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Nearly 2 million U.S. workers cheated out of legal wage

Geoist said:
You mean like Oracle CEO Larry Ellison who received a pay package of $74 million despite it being rejected by the shareholders?
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so a non binding vote by shareholders want to cut the ceo pay

he owns 1/4 of the company

should be easy for the shareholders to get enough of the other 75% of the shares to fire him, if that is what they want

and if the board refuses, start firing the board

and they have another option also....SELL their shares.....tank the price.....

if they dont like the way the company is being ran, they have a LOT of options

that is the way this country works.....you have options....you may hate all of them.....but you always have choices
 
Anomalism said:
Thoughts?

Nearly 2 million U.S. workers cheated out of legal wage - CBS News

As a campaign to raise the minimum wage as high as $15 has achieved victories in such places as Seattle, Los Angeles and New York, it has bumped up against a harsh reality: Plenty of scofflaw businesses don't pay the legal minimum now and probably won't pay the new, higher wages either. Some economists, labor activists and regulators predict that without stronger enforcement, the number of workers getting cheated out of a legal wage is bound to increase in places where wages rise. Estimates on the size of the problem vary, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that in 2014, roughly 1.7 million U.S. workers - two thirds of whom were women - were illegally paid less than the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour.
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:shrug: this is why MW increases hurt American citizens. It advantages those who can work under the table for lower wages, like illegals.
 
Lursa said:
You didnt answer the question...in bold now. And I also bolded a sentence showing why your system would be much like communism.

What do you say re: my question then?

btw, in your system, why would an employer then hire the person with the family? He would have to pay him or her more for the same work that the single person could do.
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great

lets add another in a long list of protected classes

family men/women
 
Kobie said:
Yes, I'm sure no "leftists" run businesses.

We've pretty much come to the point where you can rest assured anyone who uses the term "leftists" hasn't the slightest notion of what they're talking about.
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should i type progressives and liberals

those two make up "leftists" as far as i am concerned

and you are telling me i dont have the slightest notion of what i speak about?

look in the mirror dude....
 
cpwill said:
:shrug: this is why MW increases hurt American citizens. It advantages those who can work under the table for lower wages, like illegals.
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Therefore, to "disadvantage" illegal workers, US wages should match Mexico's!
 
Lursa said:
You didnt answer the question...in bold now. And I also bolded a sentence showing why your system would be much like communism.

What do you say re: my question then?

btw, in your system, why would an employer then hire the person with the family? He would have to pay him or her more for the same work that the single person could do.
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Wait..... surely you aren't suggesting that price can effect demand, are you???

In the labor market?? :shock: Why, that would have all kinds of problematic implications when it came to not being able to vote or legislate ourselves rich!
 
gdgyva said:
no

not the market

the market says the pay for those people should be 7-9 dollars an hour

leftists are the ones that say it isnt enough

maybe they actually ought to try running a business though before they tell others how to run theirs
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Plenty of "leftists" run businesses but also realize that paying only their own labor more to do the same thing would render their business less competitive. That is why the "leftists" must use the government to force their competition to do the "less competitive" thing. If all businesses were forced to pay labor more then that ceases to be a problem except that these "fair" labor rates would only apply to the US.
 
Gimmesometruth said:
Therefore, to "disadvantage" illegal workers, US wages should match Mexico's!
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Well, "US Wages" are not a single point. Only the legal MW price floor is. The MW at current disadvantages lawful low-skill workers by allowing illegal labor to underbid them, which is party of why we have nosebleed-high unemployment in that demographic. If we wanted to even the playing field or re-advantage US labor, we would need to

A) raise the cost of illegal labor through punitive measures against employers
B) get rid of or significantly reduce the MW price floor
C) a combination of both.


Personally, I'm in favor of any of those three as an improvement over what we have currently. US Government Policy should not have the effect of ****ing over low-skill low-experience low-income US citizens.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Plenty of "leftists" run businesses but also realize that paying only their own labor more to do the same thing would render their business less competitive. That is why the "leftists" must use the government to force their competition to do the "less competitive" thing. If all businesses were forced to pay labor more then that ceases to be a problem except that these "fair" labor rates would only apply to the US.
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For a lot of these low wage jobs foreign salaries are irrelevant. You can't outsource Wal Mart stocker...
 
iliveonramen said:
For a lot of these low wage jobs foreign salaries are irrelevant. You can't outsource Wal Mart stocker...
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No, but you can replace them with mechanization once you've raised the MW high enough to make the ROI on the equipment feasible.
 
Geoist said:
You mean like the 3 out of 5 business owners who support raising the minimum wage?
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So if the majority of business owners support raising minimum wage exactly how is this an issue?

Also, lol at a government link. As if the government will say anything bad about their own policies.
 
iliveonramen said:
For a lot of these low wage jobs foreign salaries are irrelevant. You can't outsource Wal Mart stocker...
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You can automate it, if you changed physical WalMart space to a warehouse with digital front end. Show up at the "store", shop on your mobile device, all your purchases arrive on conveyor from the back.

And yes, the silly top 10 retailer I work for, actually has invested time/resources in determining if this model is possible.
 
iliveonramen said:
For a lot of these low wage jobs foreign salaries are irrelevant. You can't outsource Wal Mart stocker...
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That is true but you can, as you now see in Walmart, sell goods bought from overseas. Service jobs can also be automated or simply done away with. Instead of placing your stock on the shelves just let the customer get it off of a pallet or place their order online.
 
clownboy said:
No, but you can replace them with mechanization once you've raised the MW high enough to make the ROI on the equipment feasible.
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So...what...as technology improves we should drive down wages further and further so that it stays competitive to an ever improving machine?
 
