Employment ALWAYS requires living wages with exceptions happening on the side of the employee's needs (for instance, only needing limited total salary as a student for supplementary income). That's the cost of doing business. If you cannot pay that, you do not have any business running a business. But if we're going to apply your logic, then executive salaries should all be taking a massive cut. There certainly is no shortage of people who could or would want to be executives in the current market, and metrics generally do not exists to quantify which, of all available candidates actually are the superlative candidates. The reason it doesn't happen is there is a gross disparity in the negotiation power between executive level positions and the lowest paid positions within a company's hierarchy.
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The best solution to poverty is a robust job market, not minimum wage
- Thread starter Axulus
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Employment ALWAYS requires living wages with exceptions happening on the side of the employee's needs (for instance, only needing limited total salary as a student for supplementary income). That's the cost of doing business. If you cannot pay that, you do not have any business running a business. But if we're going to apply your logic, then executive salaries should all be taking a massive cut. There certainly is no shortage of people who could or would want to be executives in the current market, and metrics generally do not exists to quantify which, of all available candidates actually are the superlative candidates. The reason it doesn't happen is there is a gross disparity in the negotiation power between executive level positions and the lowest paid positions within a company's hierarchy.
Axulus
Veteran Member
If that's the case, then that means that no government action is needed. The wages are already at the living level.
Since it is always required as you say, I don't see why we have to worry about someone running a business without paying it. They won't be able to attract the needed employees.
It has nothing to do with "should". It is about what is. Observed reality, not some fantasy that we come up with in our own heads.
Jimmy Higgins
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If my point is to get from point A to point B, I can drive that distance in a large truck without stopping even for pedestrians in my way (as long as there aren't so many of them bunched up together that my wheels cannot clear the mound of their squishy, little bodies). It's not a requirement for getting from A to B to stop, so why does the law intervene?
If you will kindly recall, what I wrote was this:
the ability to do something does not absolve one of an requirement not to. Tautologies won't wiggle you out of that.
Axulus
Veteran Member
But you said that it is "always required". Which would mean regardless of whether there is a law or there is legal intervention. Can you please elaborate on what you meant by that?
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I believe it was krypton iodine sulfur who said that living wages are ALWAYS required. ALWAYS means ALWAYS, not sometimes (the only exception was limited circumstances such as for a student).
SimpleDon
Veteran Member
Continuing my thoughts from post #11 above --
We are the exceedingly rich and we have devised a load of economic rubbish that will justify using the government to make us more than exceedingly rich, say grotesquely rich.
For a point of reference we will assign a randomly selected name to this contradictory load of obvious economic rubbish. We will call it "Econ 101." Calling it obvious economic rubbish exposes too much of its origins, again obviously.
Again obviously the exceedingly rich who wanted to be grotesquely rich didn't come up with any of this, they paid people to do it. These people are called "neoclassical economists" who reacting the economic incentive of not having a job if they did otherwise dredged up an often derided and often disproven economic theory out of past and put lipstick on this pig called "synthesis" and the "free market” because "free" is always better and the "invisible hand" that Adam Smith had used in an unrelated sense, all of this to try to pass this wealth flattering theory off as being a new theory unrelated to previous load of rubbish neoclassical economics that sixty years before had been turned quickly into a laughing stock in a time when economists didn't risk their jobs and their livelihoods by telling the truth.
The economists of course learned that Econ 101 is a load of rubbish in their later studies but that teaching this load of rubbish is justified because it teaches the undergraduates who take the Econ 101 courses "to think like an economist," admittedly a bad one. Unfortunately, for the students Econ 101's load of rubbish is the only economics that most non-economics majors take. But those people's misfortune is to the advantage of the exceedingly rich who want to be grotesquely rich.
It is what allows otherwise intelligent people to prattle on here about "assuming infinite pools of profits" and harming the poor by increasing their wages and the "sanctity of the forty hour work week" (Republican platform) and giving the rich more money to make everyone richer and you have to pay the poor less for them to have the incentive to work and you have to pay the rich more so that they have more incentive to work and the endless loads of economics rubbish that we see here everyday.
We are the exceedingly rich and we have devised a load of economic rubbish that will justify using the government to make us more than exceedingly rich, say grotesquely rich.
For a point of reference we will assign a randomly selected name to this contradictory load of obvious economic rubbish. We will call it "Econ 101." Calling it obvious economic rubbish exposes too much of its origins, again obviously.
Again obviously the exceedingly rich who wanted to be grotesquely rich didn't come up with any of this, they paid people to do it. These people are called "neoclassical economists" who reacting the economic incentive of not having a job if they did otherwise dredged up an often derided and often disproven economic theory out of past and put lipstick on this pig called "synthesis" and the "free market” because "free" is always better and the "invisible hand" that Adam Smith had used in an unrelated sense, all of this to try to pass this wealth flattering theory off as being a new theory unrelated to previous load of rubbish neoclassical economics that sixty years before had been turned quickly into a laughing stock in a time when economists didn't risk their jobs and their livelihoods by telling the truth.
