How Should Wages Be Determined?

REP. THOMAS TRANCEDO: The idea that the government knows best how much money anybody should make for any particular job is idiotic. I will fully admit that I do not know what anyone should make in this economy. I do not know what the smallest minimum wage should be, or the highest. I admit that, because there is something that is in fact important and that does make that decision. It is called the marketplace. I will trust the marketplace.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/congress/jan-june00/wage_3-10.html

 

Here's some FAQs about the minimum wage. I didn't see where they mentioned how it's determined though.

http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/q-a.htm

 

Well here's what I think, god knows it's probably radical as hell but here goes:

Minimum wage should be determined regionally by the cost of living. As in, someone who works a 40 hr week on minimum wage should be able to have a place to live, health insurance, utilities and groceries... maybe even transportation or at least a GOOD bus system for them to use(our town, at least, doesn't) I can't claim to be an expert on stuff like this, I don't know whether they should make minimum wage work for people who have one kid, two kids, I don't know. I guess someone could go on WIC to take care of their kids...but all I know is they should make the minimum wage based on the cost of living.

 

I want enough left over to go see a local band play AND afford the babysitter
while I'm out. How much is that?

 

CALIFORNIA

Minimum Rate (per hour) Premium Pay After Designated Hours 2

$6.75

Over 12 (double time) 40

7th day: First 8 hours (time and half) Over 8 hours (double time)

San Francisco Ordinance (Applicable to employees who work 2 or more hours a week. Rate will not apply to businesses with fewer than 10 employees or non-profits until January 1, 2005.)
02/23/04 $8.50
Indexed rate

Overtime is due after 8 hours per day or 40 hours per week unless an alternative workweek of no more than 4 days of 10 hours was established prior to 7/1/99.

Premium pay on 7th day not required for employee whose total weekly work hours do not exceed 30 and whose total hours in any one work day thereof do not exceed 6, in specific wage and hour orders.

 

WASHINGTON
Minimum Rate
$7.35 per hr.

If people in government thinks that we can live on minimum wage then why aren't they doing it?

 

Minimum wage is not meant to be a living wage.

 

There shouldn't be a minimum wage. Harsh as it may sound, there are some jobs that just aren't worth $5.15 per hour. A minimum wage prevents people whose labor isn't worth $5.15 from finding a job at all (and I guarantee you that a person earning $4 per hour is better off than a person earning $0 per hour).

Why do so many startup businesses fail? Many times it is because the owner simply does not have the capital to pay artificially inflated wages to his workers. Why not just let the market determine the appropriate wage for various jobs?

 

For those who say a minimum wage should be determined by the marketplace instead of Law,if the marketplace was the determining factor with a minimum wage,would some people be actually making more money for their work if their minimum wage was actually determined by the marketplace rather than a set amount set by the gov't?

 

That is capitalism falt, a person should be able to survive at minimum else their time is better spend with more lucrative illegal activities. Why work $4 per hour when you can't live on it but you can live off selling drugs or boosting cars and even if you get caught you'd have a better QofL from jail then at a $4 per hour job.

Why should workers work if they can't live off the work, that is slavery.

 

The answer is simple.

Get some skills, get some education, and find a job that pays better.

Minimum wage jobs are meant for teenagers.

If you're past your 20's and still working for minimum wage, you have much bigger problems than the government can ever help you with.

 

Yes. All the people who are currently unable to find work at all would be making more money if there was no minimum wage.

 

How does having a minimum wage solve this? It increases the number of people earning $0 per hour, which in turn increases crime.

No one is forcing them to work. They're free to find a better job, or pursue an education, or just quit their current job and be a bum if they want to.

 

There is only so many jobs to go around. I have freinds with masters yet work at minimum wage jobs because there is few jobs out there and they need to survive. I know of people laid off that also complete for minimum wage jobs. For them they already have education and expirence yet the jobs too few jobs and they need a job to keep them going while they wait for a break.

When the line to get a interview to work at the box factory is a block long you kinda gather there is going to be alot of qualitifed workers going home with no job.

But you might say they should train for high-tech jobs, well you mean like the 5,000 jobs Celistica has terminated? as in terminated as in those jobs are gone and you have 5,000 more high-tech workers to compete aginst.

You want the US to be like a 3rd world nation where people work in sweet shops? There was no minimum wage before the great depression yet it still happened, no the solution is the overthrow of world order not lower wages.

 

What does that have to do with the minimum wage? Stop trying to change the subject.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Before women got the right to vote, there were no nuclear weapons. Therefore by your logic, the former caused the latter, right?

And I think that's the end of your credibility.

 

I hear a couple of well off middle class republicans on this thread. "Just go to school and get a better job" So says someone who has had it handed to them. So lets abolish the minimum wage and then you tell me how someone is supposed Pay for school, pay their livng expenses and make any money at all. Oh, thats right, your mommy and daddy did that for you, didn't they. Try getting a student loan without any credit. Try getting credit without a decent income.
What you really want is a whole bunch of poor people on the bottom so that you can continue living your soft comfortable life. The middle class exists on the backs of the poor.

 

I think that not only should their be minimum wage laws but also maximum wage laws.
Thats right. I think a maximum should be put on how many millions one can squeez out of the global weakth. It is sickening to me that in a world with so much poverty around 200 family's per nation (that is an average) are able to reap the wealth of millions of people.
Make it high 20 million so that very creative and entrepreneur type people can be motivated to put their minds into their ambitions. Once that is said nobody should be able to own the kind of empires that exist today. I know that this is a touchy subject,
Papillon

 

Look at 3rd world nations even when people are willing to work for nothing the market will abandon them in heart beat to go where there are workers willing to work for even less.

You get rid of minimum wage it would be race to the bottom till the people doing these jobs are no better off then the bums on the street.

Face it you don't give a fuck about the poor and never will till the workers of the world goes on a general strike so nobody gets anything till people like you get off your high horse.

 

You guys are missing the point. What no one has addressed yet (even though I've mentioned it in every single post I've made on this thread) is that minimum wage creates unemployment. YOU TELL ME how someone is supposed to pay for school, pay their living expenses, and make any money, if they CAN'T FIND A JOB AT ALL because of the minimum wage.

The attitude that the minimum wage somehow magically ends poverty is naive at best and dangerous at worst. It flies right in the face of the most basic laws of economics.

 

Economics can be harsh sometimes. What's your point? There are people even in the United States willing to work for $4 an hour because they consider that a good wage. How do you justify denying them work, just so someone else can hold a job at an artificially high rate of pay?

Again, not true. There exists a point of market equilibrium, where the supply equals the demand. It's true for products, and it's true for labor. If it weren't, why wouldn't McDonald's just charge you $1,000 for a hamburger?

Better to let the market sort out the appropriate wage than the government.

Once again, your childish response indicates that you don't know what you're talking about. Obviously YOU don't "give a fuck about the poor," as you so eloquently put it. If you did, you wouldn't support knee-jerk reactionary policies that do nothing but increase unemployment among those who need income the most.