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W/r/t <smallrant> it seems that the gender pay gap is one problem nestled into the bigger problem of stagnating wages for most Americans over the past half-cent

W/r/t <smallrant> it seems that the gender pay gap is one problem nestled into the bigger problem of stagnating wages for most Americans over the past half-century or so.

bkmartin 12y ago
I think that the gender pay gap is a social bias whereas the minimum wage is an even deeper devaluing of people and recognizing the value and dignity of someone's time. Even if you eliminated the pay gap today wages would still be stagnated. Once people are paid a respectable wage for a full day's work, we'll truly see what our society values... what are we willing to pay increased prices for? (Not that raising the minimum wage to a respectable number would really have much of an effect on the consumer price index anyway) Just a little link on the minimum wage. http://www.dol.gov/minwage/mythbuster.htm http://www.dol.gov/minwage/mythbuster.htm (this thread is starting to drift a bit, sorry)
- unreal37 12y ago
  I think there is a natural downward pressure on wages, and it takes real effort to fight it. Unfortunately, people have these unfounded fears that raising the minimum wage will cost jobs when in fact there's no evidence that places with higher minimum wages suffer job losses as a result of the increase. They should just make increases to the minimum automatic and then congress doesn't have to worry about appearing to harm businesses when they are actually not. It's a good example of lawmakers doing something stupid that harms real people just to "appear" to be pro-business or fiscal conservative.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Change wages, there's always a period of adjustment. Some jobs do disappear. Others get more work to do. Then prices adjust, and things settle down.
  - briandear 12y ago
    I am not sure how you can make the statement that higher minimum wages don't equate to job losses. Do you have proof? It's common sense that if you wage the price of something you buy less of it. Unfortunately for the poor, minimum wage jobs are rather elastic. In France, with a relatively high minimum wage, unemployment is double digits and places like McDonald's have gone to digital order machines as opposed to hiring more cashiers. While that might increase demand for computer machine manufacturing and services, the minimum wage students and unskilled persons aren't likely to have the skills needed to gain those jobs. You also have the chronically unemployed in both the U.S. as well as places like France where it's livable to simply collect the government check. Minimum wage shouldn't be a career. I have little sympathy for those who haves worked minimum wage for ten years or more. That suggests a lack of ambition, intelligence or both. Even the pimple faced 16 year old at Chick fil'a eventually gets promoted to team leader potentially in a matter of months or a year. Those who have worked minimum wage for 5 years or more, I'd be very interested in their work history, their criminal record, their tardiness, their productivity. At a place like McDonalds, if you just show up on time consistently, you get raises. If you're a hard worker and express the desire there are plenty of assistant manager trainee tracks available. Raising minimum wage isn't the answer -- taking away the incentive to be lazy would do more than throwing people an extra $2 per hour. The same bad decisions that got them in that situation are still the same bad decisions that they will keep making; unless there is incentive to stop. Someone right now could go to North Dakota and get a job doing local truck deliveries paying up to $100k per year, some positions will even train. Working in the oil patch down in Texas and Louisiana offers high paying entry level positions that quickly end up paying over $100k. My point is that there is always a way out of a minimum wage existence, the problem is that many people are content getting their free Medicaid, EBT cards and subsidized housing; so there is less incentive to move across the country or take a class somewhere or join a union apprentice program. I am not saying end welfare or anything like that, but a safety net ought not become a way of life as it has for millions of people.
    - Crusoe123 12y ago
