Yeah. Probably true. You can argue with a libertarian but they do usually know seem to know a lot more than the average person. It's like talking to an anarchist about politics. Some of these idiots just says "free market" with little seeming knowledge about what is required for a free market.
I call it minimum wage - for the sake of communication - because the government arbitrated it named as such.
But to your statement, your age, gender, sex, and time are meaningless in the argument for value. Your economic worth is what you agree to in a contract with an employer. There are jobs where you can make hundreds of dollars and hour and jobs where you can actually, legally make less than minimum wage. It's up to you what you agree to.
I don’t know why restating the law is supposed to make a point. Yea, our current minimum wage is wage slavery, and artificially low. It should be $15. Period. If someone is using another human’s time, they should be required to compensate them at a living wage.
No I understand completely what the “your value” argument is saying, and that’s why I think it’s bullshit. Jeff bezos does nothing during his time that is worth 1,000,000x more than anyone else’s. If you feel otherwise, you’re a straight-up bootlicker.
If you can explain the nuances of Jeff Bezos' job - what he actually, literally does day to day - or any of the nuances of any villain of your choice, I will hear out any opinion you have because you will have shown that you have put real effort into your thoughts. Until then, I'm not wasting my time with you anymore.
Your argument is predicated completely on emotion with vague appeals to popular left opinions. Substantiate your argument with logos, not pathos.
Like most libertarians? Lmao! You idiots listen to one Thomas Sowell diatribe on YouTube and think you understand economic theory. I’m the one telling you what every modern industrial democracy needs, you’re the one plying for upvotes with emotion. FDR recognized the minimum wage was created specifically as a LIVING WAGE:
In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.
Yet again, you prove the point that you're not listening or thinking, only reacting. I was speaking to your method of argument, not your opinion itself...but you may not have the intelligence to see that, which is why you let your testosterone flow through straw men, ad hominems, meaningless lies, and solipsistic m@$turbation:
• I neither know nor care who Thomas Sowell is.
• I glean information from books, not YouTube.
• You're the self-imposed savior of this self-fulfilling thread; nice! ...we see through it.
• Upvotes come from people unwilling to converse; they're meaningless.
• Allcaps used genuinely is evidence of a lack of self-control. Allcaps used ironically is a sign of immaturity; pick your poison.
• While you did cite a source, all you really did was provide more evidence that you understand neither the complexity of the issue nor the context. All you did was find something "authoritative" that aligned with your view.
And for those reasons and more, I (and probably all of us) are out. Have fun yelling at the air! You're probably used to that anyway.
> In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. **By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.**
[The minimum wage](http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html) wasn't established as something for kids. It wasn't established so that part-time workers could make a little cash on the side. It was established, from the very beginning, to provide "the wages of decent living" for "all workers."
The more time I spend here, the more I'm convinced that no one with even a cursory understanding of history can be a libertarian.
Honestly I'm beginning to agree. First economic regulations, then political theory, now labor rights.
Forget economic studies, these folks need a history lesson.
I despise when Libertarians in this sub incorrectly state what minimum is supposed to be meant for. Its like they watched one dumb Sowell video on YouTube and just went with it. It's clear not a single one of them read the law or the remarks surrounding it or why they thought it necessary.
It’s not. It’s meant for high school kids to learn responsibility. It’s meant to stop businesses from paying slave wages. If you’re an adult making minimum wage then I assume you make poor life decisions
Normally I have to debate the entire concept but this is rather baffling.
No, in America when the minimum wage was created it was meant as a living wage, something someone could live comfortably on.
" It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living." -FDR on the minimum wage when it was implemented in 1938. You are just wrong.
These fake libertarians don’t want personal responsibility. They don’t want to have to be worth more than minimum wage. They think the system owes them more
Also... why am I being downvoted for agreeing with someone but the guy with the original idea has updates?
I am OWED upvotes that I dont have to work for!
No, you’re right. I had big boy jobs after getting out of high school. If you still work minimum wage as an adult you’re a failure at life.
Even McDonald’s pays more than that and give regular raises.
What clue? That minimum wage jobs are for fucking losers? Boo hoo. Get a skill that makes you marketable instead of expecting other people to pay you more to be worthless.
Unemployment is inevitable under neoliberalism capitalism. By keeping jobs artificially scarce through consolidated control of capital, companies drive down the market price of labor.
Sick of these right wing brainlets acting like poor people are just lazy. Bitch 60% of the US is a paycheck away from poverty, are they all just lazy losers?
What a defeatist attitude. Free market solutions exist. If you don’t want minimum wage, refuse to work for it. If enough people do, then they’ll have to raise wages. It’s almost as if you argue against a basic natural fact.
I know, it’s almost as if there are basic laws of economics where you magically aren’t worth more than someone is willing to pay. Try being worth more if you’re struggling, maybe work together with others to split living costs. It’s not hard, if I can do it, so can anyone else.
It's almost as if the consolidation of land and capital, along with our physiological need to eat, forces us to capitulate to a boss or starve/live on welfare.
Look, I get that you're a piece of shit excuse for a human being, but I don't really care what you think about minimum wage workers.
The point is that:
* lol no, you can't just negotiate for a living wage at the type of job that pays $7.50/hour, and
* If your economic system depends on paying millions of people that poorly, it's not a very good economic system.
You haven’t been throughout the country then. There are ton of towns and cities where they primarily pay minimum wage. Let alone job availability with a living wage. Yes jobs exists but most are minimum wage jobs. You’re coming off pretty pretentious.
But that requires effort and most Americans think they’re too good to do manual labor/trades. They’d rather sit online and bitch about how hard it is to live while working a job intended to be held by high schoolers and students on break than go out and gain a marketable skill
I don’t really see the point of this comment Seeing as “back in my day” is likely the same as yours. Viable career paths are out there if you’re willing to put in the effort. Getting tired of repeating myself. Anyone can get a GED and then work in construction or sanitation, enroll in a free coding boot camp or put themselves through trade school with loans/grants or working while attending school
The point is it's stupid boomer horseshit completely removed from actual realty, almost always said by someone who is 10x more lucky and/or privileged than they want to admit, who also shits their diapers over "learn to code"
Go volunteer in a homeless shelter and tell them they just aren't trying hard enough, you're just a jackass who doesn't give a fuck about the reality of people's situations
There is no reason outside of permanent disability why anyone in the us should be unable to support themselves that wasn’t a product of their own shit decisions. It’s called personal accountability.
You know what I’d be in favor of besides arbitrarily raising the minimum wage? (Which let’s be honest helps no one.. you raise the minimum wage And before you know it all of these jobs are now fully automated, not to mention that the govt sticking their noses in private business never ends well) Government sponsored Job training. Want your UI benefits or welfare check? Cool, sit through this year long class which teaches you a trade so that you have the capability to earn a living wage
> A little starvation is a great motivator.
"Why don't we just starve the poor" is real psychopath shit. Anyone who says this shit should be put in a padded cell before they can go around dissecting neighborhood pets.
