House Dem: Fast-Food Wage Doubling Would Create ‘Millions of Jobs’

[MisterChester]

You are assuming those are the only two choices available.

What would other choices be?

 

[actaeon277]

What would other choices be?

Limit government assistance programs. They "tip the scales", or change the "free market".
I have several people that I know, that have decided it pays better to do nothing.
The ones that ran out of benefits have miraculously found jobs.

 

[mrjarrell]

Yes we will. My main issue is with how wages have been so stagnant, they have not changed much at all regardless of where the economy has been lately. If it does not keep up with inflation and costs of living, that would explain why food stamps are being given at such record numbers. Something is not right with the economy, as things that should happen (wage increases with economic growth) are not happening.

I made a similar point on this very subject. Raises are very few and far between for MW workers. Inflation has risen, (despite the lying government figures) and the dollar has dropped in purchasing power. Fuel has gone up, raising costs across the board and the people at the low end, (unskilled tho they may be) are hit harder than the the rest of us. While I think that $15/hr is rather ludicrous, I would like to see the corporations jump in there and give their workers (who they cannot function without) some small raise. It might help keep fewer of them off food stamps and welfare. What I don't want to see is a knee jerk raise of the MW to ludicrous levels. The fast food corps could afford a dollar or two tossed to the peons and most of us wouldn't mind an extra $.25 a burger for their slop.

 

[CathyInBlue]

Let's just pass a law in Congress mandating that everyone, even people not working, be paid by the business owning class at least $1,000,000.00 /yr. Then everyone will have plenty of money to buy lots of stuff and the economy will zoom!

 

[Ralphie Parker]

I haven't seen where anyone has discussed union wages in relation to minimum wage. I don't remember how it works exactly, but I know it has an effect on public projects like school buildings and renovations, libraries ect... You can bet those projects will cost more with higher minimum wage.

 

[cobber]

At this point it seems that if the minimum wage wasn't changed or abolished, we are going to see an influx of people on welfare. If it's raised, less people will get on welfare. So who would you rather pay for the increase? The government or the business?

The premise is false. A rise in the MW does not mean ALL MW workers will get more. It means SOME will get paid more, and others will be laid off and go on welfare.

Many people who go on welfare will do so whether the MW is raised or not.

Let's just pass a law in Congress mandating that everyone, even people not working, be paid by the [STRIKE]business owning class[/STRIKE] government at least $1,000,000.00 /yr. Then everyone will have plenty of money to buy lots of stuff and the economy will zoom!

We love Big Brother long time! And we can all belong to the government!

The Government Is The Only Thing We All Belong To - DNC Video - YouTube

 

[netsecurity]

Yes we will. My main issue is with how wages have been so stagnant, they have not changed much at all regardless of where the economy has been lately. If it does not keep up with inflation and costs of living, that would explain why food stamps are being given at such record numbers. Something is not right with the economy, as things that should happen (wage increases with economic growth) are not happening.

The ptoblem with the economy is socialism. It is worse in Europe,where the economy is...worse. What you and all the socialist leadership are saying is, "hey, let's try some more socialism!" It won't work, it never has. It will make thing WORSE.

Another example:
Joe works hard to get a raise. Then the minimum wage is raised,and now everyone else is making the same as him. Worse yet is that now he also has to pay morefor food and gas because of inflation. All the people that didn't try hard, got rewarded, but Joe got punished, and so did evey other working America.

Raising the minimum wage is a farse! Every time we near an election the Democrats bring up this plan to ensure they get the poor vote. For the dozens upon dozens of reasons I've listed in this thread, I am against all but the slightest and rarest increases to minimum wage--CAPITALISM WORKS BEST WHEN THE GOVERNMENT INTERVENES THE LEAST. As someone else mentioned, the only intervention should be vocational training and schooling so that people can help themselves.

 

[printcraft]

Let's just pass a law in Congress mandating that everyone, even people not working, be paid by the business owning class at least $1,000,000.00 /yr. Then everyone will have plenty of money to buy lots of stuff and the economy will zoom!

Said every liberal politician in D.C.

 

[poptab]

So ill just post this here for anyone who wants to actually learn something.
http://mises.org/books/whywagesrise.pdf

 

[Twangbanger]

...You could triple the wages of field workers and not have any noticeable affect on retail prices, because a tiny fraction of the end cost is field worker wages....


...Doubling the wages of the lowest earners would definitely help the economy. They tend to spend what they earn, and spend a lot of it locally. Doubling the pay of the top 10% might help with investment capital, but those folks are already spending what they want to spend on consumer goods.

Paying a living wage to legal unskilled and semi-skilled workers would be a huge boon to our economy.

(Statistics from "The American Way of Eating")

I see a couple problems with your presentation here.

First, regarding agriculture wages, you miss one of the key points often overlooked on this topic, which is that pro-labor initiatives such as wage guarantees only work in the absence of significant foreign competition. Tripling American field worker wages may, or may not, affect consumer prices to a noticeable degree (I tend to think they would), but what matters is that it would definitely affect the profit margins of the employers, which is the driving force which provides that worker with a job. Do you care if the food you eat is produced in America? Because food production is a very competitive business. Look at the labels on the grocery items you buy. The "Buy Local" movement has an increasing sense of desperation about it: America has been teetering on the brink of becoming a structural net food importer for nearly ten years now, and regularly runs monthly deficits. How do you get the Philippines, Brazil, or Argentina, for example, to guarantee a minimum worker wage, in line with what "we think" it should be? Keep in mind, the ostensible international policy at the moment is to encourage developed nations to abandon their agriculture price supports - every trade deal you can think of seems to have this as a main fighting-point. How do you guarantee the minimum wage level of the American field worker at a "liveable" level, when every trade deal seeks to put him on level par with someone in the Philippines who lives in a hut and eats dogs? Your approach is not only inconsistent with reality; it's also inconsistent with what your own liberal colleagues are trying to do on the international level.

Shifting to the burger-flipper question, your position on artificially raising the wages of low-skilled workers above market levels suffers from a similar inability to look at both sides of the equation. You seem to posit that when we put more dollars in the hands of a burger-flipper, those dollars magically materialize from the ether, having never participated in the economy before, and are showing up on the economic radar screen for the first time. THOSE EXTRA DOLLARS CAME FROM SOMEWHERE. They were already in someone else's hands, participating in the economy before you redistributed them. They don't magically "begin" affecting the economy only after being placed in the hands of the burger-flipper; you have simply redistributed those dollars from the hands of someone you think less "deserving" of them, into the hands of someone whose votes the Democrat party can BUY with them.

In a later post, you wax philosophical about that great forward-thinking Friend of the Middle Class, Henry Ford. I can never keep this straight; by one pro-labor account, Henry Ford's company did everything it could do to crush the workers in Dearborn, and the weekend would never have been invented without the Union...then, you turn around and tell us Henry Ford actually had the little guy's interests at heart after all, and we owe it all to him? It's getting confusing...

In the words of Forrest Gump, I'm sorry I spoiled all y'all's little Labor Day Weekend "Black Panther Party," but I think you MW supporters need to regroup, get your thoughts together, and make a more coherent attempt next Labor Day. (It's okay; the media have you in their Rolodex, and will be patiently waiting for you).