3 Ways the Minimum Wage Hurts People

reason infographic

Comments

[WoodchipperPatriarch]

YALL JUST HATE POOR PEOPLE!

[ballegooijenyves]

Start working at home with Google! It's by-far the best job I've had. Last Wednesday I got a brand new BMW since getting a check for $6474 this - 4 weeks past. I began this 8-months ago and immediately was bringing home at least $77 per hour. I work through this link, go? to tech tab for work detail,,,,,,,

????????????? http://www.pay-buzz.com

[Puddin' Stick]

"Employers might choose" to invest in robots and automation?

They are already doing it!

Several chain sit-down restaurants in LA are putting in mini-kiosks at tables to reduce the need for wait staff!

[BuSab Agent]

A good friend (designer) works for a company makes these robots and automated processing lines. He has more overtime than his system can handle--really he's looking very peaked of late.

[Puddin' Stick]

I work in a field that makes products that make it easier for people to work remotely... we're having to turn away clients.

[JohnD]

Here in Atlanta also. Be careful what you ask for.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Now make a chart explaining how Democrats are going to get votes without a minimum wage requirement?

[pronomian]

That's easy. If true, there's 500,000 more possibilities to be on the gov't rolls, more sucking from the gov't test, more milk to have to provide. Now if we can just keep them unemployed, the more they will need to rely on gov't, the more they rely on gov't the more officials can buy their votes.

[kpsmith]

Part of the problem is politicians getting elected by convincing people they can somehow suspend the rules of the universe. We have people believing they can have everything they want in life without ever doing anything they don't want to do. That simply is not the way the world works. There are SOME people who can have that type of existence (a Kennedy, Hilton, Rockefeller or a Clinton perhaps) but for the overwhelming majority of us it will never be that way.

[lap83]

I'm so tired of the cutesy low-contrast infographic style. Bring back the antiquated ultra-detailed line drawing style. http://i.imgur.com/WOiEOUU.jpg

[Sevo]

That's a wonderful illustration, but that sort of stuff is like Victorian houses; expensive as hell!
Someone with a decent piece of software can knock out the M/W chart in, what, a couple of hours? That building chart would take days.

[lap83]

I didn't say it was practical! /design luddite

but seriously, the style could be altered. It looks like it belongs on a parenting website

Here's another infographic one using line drawing, but it's modern and probably didn't take as long as the high buildings one

http://tinyurl.com/p6wjtrk

[Jason Keisling]

Very cool!

[Almanian - Woodchipper]

o
|--+
|_

^ Me, from the side, giving thumbs up. Also a "line" drawing.

Now - isn't this better than that old, Victorian thing?

I'D BET MY WOODCHIPPER ON IT.

[BuSab Agent]

Okay Al, how many years have you been patiently waiting for the right thread/comment to whip out your mad ASCII art skilz?

[jmg09]

Another element that always seems to be left out is the squeezing together of wages. If the minimum wage goes up, another viable avenue for an employer is to pay his more experienced employees and managers less.So, you may start at $15/hour and if you work real hard, put your time and hours in, you might one day get to be a manager and make...$17/hour.

But that's what liberals want, right? No more disparity between the rich and poor! Yay. Everybody's poor.

[muskegonlibertarian]

Back when I was working for Pinkerton's, after ten years of experience I was earning $.20 an hour more than the new hires were. They got $3.35, I got $3.55 as site lieutenant. This was early 1980's.

High levels of unemployment meant that security guard companies could pay minimum or close to it and still get all the people they wanted. No reason to raise wages because the "great army of the unemployed" was ready and willing to take any job for the then current minimum of $3.35 an hour. Nor did the minimum wage increase above $3.35 while Ronald Reagan was President. Inflation of course reduced the value of the minimum wage year by year, but locally unemployment stayed high until the end of Clinton's first term.

What is interesting is that in 1999, during the "Clinton boom", unemployment fell to the point that fast food places were paying $8.00 an hour even though the minimum wage was $5.15. There was some increase in prices, but competition did hold those down fairly well.

