That was a sincere haranguing, but nowhere in the response was an actual justification or argument as to why it's wrong beyond appeals to emotion.
"No business that depends on minimum wage should be in business!" Well, why not? Small businesses of all sorts rely on minimum wage in their early stages, and while the idea of mom and pop burger joints paying their employees $25/hr is compelling, in reality I see no reason why such a minimum wage would benefit anyone other than large corporations with high capital who can afford to pay the increase in wages.
I also note that the original question posed (that of what happens to those presently being paid $15/hr) is never addressed.
You can talk all you want about economic rationale, and there's certainly worthwhile things to be said there, but a living wage is ultimately a moral issue and so of course the arguments are going to be based on moral concerns.
That said, while the moral argument being made in the response is right, this particular framing is very clearly intended to condemn and not to persuade. I think there's sometimes legitimate reasons to engage in an argument with no intention of trying to persuade the person you are addressing, but without context I can't tell if that was the case here or if the writer was just having fun playing fire and brimstone preacher. (I suspect the latter)
Wage compression is a serious concern, but I don't see a way to address it short of mandating that businesses raise all wages alongside increases in the minimum wage.
Living wage is an economic issue whether you like it or not. If you want to take the issue seriously, then the economic factors need to be addressed. If a business owner says that raising the cost of labor will put him out of business, calling him a cigar-smoking $1,000 a day industrialist isn't going to change that.
Oh no, of course not. There's certainly economic concerns involved in how best to implement a living wage. What I mean is that the reason that we need a living wage is a moral imperative, not because "it will benefit the economy", so I think that making arguments for a living wage primarily or solely on moral grounds is more honest.
I never really understand how people can defend the idea that if you work a full time job, you should not be able to support yourself.
This makes no sense, because the only place the extra money that those people will need to live can come is the government. So people who argue for a low minimum wage are arguing for government subsidies to the poor. By consequence, it's also an argument of transferring money from the government, through those subsidies to the poor, to the employers of those workers. Case and point, many many many Walmart employees receive so little money they are on food stamps. Those food stamps are hence subsidizing Walmart's profit margin.
Oh, and it's flat out mean to suggest people should not be able to support themselves after a week's worth of labor.
I started out in food service and worked my way up. As I worked my way up, I worked with a lot of people that didn't want to be a chef, or a general manager. They just wanted to be a line cook, or a prep lady. They stayed very close to minimum wage; their increases came from doing a good job and longevity, not from following what some might call the "American Dream". Their American Dream was to come to work and do a good job and not be screwed. They wanted a clean place, out of the weather to work. They wanted to supplement the household income so their daughter could have a flute for band, or maybe go to college. They didn't want to get rich or be the boss, they just wanted to get a square deal. i started at 1.60 an hour. Thats like 9.50 in todays money. There hasnt been a Federal Minimum wage increase in 10 years. If anyone making 15 an hour got their feelings hurt because minimum went from 7.25 to 10 an hour, I'd just have to think they had a second rate attitude. Everybody makes their own deal.
This is a nice distribution of conceptualizations about minimum wage increases.
I tend to fall in the camp that it's both a moral and economic issue, one that would see us increases wages to reclaim a higher standard of living and increase subsidies to small businesses, at a slow enough pace so as to not shock the economic system. Such an approach would call for taxing larger corporations to equivocate growth for companies of all sizes. Yes, Amazon and Starbucks should pay greater taxes to subsidize the cost of local Seattle restaurants. Federalize the tax structure to disincentivize companies from competing among states. Somewhere, a Republican constitutionalist just lost his wings, I know, but I believe in a philosophy in which corporations have a duty to the country and the people that made them successful.
I believe the notion that 'reward for hard work' does not justify any one person having a billion dollars - because, honestly, at that point it's not hard work. Jeff Bezos can't work more hours a week than any one of the rest of us, so why is he, personally, the 66th wealthiest nation in the world? It's luck, chance, personal ability, but certainly not anything that we would attribute to value of work.
That was a sincere haranguing, but nowhere in the response was an actual justification or argument as to why it's wrong beyond appeals to emotion.
