The best corrective is to repeal Taft-Hartley and let labor and capital battle it out on an equal footing to redistribute the wealth BEFORE it is earned.
3
And yet, the Times argues for more immigration, which depresses wages.
10
One might argue legitimately that the menial service jobs left after deindustrialization don't merit higher pay, and that any productivity increases were due to automation investments (computers, machines, etc.) by capital, not skill increases. This just says we shouldn't have been so quick to give away our industrial base with all the mentoring, on-the-job training and investment that it entailed. We have to pay for that bad decision by a higher minimum wage regardless of the skills needed for any particular job. We created the welfare state so fund it.
4
Bigness is the problem.
Certainly there are many elements to the vast disparity of income and personal wealth here in 21st century America, but one mammoth cause is, and has been, the mega mergers and tremendous growth of corporations and their influence on Washington and all of its branches. Workers of these entities have their pay and benefits, if any, decided by those with no personal contact or relationship with them. These headquarters, sitting somewhere in the world, make compensative decisions for their workers who are nothing but mere numbers to the upper management. The only solution to this faceless business-employee relationship is a Union representing the workers. Even lower ranked management would agree with that if he/she were being honest.
Certainly there are many elements to the vast disparity of income and personal wealth here in 21st century America, but one mammoth cause is, and has been, the mega mergers and tremendous growth of corporations and their influence on Washington and all of its branches. Workers of these entities have their pay and benefits, if any, decided by those with no personal contact or relationship with them. These headquarters, sitting somewhere in the world, make compensative decisions for their workers who are nothing but mere numbers to the upper management. The only solution to this faceless business-employee relationship is a Union representing the workers. Even lower ranked management would agree with that if he/she were being honest.
4
Let's call pay that doesn't provide enough for someone to support themselves or to barely get by what it is: modern day slavery. That's a word we all understand, isn't it? In the case of full time workers who must turn to the public trough to feed, clothe or house themselves, it is subsidized slavery.
Our tax dollars are paying to make owners, stockholders and managers rich. This should outrage everyone in America, especially the right wing who assert over and over again that welfare is debilitating to citizens. It seems the "welfare cheats", those addicted to public funds are corporations.
If a business is unable to earn enough money to pay its employees adequately, then the business should cease to exist. If it cannot devise a business plan that involves fairness and decency to workers, it does not deserve to survive.
Take McDonald's. The average franchise store takes in 2.5 million per yr. The parent corporation has, according to BusinessWeek, continually increased the amount franchise holders must pay in rent, fees and the cost of food items they buy from the parent. As McDonald's makes profits for itself, the franchise owners are squeezed and who feels the pain? The people who do the work. There isn't enough left over to pay the employees decently.
The whole debate in America needs to be turned around. Instead of looking at the "welfare mom" with five kids, we need to look at corporations taking in billions of dollars, with our help.
Doug Terry
Our tax dollars are paying to make owners, stockholders and managers rich. This should outrage everyone in America, especially the right wing who assert over and over again that welfare is debilitating to citizens. It seems the "welfare cheats", those addicted to public funds are corporations.
If a business is unable to earn enough money to pay its employees adequately, then the business should cease to exist. If it cannot devise a business plan that involves fairness and decency to workers, it does not deserve to survive.
Take McDonald's. The average franchise store takes in 2.5 million per yr. The parent corporation has, according to BusinessWeek, continually increased the amount franchise holders must pay in rent, fees and the cost of food items they buy from the parent. As McDonald's makes profits for itself, the franchise owners are squeezed and who feels the pain? The people who do the work. There isn't enough left over to pay the employees decently.
The whole debate in America needs to be turned around. Instead of looking at the "welfare mom" with five kids, we need to look at corporations taking in billions of dollars, with our help.
Doug Terry
27
The article completely misses the fact that the higher the minimum wage the less minimum wage jobs there will be, 1/2 million less according to the CBO. Jobs will not be available if the work is not worth the cost to an employer or if the job can be automated for less.
If we want more jobs, and I assume everyone does, then we need to lower the cost of those jobs to employers so more can be created. Employers should not be criticized if governments want to give support to low wage workers. This is not rocket science.
The cost of a job to an employer includes wages, labor taxes and the cost of employment regulations. More jobs will be provided wherever government reduces any of those costs. Go for it!
If we want more jobs, and I assume everyone does, then we need to lower the cost of those jobs to employers so more can be created. Employers should not be criticized if governments want to give support to low wage workers. This is not rocket science.
The cost of a job to an employer includes wages, labor taxes and the cost of employment regulations. More jobs will be provided wherever government reduces any of those costs. Go for it!
5
The elephant in the low wages room is globalization, so-called free trade.
For decades American employers have moved or used the threat of moving their facilities offshore to cheap labor sites to suppress U.S. wages and benefits. I started with manufacturing and now it is happening in the service sector.
Until that reality is addressed, and today it isn't even being acknowledged, the decline in American wages and benefits will continue.
For decades American employers have moved or used the threat of moving their facilities offshore to cheap labor sites to suppress U.S. wages and benefits. I started with manufacturing and now it is happening in the service sector.
Until that reality is addressed, and today it isn't even being acknowledged, the decline in American wages and benefits will continue.
9
Raising the minimum wage would result in higher prices that would be paid by the customers of firms now paying the minimum wage such as McDonalds but most likely not in establishments that cater to the wealthy whose employees now generally are paid above minimum wages. Some of the higher minimum wages would go to the children of the rich earning extra spending money for their next trip to Aspen.
How could you not get a vast increase in inequality when you make the tax rate on the types of incomes that the wealthy receive such as dividends, capital gains and corporate profits much less than the tax rates on wages and make 99.9% of all estates exempt from the inheritance tax?
"..Since 1969 there has been a tremendous shift in the tax burdens away from the rich and onto the middle class. Corporate income tax receipts, whose incidence falls entirely on the owners of corporations, were 4% of GDP then and are now less than 1%. During that same period, payroll tax rates as percent of GDP have increased dramatically. The overinvestment problem caused by the reduction in taxes on the wealthy is exacerbated by the increased tax burden on the middle class. While overinvestment creates more factories, housing and shopping centers; higher payroll taxes reduces the purchasing power of middle-class consumers.."
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1543642
How could you not get a vast increase in inequality when you make the tax rate on the types of incomes that the wealthy receive such as dividends, capital gains and corporate profits much less than the tax rates on wages and make 99.9% of all estates exempt from the inheritance tax?
"..Since 1969 there has been a tremendous shift in the tax burdens away from the rich and onto the middle class. Corporate income tax receipts, whose incidence falls entirely on the owners of corporations, were 4% of GDP then and are now less than 1%. During that same period, payroll tax rates as percent of GDP have increased dramatically. The overinvestment problem caused by the reduction in taxes on the wealthy is exacerbated by the increased tax burden on the middle class. While overinvestment creates more factories, housing and shopping centers; higher payroll taxes reduces the purchasing power of middle-class consumers.."
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1543642
6
While I am strongly in agreement with much of what this article says, I think we all recognize the weakness of one of its central points:
"Low-wage employers, in particular, pay low wages because they can and the main reason they can is that Congress has failed, over decades, to adequately update the minimum wage and other labor standards, including rules for overtime pay, employee benefits and union organizing."
No. The main is that we have outsourced most of the manufacturing that we used to pay our own citizens to perform. In 1972, virtually every piece of clothing I wore, including shoes, socks, blue jeans and jackets were made by my fellow citizens. Likewise auto parts, furniture, appliances, televisions, telephones, etc. 30% of Americans were employed in manufacturing. It is now only 9%. Some of have gone on to professional jobs like computer services. But there are nowhere near enough high paying jobs for all those liberated from the factory. Instead, the highest number of jobs in America are now in minimum wage service jobs. And had the minimum wage kept pace with inflation it would now be around $11 per hour instead of the $7 and change it actually is.
The real challenge is that this new economy benefits the professional, stock owning class, who earn high incomes by charging citizens for their services in medicine, government, business, etc., but get cheap goods made overseas, and cheap labor from their fellow citizens. How are we going to solve that?
"Low-wage employers, in particular, pay low wages because they can and the main reason they can is that Congress has failed, over decades, to adequately update the minimum wage and other labor standards, including rules for overtime pay, employee benefits and union organizing."
No. The main is that we have outsourced most of the manufacturing that we used to pay our own citizens to perform. In 1972, virtually every piece of clothing I wore, including shoes, socks, blue jeans and jackets were made by my fellow citizens. Likewise auto parts, furniture, appliances, televisions, telephones, etc. 30% of Americans were employed in manufacturing. It is now only 9%. Some of have gone on to professional jobs like computer services. But there are nowhere near enough high paying jobs for all those liberated from the factory. Instead, the highest number of jobs in America are now in minimum wage service jobs. And had the minimum wage kept pace with inflation it would now be around $11 per hour instead of the $7 and change it actually is.
The real challenge is that this new economy benefits the professional, stock owning class, who earn high incomes by charging citizens for their services in medicine, government, business, etc., but get cheap goods made overseas, and cheap labor from their fellow citizens. How are we going to solve that?
18
Finally someone has the courage to tell the truth.
We taxpayers have to subsidize massive bailouts for billionaires. We have to pay welfare for the defense industry, for Big Oil, Big Agriculture, Big Pharma and the others that have bought their own members of Congress.
More than 4,000 of us died in George W. Bush's fraudulent war in Iraq. And we pay the trillions it has cost and continues to cost our nation so Bush's cronies could get rich on the resulting contracts.
War profiteering used to be a crime. Now it's an entitlement program for the rich!
Republicans scream about Benghazi, where 4 Americans died. What about Iraq, where 4,000 Americans died?
We also pay more taxes to help people survive who actually have jobs! And this comes on the heels of still more subsidies we have to pay when the corporations come to town and demand tax breaks because they are building a store or a plant and they will be providing "jobs"! Hello?
When will the American people wake up and realize that corporate welfare is the biggest fraud of all? And conservatives and their liars-for-hire in the media all tell us we should be worried about people who are too lazy to work! What about the people who work at a job, or two, or three jobs, and still can't make ends meet?
When do we demand that the rich pay their fare share? When do we get to stop paying for their tax breaks, their fat subsidies, their welfare, their "entitlements"? Enough, already!
We taxpayers have to subsidize massive bailouts for billionaires. We have to pay welfare for the defense industry, for Big Oil, Big Agriculture, Big Pharma and the others that have bought their own members of Congress.
More than 4,000 of us died in George W. Bush's fraudulent war in Iraq. And we pay the trillions it has cost and continues to cost our nation so Bush's cronies could get rich on the resulting contracts.
War profiteering used to be a crime. Now it's an entitlement program for the rich!
Republicans scream about Benghazi, where 4 Americans died. What about Iraq, where 4,000 Americans died?
We also pay more taxes to help people survive who actually have jobs! And this comes on the heels of still more subsidies we have to pay when the corporations come to town and demand tax breaks because they are building a store or a plant and they will be providing "jobs"! Hello?
When will the American people wake up and realize that corporate welfare is the biggest fraud of all? And conservatives and their liars-for-hire in the media all tell us we should be worried about people who are too lazy to work! What about the people who work at a job, or two, or three jobs, and still can't make ends meet?
When do we demand that the rich pay their fare share? When do we get to stop paying for their tax breaks, their fat subsidies, their welfare, their "entitlements"? Enough, already!
57
The best "minimum wage" program is a transitional job.
A transitional job is one sponsored by a nonprofit group and funded by tax and spending reform. The positions deliberately pay a bit less than the private sector for the same type of work and provide ready labor for business as the economy grows. The types of jobs could range from trainee to professional - whatever the charity needed to provide expanded services (including skills most desired in the private sector).
Bill Gates opposed raising the minimum wage because of job loss projections. He favored a replacement of the job killing payroll taxes in order to help all workers rather than just those at the bottom. Once the economy achieves near full employment a transitional jobs program with nonprofits can supply jobs for all who want to work - and with no net increase in government spending. See details at TaxNetWealth.com.
In a shrinking economy the number of transitional jobs would expand. Since businesses would have to pay more than a charity to entice workers to change jobs, the transitional pay rates would effectively be the new minimum wage for each type of job. Businesses would also have to compete for workers by matching the kind of family benefits and workplace dignity that charities are known for. From an economic standpoint, the nonprofit sector, working with the government, would pay a minimum hourly rate for each type of job and competition would force the private sector to pay more.
A transitional job is one sponsored by a nonprofit group and funded by tax and spending reform. The positions deliberately pay a bit less than the private sector for the same type of work and provide ready labor for business as the economy grows. The types of jobs could range from trainee to professional - whatever the charity needed to provide expanded services (including skills most desired in the private sector).
Bill Gates opposed raising the minimum wage because of job loss projections. He favored a replacement of the job killing payroll taxes in order to help all workers rather than just those at the bottom. Once the economy achieves near full employment a transitional jobs program with nonprofits can supply jobs for all who want to work - and with no net increase in government spending. See details at TaxNetWealth.com.
In a shrinking economy the number of transitional jobs would expand. Since businesses would have to pay more than a charity to entice workers to change jobs, the transitional pay rates would effectively be the new minimum wage for each type of job. Businesses would also have to compete for workers by matching the kind of family benefits and workplace dignity that charities are known for. From an economic standpoint, the nonprofit sector, working with the government, would pay a minimum hourly rate for each type of job and competition would force the private sector to pay more.
4
Every article or editorial on low wages in the US draws comments blaming income inequality on immigration. But references, see http://tinyurl.com/3ax9em, show that Canada and Australia have higher immigration rates than ours, and Germany and the Netherlands aren't far behind. None of these countries have as glaring a contrast between rich and poor as the US. Other posts blame outsourcing and technological innovation for our low wages. But Germany, the Netherlands, et al live in the same world we do, without American style inequality. The fact of the matter is that our masters, the people who decide who gets what, are driven by greed and callousness. They're killing the American dream, and they don't care. I truly fear for the future of this country.
84
"Depressed wages are the result of outdated policies and lack of public awareness, that may, at long last, be changing for the better."
And which industrial sector is responsible for "public awareness," dare I ask? Is the media so lacking in self-awareness as to be aware that awareness is its only responsibility, and that it fails again and again to carry it out?
And which industrial sector is responsible for "public awareness," dare I ask? Is the media so lacking in self-awareness as to be aware that awareness is its only responsibility, and that it fails again and again to carry it out?
2
It is hard to overstate the frustration of Americans who expect government to help opportunity breath, instead of suffocating entrepreneurship.
I think the idea of deducting the money government pays to support workers from profits is a good one. The law could be written to exclude obvious low-profit mom and pop operations that are just getting off the ground.
Such a law could solve a lot of problems we have as a nation quickly. Our 401K plans would take a hit, but our taxes would eventually decrease and our country and communities would emerge strengthened.
There would be immediate pain to profits and the market, so there will be resistance from selfish people, which describes most, being a human trait.
Such a law could solve a lot of problems we have as a nation quickly. Our 401K plans would take a hit, but our taxes would eventually decrease and our country and communities would emerge strengthened.
There would be immediate pain to profits and the market, so there will be resistance from selfish people, which describes most, being a human trait.
6
I think this is the most important article written this month. Republicans talk about poor people becoming dependent on welfare, but it is not poor people -- it is business -- who have become welfare queens.
24
When the owner of the business makes profits on labor to the extent that the worker cannot live on the salary available to the worker - it's called SLAVERY.
20
Then we should start charging the corporations for the aid. They can pay their workers or pay the government. Take your pick.
21
In its editorial, The Times neglects what might be the most powerful antidote to low wages -- full employment. Not "full employment as defined by the formal unemployment rate, but Full Employment that accounts for discouraged workers and part-timers who want full-time employment.
If the US had genuinely full employment, many employers would have to raise compensation in order to compete for good workers. For some reason, explicit, genuine full employment policies seem to have fallen off the table. They could do as much or more to help underpaid workers as raising the minimum wage.
If the US had genuinely full employment, many employers would have to raise compensation in order to compete for good workers. For some reason, explicit, genuine full employment policies seem to have fallen off the table. They could do as much or more to help underpaid workers as raising the minimum wage.
1
Typical of Congressional Democrats to always be two steps behind. The Federal minimum wage needs to be $15/hour, starting now. The American minimum wage worker has decades of low wages to make up. And of course it is those brave workers who are striking and demonstrating at great personal peril while well paid Congressmen and women offer limp solutions at no cost to themselves and their cushy jobs. It makes one quite sick.
6
Germany works because business, government, trade unions, their banking system and vocational schools work together to keep skills current and balance the supply of skilled workers with demand. Trade union leadership have seats on the Board of Directors of Germany largest industrial companies. They have labor disputes that lead to strikes but, generally speaking, the relationship is far less adversarial than here.
The challenge with raising the minimum wage here is that If you raise too much, you open the door to automation and further outsourcing. Fast food chains are already consolidating their drive thru order taking process into offshore call centers. Automation is matter of dollars & sense - if its cheaper automate (including the cost of capital equipment, maintenance and operating expenses) that will occur.
Raising the wage to a minimal living standard means covering the cost of benefits received from government at all levels (Food Stamps, Medicaid etc) in the wage base. This is something I could support as the current model is a form of corporate welfare.
Perhaps the answer to have a variable component of minimum wage based on the number of dependents declared to the IRS or some means of determining need.
The challenge with raising the minimum wage here is that If you raise too much, you open the door to automation and further outsourcing. Fast food chains are already consolidating their drive thru order taking process into offshore call centers. Automation is matter of dollars & sense - if its cheaper automate (including the cost of capital equipment, maintenance and operating expenses) that will occur.
Raising the wage to a minimal living standard means covering the cost of benefits received from government at all levels (Food Stamps, Medicaid etc) in the wage base. This is something I could support as the current model is a form of corporate welfare.
Perhaps the answer to have a variable component of minimum wage based on the number of dependents declared to the IRS or some means of determining need.
2
Americans have been sold a bill of goods by right-wing ideologues that Wal-Mart and other corporations are the “job creators” – they’re not. Demand – that is consumers with money in their pockets and needs/wants in their heads are the job creators. Businesses exist to fill those needs/wants. Government exists in part to make sure workers get a fair deal and aren’t exploited by employers.
70
Not only do companies not pay a living wage, they are getting away with a "just in time" work force. Employees are either part time to avoid paying benefits or they are - don't laugh - "contractors" or "consultants" for the same reason. These employees are told they "might" be needed at work on Saturday and heaven help you if the company calls and you aren't there. Yet, even more abusively, the employee receives no compensation for being expected to sit by the phone all day waiting for a call.
People cannot plan for anything when they are treated this way. They never know if they will have enough money to pay their bills and they cannot leave their house or make plans of any kind while waiting for a call. This is a very abusive practice and it must stop! This is why the rw hates unions. Unions protect their members from this type of exploitation.
People cannot plan for anything when they are treated this way. They never know if they will have enough money to pay their bills and they cannot leave their house or make plans of any kind while waiting for a call. This is a very abusive practice and it must stop! This is why the rw hates unions. Unions protect their members from this type of exploitation.
17
In a free economy, people get paid what their labor is worth. Employers cannot exist without workers. The problem is that there are too many workers seeking too few jobs, so the price of labor goes down.
Now, we wouldn't want to think about the part 20 million illegal aliens that the Democrats want to legalize so they can vote Democrat -- let's just ignore that and figure out how we can raise wages even while the American working class is competing with the 20 million illegals so beloved of the Democrat party.
Why the ideal way is to FORCE the employers to pay their workers more than they are worth (Democrats love forcing people to do things they don't want to do). That way the cost is paid by the companies. But of course, those of us who have bothered to take ECON 101 know that companies don't really pay taxes -- they just charge more for whatever they produce, so it is their customers who actually pay the taxes.
What the NYT and liberals everywhere want to disguise is that what want, in virtually everything they do or espouse, is to take money from people who earn it and give money to people who do not earn it in return for the Democrat votes of the latter. If it were not for the Democrat desire to import a new, anti-American, pro-Democrat electorate, we would have 20 million fewer people looking for jobs and companies would have to pay higher wages. Best not to talk about that though. People might start voting against the Party of Welfare and Illegal Aliens.
Now, we wouldn't want to think about the part 20 million illegal aliens that the Democrats want to legalize so they can vote Democrat -- let's just ignore that and figure out how we can raise wages even while the American working class is competing with the 20 million illegals so beloved of the Democrat party.
Why the ideal way is to FORCE the employers to pay their workers more than they are worth (Democrats love forcing people to do things they don't want to do). That way the cost is paid by the companies. But of course, those of us who have bothered to take ECON 101 know that companies don't really pay taxes -- they just charge more for whatever they produce, so it is their customers who actually pay the taxes.
What the NYT and liberals everywhere want to disguise is that what want, in virtually everything they do or espouse, is to take money from people who earn it and give money to people who do not earn it in return for the Democrat votes of the latter. If it were not for the Democrat desire to import a new, anti-American, pro-Democrat electorate, we would have 20 million fewer people looking for jobs and companies would have to pay higher wages. Best not to talk about that though. People might start voting against the Party of Welfare and Illegal Aliens.
5
The working poor are now the permanent 'new middle class'. And they're unable to save a dime after paying rent/food/utilities/car/school/clothing and medical. People are so squeezed they've no time or an ounce of energy left to do anything else. No time for their health, family, relaxation, education, to vote/civic duty, unionize, and figure out what the heck is really going on in this country. Numbed by lowest common denominator electronic entertainment, crappy public education, cheap consumer products and alcohol/drugs.
$12/hr. in 2020?! Absolutely ridiculous. After taxes, nobody can even survive on that right now in 2015. And what about tipped wage employees? Can they get an increase as well?
If things don't improve for the masses and we continue going in this pathetic direction, none of this is going to end very well for anyone rich or poor.
$12/hr. in 2020?! Absolutely ridiculous. After taxes, nobody can even survive on that right now in 2015. And what about tipped wage employees? Can they get an increase as well?
If things don't improve for the masses and we continue going in this pathetic direction, none of this is going to end very well for anyone rich or poor.
5
The fastest growing jobs are low paying service sector jobs which need some kind of financial aid to survive. At the same time, these are precisely what the GOP want to cut, they call them moochers. While the GOP is always seeking tax cuts for these corporations, which amount to little more than corporate welfare. If they don't raise peoples wages, we the tax payers have to make up the difference. If this trend continues and masses of people can't earn enough to survive, and they feel abandoned by their legislatures, things will continue spiraling downward.
2
California leading!
2
Right diagnosis – employers pay low wages because people are willing to accept them – wrong prescription – more rules, regulations, and government.
Wages lag due to deliberate, usually leftist policy. We wink at illegal immigration and admit, legally, 1 million unskilled legals every year. We impose the highest corporate taxes in the world, encouraging offshoring and outsourcing. Draconian regulations, often eco-extremist, make it virtually impossible to build anything, anywhere, or use power. Governmentally imposed mandates turn employees into walking entitlements and potential plaintiffs, discouraging hiring.
A higher minimum wage simply translates into fewer jobs and higher prices, while providing additional incentive to outsource and offshore. If prices simply increase to offset higher wages – and given that the left recoils in horror at the idea of tax cuts – we’ll be paying the same taxes and higher prices. That benefits society ... how?
If you’re serious about wanting to increase wages, send illegals home, stop admitting 1 million unskilled immigrants annually, eliminate the corporate tax, and reduce both regulations and mandates. That would have the virtue of actually working.
Wages lag due to deliberate, usually leftist policy. We wink at illegal immigration and admit, legally, 1 million unskilled legals every year. We impose the highest corporate taxes in the world, encouraging offshoring and outsourcing. Draconian regulations, often eco-extremist, make it virtually impossible to build anything, anywhere, or use power. Governmentally imposed mandates turn employees into walking entitlements and potential plaintiffs, discouraging hiring.
A higher minimum wage simply translates into fewer jobs and higher prices, while providing additional incentive to outsource and offshore. If prices simply increase to offset higher wages – and given that the left recoils in horror at the idea of tax cuts – we’ll be paying the same taxes and higher prices. That benefits society ... how?
If you’re serious about wanting to increase wages, send illegals home, stop admitting 1 million unskilled immigrants annually, eliminate the corporate tax, and reduce both regulations and mandates. That would have the virtue of actually working.
3
If the problem is that gains in productivity are not rewarded through higher pay, then why not make a law that pegs productivity to wages. Then the GOP would not be able to cry about how a higher minimum wage will 'kill' (low paying, terrible) jobs. The democratic party would benefit by trying something new, rather than continuing to give ammunition to the republican narrative (even though we all realize that the republican narrative is based on twisting logic and facts).
2
No mention of the death of tens of millions good paying - lower skilled manufacturing jobs brought on by the Globalization Policies of Bill Clinton and now being enhanced via the TPP of Barack Obama.
