15 bucks an hour

[dogman_1234]

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2013/08/seattle_begins_push_for_15_min.html

Let us see how this will turn out.

 

[amdfangirl]

The only reason they want 15 is so they can offset their lost obamacare hours.

You know I live in Australia right?

But I guess I agree, the reason I don't have a job in Australia is because of Obama.

Silly Obama.

 

[Saga Lout]

Riser - I only just caught your edit. It may sound like a stupid idea but it does have a basis. I've run my own businesses since 1979 so I think I've got some form here. Sadly, the notion of paying staff more to give them some form of living wage involves giving them the incentive to work a little harder. If that doesn't increase the business turnover, some staff have to go. It's basic economics and the reason the unemployment figures rise in tune with the way a country is performing.

Even Australia is beginning to hurt now the Chinese have reduced their need for coal. The economy relied on an "all eggs in one basket" mentality and that basket was the Hunter Valley in NSW where the coal was mined. Going downhill from a high is going to be tough but it has to happen and unemployment will rise there.

People work harder when they know the choice is going to be made who goes and who stays. It isn't a threat but a reality and in the UK, the sum total of benefits available outstrips the minimum wage by almost double.

 

[riser]

Basic labor is one thing - we shouldn't keep rewarding basic labor. As you develop skills, learn to be on time, get the job done, etc, you get paid more. They are called Entry Level Positions. It's like Kindergarden.

Do you really want people pouring coffee and thawing donuts to be able to support their family on that living wage? Think about that. You're arguing to give more money to people, driving up costs for everyone, for basic entry level labor that trains someone to enter the work force.

I started off making $6, after a year I was up to $10/hour at another job. A year later, I was up to $13.50/hour, 2.5 years later, a couple raises and then a job change, I was salary making $45,000 a year. Do the math. I was 18, by 22 I was making $45k. By 25, $55k. And so on, it kept going up after 1-2 years of work. Of real work, not pouring coffee.

The incentive is to work, learn a skill, and move up or on to another position/company. The more places you work, the more experiences within companies you gain and through that you should have learned a thing or two. That's why people get paid more.

Now if I stayed at a fast food place pouring coffee, maybe I'd have a $1.75 raise after 5 years. There is only so much demand and within that demand, you have to find a pay rate for your employees.

Tim Horton's coffee is $1.50 or so. Starbucks, it's $4-$5. Did you know he pays his employees the same rate that Starbucks pays their employees?

 

[MU_Engineer]

I have been reading this thread and one BIG thing that everybody keeps forgetting is that it costs a lot more than just what the employee gets in their paycheck to employ them. If the employee works full time and gets benefits, those are hugely expensive. Health care is the biggest one and with Obamacare setting a bunch of new rules, it has gotten extremely expensive. That isn't included in the hourly wage but still definitely has to be paid and it is the equivalent of several dollars per hour. The employer also pays as much in payroll taxes as the employee does, which does NOT show up as a deduction on the employee's paycheck. That's another 7.65% right there. And then you have unemployment insurance, liability insurance in case an employee gets hurt or sues, etc. etc. It all adds up to the cost of employing somebody to be much higher than their hourly wages cost. I would hazard a guess that the average cost to employ a person in fast food is probably not that far from $15/hour already.

 

[dogman_1234]

Its hard really. The only incentive is to get welfare where you don't need to contribute anything for a living.
I accept we should not allow those who do unskilled labour 15 bucks an hour to work. However, I do feel that there is a slight disadvantage for those who work min wage jobs. There is no room for growth. You work at a fast food restaurant, the only way up is manager, and that rarely occurs. It is dead end. Inflation will eat you alive, no matter what income level you are at. It is much worse as you go down the food chain.

The solution will not come easy, as we try to lie to ourselves about. No matter what you do, someone will be hurt and bad.

I want to leave washing dishes. Why? Pay sucks, job sucks, I want to go to new places. I want to contribute to society as much as possible/as much as my skills can carry me. Washing a dirty dish does nothing for you and me.

That is one reason min wage is so low, to push people out of these $h!t jobs.

 

[dogman_1234]

Its hard really. The only incentive is to get welfare where you don't need to contribute anything for a living.
I accept we should not allow those who do unskilled labour 15 bucks an hour to work. However, I do feel that there is a slight disadvantage for those who work min wage jobs. There is no room for growth. You work at a fast food restaurant, the only way up is manager, and that rarely occurs. It is dead end. Inflation will eat you alive, no matter what income level you are at. It is much worse as you go down the food chain.

The solution will not come easy, as we try to lie to ourselves about. No matter what you do, someone will be hurt and bad.

