8 ms·

Minimum wage law.

jlgreco 13y ago
Perhaps the labor law exceptions for farming jobs explain some of the geographic discrepancy. When I was a teenager for a time I was (legally) employed below standard minimum wage working as a farm laborer.
- bmmayer1 13y ago
  Interesting point. Also, black youths overwhelmingly live in urban areas where labor laws are more strictly enforced.
jussij 13y ago
If minimum wage law was such a determining factor why is it countries with a higher minimum wages than the USA have lower (including youth) unemployment rates. I'll give you my take on this. What creates employment is consumption and people earning next to nothing don’t consume. So if you cut the minimum wage all you'll end up doing is reduce the overall consumption, which in turn will drive up unemployment. The truth might in fact be the reason the USA economy is so stuffed is because the minimum wage has not gone up in decades leading to greatly reduced levels of consumption.
- bmmayer1 13y ago
  The countries with the highest minimum wages are the democratic socialist states of Europe which all have much higher youth unemployment rates than here. One of the lowest youth unemployment rates in Europe is Germany, which has no minimum wage law.
  - jussij 13y ago
    Here in Australia we have a minimum wage twice that of the USA and our unemplyment is 5.6 percent.
  - _delirium 13y ago
    Whether northern Europe has a minimum wage or not is a bit complex. Neither Germany nor the Nordic countries have statutory minimum wages, but they have very corporatist labor sectors, with strong labor-union participation organized along the lines of broad confederations (giant labor confederations negotiate ground agreements with giant employer confederations). Some of that is entrenched in law, e.g. in most of Scandinavia the workers are guaranteed representatives on certain bodies that can veto things like changes to employment contracts. So a negotiated minimum wage still covers a large proportion of jobs. In Denmark somewhere around 80% of jobs are covered by the negotiated minimum wage agreements, which are typically set at $20/hr. The main exceptions making up the 20% are small mom-and-pop stores (kebab shops and such) who don't join the employer confederation and therefore aren't subject to the agreements. But all jobs at large companies, like supermarket clerks and janitors, are covered by the minimum wage. In Denmark this was basically the social-democratic outcome of the late-19th-century labor strife: the moderate wing of the labor movement reached an agreement in September 1899 with moderates within the business community to adopt a consensus-based approach to workplace conditions and pay. That held, so both the laissez-faire capitalist advocates and the militantly socialist portion of the labor movement were sidelined for a century or so.
  - frankydp 13y ago
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/28/spain-lost-generation_n_3344183.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/28/spain-lost-generati... Reference
- chaostheory 13y ago
  The problem with increasing minimum wage is that the more you increase it, the more incentive you give a company for further ramping up mechanization even though the initial costs are generally high upfront.
- zanny 13y ago
  Actually, I'd argue it doesn't matter what the minimum wage is. Today we see that the minimum wage just means a lot of people aren't working, and if you dropped minimum wage and gave them something to do hourly for pennies they still would have nothing. If you raised minimum wage, you would just drive McDonalds to automate away more of its menial jobs and make Walmart replace all the cashiers with self checkouts, which I think is good (eliminate the useless wastes of peoples time) but it doesn't mean more people are employed for labor. The real issue is that the distribution of economic resources has been direly concentrated in very few for 30 years, and they are now the predominant drivers of economic activity because nobody else has any prosperity anymore. It is a compound effect that the people with the money to hire and employ others have nothing to hire or employ them for, and thus they don't, instead they push their money into avenues that make profit off of regulatory exploitation rather than productivity (big banks & the fed, fortune 500 investments, lobbying for monopolies to get artificial markets).
readme 13y ago
Hardly. Lowering the minimum wage isn't going to make an unskilled and lazy teenager useful. We have programs for this: * http://www.jobcorps.gov/home.aspx http://www.jobcorps.gov/home.aspx -- This provides room, board, a stipend suitable for a teenager with no expenses, and vocational training for those under 25 years old (i.e, teens) * http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ -- There's really no disputing this one. Any one of them can hoof it over to the nearest community college and get some skills and a paid work-study job. * http://www.army.mil/ http://www.army.mil/ -- Many of you probably don't like this, but it's probably the most successful organization at turning lazy teens into productive citizens, however, it carries the risk of death or dismemberment. My point, is there are many options. To split hairs over the minimum wage because 95% of 1% of kids (the approximate dropout rate) don't have jobs is nonsense. So, because these kids who did not do their civic duty are unemployed means we should lower labor standards for everyone else, including those who have to feed families, such as the parents of these very children? It can only worsen the situation. Min wage is already so low that it is not the driver to whether someone is getting hired or not. The big corporations that run most of the "small" businesses now, can pay. They just need to know they're indeed getting a valuable worker. The other thing is, a lot of that 95% can be accounted for by kids who don't want a job. They'd rather play x-box, or work as a foot soldier in the local gang. We have programs for this. Job corps, seriously. There's nothing stopping young people from working here. The jobs exist. The skills do not.
- larrywright 13y ago
  I found myself wondering about this as well. Some of this is quite likely legitimate unemployment, but I'm wondering what percent is laziness. That said, it's pretty easy as a middle-income white guy to cast judgement on people living in a situation I can't even dream of understanding. This is a pretty complex subject.
- BadCookie 13y ago
  Are you saying that the high school dropout rate is 1%? Because that's not anywhere close to being correct. It's over 25% in the United States according to this: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/high-school-graduation-rate-hits-40-year-peak-in-the-us/276604/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/high-sch...

