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(US) Do you support a $15 minimum wage?

Do you support a $15 (or higher) minimum wage in the US?


  • Total voters
    55
Not to mention also but some people don't want to progress up some food chain at a business or start their own business. Some people are content with just doing their job and that is all they care about when it comes to work. I think alot of republicans think people are obsessed with money and power as much as they are. Nothing wrong in just doing a job and being paid well for it.

Jason
 
If everyone was obsessed with money and power who would their be to exploit? Sure no doubt many of us would like a little more money but money doesn't always buy happiness.
 
I also think it's amusing to assume workers can just "work harder". There has got to be a point where that isn't possible anymore or where "working harder" actually nets worse results because the workers are stressed and/or sick.
Welcome to America. Land of no minimum time off, no maternity leave, no guaranteed sick time, and no universal healthcare.
 
Welcome to America. Land of no minimum time off, no maternity leave, no guaranteed sick time, and no universal healthcare.

Most of all a country where labour is not valued enough. Companies don't invest in their employees' training properly and during a crisis the first thing they do is fire people.
And when the crisis is over... those people are gone and production can't easily be ramped up again. You also lose a bunch of know-how and competence if you keep doing that. This is not how industry works but America insists on not giving a shit about labour as an important factor.
 
You could always raises prices slightly in order to offset some of the increased costs due to higher wages.
Except if your competition up the street doesn't do the same, you lose customers.
Not necessarily. There are a lot more factors at play than just cost, especially if the difference in price is small. If the service is better at your usual place and the employees are faster and do better quality work (both things happier and less stressed employees do when paid a fair wage), most will be inclined to remain loyal despite minor price changes.
 
Not necessarily. There are a lot more factors at play than just cost, especially if the difference in price is small. If the service is better at your usual place and the employees are faster and do better quality work (both things happier and less stressed employees do when paid a fair wage), most will be inclined to remain loyal despite minor price changes.

Not to mention your staff might be more loyal, meaning you aren't having to spend resources training new staff if you have a high turnover of staff.

Now of course one side effect of raising the minium wagecould be the difference between payscales at the lower end. So you could have a shop floor worker say earning US$10 and their supervisor earning US$16, if you raise the minimum wage to US$15 the shopfloor worker gets in effect a 50% increase but thier supervisor would be unlikely to get that same 50% increase or at least US$5 raise to maintain the difference in pay that there was.
 
if you raise the minimum wage to US$15 the shopfloor worker gets in effect a 50% increase but thier supervisor would be unlikely to get that same 50% increase

This is the real issue. Not that minimum wage is too low, but that everyone is making less than they should, as seen by the productivity chart. What the hell happened in 1973? If you raise the minimum wage by that much without making similar adjustments in the rest of the national payroll (smaller raise the higher you go) I guarantee things will get messy, I just can't tell you exactly how.
 
Small businesses would be hit hardest. Most people don't work for giant corporations. If I have to basically double employees' pay without an equivalent increase in receipts to offset the extra expense, I can tell you what happens next. The number of employees goes down, or the company goes out of business. Either way, people lose jobs.

In the public sector, a mandated increase in the minimum means that every salary has to be reevaluated and adjusted. When the payroll cost goes up, the money has to come from somewhere. This means higher taxes. Higher taxes mean that the citizens have less to spend in the marketplace. If taxes can't be raised to fund the increase, layoffs and other budget shortfalls happen. This means that people lose jobs, and services suffer.

It's easy to say, "just raise the minimum," but there are consequences. Money doesn't grow on trees, and you can't get blood from a turnip. This is basic stuff, common sense.
 
High minimum wages will cost jobs and raise prices, hurting both low skilled workers and retirees on fixed incomes.
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Jobs that to be frank, shouldn't exist. A company that cannot pay a decent living wage is non functional and is being propped up by exploitation.

Speaking of which - retirees on fixed incomes : yes, let's subsidise them by underpaying the young, poor and economically vulnerable - that's fair. Isn't it ?

Anyway, paying higher wages would give many people more disposable income and/or leisure time (if they didn't have to work two jobs) and should work as a stimulus to the economy.
 
If small business can't handle a raise in minimum wage why not try and get the government to cover the cost? Isn't that why we give money to Big Oil companies and so forth? Not to mention if we raised taxes on the rich and gave American's a living wage through fair welfare reform then those people who small business can't afford wouldn't need the job to begin with. Not to mention that if people had more money to spend they might actually buy stuff from those small business's instead of going to the only place they can afford which is Wal Mart.

Jason
 
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