to impact the life of someone making $30/hr. The argument is always that employers will have to raise prices which may be true for a small businesses restaurant but eating out is not a necessity. Grocery prices / COL is already going up at a faster rate than anyone is getting raises.
Thank you to all who are sharing informed thoughts on this issue.
One thing that I’ve been trying to figure out is how this works with all of the different costs of living in the country. $15/hr in a small Midwest town results in a very different quality of life than $15 in HCOL. A “livable wage” in rural IL is much different than in even mid-sized cities. The result may end up where $15/hr means someone is still just scraping by in some areas, but living quite comfortably in others.
I wonder why the discussion has never been to base the minimum wage on a calculation that considers COL rather than a blanket amount. (Or maybe it has and I just haven’t seen it?)
That’s why there’s a federal minimum wage and states can also set individual minimum wages. You’d be hard pressed to convince me that $15 an hour is greater than a minimum living wage in most places in the US, but certainly in the 10+ years since the push for a $15 minimum wage began, $15 stopped being a livable wage in many areas. People need to be able to pay their living expenses, sure, but they also need to be able to save a cushion for hard times. Right now people in the true middle class are often only one or two unfortunate happenings away from financial ruin and people working min wage jobs have no chance.
Thank you to all who are sharing informed thoughts on this issue.
One thing that I’ve been trying to figure out is how this works with all of the different costs of living in the country. $15/hr in a small Midwest town results in a very different quality of life than $15 in HCOL. A “livable wage” in rural IL is much different than in even mid-sized cities. The result may end up where $15/hr means someone is still just scraping by in some areas, but living quite comfortably in others.
I wonder why the discussion has never been to base the minimum wage on a calculation that considers COL rather than a blanket amount. (Or maybe it has and I just haven’t seen it?)
When the minimum wage has increased a significant amount on a city or state level, it is often done in phases (like $1 per year). I don’t know of any case where someone was doubling their pay or employers had to adjust that quickly. This is a MINIMUM so the goal is to get it to a more reasonable level where everyone making that amount isn’t requiring social services. If all the fast food restaurants up their minimum to $15, other business are going to up theirs higher or pay long time employees more than the new guy, so some people might start making $16, $17, $18+ or quit and go find a job that will.
Post by penguingrrl on Jan 23, 2021 15:11:43 GMT -5
I’ve never understood the hesitation on this based on “well, I don’t make much more and have XYZ credential.” Nobody should work full time and be unable to support themselves. Period. It’s unconscionable that we’ve reached a place where people are more outraged at the idea of labor some perceive as unskilled (no job is actually devoid of skills) being paid a living wage than they are at the fact that there are a lot of billionaires who are household names.
And I say this as someone whose income has never hit $30K a year despite having a degree and some graduate work under my belt (and whose low income forced a 12 year break from working) and the fact that I’m working in the field my degree is in (public history). I still see that we towards the bottom and middle are fighting over crumbs while there are billionaires hoarding their wealth. And that’s where the problem lies, not with people who are trying to earn an honest living.
I think the issue is that poor working class and middle class people are all underpaid. The solution is for the rich to be taxed more and for CEOs to pay their employees more instead of taking 6-figure+ bonuses. Also, paying someone else $15/hr is hardly going to impact the life of someone making $30/hr. The argument is always that employers will have to raise prices which may be true for a small businesses restaurant but eating out is not a necessity. Grocery prices / COL is already going up at a faster rate than anyone is getting raises.
I agree with this. How do we even tackle this?
I pay a lot in taxes already. But honestly I would not notice if I paid for example $10K more as an employer. It would not make an appreciable difference in my family's quality of life if it meant that we were going to properly fund healthcare for all Americans or improve the quality of education. Scale this up to the CEOs taking home millions and millions and it would make a huge difference.
I think I've read the big tax cuts for the wealthy started in the 1980s (?) and here we are. Prior decades, the wealthy did pay a much larger share.
However I still would like to see Medicaid to raise the fees they pay me even if just to keep up with wages increases.
Or because no matter the COL, there isn’t actually a single place in this country where $15/hr is living “quite comfortably”? I mean, I find that statement pretty insulting, honestly. Particularly because the places where I think people find this to be the case are likely the same places that haven’t seen a minimum wage hike in forever and have been suffering serious economic despair for a long time. Yes, an increase to $15/hr might double the minimum wage in those places and yes, it might be life changing for those people to make $30k. Shouldn’t that be the goal? It’s still not going to bring people to where they live very comfortably.
I don’t think my intentions came across clearly. By “quite comfortably”, I didn’t mean that in a way that implied that they’re living more comfortably than they should or anything like that. I meant it solely in comparison to what that same dollar amount would mean in other cities. No one is living large on $15/hr, that’s for sure. If anything, I’m wondering why we’re not talking about that amount for LCOL and going up with COL, not starting at $15 for HCOL and giving less to those in LCOL.
I just looked at real estate in my hometown. $79,000 buys a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom 1500 sq ft home (plus a full, unfinished basement) with wood floors and beautiful woodwork and a detached 2 car garage. Bathrooms/kitchen could use an update, but look very clean and is good working condition. The nicest restaurant in town has meals that are about $15/plate, and a beer is $2. (Friday nights, they’re $1).
You certainly aren’t rolling in the dough at $15 there, but one could afford to have all needs and some wants. People in bigger cities should be able to afford the same on min wage.
I’m guessing someone has already said this, but would (general) you prefer to be a grocery store clerk over whatever other job you’re already doing? I wouldn’t. I like what I do. Whether someone working in a convenience store, or washing cars, or serving in a restaurant makes $15 an hour compared to my $30 or $50 or $100 an hour really doesn’t have any bearing on the value of the work I do or the satisfaction I get from it.
