6 ms·

What a goofy thing to think. Effective minimum wage(that is, min. wage adjusted for inflation) has been slowly declining for decades. Minimum wage isn't getting

by ahoy 10y ago

What a goofy thing to think. Effective minimum wage(that is, min. wage adjusted for inflation) has been slowly declining for decades. Minimum wage isn't getting higher, it's getting slowly lower.

Alupis 10y ago
> Effective minimum wage(that is, min. wage adjusted for inflation) has been slowly declining for decades. Minimum wage isn't getting higher, it's getting slowly lower. This is simply not true. Minimum wage was introduced in 1938, and was for a whopping $0.25 per hour. This is about $4.22 per hour in 2016 dollars. Federal minimum wage is currently at $7.25. Some states have even higher minimum wages, with California coming in at $10.00 (soon to coast up to $15.00 per hour in the next few years). So no, the purchasing power of minimum wage is not getting lower, quite the opposite.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  It has been getting lower until these increases have kicked in (as they should! without them, everyone else is getting labor at an artificial discount).
  - Chronic51 10y ago
    The higher the stated minimum wage gets, the lower the real minimum wage gets. You can be certain all other expenses will increase and job benefits will decrease to compensate.
- Retric 10y ago
  In 1969 the minimum wage was 1.4$/hour which works out to $10.34 in 2012 dollars. You can go back to 1956 and see eq $8.29 or forward to 1972 @ eq $9.10 vs now at less than 7.25$ in 2012 dollars. More recently it peaked in 2009 and has fallen every year after that currently it's down 15%. PS: In fact you need to go back to 1949 to find a worse year than 2006.
  - Alupis 10y ago
    What you are tracking (and cherry picking) is the inflation rate, which naturally goes up and down over time. My point was, and remains, people are paid more today on a minimum, than they ever were intended to be when this program was created in 1938. Minimum wage was intended as a baseline for unskilled entry-level jobs. Our issue today is we have a tremendous amount of folks, more than ever imagined, attempting to survive on minimum wage. The solution is staunchly not to just give folks more money; we've been trying that for 78 years and we still have the same problem. The solution is to enable people to support themselves off and above a minimum wage. We do this by empowering folks to get higher education and/or highly skilled job training. We should not have 50+ year olds working the cash register at Walmart. That's a failure of society... and we're not working on solving that problem. Instead, we just want an easy out; toss cash at them so we don't have to think about this for another couple of years, never-mind that same 50 year old is still working the cash register at Walmart! That's a flat cop-out.
    - Retric 10y ago
      Inflation rate is just that a rate, not adjusting for it after 7 years because fuck people with limited mental capacity is sick. As to trying things for 78 years we have very different problems now vs 78 years ago. To pretend otherwise is to simply act the fool. There are many popular ideas that simply don't work. Pretending everyone is a healthy, intelligent, well educated, and they can just make everything better by working harder is one of them. People have been working harder, productivity keeps growing but for a huge chunk of the population things have been getting worse over time. And that my friend is a very dangerous trend.
      - Alupis 10y ago
        > because fuck people with limited mental capacity is sick. Handing people more money for nothing does not solve their problems in the long term. If anything, 78 years of minimum wage has definitively proven this. When inflation goes up, as it does, they'll all be right where they are today. Why solve today what you can solve tomorrow? Now, that's truly sick. > we have very different problems now vs 78 years ago We don't have different problems. Minimum wage was implemented to help prevent folks from working all day only to not be capable of affording life... this is exactly what we're debating today. So, 78 years later, we still haven't solved this issue... > People have been working harder Have they? Working harder today is a different notion than working harder in 1938. Today, we require education and highly skilled workers. Yet, we have a major shortage of exactly that. Why is this? Well, many reasons, but among them is our societal indifference to encouraging or mandating folks get high skilled training or a higher education. There's a big push today exactly against folks getting education and/or high skilled training, and you seem to be arguing this as well. More money is a short term solution. It doesn't solve anything long term. It hasn't worked for 78 years, and it won't work for another 78 years. To use your words... "To pretend otherwise is to simply act the fool".
jayess 10y ago
Goofy way to think? It's simple math. Supply and demand. Econ 101. It's like saying 2+2=4 is a goofy way to think.

by ahoy 10y ago

What a goofy thing to think. Effective minimum wage(that is, min. wage adjusted for inflation) has been slowly declining for decades. Minimum wage isn't getting higher, it's getting slowly lower.