In the 1970's I worked my way through college on minimum wage $2/hr restaurant and retail jobs. Those jobs which had no benefits could not support a family then just as now. Nothing has changed regarding the low pay - no benefits of these jobs. What has changed is that the last two Democratic Presidents through their pro trade globalization policies have destroyed the once vibrant well paying lower skilled jobs which did support families and entire communities. So, in order to counteract this wage/benefit destruction the same people now want the retail industry service jobs to replace the pay and benefits of the defunct industrial sector.
In the 1970's I worked my way through college on minimum wage $2/hr restaurant and retail jobs. Those jobs which had no benefits could not support a family then just as now. Nothing has changed regarding the low pay - no benefits of these jobs. What has changed is that the last two Democratic Presidents through their pro trade globalization policies have destroyed the once vibrant well paying lower skilled jobs which did support families and entire communities. So, in order to counteract this wage/benefit destruction the same people now want the retail industry service jobs to replace the pay and benefits of the defunct industrial sector.
1
my opinion
we need more government not less government yet a government dedicated to a moral standard another human is heaven. The Human is the temple of God.
We have monoply corporations who can still thrive with a higher minimum wage
What about the risk takers who can attempt to stand up to these monoply corporations if given enough time?
What about being able to change people's minds toward government as she serves her people with deep respect and heads bowed low as if God is standing before you ready to be unveiled
it's time to turn our cities into heaven for all who live there and not just for the freedom of the greedy to hide away with their play toys
we need more government not less government yet a government dedicated to a moral standard another human is heaven. The Human is the temple of God.
We have monoply corporations who can still thrive with a higher minimum wage
What about the risk takers who can attempt to stand up to these monoply corporations if given enough time?
What about being able to change people's minds toward government as she serves her people with deep respect and heads bowed low as if God is standing before you ready to be unveiled
it's time to turn our cities into heaven for all who live there and not just for the freedom of the greedy to hide away with their play toys
2
Annually, for one month, every member of Congress should have a minimum wage job and have to live on theses wages for the entire month. That may put things in perspective. Any "takers"?
6
I am as liberal as they come, but here is another view. In CA minimum wage is $9.00 and applies to those who earn tips. I own a business where we pay min wage or above. Very few of the tips go through the register-- they are cash handed to the employee. My employees have money for cigarettes, tattoos, lunch out every day, etc. They live in a nice town and send their kids to good schools. And yet because they have low reported incomes, many are on medi-cal, many are on food stamps. Please tell me how this is my fault?Also, please tell me why their wage should jump along with the big mac employees who do not have this enormous and unreported tip income? Tell me how a very small business can raise prices to correspond with the huge increases in min wage proposed? A deli sandwich in Oakland now costs over $10.00, a burger lunch for two tops out at $30.00. Is this realistic? Better we go after companies like Apple who offer very few jobs in the US, make trillions, and pay the true staff--employees in their retail stores here and production workers in Asia, far below a living wage.
30
If I design a software system that automates the management of inventory at a fast food restaurant, and automates how orders are processed, and even manages how certain items are prepared - I'm going to get more money, and the buyer can transfer worker pay to me while hiring lower quality workers to fill a smaller role. Store productivity goes up, but it doesn't actually mean the individual workers at that restaurant are being more "productive." It means me and my team, and the restaurant's corporate managers, are being more productive. The benefit here flows to the customers - who get more and better options for less cost. And the profits flow to those who are being more productive and adding more value - me and the corporate procurement and IT people who put our systems into place (this is just a hypothetical).
If people want to increase the minimum wage to offset this law of economics and technological productivity, it will only accelerate the trend. We'll come in with kiosks, and automate more and more of the process until the restaurant in question only has a highly empathetic manager who has the technical skills to fix and maintain the systems in place, and deal with customers on a limited basis. While this manager might be well paid, and extremely productive, you'll have far fewer jobs available before you pushed us down this path with bad policy then you did before.
In summary, bring on a higher minimum wage! But this won't turn out the way you think it will.
If people want to increase the minimum wage to offset this law of economics and technological productivity, it will only accelerate the trend. We'll come in with kiosks, and automate more and more of the process until the restaurant in question only has a highly empathetic manager who has the technical skills to fix and maintain the systems in place, and deal with customers on a limited basis. While this manager might be well paid, and extremely productive, you'll have far fewer jobs available before you pushed us down this path with bad policy then you did before.
In summary, bring on a higher minimum wage! But this won't turn out the way you think it will.
20
It's about time that people started to understand that keeping the minimum wage low amounts to another backdoor corporate subsidy. Employers get away with paying their employees less than subsistence wages to the extent that the government must step in and subsidize the workers' food expenses via SNAP and medical expenses via Medicaid. And let's not forget that the taxpayers that fund these programs are mostly from the middle class. As a member of that most heavily taxed class, I am sick and tired of picking up the slack for corporations who want the benefits of living in our country but don't want to carry their share of the burden.
4
Not a mention of the role cutting taxes for the rich played in this economic injustice? When they could keep more for themselves and pay lower taxes, they did. They didn't trickle down any of the tax cuts because they were rewarded for hoarding by getting richer. This isn't just about minimum wage workers, but workers in every field whose wages stagnated as their employers got richer.
8
To anyone who shops at Walmart -- especially in the grocery aisles -- it is clear that for the past several years, the corporation is reducing its worker force. Thus, by the year 2020, that potential $12 an hour minimum wage not only will buy less than today's $7.25 worth of anything, it will be paid to a much, much smaller group of miserable employees struggling to not be the next one to be dumped.
Who wins? Who always wins?
Who wins? Who always wins?
5
We can thank the reagan zealots for today's condition. The great risk shift of the 1980s was the beginning of policies that caaused sagnant incomes for the poor and middle classes and ever rising incomes and wealth at the top of the chain. Those policies need to be changed but the publicans seem to like things as they are and the democrats have sold out. Meanwhile the ignorant masses keep voting against their own interests apparently believing they will all be in the top 10%.
8
The article alludes to this, but doesn't state it. When the welfare system was reformed under Bill Clinton, people who were fully supported by the state, previously, went into the labor market.
In terms of classic supply and demand, the number of workers competing for low wage jobs went up.
In terms of classic supply and demand, the number of workers competing for low wage jobs went up.
4
The dynamic described here - depressing wages to maximize profits - is at the core of capitalism's logic. Another dynamic of capitalism - the plundering of the earth's resources regardless of the consequences for the environment - is leading us to a climate catastrophe.
One cannot expect capitalism to regulate itself: the manager who is not "playing the game" will lose his/her job. This is where the State, supposedly representing public interest, should step in with regulations, etc.
Why hasn't that happened? Because our (s)elected officials (including the Supreme Court) are beholden to the ruling elite that funds their campaign.
We are currently living under a neo-feudal regime with fascistic potential.
Democracy will begin only when campaign funding is reformed and regulated, when the tyranny of the two-party system is brought to an end, and when voting becomes mandatory.
One cannot expect capitalism to regulate itself: the manager who is not "playing the game" will lose his/her job. This is where the State, supposedly representing public interest, should step in with regulations, etc.
Why hasn't that happened? Because our (s)elected officials (including the Supreme Court) are beholden to the ruling elite that funds their campaign.
We are currently living under a neo-feudal regime with fascistic potential.
Democracy will begin only when campaign funding is reformed and regulated, when the tyranny of the two-party system is brought to an end, and when voting becomes mandatory.
11
Francis Greenburger, formerly CEO of AIG, is suing the government for saving the company. Big bank and rich banker whined and whined about Obama not being nice to them even as they collected welfare from taxpayers. My cousin, a former U.S. Attorney for New Jersey is fond of saying poor people steal like poor people can and rich people steal like rich people can. So it is will mooching off the taxpayers.
7
In the past forty years, technology has made the average worker much more productive. The benefits of this productivity have been to the top 1%. That is the ugly truth of capitalism--those who have power will continue to get power.
It seems like a simple formula: technology means that the employer doesn't need as many employees. So they cut their workforce and save money. Now, with people out of work, they can further cut wages, saving more money. All the while, the employers pat themselves and the back and tell themselves that they are "makers".
It seems like a simple formula: technology means that the employer doesn't need as many employees. So they cut their workforce and save money. Now, with people out of work, they can further cut wages, saving more money. All the while, the employers pat themselves and the back and tell themselves that they are "makers".
5
Dear NYTimes.
What's missing in this piece are the names of NY companies and individuals who perpetrate this oppression on the rest of us and the nation. A sustained push by you to keep after these companies would go along ways to changing their minds about compensation packages all round. We see the proof of this in Micky D's and Walmart's recent reluctant rise in hourly wages for their folks. Not enough yet to be sure but the constant and sustained naming of company's screwing us the public is what brought them around. To my way of thinking smaller companies local to you would change the fastest. Company names Sirs: even if they advertize with you.
What's missing in this piece are the names of NY companies and individuals who perpetrate this oppression on the rest of us and the nation. A sustained push by you to keep after these companies would go along ways to changing their minds about compensation packages all round. We see the proof of this in Micky D's and Walmart's recent reluctant rise in hourly wages for their folks. Not enough yet to be sure but the constant and sustained naming of company's screwing us the public is what brought them around. To my way of thinking smaller companies local to you would change the fastest. Company names Sirs: even if they advertize with you.
7
Corporations always try to get others to pay for costs incurred by the corporation---this is called "externalizing costs," and the Superfund sites are a prime example, where corporations left the costs of environmental clean-up to the taxpayer rather than paying the costs themselves. Corporations will do anything to increase profits---absolutely anything, whether or not it is moral, ethical, or even legal---and underpaying employees to the extent that taxpayers must provide support is simply another step in corporations refusing to pay costs. The minimum wage should be increased to $15, not $12, and it should happen soon.
6
The pendulum too much favors corporations/business without any concern for workers or countries. Right now my opinion is that Germany is a better model democracy than ours. Indeed we no longer have democracy, we have theocracy. We need more anti-trust enforcement and more unions. True, there were not perfect. But Union representation and socially cognizant legislation and courts are needed to return to a different course. Bascially, the problem is that we have no jobs. We make/manufacture too little of what we use.
To make a stark comparison, Switzerland does not send everyone to the same types of school. But all Swiss are highly educated by comparison. People care about the other person. All Swiss have health coverage and are valued. Same in Germany. You want to start a company. You will be able to find highly trained workers.
Boston. Ha. The Olympics. Forget about it. Boston does not have the infrastructure. People in cars, one driver, roads clogged. However, Boston has the same density and surrounding neigborhoods (Arlington, Bedford etc) to make workable a U-bahn and tram transportation system.
To make a stark comparison, Switzerland does not send everyone to the same types of school. But all Swiss are highly educated by comparison. People care about the other person. All Swiss have health coverage and are valued. Same in Germany. You want to start a company. You will be able to find highly trained workers.
Boston. Ha. The Olympics. Forget about it. Boston does not have the infrastructure. People in cars, one driver, roads clogged. However, Boston has the same density and surrounding neigborhoods (Arlington, Bedford etc) to make workable a U-bahn and tram transportation system.
2
Now, combine this commentary with those about Baltimore (remember a huge number of those making minimum wage are minority citizens) and try to blame the problems of the society on "culture" and not on intentional policy. Cannot be done and still be honest.
2
One way of looking at this same phenomenon: Kleptocrats earning $millions pa are on welfare, only the "welfare" checks are made payable to their underpaid workers. Instead of paying their employees enough to live on, the kleptos pocket it, leaving it to government to make up the difference and call it "welfare." Then the Republicans have the nerve to insist that public assistance be cut!
Wanna cut welfare boys? So do we! Here's how: $17/hour for 2,000 hours per year guaranteed to all adults, for work, to be financed by steep (and by "steep" I mean "confiscatory") taxes on all income, any source, over $500,000. If everyone were guaranteed a job paying at least $34k a year, we could slash welfare to virtually zero. The Protestant work ethic lives!
Wanna cut welfare boys? So do we! Here's how: $17/hour for 2,000 hours per year guaranteed to all adults, for work, to be financed by steep (and by "steep" I mean "confiscatory") taxes on all income, any source, over $500,000. If everyone were guaranteed a job paying at least $34k a year, we could slash welfare to virtually zero. The Protestant work ethic lives!
5
Income needs to be redistributed within companies to keep prices of essential goods and services from rising to cover higher labor costs at the bottom wrung. The lowest paid workers should get a set percentage of what the highest paid receive or a percentage of the median salary or some such formula. Government probably could not pass a law forcing that to happen but it could structure taxes to reward those who adopt such a pay scale or assess penalties on those who don't. Like the penalty in the ACA on individuals who don't buy health insurance.
1
You can't ask people to starve their families. You can't require them to work 60-80 hours/wk to support them - that's not a life, it's just slavery organized a different way. If the only alternative to starvation or working every waking moment is crime, you get what you pay for.
Bottom line, in America, you should be able to work any honest 40 hour/wk job and support your family in a dignified way. That is not possible earning today's minimum wage, not remotely possible.
Bottom line, in America, you should be able to work any honest 40 hour/wk job and support your family in a dignified way. That is not possible earning today's minimum wage, not remotely possible.
5
"Depressed wages are the result of outdated policies and lack of public awareness, that may, at long last, be changing for the better." Technically, yes.
Add: Greed. CEOS, execs and stockholders do not "need" the profit margin they now demand. A good portion of that could easily go back into the cost of doing business; i.e., labor.
Add: Greed. CEOS, execs and stockholders do not "need" the profit margin they now demand. A good portion of that could easily go back into the cost of doing business; i.e., labor.
10
The decline in wages pretty much coincides with the decline in unions. Only organized labor gives workers a voice that employers are compelled to listen to.
13
"Nearly three-fourths of the people helped by public aid for the poor are members of families headed by someone who works, according to a new study by the Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education at the University of California."
Why not take the next step, NYT? Why not point out that, when right-wing politicians and mouthpieces drone on about welfare and government aid creating a "culture of dependency" and that poor people need to learn the "dignity of work" or that 47% of the country are "takers," those bloviators are LYING?
They are not mistaken or misinformed, they are LYING. The are LIARS. And they are doing it, deliberately, to divide America's feudal serfs against themselves using the politics of race, resentment, and prejudice so that the oligarchy can continue to entrench.
75% of people on government aid work. That is a fact that should shame us all and, more than that, expose the Republicans for the LIARS that they are.
Why not p
Why not take the next step, NYT? Why not point out that, when right-wing politicians and mouthpieces drone on about welfare and government aid creating a "culture of dependency" and that poor people need to learn the "dignity of work" or that 47% of the country are "takers," those bloviators are LYING?
They are not mistaken or misinformed, they are LYING. The are LIARS. And they are doing it, deliberately, to divide America's feudal serfs against themselves using the politics of race, resentment, and prejudice so that the oligarchy can continue to entrench.
75% of people on government aid work. That is a fact that should shame us all and, more than that, expose the Republicans for the LIARS that they are.
Why not p
8
Five years to bring the wage up to where it should be TODAY? Not good enough!
6
Meanwhile pols and this paper pander to Latinos and their leaders who want to import yet more cheap labor from Latino countries here. You cannot have a healthy workforce and open borders. Pick the one that doesn't hurt most law abiding Americans.
1
The editorial board neglects to acknowledge the impact of another relevant aspect of today's economy, the record-breaking number of foreign-born workers who are competing with Americans for a limited number of jobs. A widely accepted and media-endorsed mythology today is that the presence of over forty million immigrants, three-quarters of whom are here legally, has little to no impact on the wages and employment prospects of native-born Americans. This myth is ready to fall, and it's about time. The NYT has happily ignored the law of supply and demand, as it consistently endorses not just the current high pace of immigration but even higher immigration flows under the proposed reform, yet the Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen last year acknowledged that there is still "slack" in the labor market. It's really no mystery that in this economy "productivity gains have flowed increasingly to executive compensation and shareholder returns, rather than wages." That's a dynamic that automatically follows an oversupply of workers. This piece gets one part right, employers pay low wages and offer minimal benefits "because they can." But the reason that they can is not simply because congress won't boost the minimum wage; to a much larger degree, the reason they can continue to pay low wages can be found by considering the historical enormity of recent immigration levels.
4
Every increase in minimum wage further diminishes the ability of 16-21 year olds to become employed. Entry level jobs for teens are an invaluable resource that teaches promptness, responsibility, and ambition.
Also, the fact that some employees require public assistance is easily offset by high corporate tax rates. Lower rates would bring capital back into the U.S.
Finally, Chinese workers earn about $400 a month so if wages here go too high the jobs go overseas.
Also, the fact that some employees require public assistance is easily offset by high corporate tax rates. Lower rates would bring capital back into the U.S.
Finally, Chinese workers earn about $400 a month so if wages here go too high the jobs go overseas.
3
If you really want to help low wage workers you would advocate for an immediate increase in the minimum wage to 8.50 maybe 9.00 as this has much broader support and would put pressure on republicans to act and probably get something done. Pushing for 12$ (even by 2020) will be dismissed outright by many people in lower cost of living areas though it would be good for higher cost of living areas (typically cities/democratic) like NYC. Also I love how the effects of immigration (increased labor supply) are never mentioned in articles like this.
1
Making our workers compete with very low wage foreign workers is part of the problem.
NAFTA lets me get fresh flowers and tomatoes all winter long--at historically low prices.
But our poorer workers don't buy those, and suffer low pay. Government suffers some costs, too.
TPP will make this worse.
NAFTA lets me get fresh flowers and tomatoes all winter long--at historically low prices.
But our poorer workers don't buy those, and suffer low pay. Government suffers some costs, too.
TPP will make this worse.
5
When you New York Times writers keep calling for yet more unskilled Latinos who don't speak English or have a high school to move here with five kids in tow, raise taxes and push down wages you hardly have the moral right to be dismayed at the results.
5
Both political parties have failed the American worker, as the influx of low skilled immigrants and H1B visa holders has decimated the working and middle classes.
The law of supply and demand applies to labor as it does to goods and an oversupply of labor cannot be fixed by importing more labor.
Even a columnist should understand this.
The law of supply and demand applies to labor as it does to goods and an oversupply of labor cannot be fixed by importing more labor.
Even a columnist should understand this.
3
Raising the minimum wage to a living wage will be a heavy lift for this Congress. There would be more support for the proposition that taxpayers should not subsidize low wages and inadequate benefits of certain corporations. A law could require such corporations to pay back all welfare/subsidies to their workers plus the cost of government to administer the programs. The data exist to administer such a pay back program.
7
The corruption and abuse of America's economic engines has become so well entrenched and oblivious to its sins that one wonders what it will take to effect any real change. Certainly, an honest airing of its growing imbalance would help.
4
Low wages are just one more symptom of a much greater problem of voracious greed in the billionaire class. As Bernie Sanders said (https://berniesanders.com/video/bernie-morningjoe-billionaires/ ), billionaires are buying our Congress (and, I would add, our Supreme Court) and we are losing our Democracy. The only thing that will stop this and turn the USA toward a healthy society is millions of citizens standing up, voting for progressive candidates who pledge to take on Wall Street and the Koch Bros., and saying very clearly that they won't stand for this anymore. It also would help if the FCC reinstated the Fairness Doctrine, requiring all news broadcasters to air both sides of any political argument. (Fox would fold in a month. MSN might have a problem, too, because conservatives are too afraid to be interviewed by Rachel Maddow.)
10
To add insult to injury, you have groups like Americans for [the Koch Bros] prosperity running around and decrying anyone in office who supports expanding Medicaid, as recently happened in Montana. So now they want their cake, ice cream, icing, chocolate drizzle AND eat it too. They want people working for peanuts and then have no visible way of getting healthcare, food, etc. The one thing people like the Koch Bros. would give away for free are good ole American bootstraps.
7
Childless people don't qualify for EITC. That probably contributes to the highest out of wedlock birthrate on this planet.
8
Right, and they don't qualify for most of the other forms of public assistance that columnists and commenters clamor are "subsidizing" corporations.
It's not corporations we are subsidizing, it's low-skill, low-education, too-young people who are choosing to produce offspring despite their own lack of job history, experience and other marketability factors. If McDonald's and Walmart weren't footing part of the bill, does anyone think these people would be choosing not to breed? No, they would be totally unemployed, producing children anyway and we all would be on the hook for 100 percent of their support instead of part of it.
There is no automatic right to produce offspring and we should be shaming and stigmatizing those who choose to bring children into disadvantaged, ill-prepared situations. Instead of expecting "Corporate America," investors and shareholders (including middle-class 401k holders) to sacrifice more to subsidize these horrible breeding choices.
It's not corporations we are subsidizing, it's low-skill, low-education, too-young people who are choosing to produce offspring despite their own lack of job history, experience and other marketability factors. If McDonald's and Walmart weren't footing part of the bill, does anyone think these people would be choosing not to breed? No, they would be totally unemployed, producing children anyway and we all would be on the hook for 100 percent of their support instead of part of it.
There is no automatic right to produce offspring and we should be shaming and stigmatizing those who choose to bring children into disadvantaged, ill-prepared situations. Instead of expecting "Corporate America," investors and shareholders (including middle-class 401k holders) to sacrifice more to subsidize these horrible breeding choices.
Too bad there's not a big Reset button somewhere on the back of America.
42
I know why the average American does nothing about this; indeed, keeps voting in politicians who make it worse.
Very few of us know--or ever even encounter--a millionaire or billionaire. They're an abstraction. Something to aspire to becoming, perhaps. Not a flesh-and-blood person who spends his or her days sweating over the investment of inherited wealth, regaling his/her family and friends with the trappings of inherited and unearned power, and rejoicing in clever new tax dodges.
But we do see our neighbors, like the unmarried and unemployed woman down the road who has three--count them, three!--children and just bought a birthday cake with My Tax Dollars. Or the guy who got sick, lost his job, and went bankrupt over medical bills... Hey, I just saw his shopping cart. He was busying a steak with My Tax Dollars! Or the fat lady we don't even know, but since all fat people are surely welfare moochers, let's hate her for carrying the "designer" purse she bought at Goodwill out of her Wal-Mart paycheck.
The ultra-wealthy are sacrosanct Job Creators (pr will be, if they ever get around to it). Being angry at them would turn us into--eek--socialists!
Our neighbors are ready targets for our rage. The right-wing propaganda machine takes full advantage of that.
Very few of us know--or ever even encounter--a millionaire or billionaire. They're an abstraction. Something to aspire to becoming, perhaps. Not a flesh-and-blood person who spends his or her days sweating over the investment of inherited wealth, regaling his/her family and friends with the trappings of inherited and unearned power, and rejoicing in clever new tax dodges.
But we do see our neighbors, like the unmarried and unemployed woman down the road who has three--count them, three!--children and just bought a birthday cake with My Tax Dollars. Or the guy who got sick, lost his job, and went bankrupt over medical bills... Hey, I just saw his shopping cart. He was busying a steak with My Tax Dollars! Or the fat lady we don't even know, but since all fat people are surely welfare moochers, let's hate her for carrying the "designer" purse she bought at Goodwill out of her Wal-Mart paycheck.
The ultra-wealthy are sacrosanct Job Creators (pr will be, if they ever get around to it). Being angry at them would turn us into--eek--socialists!
Our neighbors are ready targets for our rage. The right-wing propaganda machine takes full advantage of that.
28
This editorial is a serious over-simplification--apparently written by people who don't understand business or economics.
Almost all economics text books will tell you that worker's subsidies and tax credits are a more effecient solution than raising the minimum wage. Here's why: some workers only can produce a certain amount of value per hour, and a minimum wage will exclude them from the economy.
If you own a gas station, you're not going to hire an extra clerk for $10 an hour, if your own logic, experince, etc tell you that a having second clerk will only increase your hourly gross profit by less than $10! Doesn't matter if you are the richest guy in the world.
If you did hire that clerk and paid him $9, are you really benefitting from corporate welfare? Hardly. Quite the opposite.
Almost all economics text books will tell you that worker's subsidies and tax credits are a more effecient solution than raising the minimum wage. Here's why: some workers only can produce a certain amount of value per hour, and a minimum wage will exclude them from the economy.
If you own a gas station, you're not going to hire an extra clerk for $10 an hour, if your own logic, experince, etc tell you that a having second clerk will only increase your hourly gross profit by less than $10! Doesn't matter if you are the richest guy in the world.
If you did hire that clerk and paid him $9, are you really benefitting from corporate welfare? Hardly. Quite the opposite.
3
Actually data indicates that an increased minimum wage increases job opportunities in a community.
35
THIS is the the message that the Democrats need to be hammering home. THIS is the message that the nytimes needs to be stressing. The sound bite:
"Big corporate workers are being paid for by US tax payer dollars." And then say it over and over again. But you don't. You focus on incendiary social issues when so much is fixed by good economics and a firm, consistent push.
"Big corporate workers are being paid for by US tax payer dollars." And then say it over and over again. But you don't. You focus on incendiary social issues when so much is fixed by good economics and a firm, consistent push.