ReplyDelete"No business that depends on minimum wage should be in business!" Well, why not? Small businesses of all sorts rely on minimum wage in their early stages, and while the idea of mom and pop burger joints paying their employees $25/hr is compelling, in reality I see no reason why such a minimum wage would benefit anyone other than large corporations with high capital who can afford to pay the increase in wages.
I also note that the original question posed (that of what happens to those presently being paid $15/hr) is never addressed.
You can talk all you want about economic rationale, and there's certainly worthwhile things to be said there, but a living wage is ultimately a moral issue and so of course the arguments are going to be based on moral concerns.
DeleteThat said, while the moral argument being made in the response is right, this particular framing is very clearly intended to condemn and not to persuade. I think there's sometimes legitimate reasons to engage in an argument with no intention of trying to persuade the person you are addressing, but without context I can't tell if that was the case here or if the writer was just having fun playing fire and brimstone preacher. (I suspect the latter)
Wage compression is a serious concern, but I don't see a way to address it short of mandating that businesses raise all wages alongside increases in the minimum wage.
Living wage is an economic issue whether you like it or not. If you want to take the issue seriously, then the economic factors need to be addressed. If a business owner says that raising the cost of labor will put him out of business, calling him a cigar-smoking $1,000 a day industrialist isn't going to change that.
DeleteOh no, of course not. There's certainly economic concerns involved in how best to implement a living wage. What I mean is that the reason that we need a living wage is a moral imperative, not because "it will benefit the economy", so I think that making arguments for a living wage primarily or solely on moral grounds is more honest.
DeleteI never really understand how people can defend the idea that if you work a full time job, you should not be able to support yourself.
ReplyDeleteThis makes no sense, because the only place the extra money that those people will need to live can come is the government. So people who argue for a low minimum wage are arguing for government subsidies to the poor. By consequence, it's also an argument of transferring money from the government, through those subsidies to the poor, to the employers of those workers. Case and point, many many many Walmart employees receive so little money they are on food stamps. Those food stamps are hence subsidizing Walmart's profit margin.
Oh, and it's flat out mean to suggest people should not be able to support themselves after a week's worth of labor.
I started out in food service and worked my way up. As I worked my way up, I worked with a lot of people that didn't want to be a chef, or a general manager. They just wanted to be a line cook, or a prep lady. They stayed very close to minimum wage; their increases came from doing a good job and longevity, not from following what some might call the "American Dream". Their American Dream was to come to work and do a good job and not be screwed. They wanted a clean place, out of the weather to work. They wanted to supplement the household income so their daughter could have a flute for band, or maybe go to college. They didn't want to get rich or be the boss, they just wanted to get a square deal.
ReplyDeletei started at 1.60 an hour. Thats like 9.50 in todays money. There hasnt been a Federal Minimum wage increase in 10 years. If anyone making 15 an hour got their feelings hurt because minimum went from 7.25 to 10 an hour, I'd just have to think they had a second rate attitude. Everybody makes their own deal.
Even though the minimum wage is going up, businesses are not going to pass along that increased cost to their customers!
ReplyDeleteHow are you so sure? Have you thought about the elasticities of supply/demand of the products and workers?
DeleteThis is a nice distribution of conceptualizations about minimum wage increases.
ReplyDeleteI tend to fall in the camp that it's both a moral and economic issue, one that would see us increases wages to reclaim a higher standard of living and increase subsidies to small businesses, at a slow enough pace so as to not shock the economic system. Such an approach would call for taxing larger corporations to equivocate growth for companies of all sizes. Yes, Amazon and Starbucks should pay greater taxes to subsidize the cost of local Seattle restaurants. Federalize the tax structure to disincentivize companies from competing among states. Somewhere, a Republican constitutionalist just lost his wings, I know, but I believe in a philosophy in which corporations have a duty to the country and the people that made them successful.
I believe the notion that 'reward for hard work' does not justify any one person having a billion dollars - because, honestly, at that point it's not hard work. Jeff Bezos can't work more hours a week than any one of the rest of us, so why is he, personally, the 66th wealthiest nation in the world? It's luck, chance, personal ability, but certainly not anything that we would attribute to value of work.
I have more to say, but I'm going shopping.