American Politics 3.0 - Back to Brunch

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

It’s interesting because the long run survival of the country is for ultimately the billionaire class to voluntarily agree to re-distribute the wealth. If they do, the country has a chance if they don’t, they won’t but also the billionaires will lose.

Either way the concentration of wealth will ultimately end. Just a matter of time now.

Anyone listen to the last episode of the history of Rome podcast? Mike gives a little talk about the comparisons between the pax romana and the pax Americana. 9 years ago he was talking about how the concentration of wealth and power only works as long as everyone believes in the systems that support it, once enough people stop believing in the system it breaks down and things start to get bad. It's a very interesting thing to reflect on as we barrel towards both sides of America becoming less and less likely to believe in the legitimacy of there other.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I think some people would be surprised how many business owners actually make less than minimum wage themselves or put on a façade of success why also relying on the food bank. Sure, big corporations like McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Starbucks, 7-11, etc... can pay it and fill in the gaps I guess. When small businesses close, they are types that tend to swallow up the market.

I guess it's just quite possible that we live in a post-small business world. It certainly looks like it has been heading that way for a long time anyway, so maybe it's just time to give in to it and let small businesses go the way of the dodo. It just rubs me the wrong way when people seem to assume that doubling wage cost for businesses is no big deal as if business owners are sleeping in piles of money.

I’m sure there’s truth to that but it’s pretty damning if to make a living wage you need to DOUBLE the minimum wage. This is a problem decades in the making.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by edslunch

I’m sure there’s truth to that but it’s pretty damning if to make a living wage you need to DOUBLE the minimum wage. This is a problem decades in the making.

Sure but some of that is misguided.

1. When did minimum wage jobs become a career?
- When we were kids, minimum wage jobs were delivering flyers, pumping gas, working fast food only for teenagers. It was always a stepping stone to something better. We all have moved on from our first minimum wage job. Some of us probably never worked a minimum wage. My first job was a cashier at Superstore in 1996 and it was way above minimum wage.

2. By raising the minimum wage, the number of jobs at minimum wage increases.
- You raise a job from $10 to $15 but you don't raise the already $15 job so it now gets lumped in. Cashiers, office cleaning, even secretaries were never minimum wage, hence they never got tipped. But now they are. I know cleaners in the 80s that absolutely made a killing, mostly immigrants. Made 3x sometimes 5x the minimum wage at the time.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

When did minimum wage jobs become a career?

When more jobs became minimum wage jobs to compensate for more money going to top executives and increasing costs of post-secondary education.

We already know people born poor are more likely to stay poor and that "the American dream" was largely a fantasy.

People are convinced there is some worthiness in what they do. That because they get paid more, they're more valuable than people who are paid less. But it's a lie. Anyone can be an accountant or a middle-manager. It doesn't make anyone any more special, or smarter, or more worthy of living than someone working fast food.

A better question is why some people are making enough money to solve things like homelessness by themselves while others are working full-time for a salary they can't live on?

[PsYcNeT]

It's sadly hilarious how circuitous the minimum wage discussion always is here.

Just say you support the status quo and accept that some people need live in poverty so you can maintain your comfort and billionaires can continue to exist, it's not that hard.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

When more jobs became minimum wage jobs to compensate for more money going to top executives and increasing costs of post-secondary education.

We already know people born poor are more likely to stay poor and that "the American dream" was largely a fantasy.

People are convinced there is some worthiness in what they do. That because they get paid more, they're more valuable than people who are paid less. But it's a lie. Anyone can be an accountant or a middle-manager. It doesn't make anyone any more special, or smarter, or more worthy of living than someone working fast food.

A better question is why some people are making enough money to solve things like homelessness by themselves while others are working full-time for a salary they can't live on?

I agree with all of this. Is this the academic class trap that people have fallen into. Raising the minimum wage doesn't solve this issue or the chase for degrees. I find this a problem on the left, measuring success by the number of degrees. How many women, blacks, latinos etc are in STEM?

I will disagree with you on the bolded part, the American Dream. It still exists in cities and with immigrants. The amount of immigrants succeeding and sending money back to their home country is staggering.

As an example, overseas Vietnamese send 15 billion US per year back to Vietnam. And they are only the 8th highest. I believe India and Mexico are first and second.

https://www.vietnam-briefing.com/new...nam-rise.html/

The major sources of remittances to Vietnam are Vietnamese export workers and overseas Vietnamese living in other countries. The US accounts for 60 percent of all the remittances sent to Vietnam, while 20 percent are sent from Europe. Other major sources include China, South Korea, and Japan.