I want to leave washing dishes. Why? Pay sucks, job sucks, I want to go to new places. I want to contribute to society as much as possible/as much as my skills can carry me. Washing a dirty dish does nothing for you and me.

That is one reason min wage is so low, to push people out of these $h!t jobs.

Look, if you are working minimum wage you either still live with your parents, you are mentally disabled, or you don't speak the language where you work. So, get some work experience, apply for a better job, move out of your parent's house, collect government assistance for your disability, learn the language so you can move up.

We are talking about providing an incentive to work. It used to be called starving to death or watching your family starve. That's usually what motivates people to work throughout history. However, our society has created an entire class of people who don't work yet they still eat; and eat well. How do you fix that?

I'm sorry I offended you. Maybe there are no available jobs that I am qualified for. Maybe I cannot afford to live on my own,( I have tried for a couple of month.) If you think I am retarded, then why don't you just come clean and tell it to my face oldman.

FYI, I am not retarded, speak fluent English( White, naturally born US Citizen,) and I am looking to improve myself in any ways possible. And if just so happen to think that I am some entitled brat who deserves nothing but death because I cannot better myself, you know, be greater than my lazier peers, then you have another thing coming fro you.

And you wonder why so many of today’s youth do not seek out work. All I hear from the old folks is how lazy, stupid, and entitled we are. many of us are not. Why work for ass-holes who don't give tow shits about us? We will find our ways in this world. Wisdom, not bitching, get us forward.

I'm done for today. God day Gentlemen!

 

[musical marv]

So, does that mean those who work at jobs that are higher than min wage are hurting the economy? Shoudl a forklift driver be paid 7.25 an hour to save the economy form destruction? Should techical workers be paid 9.19 in Washington for a skill they learned to contribute to the economy?

I agree 15 bucks is outrageous, but we will see how it goes in Seattle.

Truthfully be happy you have a job. A lot of people don't.

 

[amdfangirl]

Truthfully be happy you have a job. A lot of people don't.

😉

 

[jpishgar]

I have been summoned to this thread as a result of this comment:

Look, if you are working minimum wage you either still live with your parents, you are mentally disabled, or you don't speak the language where you work.

Firstly, re-read the Rules of Conduct located here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/community/faq.html#question4

Secondly, and more importantly, realize that some of the people who make your hamburgers at the drive-thru, take your ticket stub, handle your food, ensure your insurance information is kept correctly on file, and even perhaps may moderate your forum... may make the minimum wage. If they had an inkling of what you truly thought about them, imagine how they might respond?

On a completely unrelated note, you are banned for 48 hours for violating several sections of the Rules of Conduct with your commentary. I strongly urge a more reserved and respectful tone in future discourse, and strict adherence to the guidelines set forth for participating in discussion here on Tom's Hardware.

 

[TCTechie]

So, does that mean those who work at jobs that are higher than min wage are hurting the economy? Shoudl a forklift driver be paid 7.25 an hour to save the economy form destruction? Should techical workers be paid 9.19 in Washington for a skill they learned to contribute to the economy?

I agree 15 bucks is outrageous, but we will see how it goes in Seattle.

Truthfully be happy you have a job. A lot of people don't.

You're correct, musical marv, a lot of people don't have jobs right now. Don't you think forcing a $12 or $15/hr minimum wage would drive more people to unemployment? Raising minimum wage ripples through our entire economy. Higher wages means employers hire less staff. They'll also have to raise prices to keep up with payroll. Now that prices are higher, your $30 or $40/hr job doesn't pay as sweet as you thought it did. Bottom line, it weakens the value of the dollar which puts a little pressure on everyone.

What are your thoughts?

 

[musical marv]

I have been summoned to this thread as a result of this comment:

Look, if you are working minimum wage you either still live with your parents, you are mentally disabled, or you don't speak the language where you work.

Firstly, re-read the Rules of Conduct located here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/community/faq.html#question4

Secondly, and more importantly, realize that some of the people who make your hamburgers at the drive-thru, take your ticket stub, handle your food, ensure your insurance information is kept correctly on file, and even perhaps may moderate your forum... may make the minimum wage. If they had an inkling of what you truly thought about them, imagine how they might respond?

On a completely unrelated note, you are banned for 48 hours for violating several sections of the Rules of Conduct with your commentary. I strongly urge a more reserved and respectful tone in future discourse, and strict adherence to the guidelines set forth for participating in discussion here on Tom's Hardware.

You are correct that type of wording has no place here among various members who might do that type of job or any kind.This person is completely narrow minded.

 

[Beachnative]

The disparity between the haves and have not is growing at an expotential rate. Why is it that CEO's averaged whopping 27% increase pay while the person actually doing the production work received 2.7%?