[GregMax]

4. - it perpetuates the mindset in the culture that government can impose its ideology on a contract between citizens and that government is able to manage an economy.

[JD the elder]

This. It encourages the belief that if you want something, the way to get it is not to try and come to a mutual agreement, but to get the government to force everybody to give you your way. And, in the larger sense, that social change comes only from the government forcing people to do things.

[The Late P Brooks]

But I have been assured studies of tiny incremental changes in a statutory minimum wage which is below the prevailing market wage PROVE doubling the statutory minimum will have no effect whatsoever.

[Sevo]

Also, if those studies are conducted close enough to the implementation date, after all the employers' 'adjustments' have been made, why you can show there are no changes resulting from the new W/M at all!
You just need to pick the sweetest cherries.

[DarrenM]

You realize, of course, that all increases are really just a lot of "incremental changes" strung together, so there's no reason we can't increase the MW even more than what is already being proposed. /s

[The Late P Brooks]

I thought that chart was a South Park screen grab, for a second.
And, no, that's not a compliment.

[waffles]

Simple, clear, effective. I'm sure everyone who sees it will hate it.

[Knarf Yenrab!]

3 Ways Price Floors on Books Hurt Used Book Vendors

[ClassicLib-NeverProg]

But living wage, working poor, don't you care about the children? So 1%er...

[Doug Heffernan]

This blog post is entitled "3 Ways the Minimum Wage Hurts People".

The comic is entitled "3 Ways a high Minimum Wage Hurts People".

It is not inconsistent to be both against the minimum wage entirely and also to be against "a high" minimum wage. But if you're going to argue against a high minimum wage and not also simultaneously argue for the repeal of the minimum wage, then you need to argue - or at least define - what is a "high" minimum wage.

The unskilled and uneducated rightly have no leverage and are fortunate just to occasionally have almost enough income for minimal sustenance and maybe some shelter. It beats having zero! But It is not just the unskilled and uneducated that face downward wage pressure. Highly credentialed US workers face the pressure of poor people elsewhere on the planet willing to do the same work just for food - see H1B/Disney (open boarders would have the same effect as the H1B). Combine open boarders with no minimum wage and we will all get to see the true market value of our "work" relative to the global population.

[garyh]

Open boarders? Look out, pirates!

[muskegonlibertarian]

Nor do they have to be "here". The Internet allows some "services" to be provided almost anywhere on Earth. Radiological photos (x-rays) can be scanned and transmitted via the Internet to India where they are "read" by Indian radiologists for a far lower price than what American radiologists charge. Without "protective" laws applying to the professions, the same thing would happen on a much larger scale. "Telemedicine" for example could be expanded to a much larger scale if it wasn't for the political power of the US health care establishment preventing such things. Then the intellectual "property rights" of copyright and patent (including DRM) only exist because of government. Take away the power of government and its favors to certain groups and those professions suddenly face a level of "competition" that is no doubt a "nightmare" for many.

[Galane]

Raising the cost of food is easy to see, just look at what has happened since the minimum wage was raised to $7.25 and what has happened in the USA since 1938 when it and New Zealand were the first countries to implement a minimum wage, and in every other country with a minimum wage.

Then there are countries that have no minimum wage, like Denmark, where wages are even higher, $20USD for fast food workers. They have extremely high taxes AND extremely high prices so they're really no better off than American workers.

[muskegonlibertarian]

The high taxes and high prices (caused mainly by "value added taxes) does give a fast food worker in Denmark a level of "benefits" that his or her American counterpart can only dream of having... National health insurance with a level of coverage well above what Obamacare provides. Paid vacation, disability coverage, a pension better than what Social Security provides here. All of course paid through taxes, there being no such thing as "free lunch". We have much lower taxes, but on the other hand the "working poor" here in the US can only envy those fortunate enough to live in such countries. Then many of these countries also provide "free" college educations if you qualify. There are of course "negatives" to all this, especially as there is less "incentive" to take the sort of "risks" that might make you wealthy. And the high progressive taxes are also a handicap.

On the other hand most Europeans appear to prefer their sort of social order to our own even if it means you are less likely to ever become wealthy. This is also "why" the philosophy of libertarianism is almost uniquely "American".