The economists of course learned that Econ 101 is a load of rubbish in their later studies but that teaching this load of rubbish is justified because it teaches the undergraduates who take the Econ 101 courses "to think like an economist," admittedly a bad one. Unfortunately, for the students Econ 101's load of rubbish is the only economics that most non-economics majors take. But those people's misfortune is to the advantage of the exceedingly rich who want to be grotesquely rich.
It is what allows otherwise intelligent people to prattle on here about "assuming infinite pools of profits" and harming the poor by increasing their wages and the "sanctity of the forty hour work week" (Republican platform) and giving the rich more money to make everyone richer and you have to pay the poor less for them to have the incentive to work and you have to pay the rich more so that they have more incentive to work and the endless loads of economics rubbish that we see here everyday.
Requirement is defined by the needs of the system. In the context of this conversation, it's the solutions to poverty as they pertain to wages and the job market. Without any such context, what is required to run a business is merely to have something to trade, and consumers willing to trade for it. Whether your processes involve theft, murder, slavery, rape or ritual sacrifice, if demand for your service continues, you've met the requirements for being in business.
Not quite. Employers always carry this obligation. Employees are not always obligated to demand it as compensation for their work. In a system where people always deal fair and regulation is never required, companies would hire the people they feel meet their labour need best. Terms could simply be negotiated based off of the individual income needs of the employee and the labour needs of the employer. What would not happen is an employer would introduce demand as an excuse for pressuring an employee to be compensated below the level of basic living expense because the employer knows they can leverage an employee's desperation to have some income over no income, while the employee has little leverage in return.
Once salary rises above the level of basic income needs, fine, negotiate away, but in a society where income from work and livelihood are the same thing for most people, you cannot eliminate poverty unless people are earning at least the minimum costs of living. Minimum wage regulations are put into effect when that minimum expectation is not being fulfilled. If all companies were already paying above that minimum, there wouldn't be much need for legislation, though in that scenario, legislation wouldn't hurt those companies since the standard demands nothing more than what is already being done.
Axulus
Veteran Member
There is no "leverage" in an employment negotiation - if you don't offer the market wage you won't get the workers you need. Hence why Wal-Mart in Willison, ND can't use its "leverage" to get employees to agree to $7.25/hr (the minimum wage) and in fact must offer 134% above it.
Furthermore, why can't, say, Google, also use this "pressure" and the employee's "desperation" to get them to agree to far lower wages for the programmers?
The whole point is that there is only "desperation" when the labor is not in high demand in relation to supply. Artificially raising the wage via legislation does not fix the fundamental problem that the labor itself is not in much demand in relation to supply.
The two options to fundamentally solve the issue is to have a situation where the labor is in much higher demand (a robust economy) or to increase the desirably of the employee's labor itself (via education and other similar things that enhance employee labor value).
<edit>snarky comment of no value removed</edit> When demand for a job is very low. You wrote "You do understand the difference between artificially raising wages (through government action) because the demand for such workers isn't very strong". The amount minimum wage is raised is based off a minimal income required for a certain standard of living. Having your employees earn that minimum standard is part of the cost of doing business. While you may disagree with where, specifically, that point is set, the minimum wage needs to rise periodically as living expenses continue to inflate.
Because not every single job fits the same conditions for employability, and not every employer feels the desire to drop wages to the minimum they can get aways with.
SimpleDon
Veteran Member
The demand for workers doesn't have much to do with the wage level. New employees are hired when they are needed to increase production. Employers don't hire more people because they are cheap. They don't fire employees because they cost more, they will lose more money by doing so than if they just paid the higher wage. See my post #26 for more on this and other fallacies.
What I wrote in the one paragraph that you seem to have read is what I believe the attitude of the role of wages is by those posting here. The intent was to compare this attitude to the attitude here toward profits in one of the other paragraphs that you apparently didn't read.
I am sorry that I wrote a post that confused you. I will try to do better, smaller words and less assumption about people's ability to reach obvious conclusions. Let me try again. Hint: It will help if you read the entire post and not just respond to the first thing that confuses you.
I wish that the people who view that raising wages does nothing but raises prices and costs jobs if they realize that increasing profits are also costs of production that should have the same effects as raising wages. Instead profits are treated differently, as the reason that the economy exists, increases that don't cause such problems.
Not to belabor the point, there can't be a difference between the impact of increasing wages or increasing profits.
Not to belabor the already belabored point increased wages lowers profits. Lower wages increases profits. Neither impact the prices if they are kept reasonable, only the split between profits and wages. This is especially true looking at the entire economy. What economists call in aggregate.