[activeStick]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Sure but some of that is misguided.

1. When did minimum wage jobs become a career?
- When we were kids, minimum wage jobs were delivering flyers, pumping gas, working fast food only for teenagers. It was always a stepping stone to something better. We all have moved on from our first minimum wage job. Some of us probably never worked a minimum wage. My first job was a cashier at Superstore in 1996 and it was way above minimum wage.

They became a career when the demand for employees in higher than minimum wage jobs got outpaced by the supply for the same jobs. Many things contributed to this such as, a larger population of qualified candidates (higher numbers in the educated and trained) both domestically and internationally or jobs traditionally based locally being lost to both technology (automation) and outsourcing (cheaper and sometimes, better). This leads to people taking work they otherwise wouldn't do since they need to live.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by activeStick

They became a career when the demand for employees in higher than minimum wage jobs got outpaced by the supply for the same jobs. Many things contributed to this such as, a larger population of qualified candidates (higher numbers in the educated and trained) both domestically and internationally or jobs traditionally based locally being lost to both technology (automation) and outsourcing (cheaper and sometimes, better). This leads to people taking work they otherwise wouldn't do since they need to live.

And people working past retirement age due to cost of living. It's a combination of so many things that are not solved by drastically raising the minimum wage.

And then tipping is a whole other issue discussed in the tipping thread.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

And people working past retirement age due to cost of living. It's a combination of so many things that are not solved by drastically raising the minimum wage.

And then tipping is a whole other issue discussed in the tipping thread.

In Ontario when they drastically raised the minimum wage, it resulted in a lot of small businesses reducing working and business hours and hiring more part-time employees and contract workers to avoid paying benefits or having guaranteed hours. A lot of restaurants for example simply closed down during the day and only open at night since the days went from breaking even or small losses to big losses.

Honestly, consumers don't want to pay what things are actually worth and that is a big issue. The cost of the product or service would be passed on to the consumer, and suddenly the new minimum wage is no different than the old minimum wage.

I see the issue of billionaire CEOs and owners of mega companies as a different issue. They aren't the ones that would really be affected. It's more the working class business owners that would get screwed. As mentioned, a lot of them barely make any money as it is and they are the ones taking all the financial risk. A lot of them would love to make a guaranteed minimum wage without having to worry about the livelihood of others or whether they are going to ever rise from their business related crippling debt, but they are still caught up in the dream that things might get better.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Sure but some of that is misguided.

1. When did minimum wage jobs become a career?
- When we were kids, minimum wage jobs were delivering flyers, pumping gas, working fast food only for teenagers. It was always a stepping stone to something better. We all have moved on from our first minimum wage job. Some of us probably never worked a minimum wage. My first job was a cashier at Superstore in 1996 and it was way above minimum wage.

I’m trying to think of what could have possibly made it so that an employer who otherwise would be paying a particular job minimum wage isn’t but I’m stumped. If only we could figure out the cause of this phenomenon and try to make it so that whatever form of divine intervention facilitated this could be made more easily available to minimum wage workers. Maybe, just maybe if the states did that there would be less minimum wage paying jobs overall and we wouldn’t have to hear complaints about how paying people higher than a slave wages would destroy the economy?

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

I agree with all of this. Is this the academic class trap that people have fallen into. Raising the minimum wage doesn't solve this issue or the chase for degrees. I find this a problem on the left, measuring success by the number of degrees. How many women, blacks, latinos etc are in STEM?

I will disagree with you on the bolded part, the American Dream. It still exists in cities and with immigrants. The amount of immigrants succeeding and sending money back to their home country is staggering.

As an example, overseas Vietnamese send 15 billion US per year back to Vietnam. And they are only the 8th highest. I believe India and Mexico are first and second.

https://www.vietnam-briefing.com/new...nam-rise.html/

It’s not just a left problem. How many people do you know that believe minimum wage jobs should be “stepping stones” for teens or shouldn’t be a career? What are their politics? How many do you know believe it’s ok for educated immigrants to be relegated to minimum wage jobs or hire undocumented immigrants for cheap labour (we know one!)? What are their politics? How many executives and hiring professionals require increasingly higher levels of education and work experience for entry level jobs? Do you think they’re all leftists?

