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Against a Living Wage? You don't care.

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Craig24

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According to conventional wisdom, industry must pay a 'living wage' to all workers so that they will not, in essence, starve to death.  Here is an excerpt from a story about a protest against Wal-Mart (who else?):

 

Protestors Call For Wal-Mart to Pay a Living Wage

 

Paul Sasso organized the San Diego event. He said it’s about creating a living wage for workers. “I mean a living wage and fair treatment is critical to the health of any society.”

 

To that end, Sasso said they will be asking shoppers to get involved by boycotting Walmart this holiday season.

 

“Our goal is to collect 500 signatures for a letter to the chairman of Wal-Mart,” Sasso said.

 

Sasso said they are asking for all employees to be able to earn “a minimum wage of 25,000 dollars a year and no retaliation against workers who ask for that.” He said they are trying to gather signatures, but really the protest is about raising awareness on the busiest shopping day of the year.

 

 

 

This is from Daily Kos:

 

Bill Maher's excellent argument for a living wage

 

And look, even if you're not moved by the "don't be such a heartless prick" argument, consider the fact that most fast food workers — whose average age by the way now is 29, I'm not talking about kids — are on some form of public assistance.  Which is not surprising.  When even working people can't make enough to live, they take money from the government.  In the form of food stamps.  School lunches.  Housing assistance.  Day care.  This is the welfare that conservatives hate.  But they never stop to think, if we raise the minimum wage and force McDonald's and Walmart to pay their employees enough to eat, we the taxpayers wouldn't have to pick up the slack.

 

This is the question the right has to answer.  Do you want smaller government with less handouts, or do you want a low minimum wage?  Because you cannot have both.  If Colonel Sanders isn't going to pay the lady behind the counter enough to live on, then Uncle Sam has to.  And I, for one, am getting a little tired of helping highly profitable companies pay their workers.

 

 

According to the 'welfare statists', paying your workers a living wage is a duty.  If you oppose a living wage,  ..  get ready..   

 

You don't care about people.

 

You just don't care if they live or die. 

 

That's the standard line.  That's what every opponent of the minimum wage or the welfare state has to endure.

 

Emotional appeals are common when debating political issues.  Are you pro choice?   Baby Killer!   Against Obamacare?  Patients will die!

(are these people obsessed with death?)

 

You can't win when your opponent thinks you are out to injure the innocent to benefit yourself or your rich neighbors.  The sad part is that this kind of appeal to emotion works well enough to keep and grow the welfare state year after year after year (Republicans and Democrats seem to agree on this.  They just disagree on the means or the cost.)

 

What is to be done?   How do you change the minds of enough people to start the process of decontrolling the economy?  Where do you even begin?  

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Raising wages will force Wal-mart and every other business to raise their prices to adjust

 

Wage deflation is cause (mostly) by China. 

 

What these people don't get is that we need more jobs, and with the US now having the highest corporate tax in the world...well why would anyone set up a business here? 

 

The expense to businesses, 90% of it, is tax and regulation that other countries don't have. It has nothing to do with wages. CNET did a good interview with the head of Intel and other CEO's who echoed this. 

Edited by Ben Archer
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So the topic of the thread is really how to get people to think clearly rather than react emotionally?   Then the thread title is misleading.

 

Education is the key.   In a socialized education system there is no chance for a widespread education in reasoning.

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A Conservative millionaire is trying raise California's minimum wage to $12/hr.

 

 

 

On Tuesday, Unz submitted paperwork in California to get a relatively aggressive minimum wage hike on the ballot that would raise the state's minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2016.

 

He reasons that there's at least one big conservative reason Republicans should back his proposal: It ends corporate welfare for large companies like Walmart and McDonalds by ending the low wages that force many of their employees onto the food stamp rolls.

 

 

 

This is becoming a more popular justification for raising the minimum wage.  I've seen it repeated in other forums. 

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I don't know where people get the idea from to begin with that everything you can do that somebody else will give you money for is/must/should be something one can make their (and maybe their whole family's) entire living on. Does Walmart or MCDonald's or whatever else not pay enough to allow for you to live comfortably just on the wages from that job? Maybe it isn't intended to do so and you're simply barking up the wrong tree if you go there looking for that.

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Wages are deflated by globalization.

True. For a few decades, the American worker benefitted as if from protectionism, except that instead of protectionism of the U.S. government, it was mostly foreign governments keeping their own people down. Now, the lowest rung of American worker is faced with a problem: he is just as productive as the lowest-paid Chinese peasant. At the next level up the skill ladder, once again the American worker finds he is just as productive as the low-paid Chinese worker. Perhaps his dad worked at GM and said: "You can get a good job on the factory floor". Thanks to unions, the myth of the great factory job remained in place even while it was being pushed out of industry after industry.

An individual is best served by thinking himself as an economic actor on a global stage. This is the context in which to ask: what value can I create and trade with others?

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The challenge is: how does a rational person casually explain to a "welfare-statist" the economic hazards of a minimum wage, established by public policy, or the so-called, "living-wage." When that very subject came up at a recent family gathering, no one argued against the free-market principles opposing minimum wages, because they are self-evident. Not that I have an entirely rational family, but that the family now includes (in-law) members of a family, who are immigrants from Poland. The Polish brother-in-law expressed the principles so well that I didn't have to display my "uncle-know-it-all" attitude. These people came from a country that re-constructed their economy from socialism, to a thriving, albeit mixed, yet more free-market economy.

Pose an example as such: If a minimum wage of $15 is better than $8, wouldn't it be better to raise it to $20, or why not $30, or keep going? With an inflated currency, the sky's the limit. And inflation is the tax everyone pays. Imagine buying your next taco or burger at a price of $15 or more, (cheese is extra). Now how does that help the poor, or low-income worker? How does that help to employ the young person willing to work, but with no prior work experience, when the employers can afford no more help at that dictated rate?

Simply learn the basic principles of economics, and you will find a persuasive argument for any occasional encounter with a statist.

Caution: argue responsibly, and with tact.

Edited by Repairman
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Aside from the obvious problems with the "living wage" concept there is one item that is never brought up.  Maybe jobs that pay minimum wage such as Wal-Mart or McDonald's are not supposed to become careers.  Don't get me wrong.  I know that in the current economy we have a shortage of jobs and in certain instances these are the only jobs to be had.  Putting aside the corporate tax structure that is limiting the number of jobs being created in this country, what I am saying is maybe the person at the job should try to better themselves through education or training to find a higher paying job.  If a person wants to make more money they are free to put their job skills and education on the market and try to find a job that pays a wage better suited to living the life they wish to live.  As I said previously I acknowledge the economy is bad and times are tough but to say that the employer should pay more for the same amount of work (beyond any inflation factor) seems ridiculus.  If a person is doing everything in their power to find a higher paying job then they have my sympathy.  If a person is simply working their job and doing nothing to better themselves or find a higher paying job then I have no sympathy for their complaint that they are paid to little.

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Perhaps his dad worked at GM and said: "You can get a good job on the factory floor". Thanks to unions, the myth of the great factory job remained in place even while it was being pushed out of industry after industry.

oh god don't even remind me of what unions did to the GM bankruptcy. Actually it's still a nightmare what's going on there. They're borrowing even more billions from the government, who's somehow happy to lend it to them despite the recent hiccups, just so they can pay off the unions. Meanwhile actual shareholders have yet to see anything from that  I know some people who shorted GM when they saw the bankruptcy coming yet got screwed because of this. 

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