Minimum Wage Raise
 

The house has voted to raise the minimum wage.

Mixed feelings - yes, people need to be paid more but it seems that every time the minimum wage goes up prices go up and everyone is back to where they started.

That's because you can't get something for nothing......Our spending power is directly tied to our productivity. Congress can't legislate that no matter who they try to fool.

Eh, purely politics. The number of people making federal minimum wage is not high enough to make a significant difference to the economy.

I'm opposed to a minimum wage in general but that is an argument lost almost 80 years ago.

If it is going to exist then the current process of raising it and then letting it stagnate for years and then raising it again makes no sense. They should build in a standard periodic COLA of some sort so that businesses and people can plan accordingly.

Not many people make minimum wage but those that do would get a 36% raise. But that is also more than a 36% raise in payroll costs which for small businesses with lots of minimum wage labor can be a major blow.

So I'd rather it just lag inflation by a year (to allow for the adjustments that generally follow initial release of the numbers). That would give employers a year to plan, employees more information to make decisions.

However, this big huge jump is also going to create a spike in the black-market labor market.

I"m glad they're raising it. Employers have been too long putting money in thier pockets and denying hard working employee's decent wages. Granted those in most fields don't see this, but at the Movie theatre and at Disneyland, that's all they pay. For years, the only time I got a raise is when they raised the Minimum wage.

The Minimum wage should be enough for any person to survive. $7 an hour just doesn't cut it, and there are those who have no choice but to take those wages. Instead of giving CEO's like Eisner and the such Million dollar bonus', give better pay to the folks keeping you in business.

IMHO. :)

Anecdotal, but I heard one restaurant owner say that if it passes, his solution would be to raise a few menu items in price by 5 cents.

My views are a bit mixed on this since I've worked part-time, minimum-wage before... most of us have. The increase in minimum wage will not likely affect us, however, there are certain regions in the country that have higher concentrations of minimum wage workers. A wage hike would most likely affect their cost of living. Most areas in Orange County are hardly indicative of what a minimum wage hike will do to an economy. Everything is rediculously expensive, no matta what.

The problem with it all is that that employers, particularly in the billion-dollar businesses, won't likely take a paycut. Of course, boards of directors could make decisions to run their businesses more frugally (is that even a word?), but minimum-wage isn't the a big determining factor. It's usually an industry-wide change. As much as I don't like a number of Wal-Mart policies, their CEO and other "higher ups" make little in wages compared to their Fortune 500 neighbors (not to mention a few other frugal management moves)... That says a lot for #2 on the list.

You can't easily legislate a "should," and inevitably it leads toward a higher cost of living, because companies are more likely to pass the buck onto us, the consumer. Of course, it's only because we're always so willing to pay the higher price, even after we bitch, scream and moan. ;)

This goes way beyond a minimum wage increase, however. Why do unions so heavily support raising the minimum wage? How many union members actually make minimum wage? I'd be willing to bet that would be next to none.

The game in union negotiations is based on indexing wages against skilled and unskilled workers. Who makes minimum wage? Unskilled workers. WEhen union contracts come up, and the unions are able to say "look - unskilled workers just got a 36% raise", negotiations are going to be hell for management.

Raising the minimum wage goes far beyond what minimum wage earners make, and far beyond what the cost of a Big Mac is going to be.

Didn't the dems promise to help keep American jobs from leaving our shores....how does this help?

Oh, there's more than that to it...

Unions, as you say, are filled usually with skilled workers who make more than minimum wage. But skilled workers are generally understood to be able to do the work of several unskilled workers. So there's a cost-benefit analysis that goes on for companies deciding whether they should go with a handful of skilled workers or a larger number of unskilled workers. When the cost of the unskilled goes up, it makes the skilled workers look like a better deal.

My concern is that the Fed already has a lot of inflationary concerns to deal with right now, and congress clearly doesn't give a ****. If Bernanke decides that the increase is going to lead to inflationary issues, he will have to raise interest rates to compensate, which at this point will plunge the economy into a full on recession. That's why the Fed has held still for the last several meetings. They don't want to lower rates because they're still concerned about and watching inflation, but they know if they raise rates even a little bit right now, it'll deal a disastrous blow to an already cooling market.

And on an unrelated side note... Disneyland's wages get even closer to minimum wage....

I'm sure it will take time to make a dent in that problem....

Raising the wage around here is good, but, I can understand the problems you all are associating with it.

Still it isn't enough to make it. Most people I know at work have 2 or 3 jobs.

What is the answer? I hope this is a step towards it?

And so I didn't say it was an absolute. Some won't have a problem with it and in most states the impact is much less than a 36% increase. It is worth noting that, at least in California this minimum wage increase won't be an increase and in most other states the major class of employees in a restaurant are partially exempt from minimum wage laws.

Some will have problems, many won't, and most will find a way to get on.

I don't mean to say that the hike will have a dramatic negative impact just that it would be better for pretty much everybody involved if minimum wage increases were rationalized.

As opposite anecdotal evidence back when my mom owned her last tailoring shop she had one employee making minimum wage (mostly working the counter and cleaning up). This was not a booming business and on most days she cleared less than $100 (and in certain seasons much less). A $17/day raise for that employee doesn't seem a big deal but it would have been a huge one. I don't know how she would have responded but it would have been a problem.

Better that she know for a year ahead of time that the minimum wage would go up approximately 2% a year than 36% every moon's age when congress decided to get around to it.

Next year it's supposed to go up to $8 per hour.
So far between 1997 and 2007 minimum wage has gone up $2.
I'm undecided about it at the moment.