That's where the arguement leads to from a liberal perspective and conservaties hate it. Small business argues that minimum wage should be left where it is and I tend to agree but there is one thing left out.

Large corporations do lousy things, have huge advantages over small business in many ways including tax discounts, low cost credit, subsidies, etc.

My question is what aren't small business owners complaining about the unlevel playing field they experience everday by large corporations?

 

[MU_Engineer]

People are complaining. The problem is that the government has gotten so big and allowed such huge corporations to exist that all they care about is giant, heavily-donating companies to exist which has screwed over everybody else. The government doesn't care about 49.9% of the population as long as it gets 50.1% (mostly the welfare class) to vote for them and keep them in power. That's why many of us are so PO'd at the government. We can't fight it (not big enough) and we can't win (not big enough.) It's the worst combination of Soviet Russia and a corrupt late-1800s political machine rolled into one.

 

[riser]

The disparity between the haves and have not is growing at an expotential rate. Why is it that CEO's averaged whopping 27% increase pay while the person actually doing the production work received 2.7%?

That's where the arguement leads to from a liberal perspective and conservaties hate it. Small business argues that minimum wage should be left where it is and I tend to agree but there is one thing left out.

Large corporations do lousy things, have huge advantages over small business in many ways including tax discounts, low cost credit, subsidies, etc.

My question is what aren't small business owners complaining about the unlevel playing field they experience everday by large corporations?

Did you know of the fortune 100 companies, 20 are currently without a CEO because no one will take the job? The stress is too much, the risk too high.. and only way to entice someone to take the helm is to pay them.

 

[musical marv]

Raising the minimum has proven to be stupid. The gov't is causing enough inflation already, doing this will impact the bottom line for everyone - especially the middle class. Middle class people are making $20-$35/hour right now.. bumping that up, you might as well remove the middle class completely have the upper and lower classes.

Raising the rates that high will have a direct impact on the products the lower/middle class buys. They'll be forced to spend more to get less; just because minimum wage goes up doesn't mean wages across the board goes up. The only people who are unaffected by this are the wealthy. They're not going to buy more; they're not going to be affected by it. But the middle class will suffer.

Giving people more who haven't done anything to earn it. That's the new mentality. We need them to want to work to become more successful instead of forcing them to get paid more.

Australia is a poor example, as it is an island, produces little, and the population is relatively small.

When you raise the minimum wage it gives the employee more incentive to do a better job.Also people will spend more and economy will start to get stronger not weaker like now.People deserve more than $7.50 an hour especially when you have a family of 4 to support.

 

[Saga Lout]

You're quite right musical marv - all the big corporations are sitting on billions of dollars/pounds/euros/whatever and that money needs to be released into the economies of all the major countries as cash. What better way to do it that handing it in the form of wages to people who spend money in the real world. When the economies begin to flourish again, those folk dependent on welfare will more easily find work and release some Government funds. That money then needs to be spread around by cutting taxes.

 

[gropouce]

I was trying to summon Rey to get his opinion but by the powers of Tom I summon GROPOUCE! The French also have a very high min wage. Or if any of you guys are Danish, or a nordic country I would love to hear how the min wage affects you.

It changes every year.
In 2013, it's 9€43 for 35 hours/week... so in usd, without taxes, it's almost 10$/hour (and if you work more than 35h, and everybody does, you can get paid more or have days off)

 

[MU_Engineer]

You're quite right musical marv - all the big corporations are sitting on billions of dollars/pounds/euros/whatever and that money needs to be released into the economies of all the major countries as cash. What better way to do it that handing it in the form of wages to people who spend money in the real world. When the economies begin to flourish again, those folk dependent on welfare will more easily find work and release some Government funds. That money then needs to be spread around by cutting taxes.

The first question you should be asking is why they are sitting on the money. If you are a business, you really want to put the money back into the business to grow it. Businesses are all about growth, size, and cash flow. If you simply sit on money, you pay much higher taxes since the sat-upon money is now profit and taxed heavily, whereas if you rolled it back into the business you can deduct the operating expenses, depreciation, or whatever you put it into. Businesses do NOT like to piddle away their money to the government as it is a massively bad use of their money.

