Buffett: I'd love to see minimum wage at $15 an hour - Polidicks

[QUOTE=seano12;44118029]Lower demand for labor and high supply of labor. Basically people get laid off because businesses can't afford to pay their workers anymore because it ends up costing them too much. This is detrimental for small businesses, and is still a problem for medium and large businesses too. More unemployment, which means less consumer spending, which means little to no growth, which means stagnant economy. Things are bad enough, let's not make them worse.[/QUOTE] stagnation hurts a small business more than paying more in paychecks. stagnation causes people to reach for essentials which are provided by mostly large businesses such as market items like cheap food in super markets. with no extra money, people wont say have a maid service, pest control, spa treatments, mechanic work, go to restaurants, or any kind of extra luxury. the cost of living is going up every day but the minimum wage wont, restricting your wallet from purchasing any luxuries. this is what hurts small businesses more since it controls the profit completely.

[QUOTE=seano12;44118029]Lower demand for labor and high supply of labor. Basically people get laid off because businesses can't afford to pay their workers anymore because it ends up costing them too much. This is detrimental for small businesses, and is still a problem for medium and large businesses too. More unemployment, which means less consumer spending, which means little to no growth, which means stagnant economy. Things are bad enough, let's not make them worse.[/QUOTE] How exactly will it lower demand for labor? Because of a minimum wage increase do businesses suddenly need less labor to function? If businesses are in a state where they have currently have more labor than they need, than shouldn't they already have reduced their labor to save on costs? A business will need a certain amount of person-hours and persons in order to function, how exactly does the minimum wage affect that? This doesn't even touch the fact that people need a certain amount of income to survive and minimum wage really doesn't cover that within a 40 hour work week.

i mean shit, the only company i can think of that is huge that is fair to their workers is ben and jerry's. the starting wage job is $16.17 an hour for a parlor worker and is set that high to match the living wage.

$15 an hour? Boy. That's a pretty generous proposal, considering that even just $10 an hour would be quite an improvement to the American minimum wage. That said, that's about £6 an hour over here in England, according to the latest exchange rates.

[QUOTE=seano12;44116390]Anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows that raising the minimum wage will have some serious consequences. There has to be a different way to better the lives of Americans, but what?[/QUOTE] More high paying jobs? Also raising the minimum wage isn't going to harm anything but the prices of goods and services.

[QUOTE=seano12;44116390]Anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows that raising the minimum wage will have some serious consequences. There has to be a different way to better the lives of Americans, but what?[/QUOTE] The problem is that [i]nobody has a 'basic understanding of economics'[/i] - not even economists. Lots of people like to think they know how it works, but they don't. The economy has never been predictable. [editline]3rd March 2014[/editline] And if it's such a basic understanding, as you put it, then how come so many economists agree with raising it? [url]http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/30/the-minimum-we-can-do/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0[/url] [editline]3rd March 2014[/editline] And even if it doesn't supply the jobs or increase in economic prosperity that you're looking for, virtually all economists agree that it does end poverty, something well worth it in terms of social and health of a society. [url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/04/economists-agree-raising-the-minimum-wage-reduces-poverty/[/url] [url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/02/22/the-minimum-wage-debate-should-be-about-poverty-not-jobs/[/url]

[QUOTE=ForgottenKane;44118336]The problem is that [i]nobody has a 'basic understanding of economics'[/i] - not even economists. Lots of people like to think they know how it works, but they don't. The economy has never been predictable. [editline]3rd March 2014[/editline] And if it's such a basic understanding, as you put it, then how come so many economists agree with raising it? [url]http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/30/the-minimum-we-can-do/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0[/url] [editline]3rd March 2014[/editline] And even if it doesn't supply the jobs or increase in economic prosperity that you're looking for, virtually all economists agree that it does end poverty, something well worth it in terms of social and health of a society. [url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/04/economists-agree-raising-the-minimum-wage-reduces-poverty/[/url] [url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/02/22/the-minimum-wage-debate-should-be-about-poverty-not-jobs/[/url][/QUOTE] Because macroeconomics are voodoo stuff