[Adam Smith]

If you really want liberals to understand the gravity of this issue, explain that this will discriminate against small business owners -- only large corporations will be able to afford the wage hike!

[Sevo]

This was explained to the Oakland city council, specifically in regards to the Salvation Army child-care staffing, which inexpensive service is what allows working mothers to work.
The city council simply refused to believe them, the M/W went on the ballot (where it passed; brains are not in oversupply in Oaktown) and the upshot is far fewer slots for kids, since there is a legal worker/kid ratio.
Nope, lefties are far dumber than that.

[buybuydandavis]

Repeat after me:

The minimum wage is 0.
The minimum wage is 0.
The minimum wage is 0.

[Doug Heffernan]

If you desire repetition, then you can buy and train a parrot.

And you didn't type;
"The real minimum wage is 0,"
as most others who use this sort of empty rhetoric usually do.

The chants of the "0 wage" truthers are of no help in this debate.

A wage is monetary compensation (or remuneration) paid by an employer to an employee in exchange for work done.

Sure... If there is no employer, no employee, and no compensation - then there is no wage. Tautologies are fun but rarely insightful.

What about when there is an employee, an employer, and compensation? Your truther bit doesn't even apply to such a case, but rather only its contrary.

[JohnD]

Open you mind and see what he is actually saying. If you insist on a wage the employer can't or won't pay. You will be out of a job. So your minimum wage will be zero.

[muskegonlibertarian]

Without the minimum wage we might however see more people seeking their own self employment. Along with employers more wiling to "take a chance" on hiring someone. In this aspect it might be noted that the greater employment security enjoyed by workers in some European countries also comes with higher unemployment because the employer is much less willing to "take a chance" if the individual in question doesn't "work out".

Without government inference in the hiring process and pay, we would likely have less unemployment as employers along with private individuals would be willing to pay to have tasks done that at a higher price wouldn't be worth having someone do. So more young people would get "work experience" even if not in the more ordinary sort of employment that we have today.

[David_B]

A much more pertinent issue here, is income tax. If the greedy bastards in government weren't so addicted to thieving income they didn't earn, and then wasting it, then a reasonable minimum wage wouldn't really be that much of an issue, as employers would have much more profit in order to reward productive employees.

[GregMax]

They take 7% off the top for social security and medicare. Repeal that - the gift that keeps on giving.

[Raymond C C]

Why would employers want to use that profit to "reward productive employees?" Much better just to keep it for themselves.

[JohnD]

Never been in business have you? That was an ignorant statement. I won't even try to explain it to you since it wouldn't be worth the effort. .

[David_B]

Oh, and it would also reduce the cost of living, increasing purchasing power.

[garyh]

"Those without college degrees will be hardest hit"...so we'll make college free for everyone! Isn't that already Obama's plan i.e. the democrat playbook in action: "Look how we're helping all you poor poor people that can't get jobs because those evil companies won't hire you without a college degree." Never mind that you can't get a job because we made it economically untenable for them to hire low-skill workers. And having a worthless degree (which they will be) won't increase the worker's skills so what's the next play in the playbook? Oh, the government will just have to federalize certain companies...

[Anna98]

To my mind, after crisis in 2008 unemployment rate in our country increased and it`s very sad statistic. Life became more difficult and everybody feel it. Middle class became low-income. In crisis time I lost my job and couldn't stay afloat. My budget was very tight and I decided to contact Online Payday Advance Loan. Of course to visit such money service it`s very risky but I didn't have other variants because my parents with low income and couldn't help me. But this difficult time showed me that I must live with my means and make emergency fund.

[TxJack 112]

The stupidity of a hike in the minimum wage is all other wages will rise equally. If you are paying a person flipping a burger $30K a year, a person with a bachelors degree is not going to accept a job for $30K. Right now the average salary of a college grad with a Bachelor degree is $38K a year. To pay for all the increases in every salary, the cost of goods and services will rise. In the end the only thing that will actually rise is the income level the Federal government defines as poverty.