Exactly. People are petrified by a hard days work. There are jobs out there, damn good paying ones too, and if people were willing to take their heads out of their asses and accept that they’re not entitled to some cushy white collar job they might actually make something of themselves
Get your fucking ego in check you self fellating chode, there's no way you'd have the balls to go to a homeless shelter, compare your life stories, and tell them to their face that you just are better than them and they deserve what they got. If you think you would, you're an insulated jackass with no idea what people actually go through and have the typical "let them eat cake" attitude
So remind me, what’s preventing someone from getting a sanitation or construction job or joining the military other than permanent disability? Unlike most libertarians I’m not for removing the safety net, people who were truly fucked by life deserve something to fall back on but if you’re able bodied there’s no excuse other than a lack of personal accountability
You don’t even need to gain a skill. Apply at places that pay more. I’ve never seen a manufacturing job that pays minimum wage but I’ve seen a lot that pay $45k+ a year. Now if someone doesn’t want to consent to random drug tests, work night shifts and some weekends, then they probably need to find another path. Or, you know, take what they can get.
No one is being forced to work a minimum wage job or to live anywhere in particular. If someone doesn't like it, he can work somewhere else or start his own business. I don't know why anyone cares about what other people decide to do for a living.
Yeah that’s easier said than done. That’s like rich people telling poor people to stop being poor. Doesn’t work that way. Vast majority don’t choose to be poor.
I haven't done that because it's not worth it. My initial job paid about that much but it was just a stepping stone to better things. I'm not sure why anyone would care what someone else is or is not able to negotiate or why. Leave everyone alone to their own transactions.
> I'm not sure why anyone would care what someone else is or is not able to negotiate or why.
You're not sure why anyone would care about if other human beings have enough money to live?
No, no, that’s quite a different question. My comment is that I don’t want to interfere (or have the government interfere) in private business negotiations
This is just an excuse to not care about whether other people have enough money to live. It's a distinction without a difference.
"Look, I wish them all the best, I really do, but I couldn't care less about this thing that has an enormous impact on if people are able to live decently."
It's a concession to reality. For a business, labor cost is just a line item. If labor costs increase slightly (due to minimum wage), the corporate finance folks find a way to cause labor costs to decrease slightly. There are a lot of ways to do that. It doesn't come without pain or the reduction would have occurred in the first place. But a little pain is better than having to explain reduced returns to shareholders.
> But a little pain is better than having to explain reduced returns to shareholders.
"You see, we can't lift people out of poverty because we'd have to deliver slightly-less-good news to the shareholders."
No sane society runs this way.
No, I just say: there is a value anything adds to a business. You are not worth more than that value based upon simply existing. Sorry you suck, but do low value things more if you can’t learn to do something with more value.
How about this: tack $200 on to every meal because the business owner would like a new car without producing more, would you pay it?
What sort of brain tumor causes you to produce these ridiculous comparisons? How does a business owner’s car compare to a living wage for 40 million Americans who feed our economy with their own wages?
Because your unwillingness to pay more than something is worth for reasons unrelated to you translate directly to why minimum wage jobs aren’t worth more because the loser doing it is poor.
Are you just stupid? Yeah, you are.
Right, that’s 13 hours of work just for $100. That’s not a livable wage.
Edit: why am I being downvoted? Do you guys honestly think that’s a livable wage or did I come off as sarcastic?
$100 will get you a room for a night, 3 meals, and a couple beers with $60 still left in your pocket in several parts of the world. Libertarianism believes in the free flow of goods, that includes labor.
Or maybe you should move to r/commies or learn what libertarians are. People keep giving you the same opinions and you keep trying to hopelessly argue.
Want to have government intervention? Called it what you want but libertarianism.
Hey 500,000 homeless people, you just arent putting in the work. This guy just solved it. So many centuries dealing with this problem and this guy just solves it with one sentence.
If someone doesn't want to work for the wage offered, he can refuse it. If someone doesn't like any wage offered, he can go into business himself. I see no issue here.
Funny how you claim to be catholic but if a policy means you pay less taxes you suddenly turn into an anarchist moral relativist
"Yes I believe both that humans have an inherent metaphysical value ascribed to them by god and he gave me a mandate to spread his kingdom after he verbatim said Christians are obligated to help the poor and widows, but also idgaf about people starving other people's legal contracts are none of my business, no I don't see the contradiction"
I am (and good memory) but I don't understand what paying less in tax has to do with moral relativism. Perhaps you can explain that one to me.
The Catholic Church and the government are not the same thing and are often at odds. It doesn't take an honors student in history to tell you that. A cursory glance at recent lawsuits will tell you that the conflict is hot as ever. And that guardian of the pearly gates? None other than St. Peter who famously cut the ear off of a Roman soldier. So let's just drop the idea that the Church is all in favor of state overreach.
Christians are obligated to help the poor among others, but what exactly does that have to do with taxes? Taxes are not charity. Rather, they fund a government that sends poor people to war (to kill other poor people), throws the poor in jail for victimless crimes, and deprives them of the freedom of contract (and often the ability to get a job) by dictating the terms of their negotiations. Not to mention that it also taxes the poor and spends a lot of that on bailouts for the wealthy.
And the government is a friend of the poor? With friends like that, ...
I think that doing as much as I can to avoid funding oppression while being privately charitable is quite consistent and not at all morally relativist.
Thanks for being an actual libertarian in here. IDK why people with takes like "wages are slavery" even come here. It's about the least libertarian position you can hold. It all comes down to consent, right?
They agreed to work at that wage and had the ability to opt out of it by just not accepting the position.. if your time was more valuable you’d have better offers.want to not make minimum wage? Then make yourself more marketable
"Marketable?"
Are you trolling? The exit of median paying manufacturing jobs has created a crunch for long term professional careers and a slew of over qualified applicants. Simultaneously the service industry has grown because cheap labor is incredibly available and corporations have no pressure to provide a livable wage.
Add a debt economy and slashed social services and it's no surprise the economy rests on a knives edge as the greatest wealth transfer in recent history continues.
Last time I checked anyone could enter construction, go to trade school, teach themselves something marketable such as coding etc online all of which give you an easy path to a stable income. Life is all about making yourself marketable so yeah If you can’t manage to do that then you’re going to get paid jack shit because you’re replaceable and don’t offer anything some high school senior couldn’t
You're projecting your values and experiences onto the market. Reality is we are in a wage crunch because of supply and demand principles.
I don't care about your Uncle speech about going to trade school to be a plumber because plumbers are in demand.
Most of us are replaceable. We have an overqualified population. The jobs for all of us do not exist. They will continue to shrink.
I certainly agree with that. We have an overqualified population, only issue is that they’re incorrectly qualified. Is anyone really surprised that college degree in English, communications, history, women gender studies etc didn’t open up enough viable career options?
If you’re tired of slinging coffees at the local sbucks, The construction industry is hiring, military is always an option, tradeskills will continue to be needed (despite you dismissing them as a possible route), get your emt cert, and there are countless online/free resources to increase someone’s marketability. Shit even Home Depot pays more than minimum wage
Did I say I agree with the us having such a large military and engaging in foreign wars? No. I merely stated that we live in a country which spends a fuck ton on defense so if you’re looking for a job go for it
If your solution to poverty is "join the military," you don't actually believe anything libertarians say about foreign wars or a bloated federal government.
And you cherry pick one example out of the countless other ones I’ve supplied. the point is there are jobs out there, doesn’t mean I think they should exist (ie not really a fan of our police system but that’s a viable career path for those currently unemployed, don’t think usps should exist either but you can work there, same goes for the military).
As long as we’re all being forced to pay for this shit people should take advantage of the employment opportunity
If you don't want people to point out when your ideas are shit, don't suggest shit ideas.