17
Let's be clear, we are the ones who pick up the tab for low wages. Instead of our taxes going to pay for infrastructure maintenance and improvement, instead of funding for our schools. Instead of adequate funding for our veterans we give tax breaks to those who don't need them. Instead of establishing a robust affordable health care access system we are told we can't afford to invest in alternate energies because the corporations haven't figured out a means of owning the sun and wind to sell it back to us. It is not big government that has taken our country away from us. The GOP motto of take back our country needs to see who really owns it lock, stock and barrel. And quit calling the challenge to raise wages a minimum wage. It needs to be a LIVING wage. Any person who goes toward on a daily basis and does the work required of them should take home a paycheck that allows a dignified if not luxurious lifestlye.
18
Making big money in helping the poor is so fundamentally Christian. “There will always be poor amongst you... ”
The minimum wage needs to be linked to the inflation rate, as Social Security is, so that it does not fall behind, again and again.
11
This is one side of the story. The other is the obscene opulence of the chiefs!
5
The only time my spouse and I made ends meet on our own is when he was working at $10/ hour for 70 hours a week at one of the top architecture firms in the world, I was earning $15/hour for 40 hours a week and one of the most famous universities in the world, and we had no children and lived in a small apartment. We graduated with honors from a top U.S. college. If we can do that well in school and be hired by such prestigious and wealthy employers, and only barely scrape by, how on Earth is anyone making do???
159
$67K in the south, for two young people living in a small apartment, with the health care and other benefits you no doubt were getting from that famous U as a full-time worker, is far more than "making ends meet."
If your standard of living sank from that to "barely scraping by" then you likely made some life choices that a) require trade-offs & sacrifice and b) have you now living above your means. It was your choice.
If your standard of living sank from that to "barely scraping by" then you likely made some life choices that a) require trade-offs & sacrifice and b) have you now living above your means. It was your choice.
2
Has anyone noticed the increasing trend towards "self-service" in this country? From restaurants where you get your own drink to voice response units that make you do all the work (or send you to the company's website for more of the same.)
So go ahead and increase the minimum wage to whatever level necessary such that employees won't qualify for government aid. Pretty soon your waiter will be replaced with a tablet and the kitchen will deliver your food directly to you (or maybe you can pick it up yourself.) Then those workers being subsidized by the government will be unemployed and fully supported by the government (i.e. taxpayer.)
Just as very few people buy a car to support auto workers, very few companies are in business to hire people. The goal of a business is to make money, and employees are an expense. Make hiring more expensive and you will get less of it.
So go ahead and increase the minimum wage to whatever level necessary such that employees won't qualify for government aid. Pretty soon your waiter will be replaced with a tablet and the kitchen will deliver your food directly to you (or maybe you can pick it up yourself.) Then those workers being subsidized by the government will be unemployed and fully supported by the government (i.e. taxpayer.)
Just as very few people buy a car to support auto workers, very few companies are in business to hire people. The goal of a business is to make money, and employees are an expense. Make hiring more expensive and you will get less of it.
5
The solution is in front of us, yes it will be a shock to the system, but waiting until 2020 to enforce $12./hr is still too little and too far out. Elizabeth Warren pegged that minimum wage should be closer to $22/hr. It's time to get real and get it done, pull off the bandaid and quit supporting the corporate welfare state.
134
There we have it: the corporations are the biggest moochers!
16
It is Earnings Season for America's public corporations.
On the whole they are reporting near record profits, near record cash on hand, near record Executive compensation, near record stock prices....
AND RECORD LOW Wage to Revenue ratios...
They are paying less in wages as percentage of what they make, than ever before.
They are paying less at every level until the executive level.
Economies do better when lots of people have lots of money to purchase goods and services.
Economies do less well when lots of money accumulates in a few places.
The minimum wage is about the first.
GOP legislation is all about maximizing the accumulation of money by corporations and the REALLY Rich.
On the whole they are reporting near record profits, near record cash on hand, near record Executive compensation, near record stock prices....
AND RECORD LOW Wage to Revenue ratios...
They are paying less in wages as percentage of what they make, than ever before.
They are paying less at every level until the executive level.
Economies do better when lots of people have lots of money to purchase goods and services.
Economies do less well when lots of money accumulates in a few places.
The minimum wage is about the first.
GOP legislation is all about maximizing the accumulation of money by corporations and the REALLY Rich.
14
Focusing on the minimum wage plays into the hands of the Republican propagandists. They can obfuscate the issue by playing to the racial fears of white voters who are too stupid to realize that wages across the board for all working class and middle class are too low. The point that there are not enough skilled workers is another point used to blow away any argument for higher wages. I know of B.S.M.E.'s whose wages are constantly being pressed lower by M.B.A. financial engineers. If education matters, then it should be compensated far more than it is being done now. If Republicans do not believe in the welfare state, then they ought to support better wages so that reliance upon government benefits does not grow. By hammering upon increasing wages across the board and demanding that American capitalists pay more, liberals and Democrats can have an issue that begins to strike a chord in white America. You do not need a union. You need a political party that uses public pressure to get results.
9
So, if you cut the dole for able workers, then would not Corp's have to pay more to get the workers they need?
1
This is not a new condition. A full time job in these industries hasn't existed for 40 years. It's all about low wages and no benefits for part time workers, long before the ACA came into existence.
Marco Rubio says that employers can't be expected to increase wages because they can't afford it and it will cost jobs. His solution is to increase the earned income credit for low income workers. That's fine on it's face, but is another form of corporate welfare. I didn't see a method to fund his solution.
A company with multiple part time workers can afford full time employees. Oops, benefits would have to go with said full time job.
Marco Rubio says that employers can't be expected to increase wages because they can't afford it and it will cost jobs. His solution is to increase the earned income credit for low income workers. That's fine on it's face, but is another form of corporate welfare. I didn't see a method to fund his solution.
A company with multiple part time workers can afford full time employees. Oops, benefits would have to go with said full time job.
8
This is the sort of thing that happens when a major political party considers that government is some sort of simpleminded bottom-line business rather than an instrument with some inherent humanity.
11
My Facebook feed is constantly flowing with rabid comments about seeing poor folks living it up at the grocery store and paying with food stamps. Where is the anger over subsidizing Walmart, as they push off their workers on the taxpayer?
22
The only people willing to work for the minimum wage are illegal aliens, but when they do so, they are buying amnesty, and on average cost the tax payers $125,000 for of their children we put through school, paid for by the taxpayers not the people that hire them. The taxpayers are screwed twice, first by the illegal aliens driving down everyone’s wages, and then by being forced to educate the children of the people who drove down their wages and want a share of their Social Security and Medicare, and want the tax payer to take care of of their elderly parents after “family reunification”. When Obama said "Let's fulfill the dreams of these young poor people," he did not raise one cent to pay for it, and will be rewarded by corporate America (via bribes called speaker’s fees) after he retires, a lesson for the next president to take note of, “Dn’t put us in jail, or tax us ,and we will reward you with $100 million when you retires, as we rewarded every other president since Eisenhower.” Obama did not raise the the wages of working American families one cent, there was no $125,000 bonus per child for people who are not breaking US laws, just for those who do. And get ready to share your social security and medicare with those who drove down wages and tax collection need to pay for social services.
5
There is a grain of truth in your comment but focusing on that one grain is blinding you to the big picture reality.
Raising the minimum wage just passes along the cost to the middle class. Why not double the minimum wage and pay for it with a surtax on the wealthy?
45
It's long overdue - a revolution is necessary, by the people, for the people, and of the people, to take down the powers that be and replace them with powers for, by and of the people.
10
Germany pays much higher manufacturing wages. Its exports are strong and its economy is vigorous. Yes, its workers are good. But maybe its managers are smarter, too.
26
In Germany labor has a seat at the table and very strong unions.
In addition the overtime exemption regulations, (Sec 13(a)(1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act) covering the Executive, Administrative, Outside Salesman and Computer Occupations need to be updated, clarified and vigorously enforced.
There also needs to be a crack down on employers who consider employees to be "independent contractors" and those working as unpaid "internships."
Rampant violations of the FLSA exist in due to these employment practices.
There also needs to be a crack down on employers who consider employees to be "independent contractors" and those working as unpaid "internships."
Rampant violations of the FLSA exist in due to these employment practices.
36
Some of us have been saying this for a couple of decades..
the cure is to charge the corporations twice what it would cost them to pay higher wages.
the cure is to charge the corporations twice what it would cost them to pay higher wages.
41
As pleased as I am that you're writing this now, I'd like to know where you, and scores of other competent journalists, have been for the past 30 years. Taxpayers have long subsidized corporations for their substandard pay and health care. I guess conditions had to get this bad for the mainstream media to acknowledge them.
66
We seem to be in a death spiral, we meaning the middle class and the poor. As we cut taxes for the rich we allow the .01% to destroy unions and our wages. That leaves the shrinking middle class to pick up the tab for programs to help the poor survive and to pay for needless wars. We need Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and their kind to take over the leadership of this country.
33
What we need is a revolution. And if what's been going on in Baltimore is any indication, it's just around the corner...
A low wage may be enough to support a single person but not a family of four. People should delay having children until they earn enough to support them.
6
Ah, and you think all of our births were carefully planned by pragmatic parents?
And, if there is no hope of ever getting ahead, then people should just never have children? Perhaps you'd like to sterilize the poor as well? Only the rich should have children because they are smarter than the rest of us? Please, develop your plan for us.
And, if there is no hope of ever getting ahead, then people should just never have children? Perhaps you'd like to sterilize the poor as well? Only the rich should have children because they are smarter than the rest of us? Please, develop your plan for us.
If you feel that way then start supporting affordable health care and contraception as well as sex education in schools.
How many centuries do they have to wait?
"In a healthy economy, wages and productivity would rise in tandem, but in recent decades, productivity gains have flowed increasingly to executive compensation and shareholder returns"
-----------------------------------
Americans have become chickens in an efficient capitalist factory.
Mr. Tyson and Mr. Perdue get eggs and meat. Americans get reconstituted feathers, feet, and beaks as chicken feed.
-----------------------------------
Americans have become chickens in an efficient capitalist factory.
Mr. Tyson and Mr. Perdue get eggs and meat. Americans get reconstituted feathers, feet, and beaks as chicken feed.
12
Baltimore has lost so many jobs. The jobs that paid $25 - $35/hr and could support a family.
Bethlehem Steel, Sparrows Pt., the shipyards, GM, London Fog, American Can, the breweries, Martin Marietta, McCormick's and on and on. The companies that are still here employ a fraction of the workforce they used to.
Nothing has taken their place. Certainly not any jobs where 40 hours earns enough to raise a family, rent or own a home. Jobs today are fast food or store clerk or another service related job where a salary of $12/hr is rare and $8/hr is far more common. When a new fast food opens, hundreds of people show up for a handful of jobs. A Walmart job is a high paying job, if you're lucky enough to have one. People want to work, but where can they?
Bethlehem Steel, Sparrows Pt., the shipyards, GM, London Fog, American Can, the breweries, Martin Marietta, McCormick's and on and on. The companies that are still here employ a fraction of the workforce they used to.
Nothing has taken their place. Certainly not any jobs where 40 hours earns enough to raise a family, rent or own a home. Jobs today are fast food or store clerk or another service related job where a salary of $12/hr is rare and $8/hr is far more common. When a new fast food opens, hundreds of people show up for a handful of jobs. A Walmart job is a high paying job, if you're lucky enough to have one. People want to work, but where can they?
150
I think a big part of the problem is the increasingly unrestricted mobility of capital, which is no longer tied in any way to a particular country and is unencumbered by sentiments like loyalty or patriotism. This is, of course, enabled by corporate "free trade," which is supported by the New York Times.
13
This needs to be said, again and again. This needs to be an issue in the upcoming campaign. Candidates need to call for other states to take up the "California challenge." That information from California needs to be placarded and up front at the debates. I am SICK OF subsidizing the operating costs of corporate America. Yes, I'll pay more when I can. I do pay more - at Costco - for the same box of cereal that Walmart carries. If working people have additional money, they can afford a little better than the dollar store bottom quality.
And, rich people, please be aware - you are the ONLY ones with fleeces left. Richer people are coming for you, now.
And, rich people, please be aware - you are the ONLY ones with fleeces left. Richer people are coming for you, now.
16
Actually, you pay much less at Costco for your cereal than you do at Walmart. Walmart's clothes may be cheaper than anything outside a Dollar Store (and be exhibit A for why Americans are the most poorly dressed people in the industrialized world) but their groceries are not especially cheap. Their produce is not only expensive, but it is terrible quality. The only time I go into one is when we are traveling in places where that is our only option and it's always a shock to see the terrible quality of their produce departments.
Costco is the perfect example of a company that can do well without corporate welfare as the base of its business model. Every time I go to my local Costco I see the same workers who have been there for years. Why? Because they pay a living wage. And I see happy customers who can buy good quality things at a low price.
Costco is the perfect example of a company that can do well without corporate welfare as the base of its business model. Every time I go to my local Costco I see the same workers who have been there for years. Why? Because they pay a living wage. And I see happy customers who can buy good quality things at a low price.
1
I'm glad to see this in the opinion section, but it should be front and center until the day of the election. Why do we allow corporations to get away with this welfare?
24
It is ridiculous to wait until 2020 to reach $12 minimum wage, when workers should make at least that today.
The greedy Republicans won't even vote for that, so the Democrats should accelerate the wage hike and work to get that passed.
The greedy Republicans won't even vote for that, so the Democrats should accelerate the wage hike and work to get that passed.
29
based on what grey, adjusting for inflation minimum wage is on par with the average it has been over time based on the data. why should you or government set the wage a business offers. If the employee doesnt like the wage they can seek to work elsewhere.
How about $15 now, and $20 by 2020? Every study on the impacts of the minimum wage struggle to show any impact at all because we are just nibbling at the edges of the problem. Pay a higher minimum than I had as a kid when things were good and things will be better. Of course, the rich, who really rule this country, will never allow that to happen.
1
It's all a giant con job. Instead of the government creating a new WPA and putting people to work at good wages to repair and replace our aging roads. bridges and building new schools to replace century old buildings, we give direct and indirect subsidies to businesses who are dependent on the government to prop up their pay scales.
Any business that "can't afford" to pay a living wage and benefits is being propped up by the taxpayers. The working poor on medicaid and food stamps show what sham our current system is.
and don't tell me they are poor by choice,working part time. Many are working part time at two or three jobs. We just need to get over our inefficient habit of subsidizing low paying jobs so business can make a "profit"
Any business that "can't afford" to pay a living wage and benefits is being propped up by the taxpayers. The working poor on medicaid and food stamps show what sham our current system is.
and don't tell me they are poor by choice,working part time. Many are working part time at two or three jobs. We just need to get over our inefficient habit of subsidizing low paying jobs so business can make a "profit"
34
This editorial does not prove its position and its position against subsidizing employers contradicts its position in similar cases.
Firstly, yes, some employers do not pay a living wage. And yes, in some cases the state has to step in a support people. But that is not necessarily mean the state is subsidizing employers. It is not clear that if the state did not help people, that employers would be forced to pay more.
Second, national health care is a form of "subsidy" in the same way this editorial calls other supports a subsidy. But the NYT is not against national health care. And social services to illegal immigrants is absolutely a subsidy to employers. Those social services are part of the calculation to come to this country. But the NYT is not against illegal immigration.
Absolutely we need to help people who can't find a job that pays a living wage, but this editorial does not make a case for it. It is a moral, economic, and social issue.
Firstly, yes, some employers do not pay a living wage. And yes, in some cases the state has to step in a support people. But that is not necessarily mean the state is subsidizing employers. It is not clear that if the state did not help people, that employers would be forced to pay more.
Second, national health care is a form of "subsidy" in the same way this editorial calls other supports a subsidy. But the NYT is not against national health care. And social services to illegal immigrants is absolutely a subsidy to employers. Those social services are part of the calculation to come to this country. But the NYT is not against illegal immigration.
Absolutely we need to help people who can't find a job that pays a living wage, but this editorial does not make a case for it. It is a moral, economic, and social issue.
3
Baffled--- Illegal immigrants cannot and do not receive social services or subsidies. They are specifically excluded from Obamacare. All public assistance programs of the Federal Government require a valid social security card/number. Illegal immigrants are not issued social security cards or numbers. So the dogma spewed by the conservatives about the illegal immigrants coming to this country and causing an explosion in our social services costs, is pure fiction. It is unconscionable that companies like Walmart post record profits, while paying many of their employees well below the poverty level. The business lobby will fight it tooth and nail, but companies acting in such a manner should have a special tax applied that makes the taxpayer whole for the costs that are being passed on to them. It is likely that the Walmart's of the country would find it more palatable to pay the living wage, than be taxed.
Paying less than a living wage is economic oppression. We keep couching this argument in terms of "income inequality" as if the goal were "income equality" -- something that is neither possible nor desirable.
Still, when someone works and still can't begin to adequately feed, clothe, or house themselves, much less pay for health insurance, a car, or college for their kids, whilst corporations are wallowing in profits and rich people pay a lower rate in taxes than workaday folks -- that is economic oppression.
Still, when someone works and still can't begin to adequately feed, clothe, or house themselves, much less pay for health insurance, a car, or college for their kids, whilst corporations are wallowing in profits and rich people pay a lower rate in taxes than workaday folks -- that is economic oppression.
311
What is a living wage? What expenses should it cover, for how many people and at what level of luxury? Should a cashier be able to support an entire household (dwelling, transportation, food, utilities, telecom and electronic gadgets, health care, clothing and toiletries, recreation, education, retirement savings) on her wages? Would she be expected to live with family members or roommates, or would a living wage cover all of the above for a solo dweller if she didn't feel like having roommates? Should she be able to support a partner and/or children on the wage?
Food: beans & rice or filet and asparagus? Clothing: Thrift store $5 jeans or brand-new Levis? Phone? Cable TV? New car? Used car? Bus pass? Movie night once a year or once a month or never? Keurig coffeemaker or dollar-store instant? Vacations?
I have no problem with employers being urged (through the tax code if necessary) to boost wages, but these proponents who expect that every low-skill, inexperienced worker be paid "a living wage" really need to hone their definition of what exactly that is. Some of us have worked for decades to attain the middle-class, middle-age comforts and lifestyle that others want in their 20s as a car-wash attendant. And there is no natural right to produce kids you can't afford to support, even if you want them. Food is a need, offspring are not.
Food: beans & rice or filet and asparagus? Clothing: Thrift store $5 jeans or brand-new Levis? Phone? Cable TV? New car? Used car? Bus pass? Movie night once a year or once a month or never? Keurig coffeemaker or dollar-store instant? Vacations?
I have no problem with employers being urged (through the tax code if necessary) to boost wages, but these proponents who expect that every low-skill, inexperienced worker be paid "a living wage" really need to hone their definition of what exactly that is. Some of us have worked for decades to attain the middle-class, middle-age comforts and lifestyle that others want in their 20s as a car-wash attendant. And there is no natural right to produce kids you can't afford to support, even if you want them. Food is a need, offspring are not.
1
Isn't one supposed to look at what skills they have and the market that is available and spend and making choices like having a family, car, home, etc based on it? Minimum wage is entry level, its the responsibilty of the individual to enhance their skills such that they can then command a higher wage or move to a position where those skills will be compensated.
Kudos for your wording. I want everyone to hear it:
"Paying less than a living wage is ECONOMIC OPPRESSION"
"Paying less than a living wage is ECONOMIC OPPRESSION"
1
From the Great Depression to 1968, a period of overwhelming Democratic control of state and federal government, enormous amounts of income and wealth were transferred from rich Republican voters to poor Democratic ones. From 1980 to today, with largely Republican control of state and federal government, the exact opposite has happened. That is exactly what we should expect, since political parties exist to benefit their supporters.
But while Republicans constantly bellow about the "threat" of poor voters "taking" from the well-off - usually invoking made-up Thomas Jefferson quotes in the process - most Democrats can barely force themselves to tiptoe around the issue that maybe having all of the income growth flow to a thousandth of the population isn't good for society. Starting with Jimmy Carter and continuing with Bill Clinton and even Barack Obama today, Democrats also seem to have internalized an awful lot of Republican rhetoric about "job creators" and the deserving versus undeserving poor, just for starters.
Slowly raising the minimum wage over half a decade and halfheartedly shaming companies that abuse the social safety net, well, it's better than nothing. But until Democrats match the political Right in stridency and scope and resourcefulness, what Krugman called the Age of Diminished Expectations will continue for the overwhelming majority of us who were not to the manor born.
But while Republicans constantly bellow about the "threat" of poor voters "taking" from the well-off - usually invoking made-up Thomas Jefferson quotes in the process - most Democrats can barely force themselves to tiptoe around the issue that maybe having all of the income growth flow to a thousandth of the population isn't good for society. Starting with Jimmy Carter and continuing with Bill Clinton and even Barack Obama today, Democrats also seem to have internalized an awful lot of Republican rhetoric about "job creators" and the deserving versus undeserving poor, just for starters.
Slowly raising the minimum wage over half a decade and halfheartedly shaming companies that abuse the social safety net, well, it's better than nothing. But until Democrats match the political Right in stridency and scope and resourcefulness, what Krugman called the Age of Diminished Expectations will continue for the overwhelming majority of us who were not to the manor born.
54
Of all of the people who are working for minimum wage, only 8% are attempting to support a household. The rest are high school students working for gas money and second incomes in the household. Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 causes the destruction of 500,000 jobs. Which means that the number of entry level jobs disappear, so the student wanting to save for college doesn't have a job, and the woman attempting to reenter the workforce on a part time basis when her kids start school have no jobs.
Vote for Bernie Sanders. That is one politician who is deeply committed to righting our floundering ship of state. His focus is on the average citizen. You want a moral candidate? He is your man.
2
We have to do away with corporate welfare and greed! Yet far too many representatives keep pushing the same tired mantra of blaming the poor and unions, while espousing the false view that American corporations pay the highest taxes here then anywhere else on the planet. They continue to support corporate interest through low taxes and sending jobs overseas rather than the interest of most Americans. "Our" representatives need to step down if they're not interested in representing the interest of the American voters. Get the dollars out of campaigning that is destroying this country.
7
This country became great and in the community of industrialized countries became exceptional because its markets, including the labor market, was allowed to operate freely within minimal constraints. Now come the government offering socialism as a remedy for losers who find themselves on the lower levels of earning. Why are they losers, you might ask? Because in this country education is free so if you lack it and must work at a minimum wage job, in other words, if you are a loser, it's your own fault. Socialism solves no problems and there does not exist a single successful model of it in the long history of the world. On the other hand, free markets or those nominally free have given us the greatest prosperity and success in the history of mankind.
2
very nice of you jack, to call your fellow americans "losers."
Jack, you really need to travel if you think that socialism doesn't work. Visit Europe, especially the north, where sleek clean trains run fast and on time, people are happy, and the streets are not filled with people sleeping on them.
Many governments have programs, health and retirement related in particular, which are informed by socialism. Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Scandinavian countries, Guam(?)..... Significant degrees of success should be ascribed to them. Are Americans , on average, richer and happier than the Danes?
Remind me again who are the "moochers"?
Seems to me it's not the ones earning too little to live on, it's the ones employing personal accountants just to dodge as much tax payments as possible while simultaneously exploiting their employees with poverty wages.
Seems to me it's not the ones earning too little to live on, it's the ones employing personal accountants just to dodge as much tax payments as possible while simultaneously exploiting their employees with poverty wages.
16
Most of the businesses that pay low wages offer inexpensive products to lower income customers. The govt shouldn't get involved in the employer/employee relationship. Our society supports the working poor with the earned income credit. This separates teenagers needs from working parents.
Isn't it strange that Apple sells the most expensive phones and isn't criticized for manufacturing them at very low wages overseas. These are the jobs that could be paying much higher wages than serving hamburgers or stocking store shelves.
Isn't it strange that Apple sells the most expensive phones and isn't criticized for manufacturing them at very low wages overseas. These are the jobs that could be paying much higher wages than serving hamburgers or stocking store shelves.
4
Your suggestion smacks of - you know - socialism. Socialism is where a society works for the benefit of the people. Capitalism, like communism, is man oppressing man.
Do we call strange mix of corporate collectivism fascism or communism? Who are the hidden architects of this postmodern economic system? Are the benefactors the stockholders in these companies? Will the truth of it mean anyone with a retirement or investment portfolio is not only complicit in the destruction of the American Middle Class, but also, the primary driver of it? I am sure there is a way, but as a society and as a culture, how do we opt out of this race to the bottom?
7
Under communism, the government owns all of the capital and "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Under fascism, private industry owns the capital but the government controls it through regulation. Once the cronies take over a capitalist system, it moves ever closer and closer to fascism. As the government imposes ever increasing control over business, and decides which owners win and which owners lose, economic efficiency and effectiveness decline and everyone is worse off.
The current federal and state policies of granting preferences to green energy and the war against fossil fuels raise energy costs for consumers and shovel those dollars into the pockets of Buffett, Gore, the Clintons, the "investors" in Solyndra as well other members of the 1%.
The current federal and state policies of granting preferences to green energy and the war against fossil fuels raise energy costs for consumers and shovel those dollars into the pockets of Buffett, Gore, the Clintons, the "investors" in Solyndra as well other members of the 1%.
