The minimum

Frenzal · Post by **Frenzal** » 25 Oct 2004 16:48

What is the point of the minimum wage. If i want to work for $8 an hour and my employer is happy to pay me $8 an hour, what right does the govenment have to stop this occuring?

But the government makes sure i get $9 an hour? What if i only produce $8.50 an hour in profit, no-one is going to employ me. What right does the government have to put me out of work?

jon · Post by **jon** » 25 Oct 2004 16:55

because a lot employers are dicks and would pay people nothing if they could, and a bunch of employers got togeather and decides to pay all the employes the same the workers would have no choice but to work for what they were given, ie collusion is bad and people are not smart or proper enough to treat people in a correct manner so the government has to step in and do it for us, if you want to work for less move some where else

jon · Post by **jon** » 25 Oct 2004 16:57

correction: I wanted to say "and if a bunch of emp..."

ps i miss the edit button

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 25 Oct 2004 16:58

In times when there are more people looking for work than actual workers it means bosses can pay as little as they want.

What if your boss said "we aren't going to employ you for more than $4 an hour"?

And if you agreed after a week the boss said "Now we aren't going to employ you for less than $2 an hour"

And eventually when you were working for 25 cents an hour you decided to quit and the boss immediatly found someone else who was willing to work for the same rate.

jon · Post by **jon** » 25 Oct 2004 16:59

sorry for the third post

but just reading what I wrote above I come off as sounding like a jerk, sorry

pps: What right does the government have to put me out of work? NONE

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 25 Oct 2004 17:10

I don't think you sounded like a jerk

I just wanted to add that in a democracy it is the job of the government to represent the people. Obviously there are more workers than bosses so the government should do what is in the best interests of the workers rather than the bosses - when compromise is not possible (but even then they should be more lenient towards the workers side than the bosses)

millenniumtree · Post by **millenniumtree** » 25 Oct 2004 18:40

I've only taken one job at minimum wage, and that was ages ago at $5.15 / hour. After a while I got a raise to 5.25... Whoop-dee-doo.

Now, I won't work for less than 8/hour. This is all in US Dollars of course, I don't know any conversion rates. :P

And once I graduate from college (in 2 months!!!), I won't take less than 12/hour, and they'll probably be offering me more than that! haHA!

I don't understand how any employer could get any workers for minimum wage, and the employees they get would be really low quality too. $5.15 an hour is practically slave labor.

Frenzal · Post by **Frenzal** » 26 Oct 2004 14:53

"ie collusion is bad"

It's also illeagle.

"In times when there are more people looking for work than actual workers it means bosses can pay as little as they want."

Considering the shape of our current economy (probably Australia's too, although i'm not sure) this isn't a problem. The construction sector is crying out for all the labour it can get and because it can't get workers production is slowing down. This is one of the factors in New Zealands upcoming economic slow down. The reason there is nobody in the labour pool is not because no one is unemployed (however unemployment is the lowest it's been in decades) but because the couple of percent who are left aren't able to be hired at $9 (hiring someone who's only going to produce $8 worth of labour at $9 an hour is a recipe for going bankrupt) but could and would be hired at say $7.50.

7.5 x 40 = $300 which is better that $164.16 without kids $235.12 with one kid or $256.52 with two kids, which is all you get on the unemployment benefit. So why, when work needs to be done and people are willing to do it, should the government step in and fuck up the system?

"What if your boss said "we aren't going to employ you for more than $4 an hour"? "

Well then I up and leave because my labour is worth more than four dollars an hour. If the economy is in recession and there's no opportunity for me to earn more than $4 then i stay there and work until the rebound comes, it's alot better working for something than being laid off and getting nothing. An employee should earn what ever he is capable of producing minus the employers profit taking, but when employers are forced to employ people for more than they are worth then other potential employees suffer because employers have no opportunity to employ them. For example, my dad could hire one person off the doll for $9 an hour and take a loss, this prevents him from hiring anyone else and eventually he fires the employee anyway, or he could hire a person at $7.50 continue making money, expand and hire more people.

I think minum wages are unfair because they assume everybody is capable of producing a set amount of labour. This means that if you aren't so capable you have to go without a job.

Tsiangkun · Post by **Tsiangkun** » 26 Oct 2004 16:29

In the real world businesses are in the field of making as much money for shareholders and will fuck the labor every chance they get.

If the system worked without one, there would not have been a minimum wage created in the first place.

If you can never make enough money to save any money, you can't quit or you are on the street, or you will be living with mommy forever.

Frenzal · Post by **Frenzal** » 26 Oct 2004 16:58

Not all buisnesses have share holders.
Not all buisnesses are in the field fucking the labour every chance they get.

I've worked at a supermarket, a home improvement store, a stationary store and been a labourer on a farm and on a construction site. As an employee i resent your attitude towards buisnesses in general.
All of the above, without fail, increased my wage when i demonstrated my labour was worth more than they were paying me (Ok, i never got a rise at the supermarket, but that's because i couldn't stand it, worked poorly and eventually quit).

"If you can never make enough money to save any money, you can't quit or you are on the street." - My point is that by keeping people on the unemployment benefit the government is forcing them to earn less than they could preventing them from earning enough to save any money. When i think about the minimum wage it seems to me that those currently employed are profiting at the expense of those they keep unemployed.