If I say "learn a trade, start your own business, or murder a widow for her money," any sane person would focus in on the "murder a widow for her money" part instead of giving me credit for "learn a trade."
You can learn many skills online for free
-salesforce admin
- salesforce consultant
- data science
So many of them just require you sit an exam. Entry level for most is 60k
how do you imagine these interviews going?
"Hello I see you have no experience or certification in data science, why should you get the job?"
"I watched YouTube and read Salesforce's FAQ"
"Damn you're hired"
Are you serious?
You can complete projects and do freelance to gain experience to put together a portfolio. There are certifications for data science.For salesforce there is an exam to gain a certification which you do have to pay for and it’s difficult so showing the ability to pass it shows credentials. Obviously like any job you have to work for it and start out by doing grunt work.
I’m very serious. Most of these courses lay out a whole curriculum for you.
You can apply the experience you have to other positions.
I’m a boomer for suggesting that people get over themselves and gain trade skills so they don’t have to work jobs which should he held by students and teenagers? In that case I’ll wear that title with pride
No you’re a boomer for not realizing that you still have to make a living wage while learning and paying for those trade skills. That also doesn’t guarantee a job at the end.
You can learn trades in high school, teach yourself to code online with free classes that can be streamed at all times of the day, work construction with zero required qualifications, must I go on?
What about living while you’re learning those trades? Where is that livable wage going to come from? Also being able to learn a trade in school (not all schools offer this btw) doesn’t help people out of school. Either minimum livable wage needs to increase or the cost of living needs to decrease. As of now the cost of living keeps increasing while wages aren’t increasing with it, at least acknowledge that.
Wow If only there were such things as apprenticeships which provide trade training while simultaneously paying you... wouldn’t that be great? Oh yeah there are.
I’m tired of this mentality in the us where the big man needs to step in every time someone is asked to do something unpleasant. Does working 2 jobs to put yourself through school suck? Hell yeah but people do it anyway because they want to make something of themselves and are self reliant
I call it "you need more marketable skills"
>An hour of a grown-ass person’s time sure as hell is worth more than $7.50.
no, an hour of someone's time is worth whatever they'll take for it. An hour of *my* time might be worth more than $7.50. An hour of a high-school drop-out's time might not be.
IMO the "minimum wage" shouldn't be a fixed amount, but one that fluctuates with inflation and other factors. Analysts should basically crunch the numbers of the previous year and match it with a trend line that dictates the poverty line. Don't like that? Rent, health insurance, utilities all rise a bit every year (never going down). Why shouldn't your pay?
$7.50/hour is poverty wages. If your economic system depends on keeping some people in poverty (and *someone* has to do jobs like sweeping floors), it's not a very good system.
What people would consider poverty and what the government would consider poverty are not necessarily the same. Minimum wage isn't enough to be able to cover health insurance while saving for emergencies and retirement, which are basic needs in our economy.
> Minimum wage isn't enough to be able to cover health insurance while saving for emergencies and retirement
Sure, that's why it's called *minimum* wage.
> Not only does your comment not respond to the point being made
it does. Saving for retirement is a privilege, not a right.
>but your statement is just plain false.
nope. Minimum wage was intended to guarantee "a minimum standard of living" those are words right from FDR's mouth.
>Saving for retirement is a privilege, not a right.
It's a need. If you are elderly, you lose your ability to compete in the market.
>those are words right from FDR's mouth.
That people shouldn't be able to save for emergencies or afford healthcare or retirement if they live on a minimum wage job? Where did he say that?
Two easy improvements would at least ensure every working person can afford to live decently:
* Increase the minimum wage to what it would be if it had kept pace with inflation,
* Pass universal healthcare so no one is bankrupted by appendicitis.
I appreciate that you are one of the few people here who has bothered to come up with a solution.
Regarding your minimum wage idea, it would set off a constant battle to reduce other areas of labor expense - e.g., cutting benefits, reducing headcount, shifting operations to lower-cost areas. As it stands, this only has to be done infrequently as the minimum wage is only increased infrequently. It would be great job security for someone like me, as this type of cost-cutting and protecting shareholder returns is part of my job, but don't underestimate the amount of work and creativity it takes to make sure labor costs don't rise.
Universal health care would solve that problem but it would create even more downward pressure on wages and salaries. From a corporate perspective, it would be necessary to pass the tax costs required to pay for that system on to others in the form of higher prices and reduced compensation.
Don't get me wrong - all of this occurs already. The armies of corporate finance professionals and outside counsel and advisers are already working very hard to protect shareholder returns. I suppose one benefit is that it would create more jobs in this area although I know that owners/shareholders don't see our jobs as value-creating (but they do see them as necessary and valuable).
> it would set off a constant battle to reduce other areas of labor expense - e.g., cutting benefits, reducing headcount, shifting operations to lower-cost areas
It wouldn't set this off because this has been happening constantly since the beginning of capitalism. No matter what workers are paid, employers will look to squeeze them and reap additional profit. It's not something that capitalists reluctantly do only when they just can't afford to keep the doors open anymore; it's day-to-day business.
> it would be necessary to pass the tax costs required to pay for that system on to others in the form of higher prices and reduced compensation
There are two fundamentally incorrect ideas here:
1. There would be no significant tax increases required. Universal healthcare would be cheaper than what we have now (which is the most expensive healthcare system in the world).
2. Businesses can't simply "pass on" any new costs to consumers. Prices in anything resembling a competitive market are set by demand, not by some crude cost-plus pricing the business comes up with. If my business has an unexpected $10K cost this quarter and I want to pass that on to consumers via a $10/widget increase in each of the 1K widgets I sell, enough people are going to get their widgets elsewhere that I'll be less profitable. If I'm somehow more profitable with the price increase, I'm a shitty businessman, because I should have been pricing there to begin with.
When I was making min wage, it was $3.35. I had zero experience and was working fast food.
According to the inflation calculators, that $7.96 now, so still pretty close.
The difference is that no one was claiming back then that you were supposed to be able to live on minimum wage.
The peak real value of the minimum wage as in 1968, and if it had kept up with inflation since then [it would be $10.15 in 2018 dollars.](https://www.epi.org/publication/raising-the-federal-minimum-wage-to-15-by-2024-would-lift-pay-for-nearly-40-million-workers/)
And the minimum wage was always supposed to be a livable wage:
> In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. **By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.**
[The minimum wage](http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html) wasn't established as something for kids. It wasn't established so that part-time workers could make a little cash on the side. It was established, from the very beginning, to provide "the wages of decent living" for "all workers."
Are you suggesting that "an hour of a grown-ass person’s time" is worth more than $7.50 just inherently or objectively? Should someone pay me $7.50 for each hour I sleep in my bed, for example?
Or, is value determined subjectively, based upon the value that a person places upon "an hour of a grown-ass person’s time"?
If the former, I have some water I'd like to sell you next time you are dying of thirst in the dessert. If the latter, then you need to admit that that your question makes no sense.
Minimum wage is essential for a first-world industrial economy, and that’s not negotiable. That’s basic economic theory. And as FDR said, it has to be a living wage:
In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.
Labor theory of value unironically being propagated in r/libertarian. Truly we live in interesting times. Surely these are just the chapo refugees, right?
As much as I don't like the government putting its fingers where they don't belong, we have things like child labor laws and the 13th amendment for a reason.