Alupis 10y ago

> Effective minimum wage(that is, min. wage adjusted for inflation) has been slowly declining for decades. Minimum wage isn't getting higher, it's getting slowly lower. This is simply not true. Minimum wage was introduced in 1938, and was for a whopping $0.25 per hour. This is about $4.22 per hour in 2016 dollars. Federal minimum wage is currently at $7.25. Some states have even higher minimum wages, with California coming in at $10.00 (soon to coast up to $15.00 per hour in the next few years). So no, the purchasing power of minimum wage is not getting lower, quite the opposite.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
It has been getting lower until these increases have kicked in (as they should! without them, everyone else is getting labor at an artificial discount).
- Chronic51 10y ago
  The higher the stated minimum wage gets, the lower the real minimum wage gets. You can be certain all other expenses will increase and job benefits will decrease to compensate.
Retric 10y ago
In 1969 the minimum wage was 1.4$/hour which works out to $10.34 in 2012 dollars. You can go back to 1956 and see eq $8.29 or forward to 1972 @ eq $9.10 vs now at less than 7.25$ in 2012 dollars. More recently it peaked in 2009 and has fallen every year after that currently it's down 15%. PS: In fact you need to go back to 1949 to find a worse year than 2006.
- Alupis 10y ago
  What you are tracking (and cherry picking) is the inflation rate, which naturally goes up and down over time. My point was, and remains, people are paid more today on a minimum, than they ever were intended to be when this program was created in 1938. Minimum wage was intended as a baseline for unskilled entry-level jobs. Our issue today is we have a tremendous amount of folks, more than ever imagined, attempting to survive on minimum wage. The solution is staunchly not to just give folks more money; we've been trying that for 78 years and we still have the same problem. The solution is to enable people to support themselves off and above a minimum wage. We do this by empowering folks to get higher education and/or highly skilled job training. We should not have 50+ year olds working the cash register at Walmart. That's a failure of society... and we're not working on solving that problem. Instead, we just want an easy out; toss cash at them so we don't have to think about this for another couple of years, never-mind that same 50 year old is still working the cash register at Walmart! That's a flat cop-out.
  - Retric 10y ago
    Inflation rate is just that a rate, not adjusting for it after 7 years because fuck people with limited mental capacity is sick. As to trying things for 78 years we have very different problems now vs 78 years ago. To pretend otherwise is to simply act the fool. There are many popular ideas that simply don't work. Pretending everyone is a healthy, intelligent, well educated, and they can just make everything better by working harder is one of them. People have been working harder, productivity keeps growing but for a huge chunk of the population things have been getting worse over time. And that my friend is a very dangerous trend.
    - Alupis 10y ago
      > because fuck people with limited mental capacity is sick. Handing people more money for nothing does not solve their problems in the long term. If anything, 78 years of minimum wage has definitively proven this. When inflation goes up, as it does, they'll all be right where they are today. Why solve today what you can solve tomorrow? Now, that's truly sick. > we have very different problems now vs 78 years ago We don't have different problems. Minimum wage was implemented to help prevent folks from working all day only to not be capable of affording life... this is exactly what we're debating today. So, 78 years later, we still haven't solved this issue... > People have been working harder Have they? Working harder today is a different notion than working harder in 1938. Today, we require education and highly skilled workers. Yet, we have a major shortage of exactly that. Why is this? Well, many reasons, but among them is our societal indifference to encouraging or mandating folks get high skilled training or a higher education. There's a big push today exactly against folks getting education and/or high skilled training, and you seem to be arguing this as well. More money is a short term solution. It doesn't solve anything long term. It hasn't worked for 78 years, and it won't work for another 78 years. To use your words... "To pretend otherwise is to simply act the fool".

jayess 10y ago

Goofy way to think? It's simple math. Supply and demand. Econ 101. It's like saying 2+2=4 is a goofy way to think.