[Vision2020] Minimum wage

[Paul Rumelhart]

Personally, I don't know what to think about the minimum wage issue.  
There are just too many variables.

I see massive corporations skimming a few pennies on the dollar by 
hiring their employees at as low a wage as they can, even though it 
wouldn't exactly bankrupt them to raise the wage.

I see small businesses that are just hanging in there that would be 
hard-pressed to pay a substantial increase to their minimum-wage (or 
close to it) employees.

I see corporations sending jobs overseas to people who will work for 
pennies on the dollar.

I see businesses of all sizes hiring illegal workers who will also work 
for pennies on the dollar.

I see businesses of all sizes raising the wages of their employees and 
upping the prices on their products an equivalent amount (or more) if 
the minimum wage is increased.

I see people refusing to work minimum wage jobs because they can get 
more money on welfare.

I don't know how reconcile all these.  How do you punish the 
money-grubbing corporations for "outsourcing" and paying the lowest 
wages possible when in reality they can be sued for making choices that 
aren't in their stockholders best interests?

I think we may need a few things to happen at once.  Raise the minimum 
wage.  Enact a law that businesses cannot have anyone on their payroll, 
regardless of their country of origin, below that minimum wage value.  
Crack down on the use of illegal immigrants to side-step the minimum 
wage; make the punishment a real deterrant, maybe even include jail time 
for the people who made the decision to hire illegal immigrants in the 
first place.

Maybe we should have two minimum wages, one for part-time and one for 
full-time workers.  The idea being that the full-time wage would be 
calculated to be the wage that your average family with 2.65 kids or 
whatever can live on.  The part-time minimum wage wouldn't be expected 
to be enough to live on per se.  Cap the hours on that one at 50% time 
or something.  This might help those businesses that need workers for 
short periods of time only, like at harvest or something.

I don't know.  Any other ideas?

Paul

Joe Campbell wrote:

>Chevy,
>
>I just want to make sure that I have the structure of your argument correct. As far as I can tell, it is this:
>
>1) Here is a crazy idea: Suppose we raise the minimum wage to $100 per hour.
>2) That won't work.
>3) Therefore, it is crazy to raise the minumum wage.
>
>Is that your argument? 
>
>As of yet this fallacy has no name. On the other hand, it doesn't need one!
>
>Best, Joe
>
>---- J Chevy <j_chvy at yahoo.com> wrote: 
>
>=============
>“Everywhere is freaks and hairies
>Dykes and fairies, tell me where is sanity 
>  Tax the rich; feed the poor
>  Till there are no rich no more...”
>   
>  Interpret the above as you will.
>   
>  Now, in the purest democrat fashion…
>   
>  Hey, I got a grand idea; let’s skip all the non-livable wage propositions and raise the minimum wage in Idaho to $100.00 per worker per hour worked. Skilled, unskilled, college educated, black, white, green, position in society, blue collar, white collar, high or low intelligence, no matter. Better yet, assign everyone identical salaries. We are all equal, right?  Why shouldn’t we deserve the same pay?  Does any among us think that they’re better than the other?  Maybe our government should just handle all the finances in the United States--issue us all an identical check every Monday.  Shoot, why do we even need money?  Or property?  Or the right to have a say in the political arena for that matter? (Socialized medicine, at this point, is a no-brainer.)  Shant we all fulfill out own niche to society and one big utopia will result?  Aw, community, egalitarianism, I love it!  Mind you, we need bums, losers, drug addicts, illegal aliens, derelicts, miscreants, hippies,
> gypsies, and environmentalists just as we need doctors, engineers, teachers, attorneys, chemists, military personnel, law enforcement, and authors.  We are all equal, we simply play our own and unique role in the societal hub. True? We are all dependant on each other for survival.  The drive to earn a bigger wage and live more affluently is no motivation to better oneself—or the country for that matter.  Perhaps the ailing Castro, Putin, Ill, Hu, or the ghost of Lenin or Marx could help with the logistics and implementation of this socioeconomic bit of brilliance. It’s a noble idea. It will be tough in the beginning. We will have to start on a small-scale basis. The first experimental community could be called, say, the Socialist Republic of Moscow. Next, when we have successfully worked out the bugs, we could fan out to neighboring areas, then to the entire state.  How’s the People’s Republic of Idaho sound?  Catchy, huh?  Apropos, I’m suddenly having a deja vu. 
>   
>  Not funny, you say? Remember the natural progression, according to Marx, that Nations typically take? The US is knee deep in Socialism already. The last step is communism…and, as we all know, it’s track record is flawless.  
>   
>  Performance, specialization, and supply/demand should dictate salary.. When all is said and done, no one will work for (or pay) the ridiculous. There should be no minimum wage, whatsoever.  Just think, and I’m not totally a free market wing nut..
>   
>  But, let’s say our socialist, Idahoan quixotes have their way and manage to get the minimum wage raised to say, $8.00, the highest in the nation. Can any of you, without any other state contributions, survive on that? Doubtful. So, what then? $9.00? 10.00? 15.00 per hour? 
>   
>  The answer is to eliminate the minimum wage altogether (and oust the aliens that’ll work for next-to-nothing).  Any person left who wants something for themselves or their family will do what it takes to climb the ladder. ‘Cause ‘meritocracy and the American Dream’ ain’t no riddle, man; to me, it makes good good sense. Good sense. 
>   
>  J
>
> 		
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