Los Angeles City Council votes for $15/h minimum wage by 2020 - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Antdawg;47760621]No you're right, but minimum wages especially when indexed put pressure on employers to maintain real wages relative to inflation. [editline]20th May 2015[/editline] When cost of living goes down that is generally a sign of deflation and that is not a good thing, but saying that (about cost of living, not deflation), the U.S. could revise their income tax system for the benefit of the poorer people in society. For example here you don't pay income tax unless you earn at least $18,400 per year.[/QUOTE] People under fifteen grand do not pay taxes directly to federal government. The biggest complaints is how complicated the tax code is. My question still stands. How can the cost of living be brought down? To me, no minimum wage is bad, but a minimum wage contributes to everything costing more. So the third idea is how to make a little go much further.

[QUOTE=CrossTownNews;47764479]People under fifteen grand do not pay taxes directly to federal government. [/QUOTE] are you sure? the bottom tax bracket in the usa is 10%, so how do you pay no taxes to the federal government if the federal government charges you 10%?

[QUOTE=CrossTownNews;47764479]People under fifteen grand do not pay taxes directly to federal government. The biggest complaints is how complicated the tax code is. My question still stands. How can the cost of living be brought down? To me, no minimum wage is bad, but a minimum wage contributes to everything costing more. So the third idea is how to make a little go much further.[/QUOTE] Cost of living can't be brought down. That's because of inflation and that's a good thing. The most that can happen is real wage growth outpacing CPI which is effectively reducing cost of living but it obviously has the component that wages need to increase. [editline]21st May 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=sloppy_joes;47764616]are you sure? the bottom tax bracket in the usa is 10%, so how do you pay no taxes to the federal government if the federal government charges you 10%?[/QUOTE] Idk how US tax system works but probably low-income deductions when you do your taxes, so you end up getting all your money back which had been withheld for income tax.

[QUOTE=Antdawg;47764636]Cost of living can't be brought down. That's because of inflation and that's a good thing. The most that can happen is real wage growth outpacing CPI which is effectively reducing cost of living but it obviously has the component that wages need to increase. [editline]21st May 2015[/editline] Idk how US tax system works but probably low-income deductions when you do your taxes, so you end up getting all your money back which had been withheld for income tax.[/QUOTE] You lost me. All I know if my money go further, I can go buy more and won't need a wage increase. I also know inflation is bad. I know of no incident in history where a currency has more buying power is a negative thing. Inflation, where wheel barrels of money needed to buy a loaf of bread is seen as bad. Some days that what it feels like for me. As for US tax law? That complicated. I don't know much about it but it seems your suggestions are very similar what happens during tax tax time. Food here is cheap. Its housing and transportation that's a killer. Another question. What would be a third option?

[QUOTE=CrossTownNews;47764739]You lost me. All I know if my money go further, I can go buy more and won't need a wage increase. I also know inflation is bad. I know of no incident in history where a currency has more buying power is a negative thing. Inflation, where wheel barrels of money needed to buy a loaf of bread is seen as bad. Some days that what it feels like for me. As for US tax law? That complicated. I don't know much about it but it seems your suggestions are very similar what happens during tax tax time.[/QUOTE] Inflation is bad? Tell that to reserve banks, because they all aim to maintain inflation at around 2.5%. Inflation discourages saving and encourages spending and investing, that's good for the health of the economy and there is generally a correlation between a good level of inflation and a good level of unemployment. You want to know why a currency having more buying power, or deflation, is a bad thing? Because that encourages people to hoard their money, to not spend, to not invest, and then the real value of debt increases and also unemployment skyrockets too. CPI is literally the change in the cost of a basket of goods and when the CPI, a measure of inflation, is maintained at a steady rate, it generally leads to the benefits of a low-inflation economy being realised. So yes prices will always go up as they need to, but wages should always go up in proportion. After all, no one in the US earns $2 per hour like they did in the old days, do they?

Minimum wage hikes kill small businesses. I know our company wouldn't be able to afford it if minimum wages jumped that much. It would literally kill our business if this happened right now.

[QUOTE=Trekintosh;47764861]Minimum wage hikes kill small businesses. I know our company wouldn't be able to afford it if minimum wages jumped that much. It would literally kill our business if this happened right now.[/QUOTE] Good thing the increase up to $15 per hour is over five years, it's literally in the title of the thread. And then it says in the OP that small businesses only need to meet each new minimum wage increase a year after big businesses do. So that is actually 6 years away, very good reading matey.