[QUOTE=Antdawg;44117798]- Apparently having to fill out a form if you're unemployed, and therefore potentially having to be re-located out of state. What about friends and extended family, or the fact that some people may not want to move somewhere unfamiliar? - Hotel access for up to three months, free of charge to you, paid by the government. Oh dear - Government paying at least half for a family to potentially be moving from say east coast US to west coast - Minimum wage set by whichever Federal bureaucrat who sees your form (you literally say that they will 'judge' your experience, rather than compare your experience to existing standards) And the only way you're going to have third parties in politics is with proportional voting systems, so a complete overhaul of the US voting system pretty much (it wouldn't be as simple as something like upgrading from plurality voting to instant runoff voting - which would still be a two-party dominated system, that's for sure).[/QUOTE] When I say judging on experience I mean in the literal idea of how experienced you are. For example: Are you trained well in your trade? Do you have say two to three years of experience which should be more then enough reason to give you an increased starting pay? The idea is to act on your experience, and give a respectful pay for said experience. It's degrading to be dropped from say a $25 an hour job, to a $15 an hour job of the same trade, even when you say have more experience then most of the other people coming in. If you are just joining the trade, and need to be trained to get up to standard, that's going to cost the company who's hiring you to put in some effort and therefore reliably decrease the amount of pay you start out with. If you are experienced and have already been trained enough, you are put at a pay which respects your experience. If you are in a situation where you are unemployed, unable to make a decent living, and have to make a choice between a roof over the heads of your significant other and your children, its not even a matter of, "Well my friends" its a matter of protecting your family, and ensuring they live a decent life. Friendships are second to keeping your family safe, and we live in a time and age in which people can still remain in contact with each other over the internet. Also, your minimum wage is pretty much already decided by bureaucrats as is, what with the lobbying and all. And I honestly would prefer to see a complete renewal of the current situation. The Electoral College is a goddamn joke, the first past the post puts almost half our country under the bus in each election, and we hardly have an actual representative voice outside of local elections. Also, moving should be something where you at least get some form of help. If you are trying to better yourself, trying to get yourself out of unemployment, and on top of all of this, you would be paying taxes instead of consistently taking aid. This benefits the economy, this should be something the government looks into.

most economic theory says that minimum wage laws hurt the people it is intended to help. high minimum wage means that the wages are significantly over the equilibrium wages and thus driving supply of labour up while driving demand of labour down. this will cause more unemployment with the poor rather then actually help them but has no effect on people who are already getting high wages. however i still believe that raising the minimum wage is something worth trying, rather then doing nothing.

[QUOTE=Jawalt;44116454]I don't think minimum wage affects as much as you think, at least not in the retail/fast food/corporate sector. Small business and such, sure it sucks, but for many retail places they are already scheduling people for the minimum amount of hours possible to get the job done. This would simply force a few larger companies to take a fairly small hit in comparison to the profit they bring in.[/QUOTE] It was such bullshit, value village cut my hours so I was working ONE HOUR less than what qualifies as full time so they wouldn't have to give me any benefits. Fuck retail holy shit

[QUOTE=FingerSpazem;44118544]It was such bullshit, value village cut my hours so I was working ONE HOUR less than what qualifies as full time so they wouldn't have to give me any benefits. Fuck retail holy shit[/QUOTE] That doesn't really have anything to do with minimum wage.

Jesus, I cannot believe that the minimum wage is so low in the US. The cost of living being so high as well. Even in Canada, we're raising our wage to $11.00 soon, but I think that's too low. $14.00 would be needed at least, to have a stable income, and to be able to live in a -okay- apartment and in a decent area as well. The cost of living is just going up and up, while the working life wage is going lower, and lower. Unless of course, you get into the right areas, by knowing the right people, or of course spending half your life in College/University. Going into debt, then paying off that debt for the next few years of your life unable to enjoy much. Life is hard.

[QUOTE=Valnar;44118552]That doesn't really have anything to do with minimum wage.[/QUOTE] no it doesn't, good thing i wasn't talking about that [quote]but for many retail places they are already scheduling people for the minimum amount of hours possible to get the job don[/quote] I was responding to this because it's all they do [QUOTE=Amez;44118644]I worked at Brookstone and during the holiday season we would be scheduled exactly the same way. 39.5 hours a week just so we wouldn't get any benefits.[/QUOTE] This kind of shit just fills me with so much rage, huge reason why I quit

[QUOTE=FingerSpazem;44118544]It was such bullshit, value village cut my hours so I was working ONE HOUR less than what qualifies as full time so they wouldn't have to give me any benefits. Fuck retail holy shit[/QUOTE] I worked at Brookstone and during the holiday season we would be scheduled exactly the same way. 39.5 hours a week just so we wouldn't get any benefits.

