5 ms·

>>There is no such thing as what minimum wage should be "fairly" Nonsense. There most definitely IS a definition of a fair minimum wage -- it is the definitio

by toss1 2y ago

>>There is no such thing as what minimum wage should be "fairly" Nonsense. There most definitely IS a definition of a fair minimum wage -- it is the definition used when it was originally introduced into law: The wage necessary for a full-time (40hr/week) worker head-of-household to support a family of four above the poverty line -- spouse & kids in a house/apartment, food, medical, education, etc.. We have Walmart workers collecting $6 Billion in benefits per year to stay above the poverty line while the Waltons sit on a $250Billion fortune, it is clear we are subsidizing the rich by failing to set an above-poverty minimum wage. EDIT: typos, add referenced line

milesrout 2y ago
>The wage necessary for a full-time (40hr/week) worker head-of-household to support a family of four above the poverty line -- spouse & kids in a house/apartment, food, medical, education, etc.. Food of what quality? That available in the 1930s? Medical of what quality? 1930s medical care? Education to primary level as most had in the 1930s or more than that? You don't have a natural right to receive the fruits of the labour of others. >We have Walmart workers collecting $6 Billion in benefits per year to stay above the poverty line while the Waltons sit on a $250Billion fortune, it is clear we are subsidizing the rich by failing to set an above-poverty minimum wage. Then stop giving benefits to people that have jobs.
- toss1 2y ago
  >...of what quality? There are standards for virtually everything. Meet the current basic standards. For food, a basket of FDA/USDA-approved for distribution food to make a basic but nutritious diet for the family of 4. For housing, you could go with minimums for HUD housing. For education, through public high school. These are not hard to figure out (but may be a bit tedious). These are also minimums required to maintain a functional workforce in a modern society. >>You don't have a natural right to receive the fruits of the labour of others. >>Then stop giving benefits to people that have jobs. Right. So what you want is a Dickensian crabs-in-a-bucket labor market where the wage level is set by the most desperate person, who will work for hours to get a crust of bread for his/her next meal. A market where employers can abuse workers at will because there really are 500 others outside the gate who will take his job if he isn't willing to take the beating? We are no longer living in a frontier society where 97%+ of the workers are producing food. That insanely over-simplistic model has been tried, and it is a resounding failure, both for every society, every country, and every individual living in it. Those societies inevitably collapse or grow out of it with minimum standards for everyone. And while it is obviously awful for the workers, it is no day at the beach for the oligarchs either, who must live in secured closed-off areas, always frightened of everyone in the public as well as their rivals in power. Unproductive misery for everyone is what you want? So, NO, the solution is not to just make the people at the bottom more poor, more hungry, and more desperate. The solution is to stop giving benefits by ensuring that their employer pays the workers sufficiently that they do NOT NEED benefits to survive. If an employer cannot pay their workers a living wage they do NOT have a business model. They have an exploitation model. The exploitation model specifically violates your above principle saying that the employers have a natural right to the fruits of the workers' labor to whatever degree they can exploit the worker by their desperation. You aren't saying the no one has a right to the fruits of anyone else's labor, you are only saying that no other worker has such a right, but the employers do. You are saying that if someone has power or deception, whatever they can take is their right. I say, NO, that is the most dishonorable and amoral of societies.
  - genewitch 2y ago
    I enjoyed your comment, but this part stands on its own: > If an employer cannot pay their workers a living wage they do NOT have a business model. > They have an exploitation model. as i replied to someone else who asked "what does livable wage mean [to you]?": A livable wage in the geographic jurisdiction they are in. Including stuff like transportation, healthcare, food, heat, housing, and insurance. Glad you asked. oh, the company can't compete without exploiting workers? oh well.
me-vs-cat 2y ago
Despite agreeing with the rest, should the kid who graduated high school 2 months ago (1) earn as a grocery cashier to support a family of four, including medical and education, (2) should they not work / not be employable, or (3) is there room for a minimum lower than this definition?
- toss1 2y ago
  I would say yes, it is reasonable to have an exception for lower wages for teenage part-time entry-level workers, and maybe some partially-disabled workers. Of course there would need to be provisions that it not be abused and just used for all positions. E.g., it cannot be used for workers 21 years old or older, etc. And the rules against abuse need to be solid, as we can guarantee that whatever rules are made, employers will work hard to abuse and game the system to their advantage and at the employee's cost.
  - me-vs-cat 2y ago
    "Doctor, I need you to declare me disabled or else I'll lose my job when I turn 21. I need this job, and I don't know if I can find another one at the 21yo minimum wage." I really want to like what you're saying, but I see too many problems. I don't have answers.
    - toss1 2y ago
      >>Of course there would need to be provisions that it not be abused ... And the rules against abuse need to be solid, ... Exactly that sort of scenario is why I included those phrases. ANY large system will have imperfections, inadvertent waste, and openings for abuse. Of course these should be minimized, but that shouldn't stop us from making a system. Better a few people benefit undeservedly than many who deserve and need the benefits go hungry.
      - me-vs-cat 2y ago
        The need for a system doesn't imply that your proposal is better than the status quo. > Better a few people benefit undeservedly than many who deserve and need the benefits go hungry. Agreed. Now consider that regulations exclude people, not include them, overall, by far. (I say this with a job that sees that daily, and where a frequent criticism is that implementing those regulations is government waste.) What I'm taking away from this is, contrasting with an option I generally dislike, that option actually looks much better than I have previously thought, and it looks definitely better than raising the minimum wage. That is raising the corporate tax rate, which is at historic lows from what I understand, and increasing public benefits. You mentioned Walmart's profits being subsidized by benefit programs, but that valid and important complaint seems to be taken care of this way. This also starts to sound a lot like UBI, which I may have never really understood and have never supported. Maybe I should support it.