[QUOTE=Antdawg;47764802]Inflation is bad? Tell that to reserve banks, because they all aim to maintain inflation at around 2.5%. Inflation discourages saving and encourages spending and investing, that's good for the health of the economy and there is generally a correlation between a good level of inflation and a good level of unemployment. You want to know why a currency having more buying power, or deflation, is a bad thing? Because that encourages people to hoard their money, to not spend, to not invest, and then the real value of debt increases and also unemployment skyrockets too. CPI is literally the change in the cost of a basket of goods and when the CPI, a measure of inflation, is maintained at a steady rate, it generally leads to the benefits of a low-inflation economy being realised. So yes prices will always go up as they need to, but wages should always go up in proportion. After all, no one in the US earns $2 per hour like they did in the old days, do they?[/QUOTE] Like I said you lost me and you seem way more knowledgable then me. No point for me pushing for an idea when I am ignorant of such matters beyond a personal level. If I were in a better state, I would learn more of this on my own then go further into a discussion with you. The only thing that apparent is no minimum wage is bad and a minimum wage has draw backs too, so a third option needs to be considered. What that is, I do not know.....

[QUOTE=Trekintosh;47764861]Minimum wage hikes kill small businesses. I know our company wouldn't be able to afford it if minimum wages jumped that much. It would literally kill our business if this happened right now.[/QUOTE]Sounds like you're doing quite poorly if you can't afford anything above current minimum.

bet the state cockblocks this, other prominent cities around the country have done this and have been barred by the state

Just thought I'd let everyone know that even at $15/hr fulltime you still wont make enough to live alone.

[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;47764616]are you sure? the bottom tax bracket in the usa is 10%, so how do you pay no taxes to the federal government if the federal government charges you 10%?[/QUOTE] You get all of your withheld taxes back as a return. The standard deduction is around $10,000; below that you only pay taxes to have them returned to you.

Just because the minimum wage will go up 50% doesn't mean expenses for businesses will be up 50% - employee wages (such as those for cashiers) aren't necessarily the main expense. In a supermarket you'd probably find that the wares are the main expense, and in general the commodity that the customer is buying [I]is[/I] (one of at least) the main expense(s). If the cashiers wages are making up 5% of your expenses, a jump (or rather a gradual slope) to 7.5% isn't bankrupting your business if your profit margin is 5% of revenue. I don't know the actual numbers, and obviously employee expenses will differ from business to business, but a gradual increase such as this shouldn't kill businesses. That's totally ignoring the fact that a person earning $15/h will spend more in a supermarket than a person earning $10/h.

By 2020 that will be fucking shit

[QUOTE=Code3Response;47765202]Just thought I'd let everyone know that even at $15/hr fulltime you still wont make enough to live alone.[/QUOTE] Yes you can. Not sure what part of the country you're in, but I was able to live alone at about $14.50 for a while. Rent, at least in the metro-Atlanta area is anywhere from $600 to $700 per month for a studio or one-bedroom. That's livable. It may not be super comfortable, but I had enough to pay for car, rent, groceries, gym, insurance, and any other things that I may have had pop up.

[QUOTE=Trekintosh;47764861]Minimum wage hikes kill small businesses. I know our company wouldn't be able to afford it if minimum wages jumped that much. It would literally kill our business if this happened right now.[/QUOTE] And the same goes for the competitor unless you're offering some kind of national or international service. Maybe you'll be forced to increase the price.

Sounds like a good way to speed up automation, one of the reasons automation hasn't moved as fast in service industries is because it's currently more profitable to have cheap human workers than machines. I work in AI and technology is already there for some time, once it becomes cheaper to implement it when compared to have human workers you will see a decrease in the workforce. In short, instead of having 10 cashiers you will have 2 cashiers and 8 machines. Raising minimum wage is nice in theory but it has its problems, especially in the current age where employment is already a problem in many places.

[QUOTE=Aspen;47765717]Yes you can. Not sure what part of the country you're in, but I was able to live alone at about $14.50 for a while. Rent, at least in the metro-Atlanta area is anywhere from $600 to $700 per month for a studio or one-bedroom. That's livable. It may not be super comfortable, but I had enough to pay for car, rent, groceries, gym, insurance, and any other things that I may have had pop up.[/QUOTE] LA its about $1100 for a single bedroom apartment. You'd be surviving, not living

One thing I have noticed by the way, is that this minimum wage thing is going to probably fuck up the chances of people getting benefits and the like from the federal government, as $15/hr tends to be the area where you start losing things. So yeah. It's an all around loss at the moment.

[QUOTE=Code3Response;47765202]Just thought I'd let everyone know that even at $15/hr fulltime you still wont make enough to live alone.[/QUOTE] In LA? Definitely not. Many other places? Absolutely.