Another hidden cost of unlivable low wages is the booming numbers of people getting Social Security Disability Insurance checks rather than showing up on unemployment and welfare roles. Between 1996 and 2013, while US population grew 19.6%, the ranks of SSDI recipients grew 49%:
http://cagw.org/media/wastewatcher/disability-new-welfare
States have a perverse incentive to shift these people to SSDI, which is 100% federally funded, to avoid having to pay it out of State funds (in part, usually). And we know which states benefit the most from this shift: red ones.
http://cagw.org/media/wastewatcher/disability-new-welfare
States have a perverse incentive to shift these people to SSDI, which is 100% federally funded, to avoid having to pay it out of State funds (in part, usually). And we know which states benefit the most from this shift: red ones.
13
For people working in jobs known to cause repetitive stress injuries, disability is the predictable end result. It is another hidden cost to society for milking employees to death.
Employers who complain that an increase in minimum wage, healthcare and other requirements are unfair burdens ignore the fact that they have a morally corrupt business model. If the only way they can be profitable is by paying less than subsistence compensation, they shouldn't be in business. They are only marginally better than slave owners.
51
It is called capitalism and capitalism is all about externalizing every cost possible. The people that populate our system aren't the problem, they are simply acting as they are incentivized to act, it is the capitalist system that contains such incentives that is the problem.
People who do not provide jobs for the poorest among us, but assert that others should go out of business if they cannot afford to pay more are the epitome of the morally bankrupt.
1
Employers can do this because there are too many fungible people for the jobs that need doing. Someone is always willing to work for less. And the Republicans have convinced dumb Americans that unions are bad, so that workers have vastly reduced bargaining power. The tax structure favors the wealthy. Corporations are in business to max profits, not provide jobs, so they don't. It's a vicious cycle and the end result is a third world America with few at the top and a whole lot of poor people. You can't have an economy with no middle class, because the few will not support the many. The end game won't be pretty.
26
As long as the President continues to invite people to immigrate illegally to the US, there will always be an excess of workers willing to work for low wages. Granting them wage increases will continue to depress wages for low skill and entry level workers.
2
Well stated editorial, but much too timid. "$12 an hour by 2020?" That wage is not enough to live on in any large city by today's standards. Who knows what inflation might do to the value of the dollar by 2020. Plus, even with that low target, the inevitable Congressional compromise would result in an even lower hourly figure by the time any bill was passed. And why wait five years for such a critical issue? Nice words, New York Times, but not nearly bold enough for what's needed in these times.
27
Why should there be a federal minimum wage? As you point out, $12/hour is insufficient to live in San Francisco or Nassau County, but it is sufficient to support a family in many non metro areas. A national minimum wage overpays in some areas and underpays in others.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
You've got it right and American (especially Fox News) has it wrong.
The important thing to remember is the working poor preform essential jobs in our society like harvesting our food and stocking the shelves in our grocery stores. We would all die if the working poor stop working.
We have always had slavery in this country. We started with actual slavery, then we had sharecropper slavery and now we have wage slavery. What is obscene is some of the wealthiest companies in America operate on wage slavery and rely upon the government to feed (food stamps) and provide health care to their employees (Medicaid).
The worst thing is the companies that do not pay a living wage or provide benefits to their employees are putting out-of-businesses companies that do pay a living wage and benefits.
If we were sane, the government would bill every business in America for public assistance cost for its employees.
You've got it right and American (especially Fox News) has it wrong.
The important thing to remember is the working poor preform essential jobs in our society like harvesting our food and stocking the shelves in our grocery stores. We would all die if the working poor stop working.
We have always had slavery in this country. We started with actual slavery, then we had sharecropper slavery and now we have wage slavery. What is obscene is some of the wealthiest companies in America operate on wage slavery and rely upon the government to feed (food stamps) and provide health care to their employees (Medicaid).
The worst thing is the companies that do not pay a living wage or provide benefits to their employees are putting out-of-businesses companies that do pay a living wage and benefits.
If we were sane, the government would bill every business in America for public assistance cost for its employees.
53
If the government bills every business for public assistance costs for its employees, the employers will seek to not employ those who are least skilled and most in need of a job. So middle class high school students will be hired in preference to single mothers who have been abandoned by their husbands. Be careful what you wish for.
It is a silly proposition that a person's need determines the value of the services they provide.
It is a silly proposition that a person's need determines the value of the services they provide.
1
In the alternate universe of the New York Times editorial page, there is no connection between poverty and the flood of low-skilled illegal aliens flooding our nation. The law of supply and demand has not been repealed by some kind of presidential fiat. The increase in the supply of unskilled labor and decreased its' cost. This has a large cost on the living standards and wages of the lower earners among us. Yet, this same editorial page supports illegal immigration and the illegal Obama amnesty.
9
Ron, agree in the macro, but Obama can't be blamed for this. St Ronnie started it with the first amnesty bill and it has continued unabated since. If you look at the stats, the numbers of illegals, and the corollary- the number of illegals caught in progress of entry, plus deportations-- the metrics actually look better under Obama, if like you and me, the goal is fewer of them coming in. Obama is trying to do something about those already here.
Your point is irrelevant to the article sir. Read the article again and you will see what I mean. We are talking here about the wal-marts and the burger kings of the world here, not the guy who mows your lawn for cash. Immigration is a totally different issue.
I live in a state that doesn't have a significant population of immigrants from South America etc. and low wages are still a problem.
You can keep repeating this drivel but it's ridiculous to blame immigration for this problem.
You can keep repeating this drivel but it's ridiculous to blame immigration for this problem.
Let's not overlook the huge percentage of low-wage workers that are paid in cash. Maids, gardeners, house painters, day laborers, etc. whose income is under the table with no withholdings for social security, state and federal income taxes and zero benefits like health care. Small businesses and individuals, not huge corporations, use this type of labor/serfdom-- and we all pay for the consequences and pick up part of the tab in the long run.
18
And it is a "benefit" to the worker: they have no or very low income to report and thus qualify for all sorts of govt. funds, though they may in fact be earning a living wage, or > than one.
All well and good but 2020 is 5 years away and with inflation which we see in the price of housing and goods on the increase, the $12.00 per hour will not be much better than the untenable $7.25 of today. There has to be a complete overhaul of the tax system for the outrageous financial packages paid to high level CEO's and an immediate increase of the minimum wage to at least $10.00 an hour and $12.00 an hour by next year.
28
By the time it takes effect, it will be too little. This is just more of the ongoing straight-arm shove the bottom 50% gets from the top 1%. Let's START with $15-20, and go from there. Help all people be as self sufficient as possible. Wouldn't that make everyone happy? The filthy rich will still be filthy rich.
JD, why should you or the govt have any say in financial packages to executives? If thats what they can get in the market good for them. Further, for most large companies even if you cut the executive pay, there are far fewer executives and far more workers such that cutting them wouldn't increase wages that much
1
Unless I missed it, only one comment with any concern about illegal immigrants, still a big part of low-skilled unemployment issues. Enforcement of E-verify across the board would help a lot - and at relatively little cost as it is an existing program.
58
"In 2016, California will start publishing the names of employers that have more than 100 employees on Medicaid and how much these companies cost the state in public aid."
If all states did this and then also published those corporations who have off-shored so many jobs and the US dollar equivalency hourly wage of those off shore workers - everyone could then very well see who is winning at the expense of low wage American workers. Then all of America could better decide what companies we want to spend our money supporting by buying (or not buying) their products. What a concept!
If all states did this and then also published those corporations who have off-shored so many jobs and the US dollar equivalency hourly wage of those off shore workers - everyone could then very well see who is winning at the expense of low wage American workers. Then all of America could better decide what companies we want to spend our money supporting by buying (or not buying) their products. What a concept!
269
That would be a positive step to real capitalism instead of the state (crony) caoiyalism we now have.
If we were a modern country we would have a labor dept that would undertake something like this. But it has vanished, going down the bathtub drain perhaps, or run by mindless bureaucrats who do nothing but compile the same old stats, or staffed at the top by those who are told by the corporate masters not to disturb their kingdom by revealing truth. No vision at all.
Ah yes, I'm sure the people who shop at Wal-Mart and Dollar General, and who eat at McDonald's, are reading the NYT and checking lists of companies with unsavory hiring practices so they can take part in a boycott.
Nope. Companies that do this stuff cater to a downmarket crowd. This crowd doesn't have the time or interest in "sustainable" business practices, environmentally friendly consumption, or anything else anyone who did well in school cares about. These people don't even care about their own eating and buying habits, or exercise. They certainly don't care about their Wal-Mart greeter.
Let them be. They have their sports, their smart phones, their Play Stations, their trash music, and their trash TV shows. They're happy! And providing all of this garbage is actually pretty cheap, and profitable.
Nope. Companies that do this stuff cater to a downmarket crowd. This crowd doesn't have the time or interest in "sustainable" business practices, environmentally friendly consumption, or anything else anyone who did well in school cares about. These people don't even care about their own eating and buying habits, or exercise. They certainly don't care about their Wal-Mart greeter.
Let them be. They have their sports, their smart phones, their Play Stations, their trash music, and their trash TV shows. They're happy! And providing all of this garbage is actually pretty cheap, and profitable.
1
I agree that a federal mandate to raise the minimum wage would help, but a certain amount of protectionism is needed if the American worker is going to be adequately compensated, and thus our economy back on track. I know protectionism is a dirty word, but the trade agreements that have been signed i.e. NAFTA have seriously hurt the American worker - not the rich - but the American labor force. And now Obama wants another with Asia. Our government has to decide who it represents. Elizabeth Warren doesn't seem to have a problem representing the American labor force. Why do American presidents seemingly work to reduce our overall standard of living in favor of other countries? Other countries don't do it.
Great editorial by the NYT Editorial Board.
Great editorial by the NYT Editorial Board.
9
This all sounds so logical. However, the mathematics will just move to another equation. Presently it is low wages plus government subsidies equal a living wage. As proposed, it will be adequate wages plus less government subsidies plus higher prices equal a living wage. In any event, the tax payers always will be hit in the pocket book to make up the difference for the working poor either with higher prices or high taxes. The wealthy will continue on as before regardless.
2
So you believe that you have the right to pay less than the full value of someone else's work so that you can live better? That's what the "pocketbook" complaint amounts to.
"The low-wage business model has essentially turned public aid into a form of corporate welfare."
Which raises the related question of "welfare dependency." Who is more "dependent" on welfare: the families that receive it directly, or corporations who receive it indirectly? Would Walmart be driven out of business, for example, if it had to pay all of its employees a living wage?
Which raises the related question of "welfare dependency." Who is more "dependent" on welfare: the families that receive it directly, or corporations who receive it indirectly? Would Walmart be driven out of business, for example, if it had to pay all of its employees a living wage?
18
It's all part of the Forbes list of who are the richest people in the world. If businesses were to pay a living wage to all employees, including related benefits for health and retirement, the CEO might no longer be at the top of the Forbes list.
Perhaps what is needed is less focus on who is Number One in any field. It doesn't really matter. What does matter is to be an ethical business in every sense of the meaning and to recognize that those who are very rich do have an obligation to those who through no fault of their own are not. And while you look at this please do not try to show how those who are poor are actually at fault for being poor.
Perhaps what is needed is less focus on who is Number One in any field. It doesn't really matter. What does matter is to be an ethical business in every sense of the meaning and to recognize that those who are very rich do have an obligation to those who through no fault of their own are not. And while you look at this please do not try to show how those who are poor are actually at fault for being poor.
3
Wal-Mart would be driven out of business if workers across the country would just wake up, band together, and boycott businesses that won't pay a living wage. I haven't walked into a Wal-Mart in over a decade. Please don't buy there and fight like a demon if they try to build in your neighborhood.
1
JW - nor are those who are rich totally responsible for that. They have a great head start coming from at least upper middle class families and they have social capital that comes from attending excellent schools and universities. They have letters of recommendation written by professors or business contacts who are leaders in their field. Most of all, there is a social and economic cushion for their landing if their business fails. W. was a poster boy for this group.
The thing is, these corporations are shooting themselves in the foot. The economy contracts if no one has any money to spend. If the top .1% has it all, they sure won't/can't spend it. Lavish pay would result in lavishing spending and a booming economy; even marginally better pay would result in at least marginal gains. Right now we're heading for contraction, esp. if the Fed does raise interest rates before we get some wage pressure.
7
the top 1% do not need us-- they are the men without a country who can depend upon the teeming masses of china to be their future consumers, and who can live in pretty little enclaves anywhere in the world, far from the peons.
1
The unrestrained and greedy practices of banks and corporations are the root-cause of our long-frozen minimum wage policies remaining in place long past their time.
Big private money outsources manufacturing so as to increase its profit margins, increasing unemployment at home, and with no allegiance to country or to the social contract.
Financial giants have the power and political clout ro re-write legislation so it favors their rapacious practices. We the taxpayers end up shoring up the shortfall of fellow workers who are so underpaid they need food stamps to make it through.
oz.
Big private money outsources manufacturing so as to increase its profit margins, increasing unemployment at home, and with no allegiance to country or to the social contract.
Financial giants have the power and political clout ro re-write legislation so it favors their rapacious practices. We the taxpayers end up shoring up the shortfall of fellow workers who are so underpaid they need food stamps to make it through.
oz.
1
Great editorial! It lays out the evidence that corporate greed is a big part of the reason Americans today can't gain middle class status the way previous generations could. At what point does a corporation's profit margin become unfair, or even obscene? Should corps really be allowed to make as much profit as they possibly can, no matter the consequences to the rest of us American tax payers?
4
One word: Unions. Unions protected the workers, keeping wages and benefits high enough to allow a worker a quality job and manageable standard of living. Imperfect, sure, but better than any system, or lack of a system, that's come around since. Particularly in the South, our national millstone, where Unions were never allowed to take hold due to racism that persists today, we see poverty, poor health, worse education and states that give their people nothing while they happily suck at the governmental breast.
Unions. That's what we need.
Unions. That's what we need.
9
It would be enlightening if the Editorial Board of the NYT were to follow this editorial with one about the constant canard repeated by the right that US corporations are paying the highest corporate taxes of all advanced nations.
OECD statistics show that our great corporations, our lovely job-creators, pay the second lowest corporate tax rates of all advanced nations after using all the loopholes in the US corporate tax system, only to be outdone by that great economic powerhouse called Luxemburg.
OECD statistics show that our great corporations, our lovely job-creators, pay the second lowest corporate tax rates of all advanced nations after using all the loopholes in the US corporate tax system, only to be outdone by that great economic powerhouse called Luxemburg.
5
This is MRS. With the stroke of a pen, corporate executives at the top make decisions that affect the economy of this nation every day. They send jobs that paid living wages to other countries. Every day that Americans no longer manufacture anything to sell to other Americans and internationally, the effects of being a service economy deepen. America now manufactures hamburgers as their primary product. Second, America generates low-wage retail jobs where people don't earn enough to buy what they sell. Third and not least of all, is the two-tier UAW wage scale where new hires are paid substantially less and now take from 6 - 10 years to come to parity. Those people can't afford to buy what they make. At what point will the price point of necessities come into line with what the wages are? At what point will the economy correct itself? Do we need dictatorship and socialism to enforce what honesty, integrity and ethics should be among our corporate leaders but which qualities they sorely lack? Meanwhile, it's the remaining middle-class workers with good-enough but stagnating wage jobs who shore up those on the low-wage tier. Who's going to be there for the rest of us when it all collapses? This is how corporate executive can manipulate the workforce. Is that what this country really wants?
2
Good questions all of them. I've been asking myself these questions for years. My guess is that we'll see a bloody revolution or we'll see a dictatorship, neither of which is a desirable outcome.
Thanks for reminding us of the corporate welfare that results from chronic underpayment of US workers. In today’s editorial, you cited the findings of a study by the Berkeley Center for Labor Research that found the subsidy of underpaid workers cost state and federal government $150 Billion dollars, annually. That is a very big number, but one that is presented with no context. The impact of this subsidy would be more apparent had you presented the data in more meaningful terms. I did a quick online search to remind myself that the 2015 federal budget proposed by the administration was $3.1 Trillion, of which the $150 Billion amounts to about 5%. A $150 Billion dollar subsidy seems like a large number: a subsidy amounting to 5% of the federal budget seems obscene!
3
At the same time that corporations have been cutting labor's share of the economic pie in favor of shareholders, Congress has been cutting taxes on investment income. Why is it that we charge higher taxes on labor than on collecting dividends? Because the wealthy like it that way.
If labor had more political power, we'd hear about how low wages act as a disincentive to work and how they ought to be raised as a matter of morality and good public policy.
Instead we get the tired old rhetoric about how the "job creators" will invest more in equipment and new ventures if we just give them all the money--you know, the trickle down theory. It didn't work when Reagan ballyhooed it, and it isn't working now. Expect to hear a lot more of it during the Republican primary season.
If labor had more political power, we'd hear about how low wages act as a disincentive to work and how they ought to be raised as a matter of morality and good public policy.
Instead we get the tired old rhetoric about how the "job creators" will invest more in equipment and new ventures if we just give them all the money--you know, the trickle down theory. It didn't work when Reagan ballyhooed it, and it isn't working now. Expect to hear a lot more of it during the Republican primary season.
8
I have been making this statement for years, but no one would listen. I wondered aloud at the time what was President Clinton's motivation for the making the earned income tax credit a foundation for his welfare reform program when it appeared to me that it would reward companies for underpaying employees. But then, Clinton's route to the White House started in Walton land, and there's not much argument on which company stood to gain the most. Coincidence? Surely the Walton's weren't big supporters at the time, but since then the contributions to the Clinton Library and foundation appear to have gone un-noticed.
The sad part is just how much worse it has gotten since the EITC was expanded. EITC represents a large component of Mitt's much quoted 47%, and those earning the EITC became a large enough ratio of filers that returns claiming the EITC were the group most frequently audited, at two the three times the rate of the top 1% of filers.
Meanwhile the real beneficiaries (Walmart, McDonalds, et al..) reap the profits and hoard them through clever accounting schemes to avoid corporate income taxes. The new American Dream. I'm sure it's part of the Heritage Foundation play book that has made it's way into every top business school and board room in the US.
The sad part is just how much worse it has gotten since the EITC was expanded. EITC represents a large component of Mitt's much quoted 47%, and those earning the EITC became a large enough ratio of filers that returns claiming the EITC were the group most frequently audited, at two the three times the rate of the top 1% of filers.
Meanwhile the real beneficiaries (Walmart, McDonalds, et al..) reap the profits and hoard them through clever accounting schemes to avoid corporate income taxes. The new American Dream. I'm sure it's part of the Heritage Foundation play book that has made it's way into every top business school and board room in the US.
8
Minimum wage should be raised to eliminate the tax payer subsidy of workers for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, etc.
Yes, prices will go up at WalMart since companies will not absorb the cost. But, guess what- prices have been artificially low for years and we, the taxpayers have been paying for these so called low prices for years. Moreover, the administrative costs of social safety net programs are also being paid for which makes it much more expensive to cover the lack of wages on the back end instead of just having a living wage on the front end. Republicans who cry they don't want socialism are the very ones who are perpetuating this system when they refuse to increase the minimum wage. Wages are the cost of doing business in a capitalist system- not foisting onto government. We are all tired of corporate welfare so let's end it. It will be cheaper in the long run and will eliminate the stigma of welfare for the working poor.
Yes, prices will go up at WalMart since companies will not absorb the cost. But, guess what- prices have been artificially low for years and we, the taxpayers have been paying for these so called low prices for years. Moreover, the administrative costs of social safety net programs are also being paid for which makes it much more expensive to cover the lack of wages on the back end instead of just having a living wage on the front end. Republicans who cry they don't want socialism are the very ones who are perpetuating this system when they refuse to increase the minimum wage. Wages are the cost of doing business in a capitalist system- not foisting onto government. We are all tired of corporate welfare so let's end it. It will be cheaper in the long run and will eliminate the stigma of welfare for the working poor.
8
Employers are obligated to pay market wages. If the market wage for an employee leaves them eligible for assistance, it's the government's, and ultimately the voters decision to give them that assistance. It's not on the employer. If that assistance were withhold, I doubt employers would be forced to increase wages by the market. Rather employee would just be worse off.
This argument is more liberal justification for why the government should take more of someone's property or force someone to pay wages that have not been earned.
This argument is more liberal justification for why the government should take more of someone's property or force someone to pay wages that have not been earned.
Unfettered free market capitalism is quite likely to become detrimental to the majority of citizens. This is why we break up monopolies, prevent price gouging, etc... I'm all for competition and free markets but we have many well-established precedents for government intervention when public good is at stake. What is wrong with mandating that large employers get just a bit less wealthy so that the people who make their largess possible (the workers) can afford to live? Plus, it's good for the economy. Give the working poor more money and they are going to put it right back into the economy. Why should tax payers have to subsidize low wage workers so that people at the top can make multi-million dollar salaries? You don't have to raise prices for goods and services to make this work. Just cut top level salaries a bit. "Oh waaaah, I only make $500,000/year instead of five million!!" I have no sympathy.
1
With unionization workers would have more power in the market. When capital has all the power, wages stagnate.
We are not just subsidizing low wage workers. My brother worked for one of the nation-wide big box home improvement stores (the one with orange signs) selling roofing and attic insulation. He was required to have a smart phone and use his own car for sales calls. He was not reimbursed, and instead was able to deduct these costs from his federal income taxes, even though he was clearly working for the store and was not an independent contractor and not self-employed. If these private businesses want people to have certain tools to do a certain job, they should provide them instead of having the rest of us pay for them through tax deductions of their workers.
15
Since the invention of agriculture the human experience has been one long struggle for a share of the "crops" between the elites who own everything and the majority that has to work for them. We've replaced slavery with employment, but our "job creators" are slowly but surely trying to reduce wages to the point where wage-slavery results in pretty much the same division of wealth and income as actual slavery.
And the job creators are winning. The share of GDP captured by the .01% is the highest it's been in decades. Will it have to reach the level of First Empire Egypt before people start listening to what the politicians are actually saying? Reform social security? Broaden the base? Make medicare sustainable? What they're actually saying is less for you and more for us.
The safety net has become "a soft hammock" for corporate "takers." But will anyone, even the Times, take Bernie Sanders seriously?
Of course not. He's a soashalist!
And the job creators are winning. The share of GDP captured by the .01% is the highest it's been in decades. Will it have to reach the level of First Empire Egypt before people start listening to what the politicians are actually saying? Reform social security? Broaden the base? Make medicare sustainable? What they're actually saying is less for you and more for us.
The safety net has become "a soft hammock" for corporate "takers." But will anyone, even the Times, take Bernie Sanders seriously?
Of course not. He's a soashalist!
7
Your comment is good, but please do not call the very wealthy "job creators," lest you sound like a fox network analyst. The walton heirs have never created a single job in their collective lives, unless one counts nannies, maids, horse trainers, etc.
When corporations victimize their workers this way, when they off-shore work, they are committing treason. Economic treason that weakens America. There are always ways to chisel more profits out of the suppliers, the workers, the communities and the environment, but when will corporations have a sense of morality and obligations that keeps them cut blood and sinews from our country and bleeding it white?
9
Good view of our current economy. Real corruptions created systematically, incrementally by lobbyist/politicians and their 'voters' (i.e. 'us'). Until we speak out politically and talk about what party should be supported (which seems to be frowned upon by this paper, as if 'partisanship' is worse that free speech) to help 'the People' and the environment, then, we go nowhere.
Speak straight, communicate the political truth we face and the path that is most likely to lead to a better place. I'm a Democrat and proud (though we've been pushed to the right by the elections of the last 35 years). Quit talking in generalities. Politics, voting, communicating to one another our needs and community/environmental needs can't be pushed aside.
Speak straight, communicate the political truth we face and the path that is most likely to lead to a better place. I'm a Democrat and proud (though we've been pushed to the right by the elections of the last 35 years). Quit talking in generalities. Politics, voting, communicating to one another our needs and community/environmental needs can't be pushed aside.
1
I suspect the NYT doesn't call out the Republican Party and laud the Democrat Party because both parties are kowtowing to the billionaires these days. What's Sec. Clinton's stand on the TPP? Does she agree with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren that the big banks must be broken up to avoid Too Big to Fail occurring again? Is she pushing for $15 minimum wage? Publicizing (as Calif. plans to) which companies are employing people whose wages are so low they're also collecting Federal aid? Is she willing to fight pipelines and single-hulled oil tankers? Is any of this in the official platform of the Democrat Party?
1
One of the worst ways that business "under-pays" it's employees is also pretty common. Many businesses do not "hire" most of their employees. Instead, they contract with a temp agency to get much of their workforce. The "temps" then work for minimum wage with no benefits, and are laid off regularly for short periods to qualify as "temp" workers exempt from any labor protections (which are disappearing anyway).