The American Dream is not short for the ability of skilled foreign workers to come over and fill higher paying jobs in specific sectors. The American Dream is the idea that class doesn’t matter, that everyone should have equal opportunity for prosperity, upward social mobility, and success. It’s the idea that people are not limited by circumstance, but by ability. We know that isn’t true. You just admitted it wasn’t true when you questioned how many women, Black people, and Latinos were in STEM. Are you saying they’re simply less able? Upward social mobility is declining. The wealth gap is widening. You cannot change what the dream was supposed to be and say it has been fulfilled. It hasn’t. It’s a fantasy.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

In Ontario when they drastically raised the minimum wage, it resulted in a lot of small businesses reducing working and business hours and hiring more part-time employees and contract workers to avoid paying benefits or having guaranteed hours. A lot of restaurants for example simply closed down during the day and only open at night since the days went from breaking even or small losses to big losses.

Honestly, consumers don't want to pay what things are actually worth and that is a big issue. The cost of the product or service would be passed on to the consumer, and suddenly the new minimum wage is no different than the old minimum wage.

I see the issue of billionaire CEOs and owners of mega companies as a different issue. They aren't the ones that would really be affected. It's more the working class business owners that would get screwed. As mentioned, a lot of them barely make any money as it is and they are the ones taking all the financial risk. A lot of them would love to make a guaranteed minimum wage without having to worry about the livelihood of others or whether they are going to ever rise from their business related crippling debt, but they are still caught up in the dream that things might get better.

Is there any numbers backing this up about Ontario's minimum wage causing this in any material way? I live in Ontario and I don't recall that being a major issue.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

I’m trying to think of what could have possibly made it so that an employer who otherwise would be paying a particular job minimum wage isn’t but I’m stumped. If only we could figure out the cause of this phenomenon and try to make it so that whatever form of divine intervention facilitated this could be made more easily available to minimum wage workers. Maybe, just maybe if the states did that there would be less minimum wage paying jobs overall and we wouldn’t have to hear complaints about how paying people higher than a slave wages would destroy the economy?

I know you're picking on me but I'm under a province wide salary freeze for the last 6 years, which itself is another problem. Let's freeze salaries but raise minimum wage.

Yes, it's garbage I can only pay accountants so much and even then they go to the big four for less, pretty much interning to get the big firm on their resume. The only thing I can offer is free education. But all that is another issue.

I agree with you, Republican states have terrible economic policies for the rich. $7 minimum wage is criminal. But the bigger issue is the workforce backlog and there's really no solution for it.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

In Ontario when they drastically raised the minimum wage, it resulted in a lot of small businesses reducing working and business hours and hiring more part-time employees and contract workers to avoid paying benefits or having guaranteed hours.

Honestly, consumers don't want to pay what things are actually worth and that is a big issue. The cost of the product or service would be passed on to the consumer, and suddenly the new minimum wage is no different than the old minimum wage.

I see the issue of billionaire CEOs and owners of mega companies as a different issue. They aren't the ones that would really be affected. It more the working class business owners that would get screwed. As mentioned, a lot of them barely make any money as it is and they are the ones taking all the financial risk. A lot of them would love to make a guaranteed minimum wage without having to worry about the livelihood of others or whether they are going to ever rise from their business related crippling debt, but they are still caught up in the dream that things might get better.

This post reads as though you believe it’s more important to ensure a small business owner can make money even if the people making them that money can’t afford to live. If there is a demand for a product people will pay for it, I for one am ok paying a dollar more for a combo at McDonald’s if it means the employees are getting a decent wage.

[nfotiu]

I know this discussion has been going for around for a while here. Personally, I just thing a $15 national min wage may be a popular slogan, but it would be a pretty terrible policy.

Half the country already live in states that have min wages well over $10. I think ours is $11 in VA, but I don't know any companies paying less than $14 or $15, and most lower level jobs are advertised at $18 or so and still have trouble finding people.

After spending last week in the San Francisco area, I can't imagine living there for less than $30 an hour. We went for breakfast here at at a nice restaurant before we left and paid $30 for the 2 of us including taxes. Went to a diner type place in San Fran and $59 for nearly the same meal. Throw in $7 gas, and the living wage in that area is so much higher than here.

In VA, a living wage would likely be almost double someone in Alabama or Idaho that have $7.25 min wages.