[QUOTE=Covalency;44118592] Unless of course, you get into the right areas, by knowing the right people, or of course spending half your life in College/University. Going into debt, then paying off that debt for the next few years of your life unable to enjoy much. Life is hard.[/QUOTE] Every good job I've had, I've had because someone referred me. Also, I'm making a profit off of government financial aid by going to college and I'm not paying a single cent for school because of it. I feel safe to say I got a $700 check just for attending school. I'm also unemployed right now. That being said, the minimum wage, 40 hours a week, doesn't even cover a month's worth of groceries, and less than half of a months rent in the area I live in. Meaning that the wages paid for a minimum wage aren't enough to survive on. So basically I live with my parents, not pay any rent and all my money goes to savings and/or fun things. You gotta do what you gotta do to survive. You can't survive on a minimum wage as it stands, which is a problem. That is all.

[QUOTE=bigdandyd;44117449]I have friends that work their asses off in the oil field making $15 an hour. How would they feel if some dude at mcdees makes the same ammount?[/QUOTE] Why do people keep saying things like this every time increasing the minimum wage comes up? People are already being paid far too little or far too much for the jobs they perform, it seems much more important to me that as many people as possible are able to procure decent living conditions than to keep things the way they are because some petty people might get their feelings hurt. If your friends care so much about other people's wages compared to their own, shouldn't they already be more upset that there are people who rake in hundreds of times more money than them for work that is no more difficult than their own? Oh wait, I forgot that disproportionate wages are only acceptable when they're being paid out to the wealthy.

[QUOTE=Monkah;44117110]Small businesses should get lower minimum wage requirements than huge corporations, IMO. Would solve that problem rather easily and actually seems to be a fair compromise.[/QUOTE] You underestimate how clever and cunning humans are. It's going to end up in a situation where "small businesses" have shit like 49 employees and large companies just subcontract out work to "small businesses" to reduce the number of employees they have hired.