I always shake my head when folks shop at Walmart, feeling good that they are saving $$ on their purchases, and then donate $$ to the local Free Clinic, where most of the patients are uninsured Walmart employees, the largest private employer in most rural parts of our country.
What an odd economic construct, and one that is so casually accepted.
I always shake my head when folks shop at Walmart, feeling good that they are saving $$ on their purchases, and then donate $$ to the local Free Clinic, where most of the patients are uninsured Walmart employees, the largest private employer in most rural parts of our country.
What an odd economic construct, and one that is so casually accepted.
25
It's not just Wal-Mart using temp agencies--check out the U.S. Government. In order to operate despite belt-tightening imposed by Congress, most government agencies--including those entrusted with our national security--have outsourced their operations to contractors who underpay their temporary workers. The contractors make huge profits, the agencies don't carry the employment overhead of pensions, sick leave, etc., and government employee morale erodes like the shoreline of Louisiana. You can't run a program on temporary workers if you need the best and the brightest to safeguard your country. You can't depend on temporary workers to care about inspecting food, air quality, toys, patents, auto safety, banking fraud or veterans' healthcare with the same zeal and dedication of a permanent, decently benefitted employee.
Most low wage earners would love to work full time - it's many companies' policy to only offer part-time hours to avoid having to pay health insurance benefits - leaving these folks to clog up emergency rooms and ultimately cost the taxpayer more for their own insurance benefits. The ACA, free tuition at Community Colleges and a higher minimum wage will do more to level the playing field. If corporations don't want to pay health insurance premiums, they should advocate for universal health care.
183
Raising the minimum wage to $12 by 2020 is not good enough.
Adjusted for productivity and inflation, the minimum wage of 1968 would be over $17 per hour today - even more by 2020.
The goal should be at least $15 per hour, based on today's dollar value.
Most importantly for the long term, it needs to be indexed to inflation *and* productivity growth.
http://www.cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/minimum-wage-tracks-productivit...
Adjusted for productivity and inflation, the minimum wage of 1968 would be over $17 per hour today - even more by 2020.
The goal should be at least $15 per hour, based on today's dollar value.
Most importantly for the long term, it needs to be indexed to inflation *and* productivity growth.
http://www.cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/minimum-wage-tracks-productivit...
170
Populist, why advocate at least $15 if 1968's minimum wage equals more than $17 in today's valuation?
I'm for higher wages, but it should be made clear that simply raising the minimum wage is not a forward thinking solution.
For instance:
All low wage people rent. With a raise they still all compete for the same rental stock, and rents rise proportionately. It only takes a small rent increase to wipe out a small raise.
All low wage workers compete for the same stock of menial labor jobs, so minimum wage increase means job competition becomes stiffer, some workers will be displaced (ie a college grad now takes the burger flipper job.)
So the problem inherent in keeping a low wage worker off of public assistance is more closely aligned with supply & demand of jobs and housing, not rates of minimum wage.
Solution:
There needs to be more competition in hiring for low wage jobs ie more jobs than workers (ie a large Federal work program.) And there needs to be more rental housing stock ie an ample public rental housing building program. Otherwise a rise in minimum wage is welfare for landlords and leverage for employers to hire over qualified workers to do low skill work.
A little more money, when it is a mandate, will, along with helping the worker, immediately raise prices for a think like rent, by allowing many more people to compete for apartment units. All low wage workers rent.
What is needed is for there to be more competition for workers
For instance:
All low wage people rent. With a raise they still all compete for the same rental stock, and rents rise proportionately. It only takes a small rent increase to wipe out a small raise.
All low wage workers compete for the same stock of menial labor jobs, so minimum wage increase means job competition becomes stiffer, some workers will be displaced (ie a college grad now takes the burger flipper job.)
So the problem inherent in keeping a low wage worker off of public assistance is more closely aligned with supply & demand of jobs and housing, not rates of minimum wage.
Solution:
There needs to be more competition in hiring for low wage jobs ie more jobs than workers (ie a large Federal work program.) And there needs to be more rental housing stock ie an ample public rental housing building program. Otherwise a rise in minimum wage is welfare for landlords and leverage for employers to hire over qualified workers to do low skill work.
A little more money, when it is a mandate, will, along with helping the worker, immediately raise prices for a think like rent, by allowing many more people to compete for apartment units. All low wage workers rent.
What is needed is for there to be more competition for workers
1
First off, I commend David Brooks for evolving to recognize a trend that has been growing in America since the 1980's. It takes courage to re-examine one's core beliefs; and even more courage to evolve.
Our government began to subsidize corporate profits and depress worker wages with the adoption of the earned income tax credit in the early 1980's. The EITC effectively closed the gap in earnings that workers should earn with the reduced wages they actually received by paying workers a substantial part of the difference with tax dollars from the rest of us. Corporations like Walmart long ago recognized the benefit of paying low wages and having the government make up the difference. The EITC was not the only program that helped corporations to pay meager wages while retaining a workforce. Food stamps and Medicaid also became tools used by corporations to drive profits.
Walmart style employment practices are no longer an aberration. They are being adopted and are becoming the norm. Why? Because politicians in the pockets of the economic elite and corporate interests convinced Americans that anyone in a labor union was trying to get something for nothing. They convinced Americans that desperately poor people, who worked or were seeking work, were also trying to get something for nothing.
It is the corporations and the wealthy who have been getting something for nothing for more than thirty years.
Our government began to subsidize corporate profits and depress worker wages with the adoption of the earned income tax credit in the early 1980's. The EITC effectively closed the gap in earnings that workers should earn with the reduced wages they actually received by paying workers a substantial part of the difference with tax dollars from the rest of us. Corporations like Walmart long ago recognized the benefit of paying low wages and having the government make up the difference. The EITC was not the only program that helped corporations to pay meager wages while retaining a workforce. Food stamps and Medicaid also became tools used by corporations to drive profits.
Walmart style employment practices are no longer an aberration. They are being adopted and are becoming the norm. Why? Because politicians in the pockets of the economic elite and corporate interests convinced Americans that anyone in a labor union was trying to get something for nothing. They convinced Americans that desperately poor people, who worked or were seeking work, were also trying to get something for nothing.
It is the corporations and the wealthy who have been getting something for nothing for more than thirty years.
3
Another way of looking at it is that the minimum wage -- at whatever level -- is an unfunded mandate; that is, government requiring private businesses to fund the poor by mandating artificially high wages.
Those who wish to make the "general welfare" argument reject the private property model of the US economy and believe that all wealth is the property of government to distribute as it sees fit. In order to do so, progressives wish to redefine the concept of wages. Wages should be the cost -- as determined by a freely competitive labor market -- required to induce a worker to perform a task. That cost is all about the market value of the work, itself; not the worker's standard of living.
America's decline as a global economic power, in part, reflects growing international competition and a declining number of Americans with job skills that actually justify a high wage. We are, of course, exacerbating that problem by importing more uneducated and unskilled labor in the form of illegal immigration.
Increasing the number of people earning a "living wage" will not result from the political act of mandating an artificial wage for unskilled work. Americans need to embrace the global economy and out-compete the rest of the world for the most high educated workers and the best workforce culture. Doing otherwise might help Democrat electoral fortunes, but will not return America to sustained world economic leadership.
Those who wish to make the "general welfare" argument reject the private property model of the US economy and believe that all wealth is the property of government to distribute as it sees fit. In order to do so, progressives wish to redefine the concept of wages. Wages should be the cost -- as determined by a freely competitive labor market -- required to induce a worker to perform a task. That cost is all about the market value of the work, itself; not the worker's standard of living.
America's decline as a global economic power, in part, reflects growing international competition and a declining number of Americans with job skills that actually justify a high wage. We are, of course, exacerbating that problem by importing more uneducated and unskilled labor in the form of illegal immigration.
Increasing the number of people earning a "living wage" will not result from the political act of mandating an artificial wage for unskilled work. Americans need to embrace the global economy and out-compete the rest of the world for the most high educated workers and the best workforce culture. Doing otherwise might help Democrat electoral fortunes, but will not return America to sustained world economic leadership.
1
Good post but why should government tax wages more than cap gains and dividends. There has a been a massive shift in taxes to wages under both President Clinton and Bush Jr. This redistribution of taxes has severely limited the Governments ability to invest in infrastructure and science. Two areas that would increase US worker productivity and value. The government has also promoted a massive migration of unskilled workers into the US further suppressing wages.
Mandating an artificial wage isn't going to significantly raise wages without undermining them with inflation. Good social policy coupled with a tax scheme that fairly taxes wages and profits may well increase the value of future American workers.
Mandating an artificial wage isn't going to significantly raise wages without undermining them with inflation. Good social policy coupled with a tax scheme that fairly taxes wages and profits may well increase the value of future American workers.
1
One should not ignore what is going on inside the right-wing bubble on this. The convenient argument is that if Walmart and McDonalds don't pay starvation wages then they will go out of business because of the tiny increase in prices that would result. This is nonsense. The profit margin is tiny. Double it and give half to the workers and they will think they had died and gone to heaven while the shoppers will barely notice. Out of $485 billion of stuff sold Walmart makes $16 billion, or 3.3% on the dollar. Double that and give half to employees would be enough to give every one of them an $8000 raise. The cost to us is about 10 cents on a $3 box of Cheerios. Raise the price 30 cents and everybody working at Walmart could be making $24,000 more a year.
That we must treat the poor like crap and the rich like heroes is an evil and pernicious lie. End that and lots of good things can start to happen.
That we must treat the poor like crap and the rich like heroes is an evil and pernicious lie. End that and lots of good things can start to happen.
8
All of you wage raisers miss a fundamental point: It is unjust to force an employer (e.g. me) to pay ANY money to another person. Employment is a contract between two people in which there is no justification for interference from another person or organization such as the government. The social contract between two consenting adults should not be breached or compromised. The sanctity of the social contract is what holds our society together and it starts and ends with the consenting adults that enter into the agreement.
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - John Kenneth Galbraith
On a larger level, the social contract still includes that we don't let people starve to death and take care of the ill. Since someone has to pay for that (I.e. Society), it is perfectly acceptable for the goevermemt to at least regulate some minimal conditions for employment.
Then you shouldn't use any government services whatsoever, including highways, bridges, police, firefighters, the services of the military to keep the nation save, any medical treatment that resulted from subsidized research, including the education of the scientists, any product resulting from same, etc.
You are your own man, and you completely take care of yourself, in every way.
You are your own man, and you completely take care of yourself, in every way.
While I agree this problem is a corporate one, it is also a widespread consumer and shareholder problem, as well.
As a collective, we all are ruthless as consumers, when it comes to demanding low prices. We will gladly drive across town, or order through the mail, for the rock bottom price. Look at all the store closings when a supercenter comes into town. And this is true across the economy, not just for the items we buy at the likes of Walmart and HomeDepot, but also for every piece of fruits or vegetable that rests on the back of cheap farm labor.
Lastly, as shareholders -- whether directl through stocks, or indirectly through 401ks, mutual funds or pension plans -- we are fast to demand change on the first quarterly earning that fails to beat some un-named whisper numbers. Such is the case such that we can get market beating returns.
So while I agree with the Editorial board, I also think its more complex. We should all look in the mirror at how we each contribute to this apparent race to the bottom that goes involves the shareholders, the management, the factories, the stores, the employees, and the consumers.
As a collective, we all are ruthless as consumers, when it comes to demanding low prices. We will gladly drive across town, or order through the mail, for the rock bottom price. Look at all the store closings when a supercenter comes into town. And this is true across the economy, not just for the items we buy at the likes of Walmart and HomeDepot, but also for every piece of fruits or vegetable that rests on the back of cheap farm labor.
Lastly, as shareholders -- whether directl through stocks, or indirectly through 401ks, mutual funds or pension plans -- we are fast to demand change on the first quarterly earning that fails to beat some un-named whisper numbers. Such is the case such that we can get market beating returns.
So while I agree with the Editorial board, I also think its more complex. We should all look in the mirror at how we each contribute to this apparent race to the bottom that goes involves the shareholders, the management, the factories, the stores, the employees, and the consumers.
1
"productivity gains have flowed increasingly to executive compensation and shareholder returns, rather than wages"
One of the roots of these current trends is the idea that the corporation exists for the benefit of shareholders (which includes executives, but not usually rank-and-file employees) and its primary -- if not exclusive -- purpose is to compensate shareholders. Thus, every action is viewed through that lens. Cut costs and increase profits for this quarter.
One of the roots of these current trends is the idea that the corporation exists for the benefit of shareholders (which includes executives, but not usually rank-and-file employees) and its primary -- if not exclusive -- purpose is to compensate shareholders. Thus, every action is viewed through that lens. Cut costs and increase profits for this quarter.
1
Good point. If by law corporations are required to place shareholder value above all other considerations, it is a pretty ugly picture. What we really need is some sort of corporate good citizen guidelines below which they are not permitted to sink. Right now its a race to the bottom to see who can exploit workers and the government most effectively for the benefit of shareholders and executives.
US Corporations pay taxes. The Income that workers get if it's high enough is taxed. Dividends and Cap gains from profits are taxed. Essentially all the money that funds are government comes from greedy companies that pay taxes, wages that are taxed and they make profits and return profits to shareholders who are taxed.
The Reagan tax plan which was largely written by Democrats in Congress taxed Capital gains and Dividends at the same rate as wages while getting rid of many tax dodges for the rich. Clinton and Bush reduced the taxes on Capital gains and dividends which shifted more of the tax burden to wage earners.
Wages like prices are a function of supply and demand. Taxes and budgets are a function of our political system. It is the political system that is broken.
The Reagan tax plan which was largely written by Democrats in Congress taxed Capital gains and Dividends at the same rate as wages while getting rid of many tax dodges for the rich. Clinton and Bush reduced the taxes on Capital gains and dividends which shifted more of the tax burden to wage earners.
Wages like prices are a function of supply and demand. Taxes and budgets are a function of our political system. It is the political system that is broken.
1
This editorial finally convinces me that the Republicans are absolutely correct when they advocate for huge tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. Obviously, if the working poor need more money they should get a second job, but instead they are lazy and probably on drugs. I'm convinced that a 50 year old man who supports a family of four by working at a minimum wage job could certainly get off public aid by flipping burgers at a fast food chain, or working as a greeter a low-price department store; moreover, these jobs have added economic benefits that are never talked about such as the ability to take home free salt, pepper and ketchup. In fact, the minimum wage should definitely be reduced to encourage the working poor to take a second job; and since lowering the minimum wage would increase corporate profits we will all prosper as a result of the benefits of trickle-down and supply side economics. And we could also improve the economy by taxing the tooth fairy.
4
Today's prevailing American political-economic ideology, largely shared by both parties, holds that getting money from corporations is honorable but getting money from governments is demeaning and lazy.
Tt turns out that who most aggressively hustle that ideology also secure huge sums of government money for corporations, whether in the form of tax breaks, grants, protection from competition, infrastructure construction - or, as this editorial points out, wage subsidies.
Our failing - "we" being the voters, the media, the politicians - has been to downplay the huge amounts of government assistance to corporations while accepting the demonization of low-earning individuals who receive comparatively trivial assistance from government.
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
Tt turns out that who most aggressively hustle that ideology also secure huge sums of government money for corporations, whether in the form of tax breaks, grants, protection from competition, infrastructure construction - or, as this editorial points out, wage subsidies.
Our failing - "we" being the voters, the media, the politicians - has been to downplay the huge amounts of government assistance to corporations while accepting the demonization of low-earning individuals who receive comparatively trivial assistance from government.
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
3
Minimum wages help only at the margins - we need competition for labor. An infrastructure rebuilding program would help businesses that benefit from smooth transportation and lower costs, and it would put millions to work. Contractors would have more business, and the new infrastructure could reduce transportation costs for businesses to ship goods and services. We could put green infrastructure in place to reduce carbon footprint. Arguing about minimum wage is tired and provides marginal benefit - do something we need and create a competitive labor environment.
Add to this the three trillion dollars of "stimulus" at near zero interest rates that the Federal Reserve has handed out supposedly to create economic growth and create jobs (mostly the low pay kind), but the big corporations and banks are using this money to buy back stock and boost dividends, and trade paper assets to make profits.
This is the outcome when we have so-called elections that rely on "campaign finance". The tragedy is not only the future of the young but 90% of this country is is being exploited by these rapacious system in the name of free markets, globalization, and competition.
This lets companies like Apple, one of the most successful and profitable on the planet approaching a Trillion dollars in value, create millions of jobs overseas, and hardly pay any taxes in the U.S.
http://www.moneyballeconomics.com/when-will-apple-stop-screwing-the-us-e...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/business/making-companies-pay-taxes-th...
This is the outcome when we have so-called elections that rely on "campaign finance". The tragedy is not only the future of the young but 90% of this country is is being exploited by these rapacious system in the name of free markets, globalization, and competition.
This lets companies like Apple, one of the most successful and profitable on the planet approaching a Trillion dollars in value, create millions of jobs overseas, and hardly pay any taxes in the U.S.
http://www.moneyballeconomics.com/when-will-apple-stop-screwing-the-us-e...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/business/making-companies-pay-taxes-th...
3
Why not really do the right thing and make the minimum wage $26.73 per hour? Then a person working a 40-hour week would make $55,589 a year, the median family income at its high point in 2009.
In one fell swoop, our policymakers could essentially eliminate wage poverty. The same amount should be guaranteed to all adult non-workers via a direct transfer payment program, putting a safe and solid 'financial floor' beneath all Americans.
If all Americans can be assured at least the national median income and lifestyle, the pernicious effects of inequality might abate.
Yes, there would be some costs, inefficiencies and sub-optimal incentives, but that can be said of any truly important step forward in societal relations.
In one fell swoop, our policymakers could essentially eliminate wage poverty. The same amount should be guaranteed to all adult non-workers via a direct transfer payment program, putting a safe and solid 'financial floor' beneath all Americans.
If all Americans can be assured at least the national median income and lifestyle, the pernicious effects of inequality might abate.
Yes, there would be some costs, inefficiencies and sub-optimal incentives, but that can be said of any truly important step forward in societal relations.
1
This has nothing to do with the government not raising the minimum wage. Corporations do all sorts of research on wages. They know how much it takes for a person to have a decent life. It has to do with corporate executives basic disrespect for the people who would be their employees. It has to do with inadequate education and the dis-empowerment of the American people.
All the legislative representatives pretending to live on minimum wage to show how hard it is to live on is ridiculous. Everyone knows how hard that would be. We fool ourselves because we want cheap stuff. Giving these folks a raise does not mean more expensive products it means less money in the investors' pockets. Large investors will be less able to pad those Cayman Island bank accounts. In fact more money in the pockets of employees means more sales and better customers. We regular folks don't send our money to other countries we spend it here in America and make American lives better not Cayman Islanders.
The strength of regular Americans is in our numbers and our solidarity. For years the rich owned media has been setting us against each other preaching classism and racism. It is time we pull the wool from our eyes and realize that we can band together. We are their customers. We are their workers. We make their companies prosperous. We are important because we are many and they are few!
All the legislative representatives pretending to live on minimum wage to show how hard it is to live on is ridiculous. Everyone knows how hard that would be. We fool ourselves because we want cheap stuff. Giving these folks a raise does not mean more expensive products it means less money in the investors' pockets. Large investors will be less able to pad those Cayman Island bank accounts. In fact more money in the pockets of employees means more sales and better customers. We regular folks don't send our money to other countries we spend it here in America and make American lives better not Cayman Islanders.
The strength of regular Americans is in our numbers and our solidarity. For years the rich owned media has been setting us against each other preaching classism and racism. It is time we pull the wool from our eyes and realize that we can band together. We are their customers. We are their workers. We make their companies prosperous. We are important because we are many and they are few!
2
The editorial board neglects to acknowledge the impact of another relevant aspect of today's economy, the record-breaking number of foreign-born workers who are competing with Americans for a limited number of jobs. A widely accepted and media-endorsed mythology today is that the presence of over forty million immigrants, three-quarters of whom are here legally, has little to no impact on the wages and employment prospects of native-born Americans. This myth is ready to fall, and it's about time. The NYT has happily ignored the law of supply and demand, as it consistently endorses not just the current high pace of immigration but even higher immigration flows under the proposed reform, yet the Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen last year acknowledged that there is still "slack" in the labor market. It's really no mystery that in this economy "productivity gains have flowed increasingly to executive compensation and shareholder returns, rather than wages." That's a dynamic that automatically follows an oversupply of workers.
This piece gets one part right, employers pay low wages and offer minimal benefits "because they can." But the reason that they can is not simply because congress won't boost the minimum wage; to a much larger degree, the reason they can continue to pay low wages can be found by browsing through recent OP-EDs in the New York Times.
This piece gets one part right, employers pay low wages and offer minimal benefits "because they can." But the reason that they can is not simply because congress won't boost the minimum wage; to a much larger degree, the reason they can continue to pay low wages can be found by browsing through recent OP-EDs in the New York Times.
3
We need to raise the minimum wage to a two tiered structure.
The lower tier should be geared to the 16 to 21 year olds whose priority should be educating themselves.
The upper tier should be geared to 21 year olds and older whose priority is funding an acceptable quality of life. Ideally, the higher wage recipient would be required to have a high school diploma or equivalent in order to support society's need for an education populace.
In today's technologically driven global economy, education is mandatory for good jobs. Raising the minimum wage is an opportunity to reinforce that, much the same as legislating mortgage tax deductions has been used to foster home ownership.
The lower tier should be geared to the 16 to 21 year olds whose priority should be educating themselves.
The upper tier should be geared to 21 year olds and older whose priority is funding an acceptable quality of life. Ideally, the higher wage recipient would be required to have a high school diploma or equivalent in order to support society's need for an education populace.
In today's technologically driven global economy, education is mandatory for good jobs. Raising the minimum wage is an opportunity to reinforce that, much the same as legislating mortgage tax deductions has been used to foster home ownership.
WalMart often stands out as a big target, so to speak, because it does seem unfair that we as taxpayers wind up paying nearly 1 million dollars each year to employees of each superstore to cover the costs of public assistance because WalMart does not provide a living wage. But consider any employer and just look at a 2014 1040 tax form. An employee, say a single father with two children who was employed full time and had an income of $24,048 (just under $12/hr) in 2014 will be refunded all the federal taxes he paid ($1,047) and will also receive $6,828 (Earned Income Credit + Child Tax Credit). This individual also would have received food stamp assistance for some of the year (until that program was cut) and nearly $300 per month in housing assistance. So in total, about $10,000 was subsidized by taxpayers because he did not earn a living wage through his place of work. Gandhi said it best: The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.
1
This analysis is predictably misguided. Business make rational decisions and people are paid what they are worth. If you raise the cost of a clerk to $15, companies will inevitably shift their production technique to one that is more capital-based. Have you seen a grocery check-out lately? Have you seen the way drinks at McDonald's are filled by a robot? A statutory minimum will raise wages for some but it will also put others out of work, forcing people trying to gain a toehold on the bottom rung of the ladder off the ladder entirely.
I own a business that employs about 50 people who earn just above minimum wage. Most of them don't have better options and many are handicapped, non-English-speaking, or have criminal records that make it hard for them to find steady employment. My margins are thin and some years I don't pay myself anything. I can achieve the same production with capital investment and 15 people. I'll make a different capital/labor decision at $15/hour than I do at $10/hour.
I'm curious where the authors think the extra $5 an hour comes from? The naive Manhattan-bound view offered in the first paragraph suggests they think it will come from executive compensation and shareholder returns, but don't kid yourself. Executives will still be paid what they get paid and companies will still profit maximize. The $5 an hour will come from the workers who are laid off and from the the efficiency offered by machines made in China.
I own a business that employs about 50 people who earn just above minimum wage. Most of them don't have better options and many are handicapped, non-English-speaking, or have criminal records that make it hard for them to find steady employment. My margins are thin and some years I don't pay myself anything. I can achieve the same production with capital investment and 15 people. I'll make a different capital/labor decision at $15/hour than I do at $10/hour.
I'm curious where the authors think the extra $5 an hour comes from? The naive Manhattan-bound view offered in the first paragraph suggests they think it will come from executive compensation and shareholder returns, but don't kid yourself. Executives will still be paid what they get paid and companies will still profit maximize. The $5 an hour will come from the workers who are laid off and from the the efficiency offered by machines made in China.
2
The article states that the main reason employers can pay low wages is because the Congress has failed to update the minimum wage. Wrong. The main reason employers can pay low wages is because the labor market is flooded with applicants relative to the number of positions available. Jobs have been sent abroad by the millions as a result of our "free trade" agreements. And the number of legal immigrants has quadrupled since 1965, and millions of illegal immigrants were legalized in 1986 and now millions more of illegal immigrants are on the verge of being legalized. The labor market is flooded with workers so there is no incentive for any employer to pay more.