The reason they are sitting on cash and not expanding is because they are worried about the regulations coming down the pipe from the feds. Obamacare in particular scares them. That can be potentially extremely expensive and the businesses are in a holding pattern, not hiring or expanding but just hoarding cash to both have a cash cushion to be able to pay for enormous unpredictable expenses while also minimizing potential cost cross-section by keeping employee ranks smaller and working employees fewer hours. They are also consolidating their operations and trying to divest themselves out of anything that is less profitable/more expensive. If you want to have businesses operate more normally (i.e. expand and not sit on a bunch of cash) then you need to remove what's making them do this unusual behavior and rein in the feds. Rumors of legislation to force companies to pay workers more for the same work will lead to an exacerbation of the current problem as companies further cut back on operations and hoard yet more cash. Companies that may have had a positive cash flow when paying workers $10/hr may now have a negative cash flow when they have to pay them $15/hr, so they will cut back on the lower-margin work until they can have a positive cash flow when paying people $15/hr. That leads to a lot of layoffs and companies going out of business. But hey, the handful of people who still have a job are doing better, so I suppose the large number of people who are now out of a job can congratulate them.

 

[Saga Lout]

Surely putting money into the well-being of the workforce in the manner of higher pay is investing in the business. Besides that, I was commenting on a global principle - I know nothing of Obamacare here in England although, strangely, I sem to get a lot of Spam mails telling me how wonderful it is and how it will enrich what remains of my life. 😀

 

[chunkymonster]

You're quite right musical marv - all the big corporations are sitting on billions of dollars/pounds/euros/whatever and that money needs to be released into the economies of all the major countries as cash. What better way to do it that handing it in the form of wages to people who spend money in the real world. When the economies begin to flourish again, those folk dependent on welfare will more easily find work and release some Government funds. That money then needs to be spread around by cutting taxes.

When the economy begins to flourish again, the folks on welfare will continue to be on welfare as the minimum wage in American would need to be at least $20 per hour to given them incentive to stop taking the government cheese.

Blaming big corporations for maintaining the best interest of their stock holders and employees is the rhetoric of the Occupy Wall Street and Marxist crowd. Big business is easy an easy scapegoat, but as anyone who knows anything about large corporations understands, large corporations are purely reactive organizations and are sitting their capital because of an unfavorable business environment. Demand side economics is one of the reasons why America's economy is in the sad state it is today.

 

[MU_Engineer]

Surely putting money into the well-being of the workforce in the manner of higher pay is investing in the business. Besides that, I was commenting on a global principle - I know nothing of Obamacare here in England although, strangely, I sem to get a lot of Spam mails telling me how wonderful it is and how it will enrich what remains of my life. 😀

Paying people more to do the same job really only works if you have a big problem with attracting and retaining workers or have a problem with the quality of worker you have to do your job. There are certainly some cases where this is true. However, it is nowhere near universally true. You are just paying more for the same thing if you raise your wages but don't have a real reason to need to do so. It makes no more sense for a business to pay its hourly workforce more for no real reason than it does for you to pay Intel $2000 for a $1000 i7-4960X.

Obamacare is a big topic and I really won't get into in great depth here. Essentially it is the government mandating everybody to have health insurance or pay large fines, mandating what that health insurance must be, and mandating what employers must offer for health insurance.
It doesn't sound so bad on the surface but the details are the real killer. The ones of the biggest importance to employers is that they must offer health insurance and pay quite a bit for it to anybody who works more than 29 hours a week. Health insurance costs many thousands of dollars per individual employee per year just for the employer contribution part. So guess what happens- a lot of companies employing hourly unskilled workers in low-margin industries like retail who did not provide health insurance before due to cost are simply making everybody <27 hour/week employees. The businesses that have a much harder time in making people part-time (manufacturing) are taking it on the chin. Salaried workers have to be provided with health insurance too, and what has happened there is that since they are not subject to overtime costs, employers cut the numbers of workers (to minimize health insurance costs) and are working the remaining ones a lot more hours than they used to. If you look at the employment numbers from the U.S. Labor Department you will see this. U3 Unemployment is down a little because of the increase in part-time hiring and because a lot of people continue to drop out of the work force >6 months and are not counted as being unemployed any more. The number of full-time employees continues to drop. The number of American adults working (labor participation rate) is at a 40-year low, and consider that there are a lot more American adults today than there were 40 years ago.

If you want me to sum up Obamacare, in my opinion it is the attempt to start a government-run single-payer capitated system. The government gives a per-person fee (capitation) and hospitals/health systems who employ all of the doctors are the ones responsible for trying to take care of their cohort of assigned patients with the money they are given. Your NHS actually inspired this setup as the American public isn't onboard with the government owning the healthcare delivery system in the country and your rationing board (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) really scares the bejeebers out of us. Your government is also on the hook for providing all of the costs for providing healthcare with really only the NICE to try to (unpopularly) rein it in. So what we have is the government moving to paying a known, fixed per-person amount of money that they control to a health system and then the health system becomes the rationing board and has to eat all of the cost overruns instead of the government. The government gets to keep their promise of providing healthcare to all, the government doesn't have to worry about cost overruns, and they don't have to be the "bad guy" and run the rationing board. Those latter unpleasant tasks are pushed off onto the hospital systems. The government will also get to point the finger at the hospitals and say "you suck, you inefficient evil entities" if there are any complaints from the government-insured patients and completely absolve themselves and ignore the whole issue of healthcare being super expensive to provide. Oh, they also still get to have the sin taxes on foods and such since technically they are paying for healthcare. It's a win-win-win-win for them.

