Moonbear said:
I was following along for the first part, but I think there are some flaws in this last part. If we need both janitors and nurses, and there are people content to be janitors, what is wrong with their decision to do that job? There will always be others motivated to have more than just a living wage, and they will be the ones who choose to be nurses.
I don't see that as inconsistent with what I said. In fact, if people
are content to be janitors at janitor pay, that means we
shouldn't be artificially increasing their wages.
In addition, if we assumed your scenario was true, that not raising minimum wage would lead a lot of potential janitors to go to school to be nurses instead, what happens in 4 years when they all graduate from nursing school and realize that after spending all that money on an education, everyone else had the same idea and there is no longer a nursing shortage and instead they wind up having to take that janitor job for $6/h minus the cost of nursing school because they can't get that nursing job they aspired to?
Like I said, I picked nursing because there is an actual
shortage right now. Obviously this is a made-up scenario so you can certainly make-up your own, but my point was that if they went into something like business,
any influx of new workers would immediately cause significant damage to the market. Certainly, too many new nurses would cause damage, but it would take a significant influx to do that.
I think raising minimum wage might have a different effect...
Well, I would say that's an
additional effect - and it is. Its true. But its a secondary effect and not as big as the primary effect of increasing unemployment. The main reason for this is that the majority of people earning minimum wage are temporary summer-job-teenager types (http://www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=2004072702010...expansion to follow). This labor pool
doesn't have ambitions regarding those jobs because of the nature of those jobs and in general, accepts what the market pays them.
Though, it doesn't really matter whether the minimum wage gets raised due to federal regulation or pressure from the workforce/labor unions. You can put more dollars in someone's pocket, but it won't increase their buying power if everything increases in cost with it.
That is another consequence, yes.
The source I listed above needs a disclaimer: Its an anti-Kerry college newspaper Op-ed piece. But where this one differs from the typical op-ed piece, is it is heavy on facts, data, and economic theory (this kid'll never find a job as a reporter...
). Several of us asked who these people are that make minimum wage. Here's the answer:
About 3 percent of all workers are paid the minimum wage or less. Of them, 53 percent are younger than 25 and 63 percent are enrolled in school. Fifty-four percent of minimum wage employees live in households with incomes at least twice the poverty level. The true average minimum wage earner is a teenager with an after-school job in a lower-middle class family.
This set of facts makes the "living wage" argument for minimum wage
utterly moot.
Ivan Seeking said:
First and in general, allowing the market to seek its own price clearly doesn't work. We know this since so many companies pay minimum wage.
Wait, why does the fact that some companies pay minimum wage mean the market doesn't work? I think you may have an idea of how the market 'should work' that conflicts with how the market
does work - ie, economic theory.
If eliminating the minimum wage means that some burger-flipping teenagers make $7 an hour in areas where the market supports it and $4 an hour where it doesn't, there is nothing wrong with that.
Heck, probably 20% of all jobs in Oregon are minimum wage.
Well, at least you're giving data now - you're making it up, but at least its data. I'd suspect you're way off (unless Oregon is far below average, since the national average is
3%) - but you posted it so if you want to make anyone buy your argument,
you need to verify that number.
As for upper limits, I don't see your point. Obviously we want to keep the minimum wage as low as possible but people must be able to survive on a full time job. the fact is, there is a certain percentage of the population that will have to survive on this amount. Seven dollars per hour is $14,560 per year.
As the stats show, most people making minimum wage do
not "have to survive on this amount." I don't see screwing with economics for a large number of people to benefit a small number as a good thing. In fact, there are
other ways to protect those people who
do have to get by on minimum wage already in place.
aeroegnr said:
My first real job, that I got at 16 (grocery store clerk), paid more than minimum wage over four years ago. I stayed at the job, and by the time I left almost two years later I was making 7 an hour.
Heck, I can top that: during the summer before my senior year in high school, I did data entry as a temp and my
lowest job paid something like $8 an hour while my highest paid $12.25.
Prior to that, I worked food service in a nursing home and also got more than the burger-fippers because the job sucked so bad. Supply and demand, baby.
Locrian - I see the discussion slightly differently. I know a completely free market is a bad thing, so my position is that we should have the
minimum amount of regulation possible while maintaining the integrity and stability of the economy. That means having a minimum wage but not making it a "living wage." The counter-argument is based on social welfare and, in my opinion, social welfare, while it feels good to do, makes for bad economic policy.