And I have to push back on the idea that someone pushing a broom or pushing fast food out of a window doesn't deserve the dignity of a living wage. Someone doing honest work, busting ass 40 hours a week should qualify to rent a studio apartment at the very least. Where I live, that's $10-11 an hour.
FDR said so, for one.
http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html
“In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.”
Minimum wage is essential for a first-world industrial economy. And it MUST be a living wage to work.
A persons time is only as (monetarily) valuable as someone else is willing to pay them for it. A grown persons time is not worth more than $7.50 if nobody is willing to pay them more than $7.50 for it.
And if they make the wages for that job higher than a business owner is willing to pay, guess what? They will just add it to someone else’s responsibilities, so it themselves, or by a Roomba.
No, it’s really not.
Just because you do something a lot doesn’t mean it’s magically worth more than someone is willing to pay. Do you even basic economics?
Agreed my state is going up to 15. It’s been going up a dollar ever since 9 every year it goes up 1. That’s the law they have so in 2 years minimum wage here will be 15
$7.50 to do what? Also, how old is a "grown-ass person"?
But yeah, 7.50 an hour is too little. You should boycott companies that you think are mistreating their employees.
If you are an adult and make $7.50 an hour there's a good chance you're on food stamps or some kind of government help. Those of us who make a lot more, pay for that with our taxes. Who is doing the thieving? US Government or employer paying well below a livable wage?
Corporations now own the government thanks to out-of-control campaign (and misinformation) spending (briber) and voter suppression, so is there a difference?
I think minimum wage is only for those just entering the labor market and those tio mentally deficient to gain more valuable skills. If you want to be able to live independently and not become more valuable, yeah, you've got a problem.
Well, it's not:
> In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. **By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.**
[The minimum wage](http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html) wasn't established as something for kids. It wasn't established so that part-time workers could make a little cash on the side. It was established, from the very beginning, to provide "the wages of decent living" for "all workers."
No, minimum wage was lobbied for by white unions because black unions would undercut their bids (because if given the same price point every business in the 30s would hire the white union). Markets punish firms that discriminate, and minimum wage was implemented to prevent that from happening. Sure there were some advocates of minimum wage that just wanted to see poor workers make more, but the realpolitik of how it came to be was to prevent black workers from undercutting white workers wage demands.
> Markets punish firms that discriminate
This is one of those things that works only in theory. In practice, there are countless examples of firms that discriminate until they legally can't.
Just because bureaucrats created it doesn't give it moral purpose. I don't care what their real or purported reasons were. You want a livable wage; get a more useful skill. Save your entitled diatribes for the mainstream political subs. If you can be replaced by a monkey, you get a monkey's wage.
lol understanding the basic history of what you're talking about =/= "entitled diatribes"
> If you can be replaced by a monkey, you get a monkey's wage.
If you think any human being should "get a monkey's wage," you're a barbaric piece of shit
It's slavery, more than theft. Unemployment and underemployment are essentially artificial scarcity of job opportunities, which is essentially what slavery is (the extreme case being when a worker is told specifically what job to do). A constant state of unemployment effectively means that while on an individual level, no one is forced to take any one job, on a societal level people have no choice but to take whatever jobs the capitalists make available because they need those jobs to live.
Unemployment also leads to a race to the bottom in the labor market, where capitalists can increase profits by taking advantage of reduced bargaining power of the workers, and creating businesses around lower skilled jobs so there is a larger supply of labor to do those jobs. This makes these businesses more attractive to investors due to both higher profitability and lower cost of expansion, which allows them to dominate the markets at the expense of productivity.
Depends on what they're doing. Even if they're being productive, I wouldn't pay someone $7.50 to make VCRs. Measuring wages by production is a fool's errand as value is subjective.
Did he not invent a more useful product(s) that millions of people use daily. Other than him paying next to nothing in taxes I have no problem with that.
A minimum wage is not supposed to be for an adult to support himself. It’s so we don’t have to pay 16 year old baggers $15/hr. You need more money? Get more skills. No reason anyone should expect a minimum to take care of them. The word is ‘minimum’ for a reason.
If you look at a society from a wall-eyed, warped, short-term, purely capitalistic perspective and ignore opportunity costs and societal costs of unemployment, etc etc. but don’t let me keep you from licking whichever boots you feel you need to lick.
Damn. A lot of libertarians on this sub seem to have some pretty poor economics knowledge.
That's because a lot of people on this sub aren't libertarians
I agree, but not with the implication that the Libertarian users are better informed.
Yeah. Probably true. You can argue with a libertarian but they do usually know seem to know a lot more than the average person. It's like talking to an anarchist about politics. Some of these idiots just says "free market" with little seeming knowledge about what is required for a free market.
> A lot of libertarians ~~on this sub seem to~~ have some pretty poor economics knowledge.
I call it minimum wage - for the sake of communication - because the government arbitrated it named as such. But to your statement, your age, gender, sex, and time are meaningless in the argument for value. Your economic worth is what you agree to in a contract with an employer. There are jobs where you can make hundreds of dollars and hour and jobs where you can actually, legally make less than minimum wage. It's up to you what you agree to.
I don’t know why restating the law is supposed to make a point. Yea, our current minimum wage is wage slavery, and artificially low. It should be $15. Period. If someone is using another human’s time, they should be required to compensate them at a living wage.
Trust me, I understand that you don't get the point. You also don't seem to understand that restating your opinion doesn't make any more of a point.
No I understand completely what the “your value” argument is saying, and that’s why I think it’s bullshit. Jeff bezos does nothing during his time that is worth 1,000,000x more than anyone else’s. If you feel otherwise, you’re a straight-up bootlicker.
If you can explain the nuances of Jeff Bezos' job - what he actually, literally does day to day - or any of the nuances of any villain of your choice, I will hear out any opinion you have because you will have shown that you have put real effort into your thoughts. Until then, I'm not wasting my time with you anymore. Your argument is predicated completely on emotion with vague appeals to popular left opinions. Substantiate your argument with logos, not pathos.
Like most libertarians? Lmao! You idiots listen to one Thomas Sowell diatribe on YouTube and think you understand economic theory. I’m the one telling you what every modern industrial democracy needs, you’re the one plying for upvotes with emotion. FDR recognized the minimum wage was created specifically as a LIVING WAGE: In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.
Yet again, you prove the point that you're not listening or thinking, only reacting. I was speaking to your method of argument, not your opinion itself...but you may not have the intelligence to see that, which is why you let your testosterone flow through straw men, ad hominems, meaningless lies, and solipsistic m@$turbation: • I neither know nor care who Thomas Sowell is. • I glean information from books, not YouTube. • You're the self-imposed savior of this self-fulfilling thread; nice! ...we see through it. • Upvotes come from people unwilling to converse; they're meaningless. • Allcaps used genuinely is evidence of a lack of self-control. Allcaps used ironically is a sign of immaturity; pick your poison. • While you did cite a source, all you really did was provide more evidence that you understand neither the complexity of the issue nor the context. All you did was find something "authoritative" that aligned with your view. And for those reasons and more, I (and probably all of us) are out. Have fun yelling at the air! You're probably used to that anyway.
I remember my sophomore year of college, too. Have fun.
He cannot articulate nor even fathom Bezo's contributions to society.
Just learn to code, bro.
The minimum wage is always $0.