      >I am not sure how you can make the statement that higher minimum wages don't equate to job losses. Do you have proof? Sure there are some studies that say it doesn't. http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/157-07.pdf http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/157-07.pdf But it's a point of contention with economists. In any case your examples are a gross simplification based on anectodes and reduced to typical republican/libertarian talking points.
- frogpelt 12y ago
  Where did this notion come from that wages equal the value of a person? If this were true, shouldn't every single person make the same amount, regardless of age, experience, knowledge, or ability? About minimum wage: do you know who really lobbies the hardest for increased minimum wage? Unions. Because they peg their base-line wages to the minimum wage. If they can succeed in getting the minimum wage raised, they can raise the pay for all of their workers who are already making 3 to 5 times the minimum wage.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - task_queue 12y ago
    What's with the union hate? Unions are corporations for workers. They are trying to maximize their compensation from the amount of value that their workers create, just as business owners are trying to maximize the profit they scrape off their workers. They are fighting for a fairer wage for their constituents, and if such organizations existed for the majority of laborers, we wouldn't need a minimum wage. But that's beside the point. A fair minimum wage is important because in 2013, 88.7% of American workers did not have a union to negotiate just compensation for them.
    - frogpelt 12y ago
      There was no union hate in my comment. There were facts about unions who lobby to have minimum wage increased because it affects their bottom line.
  - bkmartin 12y ago
    The value of a person is not equal to their wage. That is exactly my point! All people, in my belief, have AT LEAST the right to earn enough money to live off of without government assistance if they work 40 hours a week. They should have a safe place to live, clothes, enough quality food to eat, and enough to afford their other basic living expenses. It would be tight. But I'm not advocating everyone should have 10s of thousands in disposable income, just that they shouldn't need any government assistance to get by. That is simply valuing them as a person. That means stop exploiting people. There is a difference between free market and exploitation. And guess what... the exploited are tired, very tired... and that is why minimum wage reform is becoming an issue... because the problem is REAL. Try living it sometime... helps add perspective.
mason240 12y ago
Good thing then that it doesn't exist.
sogen 12y ago
What amazes me is that previously women didn't need to work in the 70's, 80's, AFAIR, and the dad earned enough to keep 8 kids! Now, both have to work just to keep a minimun living standard, and can only keep 1 kid... in daycare. Also, families having only 1 kid were way too rare in the 80's, today, that's the norm.
- owen_griffiths 12y ago
  Yes, because the "minimum living standard" has risen due to the extra income. If everyone's income doubled (adjusted for inflation), that then so would what society considers a minimum living. This sentiment also seems to gloss over the contribution of stay at home partners. Just because they don't get paid, doesn't mean they aren't producing anything. Thus, the jump in resources from moving to double income is not the full amount of the second income.
- refurb 12y ago
  Look at the lifestyles of folks back in the 1970's. Houses were smaller, people had just one car, etc. The reason households "need" two incomes is because people want stuff.
  - g8oz 12y ago
    Real estate costs have risen - thats a huge undercounted cost. I remember reading that at one point the avg house price was 3-4 times annual household income. In many economic hotspots around the West today that seems like a fable from a mythical past.
    - sogen 12y ago
      I think in Kansas you can get a house very cheap
  - rhino369 12y ago
    The big reason was that from 1945 until the late 70s, America had a huge wealth gap compared the rest of the world. Half of Europe was communist, the other half recovering from a major war. Asia was still poor and technological backwards AND was recovering from war. Western Europe's heavy handed socialism wasn't as competitive as their light socialism is now. America was the undisputed leader of the economically free world. All the sudden by the 1970's, the US had to start competing more and more with the rest of the world. Our super high wages for unskilled labor just weren't competitive on a global scale. Also, women moving in the job market actually lowers wages because the worker supply expanded greatly.