The major downsides are that the health systems, hospitals, and doctors being forced to be the bad guy and operate at a loss may decide to bow out and go to a 100% cash-pay system completely outside of the government system (which was not banned in Obamacare although pretty well every other arrangement was) or if they don't do that, they simply shut their doors. I predict this is exactly what will happen if Obamacare gets fully implemented. The win-win-win-win situation concocted by the lawyer legislators who think they are very clever are never quite clever enough. They have an excellent grasp on the political ramifications but rarely if ever have any sort of a grasp on mathematics or in human psychology. Many are power-hungry back-stabbing egotistical lawyers and assume everybody else is one too. Nope, most people are lazy. Force them to take untenable terms and they'll quit rather than try to stay in the business for sake of pride.

 

[Saga Lout]

So, why don't we do this? It sounds like a much better plan.

It was such a good plan that Marx and Engels thought it up years ago but look where it got the Soviet Union and its satellites. Human nature wouldn't let it lie there, as they proved in failed Communist States, some people (usually the State employees) would demand bigger houses and higher picket fences with much more powerful cars.

 

[riser]

Raising the minimum has proven to be stupid. The gov't is causing enough inflation already, doing this will impact the bottom line for everyone - especially the middle class. Middle class people are making $20-$35/hour right now.. bumping that up, you might as well remove the middle class completely have the upper and lower classes.

Raising the rates that high will have a direct impact on the products the lower/middle class buys. They'll be forced to spend more to get less; just because minimum wage goes up doesn't mean wages across the board goes up. The only people who are unaffected by this are the wealthy. They're not going to buy more; they're not going to be affected by it. But the middle class will suffer.

Giving people more who haven't done anything to earn it. That's the new mentality. We need them to want to work to become more successful instead of forcing them to get paid more.

Australia is a poor example, as it is an island, produces little, and the population is relatively small.

When you raise the minimum wage it gives the employee more incentive to do a better job.Also people will spend more and economy will start to get stronger not weaker like now.People deserve more than $7.50 an hour especially when you have a family of 4 to support.

I don't understand. First, when someone receives a raise you will see an uptick in performance, and eventually it returns to the previous performance level. A raise should be given to accommodate one's work ethics, not to temporarily increase a workers incentive or production. All that being said.

Raising the minimum at which an employee is paid does not provide incentive. They are rewarded for doing nothing. They are still on the bottom. They have no incentive to do better; if they wait, they'll receive a wage increase simply by demanding it without having to work for it. It isn't a great living, but that's the incentive to do better. Somehow, somewhere, that incentive has been forgotten.

 

[riser]

I always have to ask people who think the minimum wage should be raised, why not make it $25 an hour? Why not $50 an hour? At some point they always say "oh no, we can't make it that high, that won't work". Why not? If $10/hr is good isn't $15/hr better then? Why not just make a minimum salary for every capable man and woman say, $100,000 a year, no matter what the job? Then everyone could have a home with a white picket fence, a couple cars, 1.6 children, and a family dog.

So, why don't we do this? It sounds like a much better plan.

Hell yeah, let's do it cause instead of being an IT consultant, I'm going to stock shelves at the grocery store instead.

 

[Beachnative]

The disparity between the haves and have not is growing at an expotential rate. Why is it that CEO's averaged whopping 27% increase pay while the person actually doing the production work received 2.7%?

That's where the arguement leads to from a liberal perspective and conservaties hate it. Small business argues that minimum wage should be left where it is and I tend to agree but there is one thing left out.

Large corporations do lousy things, have huge advantages over small business in many ways including tax discounts, low cost credit, subsidies, etc.

My question is what aren't small business owners complaining about the unlevel playing field they experience everday by large corporations?

Did you know of the fortune 100 companies, 20 are currently without a CEO because no one will take the job? The stress is too much, the risk too high.. and only way to entice someone to take the helm is to pay them.

What corporations cannot find a CEO? No one will take the job because the pay will be based on performance and limiting the golden parachute of yesteryear. I say F%^& 'em. Greed is the enemy, not the money but what you are willing to do to get it.