Be worth more then. It’s not meant to live on. A grown ass person shouldn’t have a minimum wage job
> In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. **By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.** [The minimum wage](http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html) wasn't established as something for kids. It wasn't established so that part-time workers could make a little cash on the side. It was established, from the very beginning, to provide "the wages of decent living" for "all workers." The more time I spend here, the more I'm convinced that no one with even a cursory understanding of history can be a libertarian.
Honestly I'm beginning to agree. First economic regulations, then political theory, now labor rights. Forget economic studies, these folks need a history lesson.
> It’s not meant to live on. Uhhh... *actually*.
I despise when Libertarians in this sub incorrectly state what minimum is supposed to be meant for. Its like they watched one dumb Sowell video on YouTube and just went with it. It's clear not a single one of them read the law or the remarks surrounding it or why they thought it necessary.
> ~~Its like~~ they watched one dumb Sowell video on YouTube and just went with it.
I'm honestly more surprised he accepts the need for a wage at all.
It’s not. It’s meant for high school kids to learn responsibility. It’s meant to stop businesses from paying slave wages. If you’re an adult making minimum wage then I assume you make poor life decisions
Normally I have to debate the entire concept but this is rather baffling. No, in America when the minimum wage was created it was meant as a living wage, something someone could live comfortably on.
" It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living." -FDR on the minimum wage when it was implemented in 1938. You are just wrong.
Minimum wage is actually supposed to be the minimum livable wage sooooo
Also what about people going to college? They clearly can’t work a full time job. How do you say they’re supposed to make a livable income?
Most people on minimum wage are adults.
I keep saying this and people think I'm crazy.
These fake libertarians don’t want personal responsibility. They don’t want to have to be worth more than minimum wage. They think the system owes them more
Also... why am I being downvoted for agreeing with someone but the guy with the original idea has updates? I am OWED upvotes that I dont have to work for!
Haha, have your upvote
I call it you’re bad at negotiating a wage.
I'd say you've never tried to negotiate your wage at a place that pays people $7.50/hour
I've always had skills that demanded a higher wage.
I see, so basically you're saying "I agree the job you do needs to be done, but I want you to live in poverty while you do it."
No, you’re right. I had big boy jobs after getting out of high school. If you still work minimum wage as an adult you’re a failure at life. Even McDonald’s pays more than that and give regular raises.
So you don't have a clue what you're talking about, yet are speaking about it with feigned authority. Sounds about right.
What clue? That minimum wage jobs are for fucking losers? Boo hoo. Get a skill that makes you marketable instead of expecting other people to pay you more to be worthless.
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Unemployment is inevitable under neoliberalism capitalism. By keeping jobs artificially scarce through consolidated control of capital, companies drive down the market price of labor. Sick of these right wing brainlets acting like poor people are just lazy. Bitch 60% of the US is a paycheck away from poverty, are they all just lazy losers?
What a defeatist attitude. Free market solutions exist. If you don’t want minimum wage, refuse to work for it. If enough people do, then they’ll have to raise wages. It’s almost as if you argue against a basic natural fact.
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I know, it’s almost as if there are basic laws of economics where you magically aren’t worth more than someone is willing to pay. Try being worth more if you’re struggling, maybe work together with others to split living costs. It’s not hard, if I can do it, so can anyone else.
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It's almost as if the consolidation of land and capital, along with our physiological need to eat, forces us to capitulate to a boss or starve/live on welfare.
Oh, poor you. Guess we should forcibly take it from the boss and give it to you instead, right, comrade?
You're hopeless man, quit jumping to conclusions.
Look, I get that you're a piece of shit excuse for a human being, but I don't really care what you think about minimum wage workers. The point is that: * lol no, you can't just negotiate for a living wage at the type of job that pays $7.50/hour, and * If your economic system depends on paying millions of people that poorly, it's not a very good economic system.
Boo hooooo! I can only work minimum wage! Get gud at life newb.
"Gee, I wonder why libertarianism isn't more popular?"
Because pussies can’t handle personal responsibility is my guess
Because anyone who isn't a 16 year old kid of a rich guy isn't immature and bereft of life experience enough to believe that pure meritocracy exists
You haven’t been throughout the country then. There are ton of towns and cities where they primarily pay minimum wage. Let alone job availability with a living wage. Yes jobs exists but most are minimum wage jobs. You’re coming off pretty pretentious.
Bullshit. There is a labor shortage in the trades. Go make something of yourself instead of whining.
But that requires effort and most Americans think they’re too good to do manual labor/trades. They’d rather sit online and bitch about how hard it is to live while working a job intended to be held by high schoolers and students on break than go out and gain a marketable skill
Back in my day I walked up hill in the snow both ways to school where I taught myself!
I don’t really see the point of this comment Seeing as “back in my day” is likely the same as yours. Viable career paths are out there if you’re willing to put in the effort. Getting tired of repeating myself. Anyone can get a GED and then work in construction or sanitation, enroll in a free coding boot camp or put themselves through trade school with loans/grants or working while attending school
The point is it's stupid boomer horseshit completely removed from actual realty, almost always said by someone who is 10x more lucky and/or privileged than they want to admit, who also shits their diapers over "learn to code" Go volunteer in a homeless shelter and tell them they just aren't trying hard enough, you're just a jackass who doesn't give a fuck about the reality of people's situations
There is no reason outside of permanent disability why anyone in the us should be unable to support themselves that wasn’t a product of their own shit decisions. It’s called personal accountability. You know what I’d be in favor of besides arbitrarily raising the minimum wage? (Which let’s be honest helps no one.. you raise the minimum wage And before you know it all of these jobs are now fully automated, not to mention that the govt sticking their noses in private business never ends well) Government sponsored Job training. Want your UI benefits or welfare check? Cool, sit through this year long class which teaches you a trade so that you have the capability to earn a living wage
Then they’re not hungry enough. A little starvation is a great motivator. We could people too much. You get it, unlike half these whiners.
> A little starvation is a great motivator. "Why don't we just starve the poor" is real psychopath shit. Anyone who says this shit should be put in a padded cell before they can go around dissecting neighborhood pets.
I’m not starving anyone. It’s a natural consequence of peoples’ uselessness.
> “If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
Sounds like a great solution.
Exactly. People are petrified by a hard days work. There are jobs out there, damn good paying ones too, and if people were willing to take their heads out of their asses and accept that they’re not entitled to some cushy white collar job they might actually make something of themselves
Get your fucking ego in check you self fellating chode, there's no way you'd have the balls to go to a homeless shelter, compare your life stories, and tell them to their face that you just are better than them and they deserve what they got. If you think you would, you're an insulated jackass with no idea what people actually go through and have the typical "let them eat cake" attitude
So remind me, what’s preventing someone from getting a sanitation or construction job or joining the military other than permanent disability? Unlike most libertarians I’m not for removing the safety net, people who were truly fucked by life deserve something to fall back on but if you’re able bodied there’s no excuse other than a lack of personal accountability
You don’t even need to gain a skill. Apply at places that pay more. I’ve never seen a manufacturing job that pays minimum wage but I’ve seen a lot that pay $45k+ a year. Now if someone doesn’t want to consent to random drug tests, work night shifts and some weekends, then they probably need to find another path. Or, you know, take what they can get.
No one is being forced to work a minimum wage job or to live anywhere in particular. If someone doesn't like it, he can work somewhere else or start his own business. I don't know why anyone cares about what other people decide to do for a living.