4
Raising the minimum wage does focus employers on designing jobs that are more productive. However, if the state makes it easy for people to take jobs that do not pay a living wage then people will take those jobs rather than have nothing at all - especially if their benefits are tied to working. Unions cannot make a come-back if governments enable people to keep working at jobs that don't pay. Employers are, as ever, are only acting for owners by putting jobs on the market and seeing who takes them at the lowest wages possible. Government policies, though humane in their intent, are a reason that employers see people accepting low pay jobs. Government bureaucracies are not nearly nimble enough to deliver effective policy incentives at such an intimate level of society; ie. the family.
Good article. I bet it ties in with the changes since the early 80's with companies favoring short term profit over long term development, the strategy of undercutting prices to drive opposition out of business and retain greater market share, changes in how losses are reported, the courts emphasizing "consumer good" and lower prices as a way of justifying what used to be called monopoly prices, and don't even mention the vampire squid of the financial sector demanding a share of profit in every conceivable venture. In such a world, workers are seen as a cost and not a resource. This is the world that Milton Friedman hath made.
1
The proposed solution of raising wages is too simplistic. How much additional wage will earners spend on responsible living and how much not? After all, it's a fair bet that many of these folk have never managed money responsibly either because they've never learnt how or because they are too far deep in debt to care.
So throwing more money at the problem will only exacerbate it. More money = greater ability to borrow = greater ignorant borrowing = greater burden on poverty assistance programs.
Instead, what we need is to engage with Corporates and have them creatively share in employee well-being. Just like governments, have Corporates take a long-term stake in their happiness.
Rather than force $4.75 more per hour cash and have that money go towards marijuana, beer, crack etc., why not grant that money in kind, similar to cafeteria benefit plans in existence today? $4 and pay for gas to and fro work, or $3 and pay gas and electric, or 0 and pay for part-time education with paid time off, etc. etc.
Blaming lack of education for our impoverished is all fine as long as proposed solutions reflect adequately, the presumed higher education of those involved in tackling the problem. You would think California would rise to the challenge and engage with Corporates at a higher level. Publish employer names, give me a break! This is all they can come up with?
So throwing more money at the problem will only exacerbate it. More money = greater ability to borrow = greater ignorant borrowing = greater burden on poverty assistance programs.
Instead, what we need is to engage with Corporates and have them creatively share in employee well-being. Just like governments, have Corporates take a long-term stake in their happiness.
Rather than force $4.75 more per hour cash and have that money go towards marijuana, beer, crack etc., why not grant that money in kind, similar to cafeteria benefit plans in existence today? $4 and pay for gas to and fro work, or $3 and pay gas and electric, or 0 and pay for part-time education with paid time off, etc. etc.
Blaming lack of education for our impoverished is all fine as long as proposed solutions reflect adequately, the presumed higher education of those involved in tackling the problem. You would think California would rise to the challenge and engage with Corporates at a higher level. Publish employer names, give me a break! This is all they can come up with?
1
These people are the working poor and deserve our respect and support! Why would you assume that they can't manage money responsibly or are drug addicts or alcoholics? What a horrible attitude!
1
Continuing to pretend that irresponsible choices in living are only okay for the rich is the first part of the problem with your post. The second part is the simplistic idea that you (or I) are wise enough to navigate the lives of the poor by offering them some limited set of choices about how to spend their earnings. Individual situations are too varied and complex to manage through cafeteria-style options: give workers adequate pay and allow them to rise or fall on their choices.
This just a part of what is meant by "Black lives matter." Wage stagnation along with the export of good-paying manufacturing jobs abroad have kept and tightened the economic noose around our segregated inner cities. If we only focus on the police, who are just the enforcers of the economic elite, we miss this larger point that it is no longer just black and brown America, but increasingly the rest of who are headed into the economic ghetto. "The billionaire class," as Senator Bernie Sanders calls them is on the verge of taking full control of our political system. We need an immediate raise in the minimum wage to $15/hour indexed to inflation; we need reinvestment in public education rather than divestment with school closing and privatization; we need to bring manufacturing jobs back here rather than more trade agreements that send them abroad; we need streamline our labor laws to allow unions to grow rather than regulations that undermine them; and we urgently need to get private money out of politics. For the truth that should guide us is: All lives matter. It's time to invest in people not corporations, their billionaire backer, and political puppets.
5
Great article and and important message, though too narrow in scope. All increased productivity since Reagan's labor busting in 1980 has gone to the upper percentile, the new rentier class, through State debt, which first soared under Reagan.
The gap between overproduction and underconsumption has been filled with ever-increasing forms of State and private debt, so that "The Free Market" now operates as a sort of "Negative Economy" based on negative money and providing negative goods, such as profitable wars, crises, social pathologies, climate soiling, and diseases. We pay negative money to negate negative goods.
This also explains why the GOP is desperate to control the State, eventually under a one-party system. The State is now the main source of "earnings" for the rentier class, through shadow banking, bonds, debt, limited wars, patents, copyrights, corporate welfare, and regressive taxation. The generation of students now playing by the rules and earning degrees to be "productive" will be assuming an utterly unsustainable debt in a variety of complex forms, while the only "earnings" that actually grow are those from capital returns and inheritance.
What deluded liberals must grasp is that nothing in history suggests that this problem will rationally "self-correct." Every new crisis and regression towards barbarity will further concentrate the power of the global rentier class, their "talking heads," and their vicious political thugs.
The gap between overproduction and underconsumption has been filled with ever-increasing forms of State and private debt, so that "The Free Market" now operates as a sort of "Negative Economy" based on negative money and providing negative goods, such as profitable wars, crises, social pathologies, climate soiling, and diseases. We pay negative money to negate negative goods.
This also explains why the GOP is desperate to control the State, eventually under a one-party system. The State is now the main source of "earnings" for the rentier class, through shadow banking, bonds, debt, limited wars, patents, copyrights, corporate welfare, and regressive taxation. The generation of students now playing by the rules and earning degrees to be "productive" will be assuming an utterly unsustainable debt in a variety of complex forms, while the only "earnings" that actually grow are those from capital returns and inheritance.
What deluded liberals must grasp is that nothing in history suggests that this problem will rationally "self-correct." Every new crisis and regression towards barbarity will further concentrate the power of the global rentier class, their "talking heads," and their vicious political thugs.
This sounds to me like ideology-based thinking with blinders. Ignoring the fact that the job market responds to supply and demand, and that wages are negotiated according to supply and demand rather than based on a mandated minimum wage, only helps to persuade people that piecemeal "cures" like a raised minimum wage will somehow make a difference, when any high-schooler is equipped to understand that any raise in the buying power of a sizable portion of the population will automatically result in prices rising to meet that rise in spending money, i/e. inflation. Granted, a higher minimum wage would be effective in a controlled economy such as the former Soviet bloc, where prices were fixed (when items were available); but in a free economy, prices tend to follow buying power.
The fact the job market is based on supply and demand is conveniently left out of the equation for a reason: it automatically brings forward the polarizing question of imported labor, and immigration enforcement and policies. We can continue de facto open border policies because it's the nice thing to do (and it assures a constant inpour of future democrat votes), but it also increases the disadvantage workers have at the bargaining table. "Not happy with the salary you're offered? Get lost, there's 10 waiting in line for your job". Decrease the offer, you'll increase demand (thus wages). It's Econ 101, but since ignoring it benefits both Democrats and Businessmen (GOP), it's sweeped under the rug.
The fact the job market is based on supply and demand is conveniently left out of the equation for a reason: it automatically brings forward the polarizing question of imported labor, and immigration enforcement and policies. We can continue de facto open border policies because it's the nice thing to do (and it assures a constant inpour of future democrat votes), but it also increases the disadvantage workers have at the bargaining table. "Not happy with the salary you're offered? Get lost, there's 10 waiting in line for your job". Decrease the offer, you'll increase demand (thus wages). It's Econ 101, but since ignoring it benefits both Democrats and Businessmen (GOP), it's sweeped under the rug.
31
Come back to Earth. It has been decades since de-regulation and "trickle-down" eliminated the need for the job market to respond to supply and demand.
2
And you are deliberately ignoring the role of corporate welfare via safety net that has been so clearly explained in the op-ed.
And the fact that there is no such thing as a "free market" in the real world.
And the fact that there is no such thing as a "free market" in the real world.
2
Chris,
Chris, I agree that Democrats and Republicans are responsible for our sorry mess. Part of the problem however is that they've convinced most American's that there is and should be a "free" market. There is not a free market in labor and probably never has been. That is Econ 401. Outside of an academic's spreadsheet, the economy exists in a broader society and this society to a significant constructs the "market". In our society this involves information and power differentials, often constructed at the behest of the buyers, between so-called buyers and sellers. If these were ameliorated foreign and domestic workers would benefit.
On the other hand, "Freedom!!!"
Chris, I agree that Democrats and Republicans are responsible for our sorry mess. Part of the problem however is that they've convinced most American's that there is and should be a "free" market. There is not a free market in labor and probably never has been. That is Econ 401. Outside of an academic's spreadsheet, the economy exists in a broader society and this society to a significant constructs the "market". In our society this involves information and power differentials, often constructed at the behest of the buyers, between so-called buyers and sellers. If these were ameliorated foreign and domestic workers would benefit.
On the other hand, "Freedom!!!"
2
Both sides of the ideological divide like to point to cherry picked stats in support of their own argument that the preferred policies of the other are to blame for the darkening horizons for our lower classes. But I wonder how much of what we see reflects economic currents far deeper than our own understanding.
The Times decries that jobs paying reasonable wages are not available in sufficient quantity and says the solution is increasing the minimum wage. But maybe the question we should be asking is why it is that those jobs are no longer being created. What has changed between the 1950's and today?
Back then, manufacturing jobs were available in quantity and wages were comparably higher. But they are not now. How much of this is due to competition from lower-wage foreign work forces? Wouldn't globalization, as it increases contact and competition naturally result in an evening out of global wages such that lower paid work forces would see their incomes and opportunities grow faster while higher paid forces would stagnate? And doesn't that explain our present situation? All of which is further exacerbated by technological change such that less labor input is required for any set output.
Protectionism doesn't work either, but I suspect part of the answer is to seek to make employing domestically less expensive while limiting the importation of lesser skilled workers into the work force, thereby increasing demand for while lessening supply of labor.
The Times decries that jobs paying reasonable wages are not available in sufficient quantity and says the solution is increasing the minimum wage. But maybe the question we should be asking is why it is that those jobs are no longer being created. What has changed between the 1950's and today?
Back then, manufacturing jobs were available in quantity and wages were comparably higher. But they are not now. How much of this is due to competition from lower-wage foreign work forces? Wouldn't globalization, as it increases contact and competition naturally result in an evening out of global wages such that lower paid work forces would see their incomes and opportunities grow faster while higher paid forces would stagnate? And doesn't that explain our present situation? All of which is further exacerbated by technological change such that less labor input is required for any set output.
Protectionism doesn't work either, but I suspect part of the answer is to seek to make employing domestically less expensive while limiting the importation of lesser skilled workers into the work force, thereby increasing demand for while lessening supply of labor.
9
It's not just the kinds of jobs created, but that minimum wage does not support the basic cost of living as well as it did 35 years ago. It was a decent entry level wage that gave experience and covered expenses without the need for government aid. Now it becomes a low wage trap and there seems to be no avenue for moving up. The corporations and share holders have gotten used to outsized profits generated by government subsidized workers and see no need to give raises, benefits or other perks to reward employees for jobs well done.
18
Good points. Our corporations have become global and really are no longer ours. They belong to the globe. They have the power to shop for the lowest wages, and the average worker, even those with education, can do little to protect the status and money they had in the 1950s and 1960s.
WWII had a lot to do with that early dynamic. We literally enjoyed the spoils of war for a couple of decades while the rest of the world tried to clear their heads from the devastation suffered by so many other countries. Those times could not possibly persist.
That said, one thing we should do is limit corporate influence in our government. Their influence is far too great given that they no longer have allegiance to the USA.
WWII had a lot to do with that early dynamic. We literally enjoyed the spoils of war for a couple of decades while the rest of the world tried to clear their heads from the devastation suffered by so many other countries. Those times could not possibly persist.
That said, one thing we should do is limit corporate influence in our government. Their influence is far too great given that they no longer have allegiance to the USA.
5
Nothing in your argument addresses the basic truth that full time work should be compensated fairly, which means a living wage. It does not matter what type of work, and there is always plenty of work to be done, an honest day's work should result in an honest day's pay which sustains the worker without the need for public assistance. As a college student, in the late sixties, I worked part time in an ice cream and lunch style restaurant. The hourly wage I was paid back then, adjusted for inflation, would be almost twice the current minimum wage. That is disgraceful, and socially unsustainable.
4
We're doing more than picking up the tab for low wages. We're picking up the tab for jobs that have been outsourced, jobs that no longer exist, and discriminatory practices on the part of employers. We're also dealing with a complete lack of planning in this country. When Reagan came into office we had a trade balance on the plus side, we could have planned for the Baby Boom population bulge as it aged, we could have planned how to compete for and keep jobs in America. We did none of those things. We watched as the Big Three auto companies built cars that weren't worth buying. We watched as pensions were taken away. We saw the minimum wage stagnate. There wasn't investment in our infrastructure, education, research, or any number of other important things. There was trickle down economics and welfare queens. I have yet to meet a welfare queen and trickle down economics hasn't worked for anyone I know.
We are paying the price for that now. Most born after 1955 have experienced at least one bout of long term unemployment. Many have not been able to save for retirement because of inadequate pay. Others cannot find jobs or jobs that pay enough to keep body and soul together. It's not just the poor who are having problems. It's the working poor, the middle class, and anyone who has to receive long term medical care. But we continue to hear about minimum wage jobs being for teens. Even if they are, anyone who works deserves a living wage.
We are paying the price for that now. Most born after 1955 have experienced at least one bout of long term unemployment. Many have not been able to save for retirement because of inadequate pay. Others cannot find jobs or jobs that pay enough to keep body and soul together. It's not just the poor who are having problems. It's the working poor, the middle class, and anyone who has to receive long term medical care. But we continue to hear about minimum wage jobs being for teens. Even if they are, anyone who works deserves a living wage.
97
The American standard of living is finding equilibrium with standards of living around the world. We gobbled the hog's share of the pie for more than 100 years and now are being forced via a globalized economy and competition with 6.5 billion other humans, equally deserving as us, to tone down our consumption so that others may enjoy some of what we did.
(Not that I consider billions more autos, smartphones and flat-screen TVs on the planet and other trappings of middle-class life "progress" in any sense, but we got what we wanted when we wanted it so who are we to judge the emerging middle classes in India, China and S. America?)
How many Americans are bothering to learn a 2nd or 3rd language instead of hanging out on Facebook or the middle-school soccer field? How many Americans shut off Dancing with the Stars, NASCAR and sport-fishing shows in favor of studying? How many Americans are willing to live three or four generations to a household in order to pool resources and get ahead like our competition around the world does?
Supply and demand. Earth on track to hit 11 billion humans before too long. Think conditions will improve then?
(Not that I consider billions more autos, smartphones and flat-screen TVs on the planet and other trappings of middle-class life "progress" in any sense, but we got what we wanted when we wanted it so who are we to judge the emerging middle classes in India, China and S. America?)
How many Americans are bothering to learn a 2nd or 3rd language instead of hanging out on Facebook or the middle-school soccer field? How many Americans shut off Dancing with the Stars, NASCAR and sport-fishing shows in favor of studying? How many Americans are willing to live three or four generations to a household in order to pool resources and get ahead like our competition around the world does?
Supply and demand. Earth on track to hit 11 billion humans before too long. Think conditions will improve then?
I couldn't agree more Hen3ry. Let me just add that the worst aspect of far right rule (Ike/Rockefeller/Nixon effectlively supported the New Deal) is what it's done to isolate each American from the other. Margaret Thatcher said what the far right sells: "There is no such thing as society, only individuals and their families." The diabolical brilliance of this statement is its power to undermine democratic collective action. When FDR said "We're all in this together," he laid the foundation for social solutions to society's ills. The American people will vote to spend tax dollars on people who are like them. So the far right attempts to make all of us suspicious about people not in our "tribe." They use code language to tweak racism, sexism, homophobia, & classim. They don't just do it to get elected. It furthers their long term agenda. Their most important product is alienation.
1
Well said. Now to take on all of the direct corporate welfare received by the same corporations, whether it's from local, state or the federal government. They are fleecing taxpayers from both ends.
49
Does anyone on the NYT editorial board wonder what impact millions of illegal aliens have on our labor market and wage rates? Obviously not. They are clueless.
People with NO skills should not be rewarded , when a illegal aliens can do these jobs anybody can with almost no training . Plus these low skill jobs are suppose to be for teens not adults with 3 or 4 children .
3
Even people with low or no skills can work hard at their job. And hard work should ALWAYS be rewarded. The biggest employer in this country is WALMART and most of their jobs are low paying. There are few jobs for Skilled workers, or educated workers as well. Your comment shows total ignorance for the real situation. Plus teens are in school, or should be and are not available to cover any and all hours of these jobs which are the majority of those being created.
16
But Gus, Walmart, McDonalds and other are hiring adults, some with 3 or 4 children. If you think those jobs should be given to teens, talk to the employers.
When retail giants like Walmart and McDonalds are open 24 hours, that eliminates the possibility of using teens, so the jobs go to some of society's most vulnerable.
1
Re-balance the economy. Everyone who works ought to be paid enough to be part of it. This means the lowest will get more. It means those who now pay less for their labor will pay more. The balance will shift a bit.
It won't cost the rest of us that much. The net cost must reflect payback too, to offset the direct costs, in reduced social expenditures and increased economic growth and tax receipts.
The balance has shifted. It must be shifted back again, re-balanced.
It won't cost the rest of us that much. The net cost must reflect payback too, to offset the direct costs, in reduced social expenditures and increased economic growth and tax receipts.
The balance has shifted. It must be shifted back again, re-balanced.
37
Today! Go to the money multiplier recorded at the St Louis Fed, and take a look at the graph line bounce along below the 2008 lows and wonder. Are we so stupid that we have allowed this to happen? It is not accidental you know! Of course it was said by the Masters of the Universe that no one could have seen the 2008 collapse coming, but it, and the ensuant inequality were a consequences of deliberate policy decisions. We must constantly remind ourselves that Money is a social technology, and the consequences of the use of this technology are the result of political decisions. None of what has happened in the economy was a natural occurrence with mystical overtones, but we were deliberately given that impression by the plutocrats, and their paid talking heads, in order to generate political acceptance for policies of austerity to be born by us, with a hefty subsidy to the banks because it was for our own good. Check out Modern Money Theory. Some of the most appropriate economics today is being done at the University of Missouri Economics Department. Wonderful and enlightening stuff!
1
Actually, it won't cost us anything. We will make a profit, because our taxes will be lowered.
I had to "chat" on line with Amazon tech support last weekend. My techie was a person from the Philippines (I asked). My daughter, with an IT BS from a very good college, can't find full time work (she fortunately has part-time work as a tech support person at a community college). I do feel sympathy for overseas people wanting jobs, but I do think corporations who off shore these jobs should pay a steep price for actions that make it so much harder for US citizens to prosper.
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Tax offshoring and tax at least a portion of unrepatriated capital gains. Then earmark the revenues to fund education and retraining for the American Workforce.
So far the Corporations Executives have refused to invest the enormous profits of offshoring in plant and development because we have a condition of too few dollars chasing too many goods. This is a consequence of depressed wages which barely sustain the economy. Instead the executives have awarded themselves bonuses with the profits realized from offshoring and mergers and acquisitions which have eliminated expensive redundancy. We are being played for suckers.
So far the Corporations Executives have refused to invest the enormous profits of offshoring in plant and development because we have a condition of too few dollars chasing too many goods. This is a consequence of depressed wages which barely sustain the economy. Instead the executives have awarded themselves bonuses with the profits realized from offshoring and mergers and acquisitions which have eliminated expensive redundancy. We are being played for suckers.
1
Why? Amazon is a global company & it can pick and choose from a global workforce of 7 billion people. Why should your daughter automatically be given preference over a hard working woman overseas, or any of the other billions of likely candidates?
1
And last night I chatted with several Comcast people. Some had adequate command of English, some did not. The only reason I have Comcast is I hear dish is worse. Yes, companies, you are saving money but losing customers.
I wonder how many Americans, who are dead set against the redistribution of wealth to achieve the Preamble's mandate to promote the general welfare, recognize that Quantitative Easing has by its technical complexity redistributed trillions of dollars from the economy of goods and services to a chosen few plutocrats, who are enabled to dominate the financial sector, also because of its complexity?
We have in every sense of the word made Corporate Welfare into an unstated element in the mandate of the Federal Reserve, and the result has been the public subsidy, which Republicans, and the Goldman Sachs Faction of the Democrat Party highly endorse.
According to the money supply, we should have too MANY dollars chasing too FEW goods (inflation). Yet; since the product of QE has stayed in the bank vaults, and has never showed up in the velocity of money, we are living in a condition of too FEW dollars chasing too MANY goods. QE has had a chilling effect on the real economy, but it has enriched the financial class who have been able to capitalize upon it. They will not invest in capacity because they know that WAGES are too LOW for a consumption boom, and this is the chief reason for the current gross income inequality.
The next time that some corporate shill rants on about the evils of the redistribution of wealth for public welfare, and warns us about the dangers of perverse incentive, remind him that we have had seven years of wealth redistribution to the Financial Sector.
We have in every sense of the word made Corporate Welfare into an unstated element in the mandate of the Federal Reserve, and the result has been the public subsidy, which Republicans, and the Goldman Sachs Faction of the Democrat Party highly endorse.
According to the money supply, we should have too MANY dollars chasing too FEW goods (inflation). Yet; since the product of QE has stayed in the bank vaults, and has never showed up in the velocity of money, we are living in a condition of too FEW dollars chasing too MANY goods. QE has had a chilling effect on the real economy, but it has enriched the financial class who have been able to capitalize upon it. They will not invest in capacity because they know that WAGES are too LOW for a consumption boom, and this is the chief reason for the current gross income inequality.
The next time that some corporate shill rants on about the evils of the redistribution of wealth for public welfare, and warns us about the dangers of perverse incentive, remind him that we have had seven years of wealth redistribution to the Financial Sector.
323
Thanks for this illuminating summary. As with everything in economics, it isn't likely the whole story, but it is at least consistent with what we observe and it does go a long way towards explanation.
As long as we do not operate at capacity, we will not have inflation.
I don't know what world so-called economists live in. Zero percent interest rate policy just packs money into mattresses where it is stored until it is ultimately needed.
It's long past time to stop devaluing the work of those on the low end of the pay scale and start paying them a minimum, living wage of $15.
And as "progressive" as the Democrats call for a $12 an hour minimum wage may sound, they must also insist that the higher minimum wage be indexed to inflation so we don't have to go through this debate again while workers lose purchasing power.
And as "progressive" as the Democrats call for a $12 an hour minimum wage may sound, they must also insist that the higher minimum wage be indexed to inflation so we don't have to go through this debate again while workers lose purchasing power.
72
The proposed $12 an hour by 2020 will be in reality less than the $7.25 we have today. By 2020 it would need to be twice that unless we have another crash and deflation. You are right, it needs to be $15 now and go up 2-3% EVERY year.
5
"they must also insist that the higher minimum wage be indexed to inflation so we don't have to go through this debate again while workers lose purchasing power." I agree.
1
The thought of greedy American companies like Walmart with CEOs making $20 million per year too cheap to pay their workers enough to live on forcing taxpayers to make up the difference makes me sick.
170
that is why I refuse to shop Walmart and try to find the goods at the few local stores we have. The Walton kids who probably never worked a day in their lives are among the richest in the country and that is not right.
1
Raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Now.
30
Who are you kidding? "Money makes the world go 'round". Greed, another contribution from corporate American.
12
"The best corrective is to raise the federal minimum wage."
I'd argue the BEST corrective is to occupy the factories and corporations, for the workers to seize control form worker's councils and decide their own wages. Raising the federal minimum wage is a minimum correct. Not a bad start, but definitely not the best correction.
I'd argue the BEST corrective is to occupy the factories and corporations, for the workers to seize control form worker's councils and decide their own wages. Raising the federal minimum wage is a minimum correct. Not a bad start, but definitely not the best correction.
14
Taxpayers? What about corporations that don't pay any income taxes?? What about profitable corporations that pay low wages to its workers, high compensation to its executives, and shift profits to subsidiaries in foreign tax havens? It's win-win for corporations and lose-lose for the working class. It is the best of times for corporate welfare and the worst of times for the 99%.
140
Already 10 years behind the times our courageous legislators want to phase in $12 an hour by 2020? Thanks for nothing!
37
Hmmmm.. there is also a well coordinated attack on unions too. You know, the groups organized by workers for better wages and benefits. Strong unions are not the result of rosy work environments where workers feel valued and fairly compensated... There is also legislative moves with so called Right To Work bills which foil attempt to foil unions. Who is behind these moves? Most GOP politicians. Why? To satisfy their corporate titan owners.
43
Yes, JPKANT, the groups organized by workers that brought us the 40 hour work week and overtime pay for overtime work.
