Have the lives of minimum wage earners improved? (agent, taxes, financial)
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Minimum wage jobs bring a lot of value to a company. In fact, some of them are critical to a company.
How much money would a restaurant make with no kitchen staff?
How much money would a grocery store make with no one to stock the shelves?
How much money would a shipping company make with no one to load or unload trucks?
This forum likes to pile on low skill workers as if they are worthless. Reality is, they are quite important to a company's ability to make money. Without them, these companies would not be in business.
Raising the minimum wage has resulted in more inflation, reduced hours, and even layoffs, since that money has to come from somewhere.
Respectfully, that isn't quite true regarding inflation (I agree with you on reduced hours & layoffs).
When a statutory minimum wage is raised above the natural market-clearing wage, there is an effect - but not on inflation. As business owners raise prices to recoup increased costs, consumers see that increase in price of goods/services where low-value-add labor is a factor. So, people buy less of those goods & services, substituting purchases of other goods. People buy fewer fast-food hamburgers and housekeeping services (where low-value-add labor is a factor) and buy more of other goods and services where low-value-add labor is a factor - say, TVs, cars, and tax preparation services as an example. As a result, there will be shifts in RELATIVE prices of goods & services where low-value-add labor is a component COMPARED TO goods and services where low-valu-add labor is immaterial.
But that shift in relative prices is not inflation. Inflation is an increase in the general price level of all goods and services, and of course there are two dominant schools of thought on the causes of inflation:
“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” -- Milton Friedman, 1963. Nobel Prize in Economics winner of 1976. That is, too much money chasing too few goods as a result of too fast an expansion of the money supply
“Persistent high inflation is always and everywhere a fiscal phenomenon, in which the central bank is a monetary accomplice." -- Thomas Sargent, 1981. Nobel Prize in Economics winner of 2011. That is, too much federal government spending.
Most macro-economists believe both are at play currently rather than an either-or scenario.
Minimum wage jobs bring a lot of value to a company. In fact, some of them are critical to a company...
Depends on the industry. Let's take CPU manufacturing in a factory called a "semiconductor fab" or "Fab" for short. The employees inside the Fab all have PhDs in EE, ME, ChemE, Materials Science, Chemistry, Solid State Physics, even IE -- there is no minimum wage job anywhere to be found.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brill
How much money would a grocery store make with no one to stock the shelves?
Imagine someone whose sole value add to society is to open a cardboard box, reach inside, and take bottles of ketchup out of the box & set it on a shelf.
Monguldreamer, what's a “natural market-clearing wage”? I've read nonsensical referring to minimum wage rates as an “artificial” rate.
A market's minimum wage rate's an indefinite, (if there's no definite), effectively enforced minimum rate. A government's definite minimum rate is applicable to almost all employers and jobs in the USA. That minimum's applicable to even the least inconvenient or challenging tasks or jobs, performed by even the least desirable or capable employee.
There are factors determining jobs' wage rates and no less than other factors, government's definite minimum rate is among those factors. Jobs wage rates are affected by the minimum rate and are not “artificial” rates.
Increases of prices both contribute and are due to the U.S. dollar's reduced purchasing power. Few if any credible economists are advocating enterprises be prohibited from increasing prices. Why should U.S. governments not annually adjust their minimum wage rates to be reconciled with the dollar's purchasing power? Respectfully, Supposn
Some of you are really missing the point. Please cite in my original post where I was asking for a value judgement and just answer the question.
OK, to answer your question, the simple answer is, "No". Now let's address the REAL question, and that is, "Why not"? The answer is quite basic, in that the term "minimum wage job", means the same as "minimum skills job". As "moguldreamer" said, in a previous post, opening a carboard box full of ketchup bottles, and placing them on a shelf in the super market, does not require a lot of skill, educational background, or physical stamina. Therefore, by nature, it pays "minimum wage"........
I guess minimum wage workers aren't on this forum so everything is just speculation or another opportunity to bash very important people. Every morning on the way to the gym, I pass a McDonald's with several lines of cars in the drive-thru. It's obvious that white collar workers and others can't fix their own simple breakfast (egg McMuffin). So those maligned workers are doing essential work.
During COVID-19, low wage workers got hit hard by the virus.
Since it seems that most traditionally minimum wage jobs like fast food and retail have hourly wages around the $15 an hour mark, I'm curious if it had improved those workers' qualities of life. Or is it still just as bad with inflation? Are they stiffed on hours? It seems like very few people make minimum wage these days. I'm not included the criminally underpaid tipped workers in this question.
All tipped workers earn at least the Federal minimum wage. None of them are “criminally underpaid.”
Another point or three always missed or glossed over about minimum wage jobs.
1. Most are in the service sector:
A. Anyone who can get out of bed and count to ten without using his/her fingers can shelve, stock, work a register, bar-back, mop, make beds, succeed at repetitive action jobs etc.
B. The service sector is home to millions of jobs that do not require any drug testing. This creates an economic circle doom.
C. Fewer than 1% of US hourly workers over 25yo earn minimum wage wherever they are.
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It may have been upthread, regardless, moguldreamer brought up an excellent point several days ago. When forced to pay their least valuable workers more any rational business owner who can will make a couple of decisions.
A. Will I be able to fire X number of my worst min-wage types and have the remainder to pick up the slack?
B. What more often really happens is mid-levels are tasked with picking up the slack.
C. A melange of the above already occurs as so few are actually paid statutory minimum wages.
Higher earning employees' wage rates need not and may not affect rates paid to lesser paid employees.
If a hospital's doctors wage rates are increased, it needn't affect what the hospital pays their lesser paid employees. But if the hospital substantially increases their janitorial or orderlies wage rates, they'll be impelled (by circumstances rather than by law) to increase all other of their employees' rates by no less than the increased amounts paid to their janitorial and orderly employees.
Although our federal minimum wage rate has not kept pace with inflation, it to some extent enables states to increase and/or sustain their minimum wage rates, and those minimum rates in turn support the nation's and the states' median rates. Due to minimum wage rates, there are lesser numbers and extents of USA poverty incidences.
Respectfully, Supposn
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