Samhain said:
You can automate it, if you changed physical WalMart space to a warehouse with digital front end. Show up at the "store", shop on your mobile device, all your purchases arrive on conveyor from the back.

And yes, the silly top 10 retailer I work for, actually has invested time/resources in determining if this model is possible.
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The wages in the US have replaced stagnant for decades and automation has increased. The minimum wage job now pays less when accounting for inflation than it did in the 70's.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
That is true but you can, as you now see in Walmart, sell goods bought from overseas. Service jobs can also be automated or simply done away with. Instead of placing your stock on the shelves just let the customer get it off of a pallet or place their order online.
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They can be, and companies have been moving to that route even while minimum wages have remained historically low.

Amazon wasn't a response to high minimum wage laws.
 
iliveonramen said:
So...what...as technology improves we should drive down wages further and further so that it stays competitive to an ever improving machine?
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This has been true even before the cotton gin was invented. However, there is a balance point in the market where automation meets ROI and the price of human labor makes non-automated goods too expensive. Keep raising that MW and see what results.
 
cpwill said:
Wait..... surely you aren't suggesting that price can effect demand, are you???

In the labor market?? :shock: Why, that would have all kinds of problematic implications when it came to not being able to vote or legislate ourselves rich!
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I"m not sure what you are saying but I was replying pretty specifically to Pale about what he believes would be best for determining wages.
 
DA60 said:
How the heck would the BLS determine how many people do not get paid $7.25/hr?

I highly doubt the companies involved would volunteer such information.

I smell another one of the BLS's famous 'models'.

The number maybe true (by chance), but there is NO WAY the BLS can do little more then guesstimate as to the real number.


As for those making less then minimum wage?

I have a solution that can solve that problem for them...QUIT.

And if nowhere in your area do they have jobs that pay $7.25/hr.? Then move.

It's easy. You put your essentials in a few suitcases/bags and hop on a bus.

I suggest Seattle - where the minimum wage is $15 (say 'hi' to Eddie Vedder for me).
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You forgot this:
How to file a report of labor law violation with the Bureau of Field Enforcement (BOFE)

If people are failing to comply with the law, then they need to be punished and in this case, forced to compensate their victims. If (as I suspect is the case with a large number of the cases reported in the story) they are employing illegal immigrants, then fine the snot out them, put in place monitoring processes (at the violators expense) and enforce the law. What we DON'T need is another knee-jerk response of All employers are criminals, so we treat them all the same." that we usually see in these kind of things.
 
cpwill said:
Well, "US Wages" are not a single point. Only the legal MW price floor is. The MW at current disadvantages lawful low-skill workers by allowing illegal labor to underbid them, which is party of why we have nosebleed-high unemployment in that demographic. If we wanted to even the playing field or re-advantage US labor, we would need to

A) raise the cost of illegal labor through punitive measures against employers
B) get rid of or significantly reduce the MW price floor
C) a combination of both.


Personally, I'm in favor of any of those three as an improvement over what we have currently. US Government Policy should not have the effect of ****ing over low-skill low-experience low-income US citizens.
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You are just digging yourself deeper, repeating the same argument of lowering US wages to Mexico's* level (which ignores sticky wages) while ignoring that you want to screw US workers by govt policy. This is just another race to the bottom libertarian argument. We already do try to police the hiring of illegal workers, but it is of course opposed by Chamber brethren. What I have never understood about libertarians is why they would not want to make immigrants citizen immediately, it creates an increase in low wage labor, which capitalists just love.

PS...A and B contradict, raising the cost of illegal labor is counter to lowering the min wage, and it is the opposite of your first argument to lower the min wage to illegal wage levels. As I said, you are just digging your hole deeper.
 
clownboy said:
This has been true even before the cotton gin was invented. However, there is a balance point in the market where automation meets ROI and the price of human labor makes non-automated goods too expensive. Keep raising that MW and see what results.
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Keep wage gains suppressed and see what happens to demand.
 
Paleocon said:
This is exactly why I support higher wages, low wages encourage too much dependency on the state.

I'd support a wage index based on number of dependents, with a set amount per dependent (including oneself) plus a smaller extra amount for heads of household.
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Low wages mean that the state may pay a portion of what they would if the person wasn't employed at all. Raise wages for no reason and you'll see more people getting the full package of state-paid assistance, instead of just a part of it. You also cut off a major avenue into the job market. That's part of what low wage jobs do - they provide a path to higher wages. If you start with higher wages, then what happens is that door gets slammed in people's faces when employers start demanding $15/hr skills and performance from the start, instead of looking for $8/hr skills performance and developing the employees into higher valued employees that they can afford to pay more.
 
faithful_servant said:
Low wages mean that the state may pay a portion of what they would if the person wasn't employed at all. Raise wages for no reason and you'll see more people getting the full package of state-paid assistance, instead of just a part of it.
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What? SNAP/TANF/Medicare expansion are means tested, how do you get to "raise wages/greater dependency"?
 
iliveonramen said:
They can be, and companies have been moving to that route even while minimum wages have remained historically low.

Amazon wasn't a response to high minimum wage laws.
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My point is that mandating higher wages will accelerate that process as well as place upward pressure on prices of goods/services. The anticipated savings from slightly reduced "welfare" costs may well be more than offset by the resulting increases in COLA for SS and other government funded pensions. The higher prices for goods/services are not only paid by workers but those that are living on "fixed" incomes as well.
 
Gimmesometruth said:
What? SNAP/TANF/Medicare expansion are means tested, how do you get to "raise wages/greater dependency"?
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By reducing the number of those employed (a lower workforce participation rate). One also has to consider that the resulting SS (and other government pension) COLA increases are not "free" either.
 
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