What would happen if min wage was $10?

[Phi for All]

I was that young man. The year was 1990 and the rate I would accept no less than was $5/hour. I found such a job on the third try. Within a year I was making $8/hour and after two I was at $12/hour. I was able to pay for college completely by working part time. If I had accepted less money and taken the first job I would have had far fewer opportunities. Most often good work is not rewarded until the worker demands it. I moved to California in 1994 my first job was $6.50 at a dry cleaner then $7.00 restaurant host, $8.50 Coffee shop counter, $13.75 Banquet waiter and $15.00 for driving a tow truck. I took the cheaper job right away because I needed it. I quite jobs as soon as I found better ones and lied on applications to cover all the job changes. I did not get any training to increase my value as an employee. I got the better jobs through personal connections.

And that didn't teach you anything you would want passed along to your kids? Why should it federally mandated to just hand it to them?

[john5746]

Anybody else notice that in a thread full of declaratives there's not one reference to or application of an actual model purporting to relate wage rate with whatever? Imagine if we carried on like this in the natural science forums.

 

 

OK,

 

Pro http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/briefingpapers_min_wage_bp

 

 

 

Con http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg18n1c.html

[Rebiu]

And that didn't teach you anything you would want passed along to your kids? Why should it federally mandated to just hand it to them?

I see your point. I began working when I was in Junior high for a farmer at a rate of $2.25. I worked very hard and he ended up only paying me half of what he owed. In high school I worked for $3 an hour in restaurants. These employers exploited me and I hated it. This went on for years and was completely unnecessary. I would hate to see my children exploited like this for years.

 

My father always believed a person’s time was not worth much. He has worked and average of 48 hours a week for the last 34 years at Raytheon. I would expect to be a multimillionaire from that kind of commitment. He has fallen well short.

 

I am exceptional in that I never accept my level of income as enough. I do not want a lot of money. I value my time. I want to minimize the amount of time it takes me to make my money.

 

I am running my 5th business. I ran a nonprofit kid dance club, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu school, I was a prizefighter, contracted to haul newspaper bundles and now I run a glassblowing studio.

 

Glassblowing allows me to may approximately $100/hour at my skill level my teacher could make almost $200/hour. It takes more time to sell the art and maintain and improve the studio though and of course raw material cost. The gas bill and insurance with make a significant dent in the profits so I switched gasified wood from free woodchips and I put the studio on a trailer next to a tent so I do not have to insure anything.

 

Being exploited as a child did not cause me to develop attitudes that would allow me to succeed it made me miserable. It made me not want to work at all. I worked so much I was miserable. I had a bad attitude, hated my job, hated my coworkers, hated my boss. I did not value the job and quite when there were problems.

[Rebiu]

OK' date='

 

Pro http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/briefingpapers_min_wage_bp

 

 

 

Con http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg18n1c.html

Nice information. I would say that since the employment drop was temporary it was well worth it. Furthermore the economy of the 80s and 90s was pretty wimpy compared with today economy.

[Phi for All]

I am exceptional in that I never accept my level of income as enough. I do not want a lot of money. I value my time. I want to minimize the amount of time it takes me to make my money.

And you got away from jobs that wasted your time and figured out how to be more productive for yourself. That's what makes you exceptional.

Being exploited as a child did not cause me to develop attitudes that would allow me to succeed it made me miserable.

Just miserable enough to leave and make something better.

It made me not want to work at all. I worked so much I was miserable.

Which you overcame. Would you still be in miserable, exploitative jobs if the pay was twice what it was?

I had a bad attitude, hated my job, hated my coworkers, hated my boss. I did not value the job and quite when there were problems.

And went on to better yourself. Minimum wage jobs should not be careers. Making them pay better could destroy the initiative it takes to go out and get a better one.

[Douglas]

You want your kid to think his time is worth less than $10/hour? I hope your kid fares well in life.

They already have.....very well.

[doG]

The real overall affect is to lower the total wealth of the upper tier of society and raise the total wealth of the lower tier.

This is effectively an attempt to legislate the class people belong to or a compression of society's classes. This will never happen in a capitalist society.

[doG]

The United States will never be able to provide cheaper wages than the poorer countries. Jobs have already been exported by the bushel. In spite of this we have a robust economy. This is because the United States has made capital investments in itself as a country including roads, utilities, communications, internal security and education. It will take the rest of the world some time to match these investments if the US stopped inproving them now. The US will not stop and the other countries must not only match where we are but overtake our progress in these investments if they want to compete with us. They have cheap labor and we have more productive labor. Our labor is made more productive by the infrastructure, education and security this country provides. Providing security is done in part by ensuring people are taken care of. If wages are two low to live on then crime and insecurity go up. We see this in the crime and riots of inner cities.

The cost of living is likely the primary factor for job exports. There are many nations where the cost of living is significantly lower than any U.S. city. Workers of these nations do not need the same income as an american worker for the same job. A worker in India earning $20,000 is making the equivalent of $100,000 U.S. dollars. It comes as no surprise that an american software manufacturer can export jobs that cost $70,000 annually in the U.S. to India where he can get 3 programmers for that price and save $10,000. Even at $20,000 those 3 workers in India are earning $30,000 more annually than their american counterparts. They are not underpaid, sweatshop workers; in their country they are the upperclass. For the software manufacturer this is good business; he is simply cutting the cost of manufacturing.

 

Globalization of the economy is another key factor. As long as there is a huge disparity between the economies of the world there will be a significant incentive for those nations with poor economies to solicit the work of the world at bargain prices. We cannot blame those nations for doing what they must to provide opportunity for their people.

 

Feeding globalization is the growing ability to communicate. The internet and the spread of knowledge will plague the american worker for years to come. Education that was once hard to obtain in third world countries will become more and more available to remote people of the world. As these people become more educated and more capable to do skilled work, american leadership as a skilled workforce will become more and more diluted with the burgeoning skill of workers elsewhere. Skilled, educated workers in nations with a low cost of living will enjoy an enormous influx of jobs exported from countries with a higher cost of living.

 

Contributing also is the ever growing efficiency of world transportation. Transportation systems utilizing cargo vessels with modular components to unite shipping with locomotive and truck transport operations make it more and more affordable to build anywhere in the world and ship the product to the destination market. This is an enabling technology that will continue to assist the world's manufacturers to locate their operations in the most cost effective locations on the globe. The american worker will no longer enjoy a job here just because it is cheaper than the freight to get the finished product to America.

 

IMO, these factors will be more significant in job exports than America's investment in it's infrastructure.