[QUOTE=seano12;44118029]Lower demand for labor and high supply of labor. Basically people get laid off because businesses can't afford to pay their workers anymore because it ends up costing them too much. This is detrimental for small businesses, and is still a problem for medium and large businesses too. More unemployment, which means less consumer spending, which means little to no growth, which means stagnant economy. Things are bad enough, let's not make them worse.[/QUOTE] This is only a short term knee-jerk reaction to the minimum wage being raised and if your business seriously suffers from doing this to where you have to lay off everyone then you simply were doing it wrong That said it wouldn't surprise me to see a lot of businesses it wrong because the minimum wage has been so fucked and kicked down behind the actual standards of living for so long that we've been fooled to thinking that $7.25 is somehow enough. If the minimum wage was actually following the rate of inflation of the USD since its inception we'd be at around $16/hr right now, pretty close to Australia. The fact that this isn't the case, and it stopped being the case in the latter half of the 20th century simply shows the minimum wage worker completely lost almost all purchasing power in favor of a neater looking bottom line in the wal-mart generation for companies that rely on minimum wage labor. ------------ Besides, the whole job-loss thing is a total myth. Did millions go unemployed when the minimum wage went up before? No. There was some skimming yes, but by and large the net benefit is so substantual that you are [I]stupid[/I] not to enforce it higher with how far behind the inflation rate it currently is at. The most obvious benefit of increasing minimum wage is that you give the lowest percentile much more purchasing power. These are the people that literally drive the economy, not employers, because how can employers stand to make money if nobody buys their products? It also erroneously assumes every industry in america relies on minimum wage workers to do some of their jobs. The proof is in the pudding: [url]http://www.uvm.edu/~vlrs/doc/min_wage.htm[/url] [url]http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/why-does-the-minimum-wage-have-no-discernible-effect-on-employment[/url] [quote][B] The weight of that evidence points to little or no employment response to modest increases in the minimum wage.[/B][/quote] [quote]Card and Krueger compared unemployment and wages in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In that comparison they focused on the fast food industry (the leading employers of low wage earners and an industry that enforces the minimum wage). The Comparison of New Jersey and Pennsylvania indicated, "employment actually expanded in New Jersey relative to Pennsylvania, where the minimum wage was constant" (Card and Krueger 1995, p. 66). In additional studies that they conducted using data from other states Card and Krueger [B]actually found a positive correlation between a higher minimum wage and employment.[/B] Table 2 presents the findings of each of the studies they ran.[/quote] How can this be? Well, because when you are a buisness that relies on minimum wage labor, the minimum wage going up doesn't slow down the customer base you serve. You still need to employ enough people to keep customers in, which pretty much every business does anyways - there is hardly a single place you can work at in america that pays minimum wage where they DON'T run the bare minimum required in manpower to keep the business running. What happens when the minimum wage goes up? You actually get more business, because more people have money in which to spend at your business. This means you actually need to hire more people to meet the demand. That said, it's not all daisies: [quote][B]Most studies have found that the entire net effect of an increase in minimum wage results in a slight decrease in employment.[/B] A 10 percent increase would most likely lead to only a 1 percent reduction in employment. The more pressing issue is the matter of a livable wage. Even the state with the highest minimum wage does not meet the criteria for a livable wage. Over 24 cities throughout the United States have enacted a livable wage requirement, in order that people are able to meet their basic needs, such as food, shelter, heat, and clothing. This requirement has resulted in a minor cost increase for employers and a 2.2 percent decrease in employment. For a single person to meet his/her essential needs while living in Vermont, the person would need to make at least $7.98 an hour [in 1998], and for a family of four it would need to make at least $19.82 an hour.[/quote] Basically, employment does slow. Teens are also not hired into the workforce as readily. But its a total farce that it has any substantial loss in employment and any substantial loss in benefits as well. As for the current $10.10 proposed minimum wage increase? Worst case you might be looking at 500,000 jobs lost from this. But that's the worst case knee-jerk short term reaction to it - long term it won't look like that at all, and even in the short term the people behind the studies seriously doubt any real unemployment will come from it. However the benefits of the minmum wage will be [I]staggering[/I], far and above any theoretical loss of 500,000 employees from the workforce would be: [quote]1. Wages would rise for 16.5 million workers. 2. Income for families living below the poverty line would rise by a combined $5 billion, and by $12 billion for those earning less than three times the poverty level. 3. About 900,000 people would be moved out of poverty. [/quote] So can we please stop being corporate dicksucks assuming that raising the minimum wage will be the end of the economy and lose millions of jobs, like Walmart wants us to believe? Literally the worst case scenario for minimum wage loss is about 2% of the low income workforce, higher prices from businesses that rely on minimum wage work, or potentially skimming wages on higher-paid salaried workers within that company (not all three, because generally only one is required). But all of that even in the worst case scenario is all short term. Higher paid workers have better retention which actually saves money in the long run, they get more money which means they have more purchasing power to spend (more buisness), and a large amount of goods and services still don't rely on minimum wage employment and as such would be completely unaffected. The biggest reason why minimum wage simply doesn't have the employment effect everyone thinks it does is because people assume paying minimum wage workers is a huge chunk what it costs to run a company. In reality, the cost of paying workers minimum wage in a place like McDonalds and Walmart is literally a drop in the bucket in the overall expenditures that these companies have. It's literally insignifigant. Sure little things add up but people grossly overestimate just how much of a cost-sink a raised minmum wage actually is for companies. The places hit hardest in the short term are small businesses that are already struggling - i.e. large arts-n-crafts department stores that already only run one or two employees for the whole store because their business is so low. [editline]4th March 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Sindri335;44118499]most economic theory says that minimum wage laws hurt the people it is intended to help. high minimum wage means that the wages are significantly over the equilibrium wages and thus driving supply of labour up while driving demand of labour down. this will cause more unemployment with the poor rather then actually help them but has no effect on people who are already getting high wages. however i still believe that raising the minimum wage is something worth trying, rather then doing nothing.[/QUOTE] The problem with this is that it assumes everyone working in a company is getting paid minimum wage, and that the minimum wage is already at a high price compared to the rate of inflation and the cost of living The reality is much much different. Especially when there are ways to push the cost of a minimum wage to the side. Reduced benefits, higher retention (not having to go through training and hiring so many people so frequently), reduced salaries from upper management, slightly higher prices, etc. It also assumes that people who live on minimum wage continue to spend as they did before (aka: not spending at all). By increasing the minimum wage you basically open your doors to the entire minimum wage workforce that could previously not afford to do business with you.

[QUOTE=FingerSpazem;44118607]no it doesn't, good thing i wasn't talking about that I was responding to this because it's all they do[/QUOTE] My bad, I thought you were talking about minimum wage when you were saying that. Because I've seen people argue about being forced to work just under full time linked with minimum wage.

[QUOTE=seano12;44116390]Anyone with a basic understanding of economics[/QUOTE] Actually it's the other way around. People with no knowledge of economics tend to draw that conclusion. Most* "economists" with an actual phd in economics will tell you that raising the US minimum wage is probably a good idea.

[QUOTE=hypno-toad;44121982]Actually it's the other way around. People with no knowledge of economics tend to draw that conclusion. Most* "economists" with an actual phd in economics will tell you that raising the US minimum wage is probably a good idea.[/QUOTE] It's staggering how many agrees that post got. You can take a Business 200 class and find out in the first two weeks how wrong that statement is. KorJax laid it out hardstyle above.