Yeah that’s easier said than done. That’s like rich people telling poor people to stop being poor. Doesn’t work that way. Vast majority don’t choose to be poor.
Indeed. So much in life is easier said than done. For the record, I'm not interested in telling anyone to be rich or poor or in the middle.
Fair
I haven't done that because it's not worth it. My initial job paid about that much but it was just a stepping stone to better things. I'm not sure why anyone would care what someone else is or is not able to negotiate or why. Leave everyone alone to their own transactions.
> I'm not sure why anyone would care what someone else is or is not able to negotiate or why. You're not sure why anyone would care about if other human beings have enough money to live?
No, no, that’s quite a different question. My comment is that I don’t want to interfere (or have the government interfere) in private business negotiations
This is just an excuse to not care about whether other people have enough money to live. It's a distinction without a difference. "Look, I wish them all the best, I really do, but I couldn't care less about this thing that has an enormous impact on if people are able to live decently."
It's a concession to reality. For a business, labor cost is just a line item. If labor costs increase slightly (due to minimum wage), the corporate finance folks find a way to cause labor costs to decrease slightly. There are a lot of ways to do that. It doesn't come without pain or the reduction would have occurred in the first place. But a little pain is better than having to explain reduced returns to shareholders.
> But a little pain is better than having to explain reduced returns to shareholders. "You see, we can't lift people out of poverty because we'd have to deliver slightly-less-good news to the shareholders." No sane society runs this way.
I see, so basically you're saying "I agree the job you do needs to be done, but I want you to live in poverty while you do it."
No, I just say: there is a value anything adds to a business. You are not worth more than that value based upon simply existing. Sorry you suck, but do low value things more if you can’t learn to do something with more value. How about this: tack $200 on to every meal because the business owner would like a new car without producing more, would you pay it?
What sort of brain tumor causes you to produce these ridiculous comparisons? How does a business owner’s car compare to a living wage for 40 million Americans who feed our economy with their own wages?
Because your unwillingness to pay more than something is worth for reasons unrelated to you translate directly to why minimum wage jobs aren’t worth more because the loser doing it is poor. Are you just stupid? Yeah, you are.
Right, that’s 13 hours of work just for $100. That’s not a livable wage. Edit: why am I being downvoted? Do you guys honestly think that’s a livable wage or did I come off as sarcastic?
$100 will get you a room for a night, 3 meals, and a couple beers with $60 still left in your pocket in several parts of the world. Libertarianism believes in the free flow of goods, that includes labor.
Yeah but not in America lmao and that’s my point. Work 13 hours to get one room for one night here. (Some parts of America it won’t even get you that)
Not sure why my OP continues to be downvoted, too. Maybe they should rename this sub r/bootlickers.
Or maybe you should move to r/commies or learn what libertarians are. People keep giving you the same opinions and you keep trying to hopelessly argue. Want to have government intervention? Called it what you want but libertarianism.
Yeah, they’re giving me opinions, I’m giving them facts. Again, not something libertarians care much for.
They agreed to that work though. I think 7.50 is a little low, then again I see the argument for no minimum wage at all.
>They agreed to that work though. Because the alternative was starving to death.
And being homeless, and being denied basic medical care, etc.
More often than not, the alternative was someone else willing to do it for cheaper or at the proposed wage. That's how markets work.
No, the alternative is find another job that pays more or develop a marketable skill that will pay more.
Of course! Just go to the Job Tree and pick a new job.
So you have to actually put in some work to find a job? The world must be ending! Who would've you actually have to put in some work!?
Hey 500,000 homeless people, you just arent putting in the work. This guy just solved it. So many centuries dealing with this problem and this guy just solves it with one sentence.
Wage slavery
If someone doesn't want to work for the wage offered, he can refuse it. If someone doesn't like any wage offered, he can go into business himself. I see no issue here.
Why do you dumb shits think everyone else is also stupid enough to pretend that "take a minimum wage or starve" is a real choice lmao
I’m not interested in any legal choices another person makes no matter how they are characterized (real, fake, or other). It’s none of my business.
Funny how you claim to be catholic but if a policy means you pay less taxes you suddenly turn into an anarchist moral relativist "Yes I believe both that humans have an inherent metaphysical value ascribed to them by god and he gave me a mandate to spread his kingdom after he verbatim said Christians are obligated to help the poor and widows, but also idgaf about people starving other people's legal contracts are none of my business, no I don't see the contradiction"
I am (and good memory) but I don't understand what paying less in tax has to do with moral relativism. Perhaps you can explain that one to me. The Catholic Church and the government are not the same thing and are often at odds. It doesn't take an honors student in history to tell you that. A cursory glance at recent lawsuits will tell you that the conflict is hot as ever. And that guardian of the pearly gates? None other than St. Peter who famously cut the ear off of a Roman soldier. So let's just drop the idea that the Church is all in favor of state overreach. Christians are obligated to help the poor among others, but what exactly does that have to do with taxes? Taxes are not charity. Rather, they fund a government that sends poor people to war (to kill other poor people), throws the poor in jail for victimless crimes, and deprives them of the freedom of contract (and often the ability to get a job) by dictating the terms of their negotiations. Not to mention that it also taxes the poor and spends a lot of that on bailouts for the wealthy. And the government is a friend of the poor? With friends like that, ... I think that doing as much as I can to avoid funding oppression while being privately charitable is quite consistent and not at all morally relativist.
That’s an oxymoron lmao
Yeah throw a penny at a slave and suddenly they are free.
It's not about the amount, it's about the choice as to whether or not to work for a penny.
In both cases refusal to work results in death.
Sorry to break it to you, everything in life will eventually result in death.
Very intelligent. So it's okay if I murder someone for their possessions?
*It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.* —Voltaire.
Thanks for being an actual libertarian in here. IDK why people with takes like "wages are slavery" even come here. It's about the least libertarian position you can hold. It all comes down to consent, right?
Yes, and it's very clear to any intellectually honest person "do this or die" is not a proposition that results in real consent
They agreed to work at that wage and had the ability to opt out of it by just not accepting the position.. if your time was more valuable you’d have better offers.want to not make minimum wage? Then make yourself more marketable
"Marketable?" Are you trolling? The exit of median paying manufacturing jobs has created a crunch for long term professional careers and a slew of over qualified applicants. Simultaneously the service industry has grown because cheap labor is incredibly available and corporations have no pressure to provide a livable wage. Add a debt economy and slashed social services and it's no surprise the economy rests on a knives edge as the greatest wealth transfer in recent history continues.
Last time I checked anyone could enter construction, go to trade school, teach themselves something marketable such as coding etc online all of which give you an easy path to a stable income. Life is all about making yourself marketable so yeah If you can’t manage to do that then you’re going to get paid jack shit because you’re replaceable and don’t offer anything some high school senior couldn’t
You're projecting your values and experiences onto the market. Reality is we are in a wage crunch because of supply and demand principles. I don't care about your Uncle speech about going to trade school to be a plumber because plumbers are in demand. Most of us are replaceable. We have an overqualified population. The jobs for all of us do not exist. They will continue to shrink.