Minimum wage law.

Perhaps the labor law exceptions for farming jobs explain some of the geographic discrepancy. When I was a teenager for a time I was (legally) employed below standard minimum wage working as a farm laborer.

bmmayer1 13y ago
Interesting point. Also, black youths overwhelmingly live in urban areas where labor laws are more strictly enforced.

jussij 13y ago

If minimum wage law was such a determining factor why is it countries with a higher minimum wages than the USA have lower (including youth) unemployment rates. I'll give you my take on this. What creates employment is consumption and people earning next to nothing don’t consume. So if you cut the minimum wage all you'll end up doing is reduce the overall consumption, which in turn will drive up unemployment. The truth might in fact be the reason the USA economy is so stuffed is because the minimum wage has not gone up in decades leading to greatly reduced levels of consumption.

bmmayer1 13y ago
The countries with the highest minimum wages are the democratic socialist states of Europe which all have much higher youth unemployment rates than here. One of the lowest youth unemployment rates in Europe is Germany, which has no minimum wage law.
- jussij 13y ago
  Here in Australia we have a minimum wage twice that of the USA and our unemplyment is 5.6 percent.
- _delirium 13y ago
  Whether northern Europe has a minimum wage or not is a bit complex. Neither Germany nor the Nordic countries have statutory minimum wages, but they have very corporatist labor sectors, with strong labor-union participation organized along the lines of broad confederations (giant labor confederations negotiate ground agreements with giant employer confederations). Some of that is entrenched in law, e.g. in most of Scandinavia the workers are guaranteed representatives on certain bodies that can veto things like changes to employment contracts. So a negotiated minimum wage still covers a large proportion of jobs. In Denmark somewhere around 80% of jobs are covered by the negotiated minimum wage agreements, which are typically set at $20/hr. The main exceptions making up the 20% are small mom-and-pop stores (kebab shops and such) who don't join the employer confederation and therefore aren't subject to the agreements. But all jobs at large companies, like supermarket clerks and janitors, are covered by the minimum wage. In Denmark this was basically the social-democratic outcome of the late-19th-century labor strife: the moderate wing of the labor movement reached an agreement in September 1899 with moderates within the business community to adopt a consensus-based approach to workplace conditions and pay. That held, so both the laissez-faire capitalist advocates and the militantly socialist portion of the labor movement were sidelined for a century or so.
- frankydp 13y ago
  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/28/spain-lost-generation_n_3344183.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/28/spain-lost-generati... Reference
chaostheory 13y ago
The problem with increasing minimum wage is that the more you increase it, the more incentive you give a company for further ramping up mechanization even though the initial costs are generally high upfront.
zanny 13y ago
Actually, I'd argue it doesn't matter what the minimum wage is. Today we see that the minimum wage just means a lot of people aren't working, and if you dropped minimum wage and gave them something to do hourly for pennies they still would have nothing. If you raised minimum wage, you would just drive McDonalds to automate away more of its menial jobs and make Walmart replace all the cashiers with self checkouts, which I think is good (eliminate the useless wastes of peoples time) but it doesn't mean more people are employed for labor. The real issue is that the distribution of economic resources has been direly concentrated in very few for 30 years, and they are now the predominant drivers of economic activity because nobody else has any prosperity anymore. It is a compound effect that the people with the money to hire and employ others have nothing to hire or employ them for, and thus they don't, instead they push their money into avenues that make profit off of regulatory exploitation rather than productivity (big banks & the fed, fortune 500 investments, lobbying for monopolies to get artificial markets).

readme 13y ago

Hardly. Lowering the minimum wage isn't going to make an unskilled and lazy teenager useful. We have programs for this: * http://www.jobcorps.gov/home.aspx http://www.jobcorps.gov/home.aspx -- This provides room, board, a stipend suitable for a teenager with no expenses, and vocational training for those under 25 years old (i.e, teens) * http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ -- There's really no disputing this one. Any one of them can hoof it over to the nearest community college and get some skills and a paid work-study job. * http://www.army.mil/ http://www.army.mil/ -- Many of you probably don't like this, but it's probably the most successful organization at turning lazy teens into productive citizens, however, it carries the risk of death or dismemberment. My point, is there are many options. To split hairs over the minimum wage because 95% of 1% of kids (the approximate dropout rate) don't have jobs is nonsense. So, because these kids who did not do their civic duty are unemployed means we should lower labor standards for everyone else, including those who have to feed families, such as the parents of these very children? It can only worsen the situation. Min wage is already so low that it is not the driver to whether someone is getting hired or not. The big corporations that run most of the "small" businesses now, can pay. They just need to know they're indeed getting a valuable worker. The other thing is, a lot of that 95% can be accounted for by kids who don't want a job. They'd rather play x-box, or work as a foot soldier in the local gang. We have programs for this. Job corps, seriously. There's nothing stopping young people from working here. The jobs exist. The skills do not.

larrywright 13y ago
I found myself wondering about this as well. Some of this is quite likely legitimate unemployment, but I'm wondering what percent is laziness. That said, it's pretty easy as a middle-income white guy to cast judgement on people living in a situation I can't even dream of understanding. This is a pretty complex subject.
BadCookie 13y ago
Are you saying that the high school dropout rate is 1%? Because that's not anywhere close to being correct. It's over 25% in the United States according to this: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/high-school-graduation-rate-hits-40-year-peak-in-the-us/276604/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/high-sch...