Of course, if you raise wages to one million dollars an hour like dismal always suggests all bets are off. But this is rather childish. Like if I asked you would minimum wage workers be laid off if we raised the minimum wage by 10¢ an hour. The answer is hopefully obvious but it doesn't move the discussion very far.
laughing dog
Contributor
I would think that if someone is not earning a living wage, at some point, he or she stops living. Hence, a living wage is required to exist.
Axulus
Veteran Member
So a wage of around $15-$25/day (earned by migrant workers who very much stay alive just fine and have life expectancies into their 70's)?
Jayjay
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Usually, when talking about a "living wage", we are not talking about what is literally the least amount of money to keep a person alive, but some arbitrary number well above that which covers reasonable living expenses. What is considered "reasonable" varies greatly depending on who's using the term.
Toni
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And from what I've read, even getting a shot at 4/unit with 2 windows made one very lucky. I had a family member who lived in his truck while working the oil fields. Not tons of fun in the winter..
barbos
Contributor
So they will build lot of homes, oil wells eventually dry out and then what? Lots of empty homes for sale?
arkirk
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So maybe there were so many higher payed jobs there, Walmart needed to offer that much to get anybody to come in. North Dakota unemployment is about 3%. The problem is that they are screwing up their environment and the whole thing will eventually dry up and blow away. Red White and Blue derricks...my ass. This is no answer to anything but how uneducated roughnecks can make a few bucks.
Jaecp
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This is kind of why boom town economies that lead to the wal-mart wages above are bad long term.
bilby
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The BEST solution to poverty is for everyone to be rich.
Sadly, that seems about as likely to happen as a 'robust job market'.
A minimum wage at least has the advantage of being something that can be implemented and/or modified. It might be a good or a bad idea - and clearly the debate on which it is will run and run on this board - but unlike a robust job market, it is at least in the class of actions that are both doable and measurable. A politician can promise a $20 minimum wage, and a government can implement one, and everyone can see and agree that that is what has been done (even if they disagree about whether it should have been done).
If the government wants to establish a robust job market, what legislation must they pass to achieve this? How can we expect people to agree whether or not they have met that goal?
The OP is comparing apples to oranges; A robust job market is not in the same category of solution as a minimum wage, so it is irrational to attempt to consider which is "best" - even if we could agree on a universal definition of what "best" means in this context. Which we probably can't.
Sadly, that seems about as likely to happen as a 'robust job market'.
A minimum wage at least has the advantage of being something that can be implemented and/or modified. It might be a good or a bad idea - and clearly the debate on which it is will run and run on this board - but unlike a robust job market, it is at least in the class of actions that are both doable and measurable. A politician can promise a $20 minimum wage, and a government can implement one, and everyone can see and agree that that is what has been done (even if they disagree about whether it should have been done).
If the government wants to establish a robust job market, what legislation must they pass to achieve this? How can we expect people to agree whether or not they have met that goal?
The OP is comparing apples to oranges; A robust job market is not in the same category of solution as a minimum wage, so it is irrational to attempt to consider which is "best" - even if we could agree on a universal definition of what "best" means in this context. Which we probably can't.
lpetrich
Contributor
Axulus, I'm surprised that you are not mourning increased labor costs. Because that's what higher wages are: increased labor costs. Denying that is not an argument.
SimpleDon
Veteran Member
Which is why the term "living wages" is a relatively useless basis for setting policies. Just like "providing incentive" is useless, especially when it means higher profits and income for the wealthy and lower income for everyone else, for example.
What we have to do is to eliminate poverty for those who work. This means that we need to raise the wages of the poor. An increase in the minimum wage can only be considered as a small part of the needed efforts to eliminate poverty, a start on the policy changes needed.
Why do we need to do this? I could list all of the ways that poverty hurts the poor. I could list all of the ways that poverty hurts society as a whole. But I would only need to do that if there was someone here who believes that poverty is a good, that it is good for the poor. That it is good for society as a whole. Or that poverty is inevitable, something that we can't do anything about. Like by arguing that the anti-poverty programs of the 1960's were a failure because they only cut the rate of poverty in half, they didn't eliminate proverty completely, so the programs should be abandoned.
Yes, robust job market caused by a booming economy should be the best way to raise wages. But a booming economy isn't a guarantee of raising the wages of the poor relative to everyone else.
In fact, the opposite is true, looking at the last low unemployment economy that we had, the middle to the end of the 1990's. Almost all of the gains in income was in the upper income ranges, with hardly any real gain in the low and the middle ranges. In fact, you could characterize the current economic policies as being set to do this, to increase income inequity, to intentionally raise income inequity, not only in a good economy but also in a bad economy.
The question then isn't how do we produce a good job market to eliminate poverty, it is how do we produce a good job market that decreases income inequity? Obviously the way that we are trying to do it isn't working.