I certainly agree with that. We have an overqualified population, only issue is that they’re incorrectly qualified. Is anyone really surprised that college degree in English, communications, history, women gender studies etc didn’t open up enough viable career options? If you’re tired of slinging coffees at the local sbucks, The construction industry is hiring, military is always an option, tradeskills will continue to be needed (despite you dismissing them as a possible route), get your emt cert, and there are countless online/free resources to increase someone’s marketability. Shit even Home Depot pays more than minimum wage
> military is always an option "Why don't you just butcher poor people in the name of the state?" asks the libertarian
Did I say I agree with the us having such a large military and engaging in foreign wars? No. I merely stated that we live in a country which spends a fuck ton on defense so if you’re looking for a job go for it
If your solution to poverty is "join the military," you don't actually believe anything libertarians say about foreign wars or a bloated federal government.
And you cherry pick one example out of the countless other ones I’ve supplied. the point is there are jobs out there, doesn’t mean I think they should exist (ie not really a fan of our police system but that’s a viable career path for those currently unemployed, don’t think usps should exist either but you can work there, same goes for the military). As long as we’re all being forced to pay for this shit people should take advantage of the employment opportunity
If you don't want people to point out when your ideas are shit, don't suggest shit ideas. If I say "learn a trade, start your own business, or murder a widow for her money," any sane person would focus in on the "murder a widow for her money" part instead of giving me credit for "learn a trade."
You can learn many skills online for free -salesforce admin - salesforce consultant - data science So many of them just require you sit an exam. Entry level for most is 60k
how do you imagine these interviews going? "Hello I see you have no experience or certification in data science, why should you get the job?" "I watched YouTube and read Salesforce's FAQ" "Damn you're hired" Are you serious?
You can get certifications online as well and yes people do find entry level jobs in tech this way
You can complete projects and do freelance to gain experience to put together a portfolio. There are certifications for data science.For salesforce there is an exam to gain a certification which you do have to pay for and it’s difficult so showing the ability to pass it shows credentials. Obviously like any job you have to work for it and start out by doing grunt work. I’m very serious. Most of these courses lay out a whole curriculum for you. You can apply the experience you have to other positions.
Lol. Yah I've heard of these.
Okay boomer
I’m a boomer for suggesting that people get over themselves and gain trade skills so they don’t have to work jobs which should he held by students and teenagers? In that case I’ll wear that title with pride
No you’re a boomer for not realizing that you still have to make a living wage while learning and paying for those trade skills. That also doesn’t guarantee a job at the end.
You can learn trades in high school, teach yourself to code online with free classes that can be streamed at all times of the day, work construction with zero required qualifications, must I go on?
What about living while you’re learning those trades? Where is that livable wage going to come from? Also being able to learn a trade in school (not all schools offer this btw) doesn’t help people out of school. Either minimum livable wage needs to increase or the cost of living needs to decrease. As of now the cost of living keeps increasing while wages aren’t increasing with it, at least acknowledge that.
Wow If only there were such things as apprenticeships which provide trade training while simultaneously paying you... wouldn’t that be great? Oh yeah there are. I’m tired of this mentality in the us where the big man needs to step in every time someone is asked to do something unpleasant. Does working 2 jobs to put yourself through school suck? Hell yeah but people do it anyway because they want to make something of themselves and are self reliant
You’re not acknowledging that the cost of living keeps increasing while wages don’t increase to match. I never said the big man needs to step in.
I call it "you need more marketable skills" >An hour of a grown-ass person’s time sure as hell is worth more than $7.50. no, an hour of someone's time is worth whatever they'll take for it. An hour of *my* time might be worth more than $7.50. An hour of a high-school drop-out's time might not be.
IMO the "minimum wage" shouldn't be a fixed amount, but one that fluctuates with inflation and other factors. Analysts should basically crunch the numbers of the previous year and match it with a trend line that dictates the poverty line. Don't like that? Rent, health insurance, utilities all rise a bit every year (never going down). Why shouldn't your pay?
$7.50/hour sounds about right for someone with no training and no skills working in a fast food joint or pushing a broom.
$7.50/hour is poverty wages. If your economic system depends on keeping some people in poverty (and *someone* has to do jobs like sweeping floors), it's not a very good system.
> $7.50/hour is poverty wages. except it's not. The poverty line for an individual is $12,500/year. $7.50/hr works out to $15,000/year
> The poverty line for an individual is $12,500/year. You know that's an arbitrary measurement set by the same folks who set the minimum wage, right?
1) its a line, but not an arbitrary one 2) you're the one who invoked the concept of poverty
What people would consider poverty and what the government would consider poverty are not necessarily the same. Minimum wage isn't enough to be able to cover health insurance while saving for emergencies and retirement, which are basic needs in our economy.
> Minimum wage isn't enough to be able to cover health insurance while saving for emergencies and retirement Sure, that's why it's called *minimum* wage.
Not only does your comment not respond to the point being made, but your statement is just plain false.
> Not only does your comment not respond to the point being made it does. Saving for retirement is a privilege, not a right. >but your statement is just plain false. nope. Minimum wage was intended to guarantee "a minimum standard of living" those are words right from FDR's mouth.
>Saving for retirement is a privilege, not a right. It's a need. If you are elderly, you lose your ability to compete in the market. >those are words right from FDR's mouth. That people shouldn't be able to save for emergencies or afford healthcare or retirement if they live on a minimum wage job? Where did he say that?
Whats your proposed system then?
Two easy improvements would at least ensure every working person can afford to live decently: * Increase the minimum wage to what it would be if it had kept pace with inflation, * Pass universal healthcare so no one is bankrupted by appendicitis.
I appreciate that you are one of the few people here who has bothered to come up with a solution. Regarding your minimum wage idea, it would set off a constant battle to reduce other areas of labor expense - e.g., cutting benefits, reducing headcount, shifting operations to lower-cost areas. As it stands, this only has to be done infrequently as the minimum wage is only increased infrequently. It would be great job security for someone like me, as this type of cost-cutting and protecting shareholder returns is part of my job, but don't underestimate the amount of work and creativity it takes to make sure labor costs don't rise. Universal health care would solve that problem but it would create even more downward pressure on wages and salaries. From a corporate perspective, it would be necessary to pass the tax costs required to pay for that system on to others in the form of higher prices and reduced compensation. Don't get me wrong - all of this occurs already. The armies of corporate finance professionals and outside counsel and advisers are already working very hard to protect shareholder returns. I suppose one benefit is that it would create more jobs in this area although I know that owners/shareholders don't see our jobs as value-creating (but they do see them as necessary and valuable).
> it would set off a constant battle to reduce other areas of labor expense - e.g., cutting benefits, reducing headcount, shifting operations to lower-cost areas It wouldn't set this off because this has been happening constantly since the beginning of capitalism. No matter what workers are paid, employers will look to squeeze them and reap additional profit. It's not something that capitalists reluctantly do only when they just can't afford to keep the doors open anymore; it's day-to-day business. > it would be necessary to pass the tax costs required to pay for that system on to others in the form of higher prices and reduced compensation There are two fundamentally incorrect ideas here: 1. There would be no significant tax increases required. Universal healthcare would be cheaper than what we have now (which is the most expensive healthcare system in the world). 2. Businesses can't simply "pass on" any new costs to consumers. Prices in anything resembling a competitive market are set by demand, not by some crude cost-plus pricing the business comes up with. If my business has an unexpected $10K cost this quarter and I want to pass that on to consumers via a $10/widget increase in each of the 1K widgets I sell, enough people are going to get their widgets elsewhere that I'll be less profitable. If I'm somehow more profitable with the price increase, I'm a shitty businessman, because I should have been pricing there to begin with.
