Minimum Wage hike is a no go......

[Houston1stWordOnTheMoon]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headli...on/4093756.html

[west20th]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headli...on/4093756.html

Hey now that we have a third world minimum wage Nike can just make it's shoes here in this country. Wow!!! Think of all the jobs! Bush and the GOP won't be happy until they make us just like Mexico. A few ultra rich and the rest of the population poor. No middle class to speak of.

[TheNiche]

Hey now that we have a third world minimum wage Nike can just make it's shoes here in this country. Wow!!! Think of all the jobs! Bush and the GOP won't be happy until they make us just like Mexico.

Oh, bull. Competitive pressures within the labor market keep middle-class wages right where they are. Raising the minimum would have no effect on the middle class except that the services provided by the lower class for the middle class would be more expensive for the middle class as suppliers pass on their increased costs to consumers.

[RedScare]

Oh, bull. Competitive pressures within the labor market keep middle-class wages right where they are. Raising the minimum would have no effect on the middle class except that the services provided by the lower class for the middle class would be more expensive for the middle class as suppliers pass on their increased costs to consumers.

Maybe if you put it in all caps and bold type, followed by 3 exclamation points, it will become true. The fact is, the middle class is shrinking, and the poor, those households making less than $25,000 annually, is growing. Worse, inflation is growing faster than wages.

http://www.factcheck.org/article249.html

And, this article assumes that $75,000 is the cutoff between middle and upper class. Most households making under $100,000 would swear that they are decidedly middle class, even if theirs is a comfortable existence.

[Trae]

I wish it would have increased. Would have been the benefit of everyone in America. Ane extra two dollars and ten cents can go a long ways. It adds up. Stupid choice to vote it down in my opinion.

[TheNiche]

Maybe if you put it in all caps and bold type, followed by 3 exclamation points, it will become true. The fact is, the middle class is shrinking, and the poor, those households making less than $25,000 annually, is growing. Worse, inflation is growing faster than wages.

http://www.factcheck.org/article249.html

And, this article assumes that $75,000 is the cutoff between middle and upper class. Most households making under $100,000 would swear that they are decidedly middle class, even if theirs is a comfortable existence.

Perhaps I should have snuck a "ceteris paribum" disclaimer in there to keep the issue clean. I think you know what I was getting at. Your red herrings won't budge my stance as they are irrelevant to the issue at hand.

To further clarify:

Competitive pressures within the labor market keep middle-class wages right where they are.

...can be restated as: "Competitive pressures within the labor market determine the present equilibreum." If that is in any way unclear, I apologize.

You will note that I didn't refer to either the past or the future. My only intention was to show that without higher minimum wage laws, we still aren't in Mexico's position and we still have a middle class. I didn't say that the distribution of wealth is stable. The primary factors that create that problem are high levels of low-skill immigration and developing 3rd world nations. In short, globalization. But that is a topic for a different thread, not this one.

I then went on to point out that the middle class, most of which already makes wages even higher than the proposed minimum, would be adversely affected by such regulation. It won't affect their nominal income, but it will reduce their buying power. I noticed that you don't have a counterargument to that point.

[RedScare]

I then went on to point out that the middle class, most of which already makes wages even higher than the proposed minimum, would be adversely affected by such regulation. It won't affect their nominal income, but it will reduce their buying power. I noticed that you don't have a counterargument to that point.

Sure I do. I would point you to the numerous states that have unilaterally raised their minimum wage, covering roughly 45% of the US population. Virtually all of them have a smaller percentage of citizens living in poverty. It is not hard to find. In fact, so many states have a higher minimum wage than the US minimum, that raising the wage will likely have no effect at all....except, of course, for those households currently earning $5.15 an hour.

[Houston1stWordOnTheMoon]

I would just push Redscares highest middle class figure a bit higher. I consider myself middle class and i think the minimum wage should have been raised. Its not so good to try to live on $5.15 per hour.

[TheNiche]

Sure I do. I would point you to the numerous states that have unilaterally raised their minimum wage, covering roughly 45% of the US population. Virtually all of them have a smaller percentage of citizens living in poverty. It is not hard to find. In fact, so many states have a higher minimum wage than the US minimum, that raising the wage will likely have no effect at all....except, of course, for those households currently earning $5.15 an hour.

First of all, let me just toss out your last sentence by stating that the direct effects of a higher minimum wage would be felt for all households between the proposed minimum wage and the current minimum wage. Also, if only 45% of the US population is already covered by state/local wage laws that exceed the proposal, 55% still aren't. Don't tell me that there won't likely be any effect.

Although I could nitpick on the way that poverty is statistically calculated and could then go on to question whether your initial assertions were merely a correlation or a causal relationship, I don't think that that'll be necessary.

A higher minimum wage would indeed cost some lower-class jobs, but not all that many in the grand scheme, and then just on the margins. There are some low-scale businesses that may also suffer or be eliminated, but again, just on the margins. Most industries would simply absorb the cost. As such, it may very well stand to reason that poor people would be made better off. However, what happens to the extra labor costs? Who pays for them?

In a competitive environment, costs will be passed on to the consumer. The consumers of lower-class labor are disproportionately other members of the lower class as well as the middle class. The wealthy tend to consume more services from the middle class, whose nominal wages remain unchanged. So at the bottom line, the benefit of the lower class is somewhat offset by a few lost jobs and reduced purchasing power, but the middle class receives no benefit and is also subject to reduced purchasing power. The wealthy are for all intents and purposes not impacted.

There are far more efficient ways to redistribute wealth and reduce poverty if that is the intended objective. Progressive tax policies will very easily do the trick, more fairly (and I assume that you'd rather tax the wealthy than the middle class in order to suppliment the poor; I could be wrong), and with a more subtle set of distortions. That is by no means my goal, but if it is yours, then at the very least propose policies that make sense.

Objectives that I personally dislike irk me considerably less than do ineffective or countereffective policies.

Edited August 5, 2006 by TheNiche

[Pumapayam]

Gas was below a buck when the $5.15 first came out, and now it hover just above $3.00 I many places.

I can't believe that they would sneak in a reduction in the estate tax to ruin this passing!