W/r/t <smallrant> it seems that the gender pay gap is one problem nestled into the bigger problem of stagnating wages for most Americans over the past half-century or so.

bkmartin 12y ago

I think that the gender pay gap is a social bias whereas the minimum wage is an even deeper devaluing of people and recognizing the value and dignity of someone's time. Even if you eliminated the pay gap today wages would still be stagnated. Once people are paid a respectable wage for a full day's work, we'll truly see what our society values... what are we willing to pay increased prices for? (Not that raising the minimum wage to a respectable number would really have much of an effect on the consumer price index anyway) Just a little link on the minimum wage. http://www.dol.gov/minwage/mythbuster.htm http://www.dol.gov/minwage/mythbuster.htm (this thread is starting to drift a bit, sorry)

unreal37 12y ago
I think there is a natural downward pressure on wages, and it takes real effort to fight it. Unfortunately, people have these unfounded fears that raising the minimum wage will cost jobs when in fact there's no evidence that places with higher minimum wages suffer job losses as a result of the increase. They should just make increases to the minimum automatic and then congress doesn't have to worry about appearing to harm businesses when they are actually not. It's a good example of lawmakers doing something stupid that harms real people just to "appear" to be pro-business or fiscal conservative.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Change wages, there's always a period of adjustment. Some jobs do disappear. Others get more work to do. Then prices adjust, and things settle down.
- briandear 12y ago
  I am not sure how you can make the statement that higher minimum wages don't equate to job losses. Do you have proof? It's common sense that if you wage the price of something you buy less of it. Unfortunately for the poor, minimum wage jobs are rather elastic. In France, with a relatively high minimum wage, unemployment is double digits and places like McDonald's have gone to digital order machines as opposed to hiring more cashiers. While that might increase demand for computer machine manufacturing and services, the minimum wage students and unskilled persons aren't likely to have the skills needed to gain those jobs. You also have the chronically unemployed in both the U.S. as well as places like France where it's livable to simply collect the government check. Minimum wage shouldn't be a career. I have little sympathy for those who haves worked minimum wage for ten years or more. That suggests a lack of ambition, intelligence or both. Even the pimple faced 16 year old at Chick fil'a eventually gets promoted to team leader potentially in a matter of months or a year. Those who have worked minimum wage for 5 years or more, I'd be very interested in their work history, their criminal record, their tardiness, their productivity. At a place like McDonalds, if you just show up on time consistently, you get raises. If you're a hard worker and express the desire there are plenty of assistant manager trainee tracks available. Raising minimum wage isn't the answer -- taking away the incentive to be lazy would do more than throwing people an extra $2 per hour. The same bad decisions that got them in that situation are still the same bad decisions that they will keep making; unless there is incentive to stop. Someone right now could go to North Dakota and get a job doing local truck deliveries paying up to $100k per year, some positions will even train. Working in the oil patch down in Texas and Louisiana offers high paying entry level positions that quickly end up paying over $100k. My point is that there is always a way out of a minimum wage existence, the problem is that many people are content getting their free Medicaid, EBT cards and subsidized housing; so there is less incentive to move across the country or take a class somewhere or join a union apprentice program. I am not saying end welfare or anything like that, but a safety net ought not become a way of life as it has for millions of people.
  - Crusoe123 12y ago
    >I am not sure how you can make the statement that higher minimum wages don't equate to job losses. Do you have proof? Sure there are some studies that say it doesn't. http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/157-07.pdf http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/157-07.pdf But it's a point of contention with economists. In any case your examples are a gross simplification based on anectodes and reduced to typical republican/libertarian talking points.
frogpelt 12y ago
Where did this notion come from that wages equal the value of a person? If this were true, shouldn't every single person make the same amount, regardless of age, experience, knowledge, or ability? About minimum wage: do you know who really lobbies the hardest for increased minimum wage? Unions. Because they peg their base-line wages to the minimum wage. If they can succeed in getting the minimum wage raised, they can raise the pay for all of their workers who are already making 3 to 5 times the minimum wage.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- task_queue 12y ago
  What's with the union hate? Unions are corporations for workers. They are trying to maximize their compensation from the amount of value that their workers create, just as business owners are trying to maximize the profit they scrape off their workers. They are fighting for a fairer wage for their constituents, and if such organizations existed for the majority of laborers, we wouldn't need a minimum wage. But that's beside the point. A fair minimum wage is important because in 2013, 88.7% of American workers did not have a union to negotiate just compensation for them.
  - frogpelt 12y ago
    There was no union hate in my comment. There were facts about unions who lobby to have minimum wage increased because it affects their bottom line.
- bkmartin 12y ago
  The value of a person is not equal to their wage. That is exactly my point! All people, in my belief, have AT LEAST the right to earn enough money to live off of without government assistance if they work 40 hours a week. They should have a safe place to live, clothes, enough quality food to eat, and enough to afford their other basic living expenses. It would be tight. But I'm not advocating everyone should have 10s of thousands in disposable income, just that they shouldn't need any government assistance to get by. That is simply valuing them as a person. That means stop exploiting people. There is a difference between free market and exploitation. And guess what... the exploited are tired, very tired... and that is why minimum wage reform is becoming an issue... because the problem is REAL. Try living it sometime... helps add perspective.

mason240 12y ago

Good thing then that it doesn't exist.

sogen 12y ago

What amazes me is that previously women didn't need to work in the 70's, 80's, AFAIR, and the dad earned enough to keep 8 kids! Now, both have to work just to keep a minimun living standard, and can only keep 1 kid... in daycare. Also, families having only 1 kid were way too rare in the 80's, today, that's the norm.

owen_griffiths 12y ago
Yes, because the "minimum living standard" has risen due to the extra income. If everyone's income doubled (adjusted for inflation), that then so would what society considers a minimum living. This sentiment also seems to gloss over the contribution of stay at home partners. Just because they don't get paid, doesn't mean they aren't producing anything. Thus, the jump in resources from moving to double income is not the full amount of the second income.
refurb 12y ago
Look at the lifestyles of folks back in the 1970's. Houses were smaller, people had just one car, etc. The reason households "need" two incomes is because people want stuff.
- g8oz 12y ago
  Real estate costs have risen - thats a huge undercounted cost. I remember reading that at one point the avg house price was 3-4 times annual household income. In many economic hotspots around the West today that seems like a fable from a mythical past.
  - sogen 12y ago
    I think in Kansas you can get a house very cheap
- rhino369 12y ago
  The big reason was that from 1945 until the late 70s, America had a huge wealth gap compared the rest of the world. Half of Europe was communist, the other half recovering from a major war. Asia was still poor and technological backwards AND was recovering from war. Western Europe's heavy handed socialism wasn't as competitive as their light socialism is now. America was the undisputed leader of the economically free world. All the sudden by the 1970's, the US had to start competing more and more with the rest of the world. Our super high wages for unskilled labor just weren't competitive on a global scale. Also, women moving in the job market actually lowers wages because the worker supply expanded greatly.