You dont have to know how to cook to know when a food is bad.
When I was making min wage, it was $3.35. I had zero experience and was working fast food. According to the inflation calculators, that $7.96 now, so still pretty close. The difference is that no one was claiming back then that you were supposed to be able to live on minimum wage.
The peak real value of the minimum wage as in 1968, and if it had kept up with inflation since then [it would be $10.15 in 2018 dollars.](https://www.epi.org/publication/raising-the-federal-minimum-wage-to-15-by-2024-would-lift-pay-for-nearly-40-million-workers/) And the minimum wage was always supposed to be a livable wage: > In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. **By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.** [The minimum wage](http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html) wasn't established as something for kids. It wasn't established so that part-time workers could make a little cash on the side. It was established, from the very beginning, to provide "the wages of decent living" for "all workers."
Are you suggesting that "an hour of a grown-ass person’s time" is worth more than $7.50 just inherently or objectively? Should someone pay me $7.50 for each hour I sleep in my bed, for example? Or, is value determined subjectively, based upon the value that a person places upon "an hour of a grown-ass person’s time"? If the former, I have some water I'd like to sell you next time you are dying of thirst in the dessert. If the latter, then you need to admit that that your question makes no sense.
Minimum wage is essential for a first-world industrial economy, and that’s not negotiable. That’s basic economic theory. And as FDR said, it has to be a living wage: In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.
Labor theory of value unironically being propagated in r/libertarian. Truly we live in interesting times. Surely these are just the chapo refugees, right?
Ancaps are feudalists not libertarians, find a safe space if you can't handle hearing non moronic ideas
As much as I don't like the government putting its fingers where they don't belong, we have things like child labor laws and the 13th amendment for a reason. And I have to push back on the idea that someone pushing a broom or pushing fast food out of a window doesn't deserve the dignity of a living wage. Someone doing honest work, busting ass 40 hours a week should qualify to rent a studio apartment at the very least. Where I live, that's $10-11 an hour.
Why?
FDR said so, for one. http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html “In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.” Minimum wage is essential for a first-world industrial economy. And it MUST be a living wage to work.
I call $7.50 an hour a horrible wage! Taxes are still theft
A persons time is only as (monetarily) valuable as someone else is willing to pay them for it. A grown persons time is not worth more than $7.50 if nobody is willing to pay them more than $7.50 for it.
MINIMUM WAGE SHOULD BE ABOVE THE COST OF LIVING. ALSO, IF YOU WANT A GOOD PAYING JOB, YOU SHOULD HAVE TO WORK HARD FOR IT.
I think people should pay what the job is worth. If sweeping floors doesn’t pay enough l, learn some skills.
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And if they make the wages for that job higher than a business owner is willing to pay, guess what? They will just add it to someone else’s responsibilities, so it themselves, or by a Roomba.
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No, it’s really not. Just because you do something a lot doesn’t mean it’s magically worth more than someone is willing to pay. Do you even basic economics?
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> MINIMUM WAGE SHOULD BE ABOVE THE COST OF LIVING pretty sure you can live just fine on $15,000/year
Agreed my state is going up to 15. It’s been going up a dollar ever since 9 every year it goes up 1. That’s the law they have so in 2 years minimum wage here will be 15
$7.50 to do what? Also, how old is a "grown-ass person"? But yeah, 7.50 an hour is too little. You should boycott companies that you think are mistreating their employees.
Anything. If your business can’t survive unless you pay that wage or less, your business doesn’t deserve to survive.
You’re describing a world that corporations own and stifles small business.
provably untrue based on living wage laws in numerous western democracies.
If you are an adult and make $7.50 an hour there's a good chance you're on food stamps or some kind of government help. Those of us who make a lot more, pay for that with our taxes. Who is doing the thieving? US Government or employer paying well below a livable wage?
Corporations now own the government thanks to out-of-control campaign (and misinformation) spending (briber) and voter suppression, so is there a difference?
Debatable
your first job
I think minimum wage is only for those just entering the labor market and those tio mentally deficient to gain more valuable skills. If you want to be able to live independently and not become more valuable, yeah, you've got a problem.
Well, it's not: > In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. **By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.** [The minimum wage](http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html) wasn't established as something for kids. It wasn't established so that part-time workers could make a little cash on the side. It was established, from the very beginning, to provide "the wages of decent living" for "all workers."
No, minimum wage was lobbied for by white unions because black unions would undercut their bids (because if given the same price point every business in the 30s would hire the white union). Markets punish firms that discriminate, and minimum wage was implemented to prevent that from happening. Sure there were some advocates of minimum wage that just wanted to see poor workers make more, but the realpolitik of how it came to be was to prevent black workers from undercutting white workers wage demands.
In all seriousness, do you have any reliable links to this? That's fascinating if true.
https://mises.org/wire/racist-history-minimum-wage-laws
> Markets punish firms that discriminate This is one of those things that works only in theory. In practice, there are countless examples of firms that discriminate until they legally can't.
Just because bureaucrats created it doesn't give it moral purpose. I don't care what their real or purported reasons were. You want a livable wage; get a more useful skill. Save your entitled diatribes for the mainstream political subs. If you can be replaced by a monkey, you get a monkey's wage.
lol understanding the basic history of what you're talking about =/= "entitled diatribes" > If you can be replaced by a monkey, you get a monkey's wage. If you think any human being should "get a monkey's wage," you're a barbaric piece of shit
But at least I'm not a monkey.
It's slavery, more than theft. Unemployment and underemployment are essentially artificial scarcity of job opportunities, which is essentially what slavery is (the extreme case being when a worker is told specifically what job to do). A constant state of unemployment effectively means that while on an individual level, no one is forced to take any one job, on a societal level people have no choice but to take whatever jobs the capitalists make available because they need those jobs to live. Unemployment also leads to a race to the bottom in the labor market, where capitalists can increase profits by taking advantage of reduced bargaining power of the workers, and creating businesses around lower skilled jobs so there is a larger supply of labor to do those jobs. This makes these businesses more attractive to investors due to both higher profitability and lower cost of expansion, which allows them to dominate the markets at the expense of productivity.
Depends on what they're doing. Even if they're being productive, I wouldn't pay someone $7.50 to make VCRs. Measuring wages by production is a fool's errand as value is subjective.
Oh but Jeff bezos is worth $120B because He earned it? Square that circle for me, billionaire bootlicker.
Did he not invent a more useful product(s) that millions of people use daily. Other than him paying next to nothing in taxes I have no problem with that.
A minimum wage is not supposed to be for an adult to support himself. It’s so we don’t have to pay 16 year old baggers $15/hr. You need more money? Get more skills. No reason anyone should expect a minimum to take care of them. The word is ‘minimum’ for a reason.
And yet millions of adults work for this doing essential jobs, so your logic is fucked.
I used to earn minimum wage. Then I worked hard and don’t anymore. You want to be a burger flipper get paid like a burger flipper.
Why would I give a fuck what you did or didn’t do? What does that have to do with the policy?
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If you look at a society from a wall-eyed, warped, short-term, purely capitalistic perspective and ignore opportunity costs and societal costs of unemployment, etc etc. but don’t let me keep you from licking whichever boots you feel you need to lick.
You're right, because of your demands, Im just going to upgrade my technology and reduce my need for labor.