I’m not saying those positions are less worthwhile or beneath me. I’m saying that what someone else makes, in a profession completely different than my own, has literally never crossed my mind. Except in the context that people should be able to work 40 hours a week and make enough money in that job to pay their bills and put food on the table, which $7.whatever an hour doesn’t do.
ETA: cville basically said the same thing up thread.
My response is really directly to the OP. There is so much at play with this in our society, but I don’t really give a fuck what the “consequences” are. We need to pay people enough that they don’t have to work three jobs to make ends meet. Period.
I’m guessing someone has already said this, but would (general) you prefer to be a grocery store clerk over whatever other job you’re already doing? I wouldn’t. I like what I do. Whether someone working in a convenience store, or washing cars, or serving in a restaurant makes $15 an hour compared to my $30 or $50 or $100 an hour really doesn’t have any bearing on the value of the work I do or the satisfaction I get from it.
I’m not saying those positions are less worthwhile or beneath me. I’m saying that what someone else makes, in a profession completely different than my own, has literally never crossed my mind. Except in the context that people should be able to work 40 hours a week and make enough money in that job to pay their bills and put food on the table, which $7.whatever an hour doesn’t do.
Exactly! I’ve worked retail many times. I would need to make a lot more than I do at my job to go back to it. It’s super stressful work and you rarely have a reliable schedule to count on (including a reliable number of hours per week to ensure a steady paycheck).
You know what we should really discuss? Setting a maximum wage. Let's start with linking CEO pay to a multiple of the company's lowest paid worker's salary. I bet if we did that, a ton of companies would suddenly "find" the money to pay their workers.
Post by juliachild on Jan 23, 2021 16:13:30 GMT -5
Two things that I don't see fully addressed here. 1. Typically, like in most cases, the cost of materials for making a product is much higher than the labor. I saw the example of the McDonald's burger in Denmark. Perfect example. 2. CEOs make a ridiculous amount compared to their employees. Why not limit that instead of trying to increase taxes? www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/
The same things could be said of health providers vs health insurance companies.
Thank you to all who are sharing informed thoughts on this issue.
One thing that I’ve been trying to figure out is how this works with all of the different costs of living in the country. $15/hr in a small Midwest town results in a very different quality of life than $15 in HCOL. A “livable wage” in rural IL is much different than in even mid-sized cities. The result may end up where $15/hr means someone is still just scraping by in some areas, but living quite comfortably in others.
I wonder why the discussion has never been to base the minimum wage on a calculation that considers COL rather than a blanket amount. (Or maybe it has and I just haven’t seen it?)
I'm going to guess the answer is the same as to why everyone gets the same amount for a stimulus check - there just isn't the budget in the federal government to pay a department to figure this out.
Except, the federal government has already done it. Federal wages are based on locality. I make more in DC than I would in rural TN. San Francisco and Houston make more than DC. It’s meant to be based on prevailing wage rates, but even then it’s not. But there is some acknowledgement that different areas have different wages.
What bugs me about this whole thing (not in this thread necessarily, just in general) is why we feel like we need to have others under us to feel good about ourselves. If I am making a fair wage for my work, it's fair whether the person cleaning our office or the admin assistant answering the phones makes minimum wage or makes the same wage as I do. We're both working full time, we're both working hard (often, I'd assume they are working harder than me - I certainly don't want to be cleaning the office!), and we're both human beings. Why should I see it as harm to me if she makes more money? Either I'm getting paid what I should for what I do, or I'm not and that's a separate issue than what she makes.
I honestly don't think most people would choose working at Target or as a bus driver or whatever just because they would make the same wage doing that as doing more intrinsically rewarding work. There are places I could work as a waitress and make similar money to what I've made in my career, but I am damn glad to be done with the part of my life where I waited tables - it was hard work and less intellectually interesting. People also have all different levels of intelligence and opportunity - just because I'm smarter and more privileged than many people to have been able to go to college and work in a white collar field, doesn't mean I actually deserve a better life than someone who doesn't have that level of intelligence, education, or opportunity. Not everyone can get a college degree, but it shouldn't doom them to live a worse life than someone who does IMO.
I haven’t made it through all the comments yet, but want to recommend the NPR podcast Make me Smart. I have been loving it lately! They were talking about Janet Yellen and Jerome Powell’s comments about ‘stubbornly low’ inflation, and this article helped me understand their position, and also explains some about our current standoff between wages and rising prices. It’s weird to think about inflation being low, because I keep thinking everything costs more lately, but I’ve seen it in action. In California, for example, we are phasing in minimum wage increases up to $15. The increase year over year is about 6-7%, while the CCPI is running 1-2%.
Love of my life baby boy born 11/11. One and done not by choice; 3 years of TTC yielded 4 MMC and 2 CPs, through 4 IUIs and 2 IVFs. Focusing on making the world a better place instead...and running.
I'm going to guess the answer is the same as to why everyone gets the same amount for a stimulus check - there just isn't the budget in the federal government to pay a department to figure this out.
Except, the federal government has already done it. Federal wages are based on locality. I make more in DC than I would in rural TN. San Francisco and Houston make more than DC. It’s meant to be based on prevailing wage rates, but even then it’s not. But there is some acknowledgement that different areas have different wages.
Maybe someone else has more expertise in this area than I do, but I’m not actually sure whether the federal government has the power to set local minimum wages? It’s one thing to pay your own employees based on COL, quite another to set different states at different min wages given the federal/state rights tension.