Dependence on low-skill/low-wage labor is a characteristic of emerging markets, not a highly developed superpower.
You are mistaking the median worker for the low-income worker who is harmed by increases in the MW.
Wrong! WE should be seeking out ways to boost the skill sets of these types of workers, rather than incentivizing low value production which leads to skill stagnation.
Sure. When you figure out how to fix our broken family structure, failing education system, and urban culture that encourages anti-social behavior and disdains the idea of success through hard work and academic achievement as a game for suckers, you let me know. Until then, the "oh, well we will just turn all those 23 year old high school dropouts without the social capital or soft skill sets necessary for solid economic performance into program managers" is pie in the sky.
The the answer is the same. Since an increase in the minimum wage does not - in fact - increase the value of the labor of the individuals who earned it, you are simply making those workers structurally unemployable.
This is nonsense. Coercion is at its highest in low-skill/low-wage labor markets. Many of these people simply do not have a choice.
That is a strawman - no one was speaking as to coercion as far as labor choices, but rather as to resource allocation. Resources seek out their greatest return, that resources are already there in those positions indicates that government coercion to create a price floor will have no greater success than other government price-fixing measures have seen.
No need to put words in my mouth, as i made zero reference to anything you stated above. It's about creating more high skilled job opportunities by reallocating resources from the low to high end in terms of production value.
The resources you are reallocating are financial, not human. Which has been my point in this thread - that raising the minimum wage serves to take resources and reallocate them from the low-income worker to the low-middle and middle income worker. Robbing the poor to give to the middle income. When you agreed that those people would lose their jobs, I assumed you understood that to be a negative consequence. If you are now instead claiming that having their jobs destroyed is
good for low-skill, low-income labor, then you need to defend that position.
You continue to miss the point. Investment in fixed capital involves risks that supersede employing low-skill/low-wage labor. If you finance, you take on liabilities and if you fund expansion with retained earnings, you face risks of loss in capital/lower dividends.
I don't doubt it - though investment in human capital involves risks you are including as well. Employees show up late, steal, prove to not be worth their pay, poison the workplace with bad attitudes, drive away customers with bad service, and quit at inopportune times.
There are thousands of people who work for cash on the side who also reside in the above-ground economy. However, the overwhelming majority of this market does not have advanced degrees/certifications.
I would be surprised if it was only thousands. Which in no way means that they are not
dwarfed by the portion of the underground economy that works for unreported cash.
People who have something to lose are not likely to risk it.
You are correct that people are generally risk-averse.
Perhaps. Work ethic with respect to opportunity is another factor.
And is precisely one of those Social Capital Soft Skill sets that, given that they are absent from much of our lower income population, have to be developed in them through holding the kind of low-income jobs you find distasteful because the idea that a 16 year old kid isn't a computer programer is somehow wrong in a Superpower country :roll: You aren't going to be able to suddenly instill a strong work ethic in every MW worker simply by outlawing their jobs, meaning that you aren't going to be able to shift them up to the higher-value labor that you seem to envision them in.
It is a matter of magnitude. Raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 will have limited impact on the overall labor market and the prices of goods and services, and is the consensus among economists.
The effects as measured against the entire economy would agreeably be slight.
That is because the negative effects are concentrated among that small portion of us who are most economically vulnerable and least able to sustain them. It's like saying that you won't harm a football team that much by taking its' weakest members out and cutting off their legs. Sure, but if we want to claim that America is a place where you can rise up from any humble beginnings and be successful, (which I would value
far above some kind of sniffing and claiming that low-value jobs have no place in a superpowers' economy), if we want to claim that that American Dream is still a reality, then cutting off opportunity for those at the bottom is one of the
worst things we could do.
On the other hand, companies that depend on low-skill/low-wage labor will be far more inclined to increase fixed capital investment. Case in point:
I would agree and add:
I just think that it's wrong. To the extent that public policy should help
any sector of our populace to succeed, it should help the poor. Not pull the bottom rung of the economic ladder out of their reach.
You are crazy! We need more high-tech, capital intensive start-ups that depend on highly developed human capital.
That too. But we also need workers capable of filling those jobs - and we aren't going to get them unless they have the opportunity to develop both hard and soft skills at lower-paid employment.
That's what low-paying jobs do. They provide a
starting point. Even for Wal-Mart associates, the average wage isn't minimum wage, but most probably started there. I made minimum wage starting out, and then I made more, and then I made more, and hopefully in the future I will make more as I continue to add to my skill set and experience. But I was able to build myself up
because I was able to start.
We cannot (and do not want to) compete with emerging economies using low-skilled labor.
"we" are not a monolithic entity.
More companies that you advocate put us at a long term competitive disadvantage.
On the contrary, shifting a significant section of our populace from social safety net dependents into full time workers would be beneficial for our economy and fiscal outlook.
I don't find them distasteful, so please stop putting words in my mouth; it is a bad habit. These people need to be focusing on improving their skill sets so they can find long term, sustainable employment.
wait. Do you really not understand how incredibly snobbish your points sound here? This isn't meant as an attack, if you aren't intending to write like that, I get that tone doesn't carry well through teh interwebz.
Then you have misunderstood my position in its entirety.
Again, if you are now going to claim that my sister in law, who is a 17 year old minority single mother high school dropout with tenuous command of the English language, a bad home environment, no picture of how a family is supposed to function, no history of watching a parent work full time regularly, and a self-centered worldview, is going to suddenly become a high-skill employee simply because you have raised the minimum wage, then you need to describe how that is going to work.