Good idea California- so when will The Times start naming names? We can all guess a few but a lot more public naming and shaming of these corporate welfare bums would not be amiss!
63
Jobs don't pay enough for people to lead successful lives, so the government has to pick up the tab. At least one political party wants to eliminate subsidies to the slackers. America, wake up now. It will be too late, very, very soon.
24
No, BGregM, that political party wants to eliminate subsidies to the SO-CALLED slackers. But how can someone who is working be called a slacker - just because the wage the employer pays makes the worker eligible for safety net programs?
Six reasons why the minimum wage should NOT be increased! See http://worksnewage.blogspot.com/2013/12/six-points-against-higher-minimu... .
Hmm, a link to your own blog where you make a number of claims by fiat which you say our correct but actually aren't supported by hard data. Try going back and linking 'reputable' studies, i.e. peer reviewed our non-partisan government, and see how many of your arguments stand. My count was zero. PS The argument that you know of no good study that shows the world is round and you have even heard people say it is flat is not a good line of evidence for arguing that it is flat.
Another major corrective to curtail this corporate welfare is the somehow still-pending revision of the overtime upset rule which is languishing in the 7th year of the Obama Administration. Currently salaried workers earning as little as $455 weekly can be exempt from being paid overtime. Only 11% of U.S. salaried workers are eligible for overtime; 40 years ago 65% were eligible.
Credit 26 members of the Democratic Senate caucus for prodding the administration to complete the revision.
All of our Senators and Representatives who bemoan the size of the federal budget deficit should be championing both a material increase in the minimum wage and revision of the overtime upset rule as an opportunity to shrink the deficit by more than $100 billion yearly.
Credit 26 members of the Democratic Senate caucus for prodding the administration to complete the revision.
All of our Senators and Representatives who bemoan the size of the federal budget deficit should be championing both a material increase in the minimum wage and revision of the overtime upset rule as an opportunity to shrink the deficit by more than $100 billion yearly.
15
Unfortunately, we have brought this scourge on ourselves by letting one side of our politics destroy the representation workers use to have: Unions. Unions were the "corporate" voice of the worker. Without them, the workers have no power and must ask for the government to protect them from predatory corporations who have lots of money and all the lobbyists needed to control the situation entirely. This is a terrible model.
Of course let's not forget that the Unions overplayed their hand years ago. Much of the blame for the loss of the unions belongs with the union leadership. Still, seeking a minimum wage looks like a bandaid to this problem of corporations preying on the poor. These poor workers need a voice that is looking out for their interests every working day. Government can help a little, but is not capable of doing this job alone.
If there is a better way to empower the average worker I'm certainly open to it. Until then I would go with the one thing that worked very well in the past: Unions.
Of course let's not forget that the Unions overplayed their hand years ago. Much of the blame for the loss of the unions belongs with the union leadership. Still, seeking a minimum wage looks like a bandaid to this problem of corporations preying on the poor. These poor workers need a voice that is looking out for their interests every working day. Government can help a little, but is not capable of doing this job alone.
If there is a better way to empower the average worker I'm certainly open to it. Until then I would go with the one thing that worked very well in the past: Unions.
28
The one issue I have with unions is that they have too often protected workers who are caught doing bad things (like drinking and doing drugs at lunch). The unions then fight for these bad apples to keep their jobs rather than to have them fired. If unions only protected the good workers, I wouldn't have a problem with them, but they try to protect the bad workers. This is what gives unions a bad reputation.
"The low-wage business model has essentially turned public aid into a form of corporate welfare." That's a meme that needs to be pushed and promoted until it's a part of public consciousness. Cheap labor is a myth. Someone has to make up the difference between what businesses are willing to pay and a "living" wage. If someone devotes most of her working hours to one job, that job must by law provide a living wage. Or the company that employs that person gets the bill for her use of the "safety net." Simple as that.
423
Requiring work to get welfare was the plan to reduce welfare.
Instead it reduced wages.
The poor have no more money.
Somehow, the rich got the benefit. The money went to those who already had money, those who pay for politicians and lobbyists.
They work, but they get no benefit from working, they just go as fast as they can to keep their noses above water. The productivity and growth they produce all goes to someone else.
And the rest of wage earners slowly, steadily sink down to be more like that.
Instead it reduced wages.
The poor have no more money.
Somehow, the rich got the benefit. The money went to those who already had money, those who pay for politicians and lobbyists.
They work, but they get no benefit from working, they just go as fast as they can to keep their noses above water. The productivity and growth they produce all goes to someone else.
And the rest of wage earners slowly, steadily sink down to be more like that.
26
It seems obvious we here reading the Time online, know what is happening. When will the rest of the country wake up and start voting with their dollars? I honestly believe an excellent tipping point will be a consumer austerity movement. movement. We starve megacorporations of dollars by opting out of the product lifecycles whereby the American People, conditioned to consume cradle to grave, stop buying everything but the barest essentials for at least one year. Wear our clothes and shoes until they fall apart. Stop buying cheap garbage to drag home that breaks or is a plastic eyesore anyway. We can live without in order to drive some points home. I think it might become a fashionable new habit. Breaking the banksters and putting corporations out of business.
Stock returns have been lower this decade than either of the previous two decades. That was the first fact I checked. The second fact I checked was the claim that working families collect almost 75% of public aid for the poor. That is statistical manipulation. It is based on the inclusion of the earned income credit as public aid, which is restricted to the working poor. The analysis falls apart when it is based on Medicaid and welfare and other aid programs available to all. I haven't checked any other statistics. 2 out of 2 was bad enough. When your statistics are false or misleading, your argument is not worth the paper it is written on. The fact of the matter is that low-wage American businesses are not thriving and the government is subsidizing a lot more non-working families than indicated here.
The systematic dismantling of labor unions by the republican party has wrecked middle income America. Outsourcing jobs to maximize corporate profit is seen as a smart practice. Venture capitalists who produce nothing, create nothing and share nothing make money by shuffling and re naming paper. Greed. We all pay the price.
12
The minimum wage should be increased to at least $20/hour. But we also need more jobs, and the best way to increase the number of jobs is to bring back the millions of jobs we sent overseas.
The failed policy of "free trade" is the culprit. Every year, we import almost $600 Billion more in goods and services than we export. This has decimated our economy, and only the rich have benefited here. (The poor of Asia have also benefitted, but helping them was not how the ideology of "free trade" was sold to Americans.)
We need to raise tariffs to balance trade and get back the millions of jobs we lost. Until that happens, the balance between labor and capital will heavily favor capital, and a higher minimum wage will be a required band aid.
The failed policy of "free trade" is the culprit. Every year, we import almost $600 Billion more in goods and services than we export. This has decimated our economy, and only the rich have benefited here. (The poor of Asia have also benefitted, but helping them was not how the ideology of "free trade" was sold to Americans.)
We need to raise tariffs to balance trade and get back the millions of jobs we lost. Until that happens, the balance between labor and capital will heavily favor capital, and a higher minimum wage will be a required band aid.
2
Making even $15 an will not decrease the need for food stamps and subsidies for many. NYC rents are simply unaffordable and stabilization of rents should only be accessible to those making under $50K. Landlords in kind should get tax breaks in order even bother being in the business - yes it's business folks, to make a decent profit. All the rest above that should move to the Bronx, Queens or Staten Island. Everything bought in this city is very expensive and the politicians don't want competitive stores like Walmart with cheap prices so that the poor are stuck spending $$ on food that is 20% higher. Oh let's not forget the millions of folks, many in this city who will gladly outbid everyone by working for half the amount proposed - illegals who are siphoning off benefits, jobs, food stamps and education from those who are poor citizens and green card holders - legal residents. Let's insure that that rent subsidised tenants don't own a country home in the Hamptons or Ct that was subsidised by a low rent apartment in the city. Also let's insure a rent stabilized apartment fit the needs of the tenant - example if an elderly person lives in an empty nest 3 bedroom apartment alone, make it a requirement that they swap out the apartment to a 1 bedroom or studio so that families with larger needs have adequate housing. Allow landlords to buy out their regulated apartments at flat very high $$ amounts that those funds are pooled to buy new housing for those in need.
2
Economists have known since the 1920's of an economic model that predicted the following: Free international trade but with no immigration of labor would tend to equalize wage rates world-wide. The returns to capital, once free to move about the world in search of the highest returns, would increase. The staggering failure of the US is to a large extent the failure to move money from the capitalists (the super rich) to the education of our children starting, particularly in the case of the poor even before babies are born, and continuing through at least community colleges and with highly subsidized education at our four-year universities. Our workers will simply not be able to earn decent wages if they are competing with, say, the workers in China. Also, look at the health-care systems in other countries and the extent of their investments in infrastructure. Our failure is a result of bad economic policy.
11
It is anathema to Republican political philosophy to curtail corporate profitability, so we can expect that party to continue to obstruct any attempt to raise wages and benefits. The fact that government welfare programs must pick up the slack caused by corporate parsimony does not seem to bother Republican morality or electoral successes.
7
Both political parties and all their candidates are for more trade agreements (TPP) that will only increase the attack on good paying jobs in this country. The government at all levels (Federal, State, Local) will become bigger and bigger as more workers and money are needed to care for the working poor. If you can't see this happening, I don't think you're looking.
4
You talk about the symptoms, but not the underlying cause of income inequality, corporate corruption of Congress. If you read books like "Who Stole the American Dream", by Hedrick Smith, and "Winner Take All Politics", by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, you will get it that the current corporate welfare state is a result of a conspiracy by right wing businessmen, like the Koch brothers, to corrupt Congress with campaign cash and lobbyists so it will further the interests of the wealthy corporate elite in this country, not the interests of working class people.
Once you read books like these, you will see the events of the last 30 years more clearly, and realize that the "conservative revolution" was really class warfare by the rich against the rest of us, and they won. That is why the tax rates of the 1% went from 90 percent to 39%, except for hedge fund managers who only pay 15%. That is why the minimum wage reached its highest purchasing power in 1969, and why tens of millions of manufacturing jobs were shipped overseas without a peep from Congress. That is why corporate America and the wealthy have a vast array of tax breaks that serve no legitimate purpose.
Your reporting on income inequality just skims the surface because you do not really examine how corporate corruption of Congress created it.
Once you read books like these, you will see the events of the last 30 years more clearly, and realize that the "conservative revolution" was really class warfare by the rich against the rest of us, and they won. That is why the tax rates of the 1% went from 90 percent to 39%, except for hedge fund managers who only pay 15%. That is why the minimum wage reached its highest purchasing power in 1969, and why tens of millions of manufacturing jobs were shipped overseas without a peep from Congress. That is why corporate America and the wealthy have a vast array of tax breaks that serve no legitimate purpose.
Your reporting on income inequality just skims the surface because you do not really examine how corporate corruption of Congress created it.
26
This board doesn't address it, but I do want to give props David Cay Johnston, who has been championing this argument for more than a decade.
"......when work does not pay workers enough to get by, they are forced to rely on public assistance programs, mainly Medicaid, food stamps and low-earner tax credits." These are also programs that are in the crosshairs of the new Republican budget.
How about corporate tax rebates for a living wage, and a steeply progressive rate above $250,000 of compensation a year?
How about corporate tax rebates for a living wage, and a steeply progressive rate above $250,000 of compensation a year?
8
This is what Republicans do not understand or at least pretend not to understand. If you want to reduce government spending on poor people, you need to have fewer of them. And the only moral way to do that is to ensure that they have jobs and that those jobs pay them, at minimum, $10.86 per hour, or the 1968 minimum wage expressed in 2014 dollars. Then you would not have a need for as much public aid to supply food and healthcare support to poorer people. These individuals may lack in resources and education, but they're not dumb (contrary to what some conservatives imply). They know how to keep themselves and their family afloat if only they were given a fair shot at doing so. But they're not, because high profit margins and stock prices are more important to employers than paying their employees a true living wage. That's not their fault; it's the government's for giving them this option.
Of course, the only way to do this is to redistribute wealth, a idea that conservatives continue to find abhorrent and inimical to a prosperous economy (prosperous for whom exactly?). Yet, when the last two Democratic presidents pushed through policies to raise taxes that is what got our economy moving in the right direction again. We can afford to pay people $10.86 today and more than $12 by the end of the decade.
Of course, the only way to do this is to redistribute wealth, a idea that conservatives continue to find abhorrent and inimical to a prosperous economy (prosperous for whom exactly?). Yet, when the last two Democratic presidents pushed through policies to raise taxes that is what got our economy moving in the right direction again. We can afford to pay people $10.86 today and more than $12 by the end of the decade.
8
We'd not be redistributing much "wealth" at those rates. Paying workers enough to eat is not going to take real wealth from the wealthy.
1
This is what individuals like yourself don't seem to understand..."the only way is to redistribute wealth" Inherently thats a judgement against those that have been successful. If a successful individual who earns say 500k, 1 million, etc. has to pay more to redistribute thats less for their family, their children, etc. Thats money that they could save so their children, grandchidren, etc can go to college debt free. They have earned it with their skills, why should they have to essentially pay success tax (as the data shows that the majority of the 1% are professionals, not inherited wealth).
As for the concept of living wage, the minimum wage is roughly at its inflation adjusted average since its inception, why should we force business large or small to go to the peak of 1968 when we are at the avg roughly? We have a labor market with a large supply of unskilled labor, hence wage stagnation for that group. To simply force wage up without demand outstripping supply forces businesses to pay more with no real labor force pressure. If the market say a workers wage is X based on supply/skills, etc the worker has a choice to accept, look elsewhere, or look for greater skills/shorter supply areas to enhance their wage.
As for the concept of living wage, the minimum wage is roughly at its inflation adjusted average since its inception, why should we force business large or small to go to the peak of 1968 when we are at the avg roughly? We have a labor market with a large supply of unskilled labor, hence wage stagnation for that group. To simply force wage up without demand outstripping supply forces businesses to pay more with no real labor force pressure. If the market say a workers wage is X based on supply/skills, etc the worker has a choice to accept, look elsewhere, or look for greater skills/shorter supply areas to enhance their wage.
This has been going on for a VERY long time. Took long enough for an article like this to come out front and center.
4
Congratulations, you got it half right.
Yes, earned income tax credits are a simple solution, after eliminating all the other bells and whistles like food stamps and aid to dependent children. Give low wage workers enough cash money to provide the necessities of life, on a national level. Again, on a national level.This will help redistribute these workers around the country and away from the expensive, urban areas into which they were lured with generous, though inadequate welfare programs. Also again, cash, not a collection of "we know better than you how to spend your money" subsidies and incentives. Lying on the beach and eating nachos should not be the exclusive privilege of the the idle rich.
And speaking of the idle rich, they will be the source of the funds for this program. A steeply graduated income tax. Once the rentiers of our great nation discover that their personal income is paying for this corporate welfare, wages will magically rise.
Problems solved, now comes the problem of electing public officials to enact it.
Yes, earned income tax credits are a simple solution, after eliminating all the other bells and whistles like food stamps and aid to dependent children. Give low wage workers enough cash money to provide the necessities of life, on a national level. Again, on a national level.This will help redistribute these workers around the country and away from the expensive, urban areas into which they were lured with generous, though inadequate welfare programs. Also again, cash, not a collection of "we know better than you how to spend your money" subsidies and incentives. Lying on the beach and eating nachos should not be the exclusive privilege of the the idle rich.
And speaking of the idle rich, they will be the source of the funds for this program. A steeply graduated income tax. Once the rentiers of our great nation discover that their personal income is paying for this corporate welfare, wages will magically rise.
Problems solved, now comes the problem of electing public officials to enact it.
3
How much of the Walton family's extreme wealth reflects taxpayer-subsidized Food-Stamps and Medicaid payments for Walmart's low-paid workers? Someone please do the math for Walmart's, McDonalds and other companies whose business models depends on taxpayer subsidies of their low wages.
27
This is an economics problem pure and simple, a country's assets are it's citizens and it needs to protect its investment. After all many years of schooling and social support have been invested in these people. Employers benefiting from employees without compensating them adequately to live on are benefiting from an economic externality.
In the case of someone falling below the poverty line whilst employed due to low wages a punitive tax needs to be assessed to recover the costs to the state (preferably with a portion that increases with the profit of the employer). Realists do not simply expect companies to "do good", rather they guide them by using the correct economic levers to ensure the way to maximisation of profit is in the direction that benefits society as a whole.
Some might argue that such a tax could be a job killer, but that is a narrow and shortsighted view. Unless the true economic costs of production are reflected in the goods/service price then those jobs don't truly add value to the economy they just increase government dependancy.
In the case of someone falling below the poverty line whilst employed due to low wages a punitive tax needs to be assessed to recover the costs to the state (preferably with a portion that increases with the profit of the employer). Realists do not simply expect companies to "do good", rather they guide them by using the correct economic levers to ensure the way to maximisation of profit is in the direction that benefits society as a whole.
Some might argue that such a tax could be a job killer, but that is a narrow and shortsighted view. Unless the true economic costs of production are reflected in the goods/service price then those jobs don't truly add value to the economy they just increase government dependancy.
11
There’s a wave-front building even among Republican policy wonks that acknowledges that corporate welfare exists and seeks to battle it. The problem for many of us is that the means of battling it tend to seek to replace an attention on the unproductive interests of individuals and corporate governance with one on the interests of elites who employ government as their means of effecting change. When that happens to excess, it becomes about what Bernie Sanders thinks is right or wrong for Americans, and not about what Americans think is right or wrong in their own lives.
We don’t need another Western Europe to further experiment with how the collective can more sustainably improve the lives of regular people at the expense of their individuality and their liberty.
There are other complications with taking such a path. We can increase minimum wages, we can legislate limits on what individuals can make, and we can even impose draconian taxing regimes to redistribute production to a far more extensive degree. But that would damage free trade, because competitive pressures would empty America of work as capital sought less expensive hands and a longer leash elsewhere. It also would align us with a Europe that licenses patents developed by others, rather than developing our own, because the rewards of innovation are so curtailed.
There’s a social price to be paid for low wages. But in too-energetically seeking to lower that price, we can go too far and lose who we are.
We don’t need another Western Europe to further experiment with how the collective can more sustainably improve the lives of regular people at the expense of their individuality and their liberty.
There are other complications with taking such a path. We can increase minimum wages, we can legislate limits on what individuals can make, and we can even impose draconian taxing regimes to redistribute production to a far more extensive degree. But that would damage free trade, because competitive pressures would empty America of work as capital sought less expensive hands and a longer leash elsewhere. It also would align us with a Europe that licenses patents developed by others, rather than developing our own, because the rewards of innovation are so curtailed.
There’s a social price to be paid for low wages. But in too-energetically seeking to lower that price, we can go too far and lose who we are.
1
This editorial is backwards.
Market-level wages + a strong social safety net (especially but not limited to medical care) is a better world than Government-set wages (== price controls so less economic activity) + a weak social safety net.
$12/hour isn't going to buy anybody health insurance or a decent retirement anyway, or even housing in some areas. We're better off with heavily subsidized medical care, housing, and transportation and letting the market set labor rates to maximize economic activity.
Market-level wages + a strong social safety net (especially but not limited to medical care) is a better world than Government-set wages (== price controls so less economic activity) + a weak social safety net.
$12/hour isn't going to buy anybody health insurance or a decent retirement anyway, or even housing in some areas. We're better off with heavily subsidized medical care, housing, and transportation and letting the market set labor rates to maximize economic activity.
2
The data shows that in 2013 adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage was on par with its inflation adjusted rates since its inception in 1938, with its peak value in 1968. So the repeated claims that is getting worse doesnt seem to be as validated by the inflation adjusted data.
Further, when looking at minimum wage one needs to realize its an entry level wage, not a family sustaining wage. Individuals need to be held responsible for family planning and realizing if their wage can sustain a family. Also look to see if 2 incomes rather than 1 can sustain a family.
Its easy to say raise the minimum wage, get back at the big corporations making huge profits but what about small business, not so easy there. One of the arguments made for the low wages is the shift from labor to knowledge based economy and the fact that we have too many unskilled works, it stands to reason that with a surplus, wages will stagnate. Only when the workforce diversifies can wages naturally rise for unskilled labor.
Further, when looking at minimum wage one needs to realize its an entry level wage, not a family sustaining wage. Individuals need to be held responsible for family planning and realizing if their wage can sustain a family. Also look to see if 2 incomes rather than 1 can sustain a family.
Its easy to say raise the minimum wage, get back at the big corporations making huge profits but what about small business, not so easy there. One of the arguments made for the low wages is the shift from labor to knowledge based economy and the fact that we have too many unskilled works, it stands to reason that with a surplus, wages will stagnate. Only when the workforce diversifies can wages naturally rise for unskilled labor.
1
Even if you consider the minimum wage to be "entry level," you don't explain why an entry level job should not pay enough for someone to live on without public assistance. Those jobs are not only for teenagers.
Everyone should make the same wage! That worked in many other countries like.......
1
That's not what this editorial is saying. It's saying that we pay for the deficit in wages with food stamps, and other financial assistance. We are subsidizing corporate decisions to underpay people. We are subsidizing the gender gap in pay. When people are not paid enough to be able to meet basic needs we are paying for it. The companies that are responsible for this should not be getting a free ride. Not earning enough to live means that people can be evicted, be unable to eat decent meals, unable to see doctors, unable to give their children the attention they need, and unable to think past the moment. If raising the minimum wage to a living wage eliminates taxpayers having to step in and supply what's missing, it's well worth it. Since companies won't raise the wages on their own or cut back on the perks they give CEOs, the country needs to penalize them. There is absolutely no reason why a full time employee should need to work a second job unless they aren't being paid enough.
9
Do you really think that that is what this editorial suggests?
3
Everybody should make at least a minimum wage. Nobody here has said anything more than that. That minimum wage ought to provide a living wage. Working for so little one cannot get by despite working is just wrong. Goverment paying the balance out of taxes on the middle is just wrong.
5
I like the idea of states publishing the names of companies with lots of workers who do not earn so little that they must take public assistance, and also the idea of a tax surcharge on companies that pay workers less than $15 per hour.
A strong majority of business leaders and high income individual like to say that they oppose welfare. But business and very high income earners are by several orders of magnitude the largest recipients of government subsidies in the form of state (meaning taxpayer) funded income support for very low wage employees (a result, in part, of a legal structure which disfavors worker unions), and tax direct breaks.
Making both crystal clear and public the magnitude of government subsidies to corporations might help cure the widespread misperception that corporations do not receive government assistance, both directly in the form of tax breaks and indirectly in the form of low wage worker income support.
A strong majority of business leaders and high income individual like to say that they oppose welfare. But business and very high income earners are by several orders of magnitude the largest recipients of government subsidies in the form of state (meaning taxpayer) funded income support for very low wage employees (a result, in part, of a legal structure which disfavors worker unions), and tax direct breaks.
Making both crystal clear and public the magnitude of government subsidies to corporations might help cure the widespread misperception that corporations do not receive government assistance, both directly in the form of tax breaks and indirectly in the form of low wage worker income support.
39
Corporate welfare that suppresses wage growth is socialising the cost of business onto tax payers.
This is not capitalism.
Those who are against low wages that encourage welfare are the true capitalist.
The higher wages will increase the number of consumers to help our economy.
This is not capitalism.
Those who are against low wages that encourage welfare are the true capitalist.
The higher wages will increase the number of consumers to help our economy.
21
Once again, the Democrats in Congress come up short.
The minimum wage needs to be at least $15.00 an hour, the wage that fast food workers are fighting for - and needs to be tied to any plan to reduce corporate taxes (while eliminating loopholes, etc.), as President Obama has been arguing for. That is, no cut in domestic corporate taxes without an increase in the minimum wage so that it becomes a living wage.
The Republicans will balk at this, just as they balk at everything that makes government less necessary in the modern world. But when they balk, Democrats can make a coherent plan to both enhance American competitiveness AND establish a living wage in America, a wage that will make Americans less dependent on government and turn most of them into Federal taxpayers, the centerpiece of their 2016 campaign efforts.
If Democrats wish to have a prayer of taking back the House and Senate in 2016, they need to stop pestering their supporters for money and instead introduce an agenda that will command ordinary Americans' attention. A plan to establish of a $15-$16 adult living wage, in exchange for an adjustment in rate of taxation that companies doing business in America pay, would be just that.
The reality is that every scheme that reactionary groups like ALEC introduce only makes government that much more necessary. The only credible way to make people less dependent on government in the 21st century is to keep jobs in American while paying workers a living wage.
The minimum wage needs to be at least $15.00 an hour, the wage that fast food workers are fighting for - and needs to be tied to any plan to reduce corporate taxes (while eliminating loopholes, etc.), as President Obama has been arguing for. That is, no cut in domestic corporate taxes without an increase in the minimum wage so that it becomes a living wage.
The Republicans will balk at this, just as they balk at everything that makes government less necessary in the modern world. But when they balk, Democrats can make a coherent plan to both enhance American competitiveness AND establish a living wage in America, a wage that will make Americans less dependent on government and turn most of them into Federal taxpayers, the centerpiece of their 2016 campaign efforts.