A $15 min wage would be inconsequential in half the country, and be a huge burden for the economy in other parts. It's just really hard to see how a single number across the country makes any sense at all. Perhaps if Bernie good put together a proposal that made sense across the country, then it could start getting a little more traction.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

Is there any numbers backing this up about Ontario's minimum wage causing this in any material way? I live in Ontario and I don't recall that being a major issue.

I don't know if there are studies or internet sources, but I was a business owner in Ontario and lived through it. Saw many members of the neighbourhood business association suffer hard from the minimum wage increase. The irony of restaurant owners surrounded by food all day having to rely on the food bank to feed their families while their employees were doing better than them financially. I saw it with my own eyes.

So glad I sold the business just before COVID hit, although many of them actually survived longer because of the COVID subsidies they got.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by SebC

Perhaps it would be better to supplement low wages with UBI instead to spread the cost of caring for people whose market value is less than liveable instead of pushing it exclusively onto their employers.

(As an aside, 7-11s and McDonald's are franchises and Starbucks just closed a bunch of stores.)

The EIC already does that though and no one seems to ever talk about. It basically ramps up people wages via refundable tax credits based on family size etc, so that a min wage single mom or person supporting a family get a pretty big boost from their min wage job. Ironically, the progressives criticized Nancy Pelosi for not accepting a proposal to remove the EIC to offset the $2000 checks to everyone.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

It’s not just a left problem. How many people do you know that believe minimum wage jobs should be “stepping stones” for teens or shouldn’t be a career? What are their politics? How many do you know believe it’s ok for educated immigrants to be relegated to minimum wage jobs or hire undocumented immigrants for cheap labour (we know one!)? What are their politics? How many executives and hiring professionals require increasingly higher levels of education and work experience for entry level jobs? Do you think they’re all leftists?

The American Dream is not short for the ability of skilled foreign workers to come over and fill higher paying jobs in specific sectors. The American Dream is the idea that class doesn’t matter, that everyone should have equal opportunity for prosperity, upward social mobility, and success. It’s the idea that people are not limited by circumstance, but by ability. We know that isn’t true. You just admitted it wasn’t true when you questioned how many women, Black people, and Latinos were in STEM. Are you saying they’re simply less able? Upward social mobility is declining. The wealth gap is widening. You cannot change what the dream was supposed to be and say it has been fulfilled. It hasn’t. It’s a fantasy.

I'm a women of minority too. I'm measured in society by if I have a degree, what my degree is, if I'm an executive, if I'm on boards. You hear it all the time, there are only 5-10% women on boards and on executives. Everything it now a statistic and a measurement of how BIPOC is doing. I'm a statistic. I'm representing. That's a push from the left, which is good so I can't see how you're saying that social upward mobility is declining. The right could care less about any of this, they would keep a 12 white man boardroom if they could.

But it can create other problems as not 100% of the people can socially move upward and leftist policies want to protect those left behind too. However, there still has to be competition, business still have the hire the best.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

I know you're picking on me but I'm under a province wide salary freeze for the last 6 years, which itself is another problem. Let's freeze salaries but raise minimum wage.

Not picking at all, just pointing out there must be a reason your job in an industry that typically pays minimum wage was paying more.

Yes, it's garbage I can only pay accountants so much and even then they go to the big four for less, pretty much interning to get the big firm on their resume. The only thing I can offer is free education. But all that is another issue.

That came out of nowhere but I would agree that if you or the company you work for can pay people more and aren’t then yes that’s garbage.

I agree with you, Republican states have terrible economic policies for the rich. $7 minimum wage is criminal. But the bigger issue is the workforce backlog and there's really no solution for it.

Really not understanding what you’re saying regarding a workforce backlog.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by activeStick

They became a career when the demand for employees in higher than minimum wage jobs got outpaced by the supply for the same jobs. Many things contributed to this such as, a larger population of qualified candidates (higher numbers in the educated and trained) both domestically and internationally or jobs traditionally based locally being lost to both technology (automation) and outsourcing (cheaper and sometimes, better). This leads to people taking work they otherwise wouldn't do since they need to live.

That's not the place we are in now, unless things are drastically different where I live. We have hundreds of openings of 100k+ IT jobs that we barely even get anyone applying for. Restaurants are often closed a couple days a week or shut down randomly because they can't hire enough staff and are offering much more than min wage.