by toss1 2y ago

milesrout 2y ago

>The wage necessary for a full-time (40hr/week) worker head-of-household to support a family of four above the poverty line -- spouse & kids in a house/apartment, food, medical, education, etc.. Food of what quality? That available in the 1930s? Medical of what quality? 1930s medical care? Education to primary level as most had in the 1930s or more than that? You don't have a natural right to receive the fruits of the labour of others. >We have Walmart workers collecting $6 Billion in benefits per year to stay above the poverty line while the Waltons sit on a $250Billion fortune, it is clear we are subsidizing the rich by failing to set an above-poverty minimum wage. Then stop giving benefits to people that have jobs.

toss1 2y ago
>...of what quality? There are standards for virtually everything. Meet the current basic standards. For food, a basket of FDA/USDA-approved for distribution food to make a basic but nutritious diet for the family of 4. For housing, you could go with minimums for HUD housing. For education, through public high school. These are not hard to figure out (but may be a bit tedious). These are also minimums required to maintain a functional workforce in a modern society. >>You don't have a natural right to receive the fruits of the labour of others. >>Then stop giving benefits to people that have jobs. Right. So what you want is a Dickensian crabs-in-a-bucket labor market where the wage level is set by the most desperate person, who will work for hours to get a crust of bread for his/her next meal. A market where employers can abuse workers at will because there really are 500 others outside the gate who will take his job if he isn't willing to take the beating? We are no longer living in a frontier society where 97%+ of the workers are producing food. That insanely over-simplistic model has been tried, and it is a resounding failure, both for every society, every country, and every individual living in it. Those societies inevitably collapse or grow out of it with minimum standards for everyone. And while it is obviously awful for the workers, it is no day at the beach for the oligarchs either, who must live in secured closed-off areas, always frightened of everyone in the public as well as their rivals in power. Unproductive misery for everyone is what you want? So, NO, the solution is not to just make the people at the bottom more poor, more hungry, and more desperate. The solution is to stop giving benefits by ensuring that their employer pays the workers sufficiently that they do NOT NEED benefits to survive. If an employer cannot pay their workers a living wage they do NOT have a business model. They have an exploitation model. The exploitation model specifically violates your above principle saying that the employers have a natural right to the fruits of the workers' labor to whatever degree they can exploit the worker by their desperation. You aren't saying the no one has a right to the fruits of anyone else's labor, you are only saying that no other worker has such a right, but the employers do. You are saying that if someone has power or deception, whatever they can take is their right. I say, NO, that is the most dishonorable and amoral of societies.
- genewitch 2y ago
  I enjoyed your comment, but this part stands on its own: > If an employer cannot pay their workers a living wage they do NOT have a business model. > They have an exploitation model. as i replied to someone else who asked "what does livable wage mean [to you]?": A livable wage in the geographic jurisdiction they are in. Including stuff like transportation, healthcare, food, heat, housing, and insurance. Glad you asked. oh, the company can't compete without exploiting workers? oh well.

me-vs-cat 2y ago

Despite agreeing with the rest, should the kid who graduated high school 2 months ago (1) earn as a grocery cashier to support a family of four, including medical and education, (2) should they not work / not be employable, or (3) is there room for a minimum lower than this definition?

toss1 2y ago
I would say yes, it is reasonable to have an exception for lower wages for teenage part-time entry-level workers, and maybe some partially-disabled workers. Of course there would need to be provisions that it not be abused and just used for all positions. E.g., it cannot be used for workers 21 years old or older, etc. And the rules against abuse need to be solid, as we can guarantee that whatever rules are made, employers will work hard to abuse and game the system to their advantage and at the employee's cost.
- me-vs-cat 2y ago
  "Doctor, I need you to declare me disabled or else I'll lose my job when I turn 21. I need this job, and I don't know if I can find another one at the 21yo minimum wage." I really want to like what you're saying, but I see too many problems. I don't have answers.
  - toss1 2y ago
    >>Of course there would need to be provisions that it not be abused ... And the rules against abuse need to be solid, ... Exactly that sort of scenario is why I included those phrases. ANY large system will have imperfections, inadvertent waste, and openings for abuse. Of course these should be minimized, but that shouldn't stop us from making a system. Better a few people benefit undeservedly than many who deserve and need the benefits go hungry.
    - me-vs-cat 2y ago
      The need for a system doesn't imply that your proposal is better than the status quo. > Better a few people benefit undeservedly than many who deserve and need the benefits go hungry. Agreed. Now consider that regulations exclude people, not include them, overall, by far. (I say this with a job that sees that daily, and where a frequent criticism is that implementing those regulations is government waste.) What I'm taking away from this is, contrasting with an option I generally dislike, that option actually looks much better than I have previously thought, and it looks definitely better than raising the minimum wage. That is raising the corporate tax rate, which is at historic lows from what I understand, and increasing public benefits. You mentioned Walmart's profits being subsidized by benefit programs, but that valid and important complaint seems to be taken care of this way. This also starts to sound a lot like UBI, which I may have never really understood and have never supported. Maybe I should support it.