If Democrats wish to have a prayer of taking back the House and Senate in 2016, they need to stop pestering their supporters for money and instead introduce an agenda that will command ordinary Americans' attention. A plan to establish of a $15-$16 adult living wage, in exchange for an adjustment in rate of taxation that companies doing business in America pay, would be just that.
The reality is that every scheme that reactionary groups like ALEC introduce only makes government that much more necessary. The only credible way to make people less dependent on government in the 21st century is to keep jobs in American while paying workers a living wage.
116
It has nothing to do with either political party, actually. $15 is just too much to pay for unskilled work (at a time when illegal aliens often take around $4 to $6 an hour for this work). Automation is expanding at a vast pace, and a $15 wage (DOUBLE the current minimum) will drive employers to automate, meaning NO job for many unskilled people -- not a $32,000 a year job.
No amount of taxation is going to make up for this. I guess we can tell you don't own a small business of any kind, or you might understand you can't just jack up wages 100% AND insist the same company pay for health insurance (with no cost controls) AND then announce because the owner is "rich", he also pay double taxes. Every small business is not GE or GM or Apple -- what you are asking for is unsustainable. And also insulting -- millions of college graduates now earn $12-$18 an hour -- and you are basically telling them that they are worth the same or less than a BURGER FLIPPER. Or do you intend to force businesses to raise EVERYONE'S pay by 100% overnight?
(No possible inflation from THAT, no siree.)
No amount of taxation is going to make up for this. I guess we can tell you don't own a small business of any kind, or you might understand you can't just jack up wages 100% AND insist the same company pay for health insurance (with no cost controls) AND then announce because the owner is "rich", he also pay double taxes. Every small business is not GE or GM or Apple -- what you are asking for is unsustainable. And also insulting -- millions of college graduates now earn $12-$18 an hour -- and you are basically telling them that they are worth the same or less than a BURGER FLIPPER. Or do you intend to force businesses to raise EVERYONE'S pay by 100% overnight?
(No possible inflation from THAT, no siree.)
1
Excellent analysis.
Low wages are only half the story. The other half are the well-paying jobs that no longer exist because of conscious decisions made in executive suites to export them in order to make a penny or two more on the dollar. In a formal sense, the government is picking up the tab by paying benefit. But the tab is also being picked up by undermined families and communities, and our political and media elites pay no attention - until, that is, the safety valve pops as it did in Baltimore.
Who are the thugs in Baltimore, the people who took to the streets, a small minority of whom physically harmed their communities, or the executive elites who unanimously placed their companies' bottom lines above the general good?
Who are the thugs in Baltimore, the people who took to the streets, a small minority of whom physically harmed their communities, or the executive elites who unanimously placed their companies' bottom lines above the general good?
118
Corporate leaders are not thugs, any more than carnivorous animals are bad. Both do what they must do within the rules of the game. It is government that is falling down on the job. Government must set better rules for corporations; minimum wage is one such rule; tax policy is another. We have to make the government do what is best for real citizens and stop doing what is best for the paying [corporate] "citizens".
What does it say about an economic system that its advocates continually preach cannot pay people a living wage.
51
Not cannot pay people a living wage, Scott. The correct word is CHOOSES to not pay people a living wage, for the sake of the corporation's bottom line.
10
Indeed. Seems by comparison that maybe socialism and even communism might be better than the America version of capitalism. Could Marx have been right? Maybe he prophetically knew where American capitalism was headed. We are now seeing its fruit on the streets of Baltimore.
Blame? If any, our gaze should go to Washington, D.C. This has not been accidental, but purposeful. Hello, Koch brothers.
Blame? If any, our gaze should go to Washington, D.C. This has not been accidental, but purposeful. Hello, Koch brothers.
Nothing good.
1
At the same time, some of those low income workers as well as taxpayers continue to vote Republican to get their "tax cuts". In the meantime, lets not mention the record amounts of cash and record profits of corporations that are used for anything but raising wages of their workers and sharing those profits.
81
Many low income workers may not be really well educated and vote on other bases. - Or may not vote at all as many states are passing laws making it difficult for some voters who may need special IDs or drivers licenses which they don't have. I have often wondered why people vote for candidates who don't support the people's real interests. I like California's idea of publishing the names of corporations and businesses who pay low wages yet reward their CEOs and stockholders highly. We need to know who they are and begin to figure out ways to stop this unfair business practice.
2
And those same people, as well as Democrats, continue to buy disposable Chinese-made trash to save a few dollars, and ride around in Kias and Toyotas. Might as well keep shooting yourself in the foot too.
The current minimum wage (up from $5.15 just 8 years ago!) was put in place under GW Bush. It was a 3 part raise and completed in 2009, but the legislation is from 2007.
Anyone who calls for higher wages is at risk of being called a Socialist. The fact is, however, that paying wages that reflect the economic value of productivity is exquisitely good capitalism, in that it enables the system to sustainability. Increasingly low wage rates relative to productivity growth lead to destruction of demand, as we are currently experiencing. This, in turn, leads to decreased investment by companies, which then push increased (but, in the long run, ephemeral) profits to managers far in excess of their "value added", and to shareholders who are increasingly unable to find efficient (in the economic sense) opportunities for re-investment. Thus a vicious cycle is put in place, one that will destroy capitalism more surely than any socialist might ever dream.
100
" Increasingly low wage rates relative to productivity growth lead to destruction of demand, as we are currently experiencing"
We are currently experiencing that in the domestic arena, but not the global one. The rising middle class in India is now larger than the entire population of the U.S. And of course, there's the Chinese market. These are the consumers that corporations are salivating over, and why they are fixated on new international trade deals. TPP anyone?
We are currently experiencing that in the domestic arena, but not the global one. The rising middle class in India is now larger than the entire population of the U.S. And of course, there's the Chinese market. These are the consumers that corporations are salivating over, and why they are fixated on new international trade deals. TPP anyone?
1
Michael, the socialists are those who advocate maintaining the status quo - "state and federal governments spend more than $150 billion a year on such aid.".
The WalMart business model relies on taxpayer support of their employees so the Waltons can maintain their standard of living rather than pay decent wages and benefits to those in their employ. We taxpayers dutifully comply.
The WalMart business model relies on taxpayer support of their employees so the Waltons can maintain their standard of living rather than pay decent wages and benefits to those in their employ. We taxpayers dutifully comply.
I'll never understand what the problem is with having some socialist practices in this country along with capitalism. We need to start caring more about our fellow Americans - if you call that socialism, then so be it. It's your taxes that are supporting the rich corporations. Doesn't that bother you? No one is trying to turn out country into a communist state - that's ridiculous. Remember FAIRNESS. The more people earn, the more they can spend, pay in taxes, and invest in their children, community, and country.
3
Smart ALEC, dumb Americans.
159
Well said. “The low-wage business model has turned public aid into corporate welfare.”
This is the most important issue to be discussed in the campaign. Make the Gop answer to it. They talk about jobless citizens’ ‘dependency’ on welfare, but it’s the corporations who depend on it, to keep piling up their excessive profits, and keeping them from taxes. Let big business develop some self reliance and independence they urge others to have.
And “A handful of states are considering ways to recover public funds from low-wage employers.” A handful, are considering? Like maybe a few may consider making all citizens eligible for ACA? This is one of the roots of America’s backwardness and ongoing social problems---no federal policy. We leave it up to states, since we’re captive to a strange idea of freedom from big govt intrusion. This is how big business uses our system to exploit it.
Many other countries have much higher minimum wage, plus paid sick leave. Bernie Sanders said Denmark has 20 dollars/hr. Yet it seems their employers can still operate profitable businesses. Americans need to hear some details on exactly how this is managed---we are told it can’t be done. One of the ways to introduce new ideas on min wage is to use concrete examples from abroad. How about it Times?
This is the most important issue to be discussed in the campaign. Make the Gop answer to it. They talk about jobless citizens’ ‘dependency’ on welfare, but it’s the corporations who depend on it, to keep piling up their excessive profits, and keeping them from taxes. Let big business develop some self reliance and independence they urge others to have.
And “A handful of states are considering ways to recover public funds from low-wage employers.” A handful, are considering? Like maybe a few may consider making all citizens eligible for ACA? This is one of the roots of America’s backwardness and ongoing social problems---no federal policy. We leave it up to states, since we’re captive to a strange idea of freedom from big govt intrusion. This is how big business uses our system to exploit it.
Many other countries have much higher minimum wage, plus paid sick leave. Bernie Sanders said Denmark has 20 dollars/hr. Yet it seems their employers can still operate profitable businesses. Americans need to hear some details on exactly how this is managed---we are told it can’t be done. One of the ways to introduce new ideas on min wage is to use concrete examples from abroad. How about it Times?
407
unfortunately whenever that argument is put forth - how come Denmark, France, etc. can do it? - the reply is always "but they don't have the defense requirements the U.S. has, they don't need to be the policemen of the world." To suggest the U.S. should scale back its involvement, specifically its military bases and defense footprint around the world is to be accused of naiveté.
So a few bold Dems in Congress have introduced a bill raising the minimum wage to $12/hour...and it'll take just 5 more years to get there. What a joke.
So a few bold Dems in Congress have introduced a bill raising the minimum wage to $12/hour...and it'll take just 5 more years to get there. What a joke.
3
How do they do it? In the US the CEO: worker income ratio is 354. In Denmark, 48. See this graphic from the WP:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/25/the-pay-gap-b...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/25/the-pay-gap-b...
3
The richest corporations in this country continue to seek to privatize their profits, but socialize their losses and expenses, on the backs of American workers and taxpayers.
And because he is not beholden to, or in the pockets of these selfish hypocrites, this is exactly the kind of unconscionable thievery that candidate Bernie Sanders will call out, front and center. And you can be sure no one else will.
And because he is not beholden to, or in the pockets of these selfish hypocrites, this is exactly the kind of unconscionable thievery that candidate Bernie Sanders will call out, front and center. And you can be sure no one else will.
619
And you can be sure that wingnut nation will automatically revert to playing the "jealously," "socialist," "they earned it," .........cards ad nauseum in order to deflect the truth he speaks.
7
Bernie Sanders is the man.
He's fearless.
He's fearless.
3
I've already been sportin' my Bernie for President 2016 hoodie for several months.
1
"Depressed wages are the result of outdated policies". Actually depressed wages are a result of too many uneducated who have eliminated their economic opportunities through their own youthful irresponsibility. There are plenty of jobs - the Obama administration keeps assuring us of this "fact" - but these jobs demand an appropriate education. Unfortunately too many of those working at low wage jobs never bothered to complete high school - never mind college.
So okay - raise the minimum wage - which of itself is a band-aid solution. Look for the affected companies to immediately seek every means possible to reduce staff, or when not possible, raise the minimum educational requirement to be hired - and ensure continued unemployment for those least able to compete in the current job market.
So okay - raise the minimum wage - which of itself is a band-aid solution. Look for the affected companies to immediately seek every means possible to reduce staff, or when not possible, raise the minimum educational requirement to be hired - and ensure continued unemployment for those least able to compete in the current job market.
9
Ok, so assume that everyone does what you say they should do, goes out and gets a college degree in a field where there are a lot of jobs. Then what will happen? Who is going to flip the burgers then, pick up the garbage, or swing a hammer on a construction site? What will happen to all the people who got a degree but can't get a job because their once promising field is now glutted with applicants who did what you said?
4
I don't know about South Carolina,but here in sunny California there really are plenty of jobs. Dead end, low wage jobs. I am long since retired, but I can read signs in windows. There are plenty of those...offering part time, minimum wage "opportunities." Pay for a part time "opportunity"? About $700 a month. Meanwhile, I believe a decent one bedroom apartment rents for $1,000 a month or more and a loaf of bread costs $3-$4. Steak? Two hours work for a pound...raw...with fat.
8
A blame the victim approach ignores the basic issue that a job should pay a living wage. While there may be a grain of truth in the argument it's tangential to the issue at hand.
3
Though there is a problem, this article does not identify it correctly. There is a WORLDWIDE structural lack of jobs and it is due to technology (plus the ability of third world workers to replace highly paid first world workers).
There are simply not enough jobs today for every person who wants or needs to work -- we require fewer and fewer workers to provide all the goods and services we require or want. NOBODY on the left or right is addressing this shortfall.
Among the many things this article gets wrong is that the workers who have jobs but still get welfare are not full-time workers -- they work part time. Some of this is by CHOICE (for example, a working mom who wants time to spend with her children) but some is because many jobs simply don't have enough work to employ full-timers. Also Obamacare penalizes them for costly health insurance plans for those full-timers.
It also ignores the fact that with the EITC, food stamps and Medicaid, many poor people are (ironically) better off than the full-time worker. For example: a woman and 3 kids gets $600 in food stamps in my state. That is 25% MORE than I had to spend when I had 3 minor children at home. And Medicaid is 100% FREE, whereas any normal health insurance has premiums and deductibles and copays -- and Medicaid pays for dental and vision, which most health plans do not cover.
If you have all that (plus a subsidized Section 8 apartment!), why would you EVER choose to work full time vs. "the dole"?
There are simply not enough jobs today for every person who wants or needs to work -- we require fewer and fewer workers to provide all the goods and services we require or want. NOBODY on the left or right is addressing this shortfall.
Among the many things this article gets wrong is that the workers who have jobs but still get welfare are not full-time workers -- they work part time. Some of this is by CHOICE (for example, a working mom who wants time to spend with her children) but some is because many jobs simply don't have enough work to employ full-timers. Also Obamacare penalizes them for costly health insurance plans for those full-timers.
It also ignores the fact that with the EITC, food stamps and Medicaid, many poor people are (ironically) better off than the full-time worker. For example: a woman and 3 kids gets $600 in food stamps in my state. That is 25% MORE than I had to spend when I had 3 minor children at home. And Medicaid is 100% FREE, whereas any normal health insurance has premiums and deductibles and copays -- and Medicaid pays for dental and vision, which most health plans do not cover.
If you have all that (plus a subsidized Section 8 apartment!), why would you EVER choose to work full time vs. "the dole"?
31
"some is because many jobs simply don't have enough work to employ full-timers"
And a lot is because there is plenty of work for full-timers - but we have a surplus of workers for those jobs, so there is no compulsion for a company to hire full-time workers when they have more than enough people to fill part-time or less slots.
Again, raise the minimum wage all you want, but it's still a band-aid. It's not going to untimately get more money for workers as long as there are enough in the pool to dice up schedules into bite size chunks.
And a lot is because there is plenty of work for full-timers - but we have a surplus of workers for those jobs, so there is no compulsion for a company to hire full-time workers when they have more than enough people to fill part-time or less slots.
Again, raise the minimum wage all you want, but it's still a band-aid. It's not going to untimately get more money for workers as long as there are enough in the pool to dice up schedules into bite size chunks.
3
<> The Paul Ryan Cushy Hammock meme, eh Concerned?
Cut'em off and let them eat cake - BUT <>. Oh gosh, now what? We need the GOP to figure that one out, right? Tax relief for the wealthy so they can trickle it down ... .
Cut'em off and let them eat cake - BUT <>. Oh gosh, now what? We need the GOP to figure that one out, right? Tax relief for the wealthy so they can trickle it down ... .
12
You need to stop swallowing corporate and Republican propaganda whole. No one is poor by choice. And if being poor is such a great deal, why aren't you quitting your job and signing up?
26
Continued scaremongering regarding unions by greedy corporate ownership and their GOP tools has worked. Our unions need to fight back but are unable or unwilling to do so. Seems we can't get a foothold. More right to work states equals lower pay in those states. Union jobs are good jobs, yet conservatives have turned this on its head to make people hate and envy us instead of the corporations who are free riding on the backs of our labor.
593
Unions in the US died off a long while back -- only something like 7% of all Americans are in a union, and more than half of those are in PUBLIC unions (which are immoral and should be illegal, as they use dues to fund politicians on the left who jack up their wages in gratitude -- total corruption).
Us ordinary folks know we PAY FOR those public unions in our taxes -- plus bad schools and bad government -- and the cost is banktuping to many cities, counties and states -- especially lux pensions and retirement, and phony disablity claims.
Us ordinary folks know we PAY FOR those public unions in our taxes -- plus bad schools and bad government -- and the cost is banktuping to many cities, counties and states -- especially lux pensions and retirement, and phony disablity claims.
4
Many of our jobs have been sent abroad. How many of you need to deal with folks in India or the Philippines when calling in for assistance to an 800 number?. It really infuriates me since many Americans could easily do those jobs with some training and will speak to in American English! We should begin to be more activist and start complaining to these wealthy companies that use foreigners instead of our own people.
1
Concerned Citizen, you are indeed a classic example of the kind of person who helps keep the Republican party afloat. You seem to reserve a particularly strong animus for public employees. Let's hope that your kind of thinking is on its way out! We need to strengthen the wages of people in the middle on down, not the takings of those at the top! Although the latter is happy to have you and your vitriol (and vote) against us in their camp
2
All true but the sad fact remains that a large percentage of those who earn low wages support corrupt politicians who work for the very wealthy. Will a majority of voters ever realize that the conservative social agenda is first and foremost a smoke screen to encourage people to vote against their own interests?
308
Too bad the Democratic Party is AWOL ... as long as you keep pointing the finger at "conservatives", and ignoring the inconvenient truth that the most popular democrat in the country did nothing but add smoke to the smoke screen (ending welfare as we know it, etc), the "conservatives" will continue to win elections. Gnash your teeth all you want; money talks to all parties.
However, as others are saying here: if the Democrats put forth an agenda, the money would mean not much at all. They don't put forth an agenda; why?
However, as others are saying here: if the Democrats put forth an agenda, the money would mean not much at all. They don't put forth an agenda; why?
2
For an excellent read on this very fact, see Kruse, One Nation Under God.
The mechanisms of mass education and treating people like the interchangeable parts they worked with functioned fine in the industrial age. The information age is characterized by value increasing steadily at worst, exponentially at best. To produce such value, you have to continuously invest in people over time. A high school education is clearly insufficient, and pushing for college for everyone is murderously inflationary both for the cost of attendance and the weight of student debt.
If we want the most out of our people, we should bring back apprenticeships - a system that worked marvelously for thousands of years. Corporations should mentor students from middle school onwards so that when they get their high school diploma, they're ready to start a full time professional career for an employer that they already feel half a lifetime of loyalty for. Or, every top player can scramble in the rat race for the best Harvard grads, but you know what they say about diminishing returns...
If we want the most out of our people, we should bring back apprenticeships - a system that worked marvelously for thousands of years. Corporations should mentor students from middle school onwards so that when they get their high school diploma, they're ready to start a full time professional career for an employer that they already feel half a lifetime of loyalty for. Or, every top player can scramble in the rat race for the best Harvard grads, but you know what they say about diminishing returns...
180
People working part time at Walmart or McDonalds are not "failed Harvard wannabes" -- they are instead the unwed moms.....the slacker dudes....the kid who dropped out of high school (so he could smoke pot in his bedroom)....the party animal who likes to stay up late drinking with his buddies.
Solve that problem and you go a long way towards solving economic issues. Oh -- and WHY in 2015 do we even give teenagers the right to drop out of school? Make it mandatory until graduation or age 18! and truant officers and reform school to make it "stick".
Solve that problem and you go a long way towards solving economic issues. Oh -- and WHY in 2015 do we even give teenagers the right to drop out of school? Make it mandatory until graduation or age 18! and truant officers and reform school to make it "stick".
2
I agree with you and this type of system has continued to work well in Germany. A kid who chooses this path should be apprenticed in high school with a real trade like electrician, plumber, contractor, appliance repair,etc. Kids in these programs would soon realize how important basic math skills are. When they graduate with a trade, a high school diploma will mean something again and enable these kids to enter into the workforce with a skill and not just be relegated to working at a fast food eatery.
4
So corporate peonage is the answer?
lets hire forensic accountants to dig into their books and show that while companies like Wallmart pay sub survival wages, they make huge amounts of money that is sent to shareholders and executives. Make an irrefutable case that they can pay more, but just refuse and force taxpayers to pick up the tab. It seems that these companies are desperate to cover this fact up.
283
Hire forensic accounts - definitely. Let's find out what happened to the money that should have been sent to shareholders instead of executives. Given the record profits, our share prices and dividends should be much higher. This was to be part of our retirement money!
2
problem with your argument is we don't live in a society where we force private business to pay more simply because they can. If there is a shortage of unskilled labor wages will rise as there is no alternative. But we have a surplus. So why should a company pay more when they don't have to? They certainly can choose to but they should not be completed to.
When you say that taxpayers pick up the tab could it be because we have set up a social safety net that is too generous? Minimum wage is entry wage , not meant to be family sustaining. Our economic system requires individuals to be responsible and realize that they have to determine what they can and can't afford based on the wage and skills they have.
When you say that taxpayers pick up the tab could it be because we have set up a social safety net that is too generous? Minimum wage is entry wage , not meant to be family sustaining. Our economic system requires individuals to be responsible and realize that they have to determine what they can and can't afford based on the wage and skills they have.
2
Wal-Mart's profit margin is about 3%, far less than your local florist or dentist. Are you going to start protesting in front of them now?
And for a company with revenues of approximately 0.5 trillion dollars, the executive pay is a rounding error.
And for a company with revenues of approximately 0.5 trillion dollars, the executive pay is a rounding error.
3
And raising the minimum wage would also have the added benefit of reducing the deficit in the curbing of corporate welfare that you describe.
65
The best, simplest, illustration of the gap between what workers produce and what they are paid is Walmart.
The Walmart army of part time, minimum wage, no benefit employees have enriched the Walton heirs to where those five people now own as much as 100,000,000 other Americans, combined.
And the Walton heirs made it the old fashioned way. They inherited it.
The Walmart army of part time, minimum wage, no benefit employees have enriched the Walton heirs to where those five people now own as much as 100,000,000 other Americans, combined.
And the Walton heirs made it the old fashioned way. They inherited it.
529
Let's face it: The Waltons are a greedy, mean spirited family who spend millions building a museum in Arkansas where as the same millions could build how many hospitals?
7
It's closer to 150,000 Americans now, almost half of our people.
2
You forgot to mention that Hillary Clinton was on the board of the directors of Wal-Mart from 1986 to 1992...
1
This is why we need TPP so we can force wages lower as Americans compete head to head with people making $0.30 an hour. Even if in some fashion TPP is stopped (note not trade agreement signed by the US in the last 35 years has resulted in a net increase of manufacturing jobs for Americans) artificial intelligence is going to continue to put pressure on wages. The notion that education is the fix is also a false hope. Currently you need a BS to read and classify PAP tests, a machine can do it now with increased accuracy and at higher speed. So much for those well educated workers.
52
Go California, go! Keep setting standards for more decency in politics. I am tired of paying for big greedy corporations that underpay workers, pollute without cleaning up, etc!
216
California is one economic slump away from disaster. It taxes too heavily, it consumes too much water, and it spends too much.
It relies heavily upon Silicon Valley's fortunes to bail them from their reckless spending habits (e.g. the $68B train to nowhere). But Moore's law is ending, and we will have to see if Silicon Valley can remain its engine of growth and revenue.
It relies heavily upon Silicon Valley's fortunes to bail them from their reckless spending habits (e.g. the $68B train to nowhere). But Moore's law is ending, and we will have to see if Silicon Valley can remain its engine of growth and revenue.
2
I agree with your point. It could however be reversed: low wage jobs subsidize government by providing some income to people who now need less aid. Look at food stamps, this program was established by Nixon to eliminate the cost of storing farm surpluses. Or another large program, healthcare, exceptng medicare which is not mean tested. Because it is mean tested, Obama care reduces the number previously ellible for free care. There is also the impact of low wage employers reducing the cost of goods to low income people thus reducing the need for income subsidies. The point is life is complicated but your opinion is not.
2
The"takers" are the low wage payers!
The raising the min wage naysayers,
Public assistance aids
Most working men and maids,
Thereby answering corp'rate prayers.
The raising the min wage naysayers,
Public assistance aids
Most working men and maids,
Thereby answering corp'rate prayers.
59
The pay itself isn't really the problem. The problem is that there is an imbalance between the number of low-skill jobs (too few) and the number of people seeking them (too many). A number of factors contribute to the imbalance: use of technology and movement of these jobs to cheaper labor markets; lack of affordable training that offers those in low-skill jobs a path to better paying, higher skill jobs; and the reality that there are people who don't have the capability to perform at higher-skill jobs.
Paying people more to do low-skill jobs isn't going to solve the problem. It will encourage MORE replacement of workers with technology or movement of jobs to lower wage markets. It may discourage people who have the ability to perform higher level jobs from seeking the education or training they need to do them. It will start an upward wage spiral that will lead to higher prices for everything. And it will leave those who really don't have the ability to do higher-skilled jobs with even MORE competition for the jobs that remain.
If we continue to see low wages as a problem that can be "fixed" by increasing pay -- we're never going to solve the problem.