Mike Lester for February 21, 2014

That should work out well…..

And the Boss pockets an extra $4.40. And complains.

On the other hand, if you lower the minimum wage they WON’T hire more people, because they aren’t doing enough business to NEED more workers.

Err? Costco? Oh, and how could the lower paid workers buy their stuff? They can’t afford it.

The people getting more money from increased pay will be able to afford to go to places spend it, especially those in school and still living with parents. In side by side comparisons, states that have raised the wage have actually had things improve in their states when compared to the state next door.Everytime the min wage has been raised people cried out that jobs would be lost, but the only thing that has lost jobs for people is outsourcing, the use of for profit prison labor, and automation.The real victim in all of this is the executives of companies who may have to take a 1% to 5% hit to their ten figure salaries and bonuses.I heard Mr. Issa of CA talking about how young people working in the fast food industry don’t need higher pay, it is confusing how a Congressman who leads an important committee is unaware that the AVERAGE age of people getting minimum wage is 29.On another note, I went to my local library last night and Scott Rigell, R, congressman of Va had one of his workers there to answer questions and get input. The worker said that because Mr. Rigell was against the gov’t shutdown, is still working to end the sequester, and was polite to Mr. Obama when he visited local businesses, Mr. Rigell is facing a threat to his seat from the right, not the left.I’m against his stand on many things, but I give him credit for being willing to compromise, which does NOT mean doing it my way. Respectfully,C.

Yes, it will be so much better to buy fast food from a kiosk and automated burger machine rather than have minimum wage high school drop outs make it. At least the kiosk and burger machine can’t spit in your food….

This explains it really well for those that haven’t the mental ability or education in economics to understand what happens when you “magically” raise minimum wage almost double. That’s okay, you’ll just keep voting democrat and send the country further into the crapper. Soon there won’t be the strong country most of us loved once or the “evil rotten businesses” or “evil rich people” for you leaches to suck from and you’ll bemoan your way in life and wonder what happened. Atlas Shrugged and you’ll all be scratching your heads wondering where your candy train went.

To hire someone at $10.10 will cost the employer approximately $ 11.52. Including the hourly rate plus the employers share of Medicare and Social Security plus the Federal and State Unemployment taxes. Most employers will look for ways to cut that cost.

I don’t think I EVER started even the most inept carpenter’s helper ouit at minimium wage…granted, I sent a few down the road kicking beer cans because they wouldn’t WORK, but for those who stayed the course, they got trained, got regular raises, and some even learned enough to become REAL carpenters and made good money. that kinda shoots down the theory of higher minimum wages elimanates jobs, huh?

http://economics.about.com/od/demand/ss/10_questions_7.htm

These are economic supply and demand questions for practice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand

This is a wikipedia article on supply and demand

Now you will notice in no case do you see that value of whatever product determines it’s cost, oversimplified

Low supply – high demand = high costMedium supply – medium demand = medium costHigh supply – low demand = low cost

Minimum wage falls into the later, you can make your employer 30$/h (This is normal for most restaurants and fast food in Canada) but you will be paid based upon what it would cost to replace you. Most Canadian provinces this is around $10/h

Minimum wage functions as a large scale non-competition agreement.

As for the estimates of up to 400,000 jobs lost, that less than 2.5 % of the 20 million who would see an increase of about 30%.

Back to supply and demand an employer will not spend more money because it is cheap to do so. In both Canada and the US in my experience it is not uncommon for a fast food restaurant to hire as few people as possible at the cost of delays. Unless people actively stop coming it is a financial gain. This is not a bad thing, what is bad is using this as a false premises for why minimum wage will cost jobs

if min wage was raied for inflation it would be $4.05 now

http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm

http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/flsa1938.htm

That is great news for employees of The Gap. What does it have to do with the hash slinger at McD’s? .If I have to pay $15/hour for labor I was paying $8/hour, I will make sure I hire experienced, capable staff. The 16 yo HS kid and the 25 yo without a GED and no demonstrated skills is SOL. Increasing the minimum wage will price unskilled labor out of the job market. See for instance http://mises.org/daily/6630/The-Minimum-Wage-Forces-LowSkill-Workers-to-Compete-with-HigherSkill-Workers

Tigger: yep projection is that increasing the minimum wage will increase the cost of a $12 pizza, by 4 cents! (Granted that different regional markets, and sales numbers DO indicate a more regionalized to COL wage is more intelligent)

You CLEARLY don’t understand about modern farming, and the Migrant Farmworkers that would LOVE to get a minimum wage anywhere close to the current Federal Minimum Wage. You mean you didn’t realize that the FMW didn’t APPLY to farm workers?And did you actually READ the comic, and do the math? 2 workers at $7.25 vs. 1 worker at $10.10. WHO GETS THE REMAINING $4.40? The boss, that’s who.And again, Drop the minimum wage back to where it was when I started working ($2.85, if you care.) and businesses will NOT increase their labor force UNLESS they NEED more workers. The extra profits would go into the pockets of the owners/shareholders/bosses. Companies don’t hire just because they happen to have some extra money laying around, they hire ONLY when they need to. If you can’t understand that, then YOU are the one with the problem dealing with real life.

This time they’re transferring the money from the poor to the other poor.

It is very hard explaining the realities of the minimum wage to conservatives, as they only care about those around them, not society.

“……Yet you come to USA to shop because the prices are too high in Canada….”.Not true. I almost never buy anything in the U.S. to bring back. I do leave a few golf balls in the hazards however.

are you telling me that business have people on the payroll that they can do without but keep them just because they are cheap? I think not.

Yes, because the bosses are too greedy! Several years ago, the ten companies which “downsized” the most people because “we have to compete on the global economy”, at the SAME TIME increased their CEO’s salary by a MINIMUM of 35%… Don’t believe the bosses. Every time they tell you it is too expensive, what they mean is “I still want so much for myself that there will be NO compromises”. Just in case you forgot, these are the guys who, while everyone else has been losing ground, have seen their salaries shoot up by 240% over the last ten years or so.

Put down the magic wand, pick up a pen, and write a law that caps CEO salaries until there’s enough for all workers to have a better wage. If they want to move to China, then one of the workers that got a better shot can work their way up to CEO.

Instead of raising wages to livable lets keep the corporate welfare state where the government pays to maintain low wage workers.