Yakuda
Verified User
So why not $50/ hour?
The $15 Minimum Wage Moves Social Security To Solvency
- Thread starter PoliTalker
- Start date
So why not $50/ hour?
The short answer would be that is too high.
Gamewell45
Living fossil
I would certainly have no objection to it if the gov't raised it to $100 per hour..
Yakuda
Verified User
Why?
Yakuda
Verified User
Because you want to put people out of business?
$50 is above the average hourly wage of little higher than $30, so it would require most Americans to get an unreasonable pay increase. $15 would only require a some Americans to get a pay increase. $15 would mean that many law wage workers would no longer need government benefits, so would save on taxes. It would move people into prime taxpaying earning rates.
Why $15 rather than $20 is a harder question to answer. It appears that 50% of average wages works best as a minimum wage works best. There have been a huge number of studies, but it is not certain why.
Yakuda
Verified User
Any number you use is nothing but arbitrary. There is no reason why if you think $15 works than $50 works even better. The other factor is not everyone is worth $15 an hour and govt intervention to force a mw unnecessarily burdens businesses. Flipping burgers is not worth $15 in any universe.
anonymoose
Classical Liberal
That is not true. It is not certain, but there is a good distance between not certain, and arbitrary.
Pushing up minimum wages too much decreases employment, and pushes up inflation. Pushing down minimum wages too much decreases employment, and pushes up deflation. There is a middle ground that is perfect, which is usually in the neighborhood of 50% average hourly wages.
In Australia, they are.
Yakuda
Verified User
The Bureau of Labor Statistics gives us the actual picture
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/mi..., 82.3 million workers,wage of $7.25 per hour.
Minimum wage workers are mostly young work part time and lesser educated. In other words MW jobs are transitional. Everyone of us has had a mw job probably. I did but you don't stay there forever unless you're unmotivated. This is just another way leftists want to ruin America.
anonymoose
Classical Liberal
Ever been there? About five years ago a pint of beer was $14. $15 /hr is nothing.
Yakuda
Verified User
It's all guess work you just found a fancy way of describing it
Putting it at $15 will have the same effect. It's artificial and that will screw the system but you know that don't you?
What someone is paid is not evidence of what the job is worth. You get that right?
I remember they had high taxes on alcohol. They used to have bizarre rules for when you could drink, with bars closing at 6:00 pm. But a Big Mac costs an average of US$4.98, whereas it costs an average of US$5.66 in the USA. Apparently, higher burger flipper costs does not relate to higher burger costs.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/274326/big-mac-index-global-prices-for-a-big-mac/
anonymoose
Classical Liberal
I just remember getting sticker shock for everything in Australia. And that’s coming from one who lives in Alaska and Hawaii.
Right now, employers are being given unreasonable expectations, and working people are being driven into poverty. That is screwing the system, as we desperately try to pay for the damage such a low minimum wage is doing. It is making it difficult to find employees, and driving down investment in automation. It is destroying our economy.
Our economy is a consumer based economy. You remove a huge chunk of consumers, and you have a mess.
Placing a worth on a person's effort is beyond mere mortals to decide. What we are talking about is what is the best minimum wage for the overall economy.
anonymoose
Classical Liberal
Correct. If you stay at a job like that for a while and are dependable you probably move up to asst manager, even manager eventually. But min wage jobs are low skill starter, summer and after school jobs.
But AFAIC, they can make $15, 30, 50, 100/ hr. Doesn’t matter. The Market will take care of itself.
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Yakuda
Verified User
That link is only partially accessible.
BTW Minimum wage in Australia varies on a number rof factors
https://rmelbourneaccountants.com.au/minimum-wage-in-australia/
Yakuda
Verified User
Correct. If you stay at a job that that for a while and are dependable you probably move up to asst manager, even manager eventually. But min wage jobs are low skill starter, summer and after school jobs.
But AFAIC, they can make $15, 30, 50, 100/ hr. Doesn’t matter. The Market will take care of itself.
So teenagers working part-time aren't worth $15/ hour. If you're relying on a mw job to survive you have bigger problems than the mw is too low.
Minimum wage usually has a major effect on people making up to 50% above minimum wage, so anyone making between $7.25 and $22.50 would be directly effected by moving minimum wage from $7.25 to $15.
In other words, saying that it only effects people making minimum wage and not those making five cents more than minimum wage is just silly.
Yakuda
Verified User
If you're making give cents more than mw and I have to pay all my other employees $15 then he'll will freeze over before you get a raise or the govt continues to mandate increases making everything more expensive than it's worth.