[QUOTE=RenegadeCop;47760593]What about 4 dollars? or 3? Would people really accept any price? I doubt anyone would work for a nickle an hour.[/QUOTE] Geez I thought Republicans wanting to abolish the minimum wage was a bad stereotype but here you are

[QUOTE=H8Entitlement;47759380]Minimum wage is typically paid for entry level jobs. Jobs that can be done by "anyone" with a minimum of training. By increasing minimum wage (almost doubling it) employers will have to justify their new hires- and be much more demanding in what they expect. What this means in a nutshell... If before they would hire ten people, they can now only afford to hire 5 people. The amount of work (the ten were expected to do) has not changed except it must now be done by 5. Those 5 new hires will not be the usual entry level hires of the past. With less people to hire they can refine their selections considerably. This means less opportunities for 18 yr old high school grads- because for 15 hr they can find someone with prior experience and/or higher education backgrounds. To sum it up even further- 100 minimum wage jobs will not turn into 100 (15hr) minimum wage jobs.[/QUOTE] you also have to look at long term trends, however. econ 101 will tell you that employment goes down because the cost of inputs goes up, but the literature on that subject is divided on the extent to which that's true, and there are also other factors at play. for example, an increase in the minimum wage leads to an increase in spending power. since lower and middle class consumers are more likely to spend their new disposable income quickly, that translates to more consumption, ergo more business for companies, ergo more revenues, ergo more money for hiring workers. this isn't to suggest that an increase in the minimum wage necessarily translates to more jobs, but instead that these two factors can balance each other out, essentially a small decrease in employment in return for a decrease in poverty and an increase in consumption. the biggest issue is determining how much it should be raised to. there are [URL="http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage1-2012-03.pdf"]various methods[/URL] with which you can accomplish this. if you tied the minimum wage to the CPI, essentially a method of adjusting for inflation, it'd be at between $9.22 and $10.52 depending on the methods with which you calculate it. if you tied it to average earnings, it'd be about $10.01. if you tied it strictly to productivity growth, however, it'd be $16.54 by the most conservative estimates. from the [URL="http://www.cepr.net/blogs/cepr-blog/the-minimum-wage-and-economic-growth"]center for economic and policy research[/URL]: [QUOTE]Suppose the minimum wage had kept in step with productivity growth over the last 44 years. In other words, rather than just keeping purchasing power constant at the 1969 level, suppose that our lowest paid workers shared evenly in the economic growth over the intervening years. This should not seem like a far-fetched idea. In the years from 1947 to 1969 the minimum wage actually did keep pace with productivity growth. (This is probably also true for the decade from when the federal minimum wage was first established in 1937 to 1947, but we don’t have good data on productivity for this period.) As the graph below shows, the minimum wage generally was increased in step with productivity over these years. This led to 170 percent increase in the real value of the minimum wage over the years from 1948 to 1968. If this pattern of wage increases for those at the bottom was supposed to stifle growth, the economy didn’t get the message. Growth averaged 4.0 percent annually from 1947 to 1969 and the unemployment rate for the year 1969 averaged less than 4.0 percent. This link between productivity and the minimum wage ended with the 1970s. During that decade the minimum wage roughly kept pace with inflation, meaning that its purchasing power changed little over the course of the decade. The real value of the minimum then fell sharply in the 1980s as we went most of the decade without any increase in the nominal value of the wage, allowing it to be eroded by inflation. Since the early 1990s the real value of the minimum wage has roughly stayed constant, which means that it has further fallen behind productivity growth. How was it decided to break the link between productivity growth and the minimum wage? It is not as though we had a major national debate and it was decided that low-wage workers did not deserve to share in the benefits of economic growth. This was a major policy shift that was put in place with little, if any, public debate.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;47765324]Just because the minimum wage will go up 50% doesn't mean expenses for businesses will be up 50% - employee wages (such as those for cashiers) aren't necessarily the main expense. In a supermarket you'd probably find that the wares are the main expense, and in general the commodity that the customer is buying [I]is[/I] (one of at least) the main expense(s). If the cashiers wages are making up 5% of your expenses, a jump (or rather a gradual slope) to 7.5% isn't bankrupting your business if your profit margin is 5% of revenue. I don't know the actual numbers, and obviously employee expenses will differ from business to business, but a gradual increase such as this shouldn't kill businesses. That's totally ignoring the fact that a person earning $15/h will spend more in a supermarket than a person earning $10/h.[/QUOTE] You make it sound like the entire business world is retail. Manufacturing companies see about the same in labor and materials (or, at least, close) and service companies obviously pay out the ass for labor unless you're outsourcing or hiring day labor.