"If the system worked without one, there would not have been a minimum wage created in the first place." - Sure, and if marijuana wasn't a dangerous drug that turned you into either a murderer or a commie there wouldn't be a law against it. Come on, I agree with you on most things and when you take the piss out of Bush you sound so clever, but that is being stupid. I'd love some debate, please, it would be fun, but crazy shite like this is the stuff of flamewars.
The origin of the minimum wage law (in the US) is actually more to do with a shift in labour intensive industries to the southern states where unskilled workers were more plentiful and therefore cheaper, the federal minimum was introduced to combat this. http://www.mackinac.org/article.asp?ID=356

carl winslow · Post by **carl winslow** » 26 Oct 2004 18:17

raising min wage would help more than just the people getting paid minimum wage now. it would help people making slightly above it get pay bumps because most employers base how much they pay on minimum wage.

Frenzal · Post by **Frenzal** » 26 Oct 2004 19:05

"When i think about the minimum wage it seems to me that those currently employed are profiting at the expense of those they keep unemployed." - Me.

"raising min wage would help more than just the people getting paid minimum wage now. it would help people making slightly above it get pay bumps because most employers base how much they pay on minimum wage." - You.

So Carl, do you agree with me? Because i just don't see how this is an arguement against the minimum wage.

Tsiangkun · Post by **Tsiangkun** » 27 Oct 2004 08:22

All businesses have shared holders, some are private.
IN an LLC, the share holders are those on the charter.
IN a soleproprietorship, the owner is the sole share holder.

Nobody starts a business to loose money, or pay people more than they can get away with. IF you ask for a raise, AND you receive a raise . . . it's not because "you are worth more" than you are paid. You may be performing additional work outside of what they initial thought you would perform or something. The reason people can get pay raises is because "You are worth more", than would be lost by the business in training your replacement to do the exact work you perform on the job vs paying a bit more to keep you on board.

I've been an employee for 14 years now at various places. Some are better than others . . . but you are correct I have no love for the american business, and rather resent the way they abuse my legal system. I did infact notice your location is new zealand. Perhaps the USA hasn't found a reason to exploit your population yet, but they most certainly are exploiting mine for profit.

millenniumtree · Post by **millenniumtree** » 27 Oct 2004 09:39

The general argument against raising the minimum wage is that fast food places and family restaurants who have to pay people peanuts to wash the dishes would all go out of business.

I think it'll just end up weeding out the fast food businesses and restaurants that suck. Plus, it'll help low-income and low-skilled workers to earn more.

In addition to that, it'll force employers to look really hard for people who are skilled enough to do the jobs, which may exclude some dopes from getting jobs, but that in turn forces them to improve themselves to the point where they can actually get the job.

There are philosophical paradoxes on all fronts here, I'm generally FOR raising the min. wage, but I also recognize there are definite oppositions to it, some of which hold water, others which don't.

HighDemonslayer · Post by **HighDemonslayer** » 27 Oct 2004 10:40

I had a minimum wage job at a car wash,

$5.XX per hour, taxable
$8.00 per hour (approx.) untaxable tip income.

This was a better arrangement than a future job that paid $13-14 an hour ,where it was all taxed.

This was in a differnet state, a few years ago, but there are many ways around the minimum wage.

America also has a huge underground workforce that presumably gets paid less than the "minimum" in an unmeasurable number of cases.

-n

carl winslow · Post by **carl winslow** » 27 Oct 2004 12:13

usually for jobs with tips like being a waiter the minimum wage is much lower, like $2 somthing an hour.

Frenzal · Post by **Frenzal** » 27 Oct 2004 14:16

"Nobody starts a business to ... pay people more than they can get away with."

I understand now that we're coming from two very different points of view and points on the globe. In none of my occupations did i ever have to ask for a raise. At the stationary store there were "re-evaluations" after 6 and 12 months that translated into raises, on the farm and on the building site i started earning minimum and the very next week i was earning more because i turned out to be better than useless. So, it seems, most of my experience is with buisnesses which understand that to get what you want out of an employee you have to keep them happy rather than oppressed and the best way to go about that is to pay them more than you can get away with.

FlexThis · Post by **FlexThis** » 27 Oct 2004 14:45

We also have evaluations here in the USA. But not always does this result in a raise. I have been given 2 raises since I started and only had to ask for one of them. My last raise was given on merit after an evaluation.

Fact is though in the US that if you don't ask, chances are you will not receive. You almost have to reapply so-to-speak in order to prove that you are doing more than you were hired to do.

It takes a bit of balls to ask for a raise, but some employers reward going out on a limb, while others fire your ass. It all depends on the company. Some jobs make you work production, which means you have to produce a set amount of work per day minimum to make production, anything above and beyond that is reflected in your hourly rate. It goes up as you pass the minimum point.

Other jobs like Customer Service work by the hour, but often times have to work overtime and they get paid to do so.

While salary jobs (like mine) have to ask up front for whatever pay they expect and are only given raises on special instances or in my wifes case to combat inflation. Your employer might give you a 3% raise due to inflation per year.

My last raise was just enough to cover the insurance rate hike. And I was ok with that.

In gov. employee cases, Bush has put a rate increase hault on all gov. employees. Some are working in advanced positions with no pay increase seen in years (not to mention any names). I'd be pissed if I were a gov. employee.