Increasing infrastructures matter.

I'm Supposn · Feb 5, 2018

Excerpted from:
https://www.epi.org/publication/unf...-59318105&mc_cid=b001b0ff9a&mc_eid=b475058bdf
Unfulfilled promises

Amazon fulfillment centers do not generate broad-based employment growth

Report by Janelle Jones and Ben Zipperer, February 1, 2018.
What this report finds: When Amazon opens a new fulfillment center, the host county gains roughly 30 percent more warehousing and storage jobs but no new net jobs overall, as the jobs created in warehousing and storage are likely offset by job losses in other industries.
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Increasing infrastructures and other production supporting capabilities certainly do matter; Amazon does net contribute to USA's economy.

Although a facility such as an Amazon fulfillment center may possibly displace some previously existing local facilities and jobs, I don't doubt establishing such a possibly improved more efficient facility could and likely would net increases local gross production and numbers of jobs.
If the facility is new to USA, (rather than being the relocation from another USA location), it will also much more likely be of greater (than local) net increase to USA's aggregate gross domestic product, (GDP) and numbers of jobs. That's because production supporting goods and services are more likely derived from, or due to entities within the nations' of the producers they support.

This contributes to explanations as to why a nation's annual trade deficits are always (more than otherwise) detrimental to their nations' GDP and numbers of jobs; (otherwise being if the nation had not experienced an annual trade deficit).

Refer to Wikipedia's article entitled “Import Certificates”.
Respectfully, Supposn

Lafayette · Feb 6, 2018

I'm Supposn said:
Report by Janelle Jones and Ben Zipperer, February 1, 2018.
What this report finds: When Amazon opens a new fulfillment center, the host county gains roughly 30 percent more warehousing and storage jobs but no new net jobs overall, as the jobs created in warehousing and storage are likely offset by job losses in other industries.

The jobs that Amazon creates at its Order Fulfillment centers are above the present minimum-wage (which is ridiculously low) but just barely. From here: Amazon and Walmart are hiring, but how good are these jobs?, excerpt:

Walmart last year boosted the hourly rate of its sales associates, but the average pay stands at $9.39 per hour, or about $19,531 per year -- below the official poverty line for a family of three.

The Poverty Threshold in the US is at $24K a year for a family of four. Walmart and Amazon are not fair employers at the Order Fulfillment level. From here, a sample of "shop-floor" salary levels at WalMart:
Cashier - $9.12/hour ($18969/year)
Administrative Assistant - $14.79/hour ($30763/year)
Customer Service Representative (CSR) - $13.21 ($27476/year)

The U.S Bureau of the Census has the average annual real median personal income at $47,589 in 2016.

Given the above, the Minimum Wage should be advanced to at least the 12/14$ per hour level for it to arrive at around $27K yearly, which is (at the very least) above the Poverty Threshold. Were both adults in a family to earn the Minimum Wage, collectively they would obtain a total above the present average wage.

That level could be called a "fair and equitable" minimum salary for a family of four ...

I'm Supposn · Feb 6, 2018

Lafayette said:
The jobs that Amazon creates at its Order Fulfillment centers are above the present minimum-wage (which is ridiculously low) but just barely. From here: Amazon and Walmart are hiring, but how good are these jobs?, excerpt:

The Poverty Threshold in the US is at $24K a year for a family of four. Walmart and Amazon are not fair employers at the Order Fulfillment level. From here, a sample of "shop-floor" salary levels at WalMart:
Cashier - $9.12/hour ($18969/year)
Administrative Assistant - $14.79/hour ($30763/year)
Customer Service Representative (CSR) - $13.21 ($27476/year)

The U.S Bureau of the Census has the average annual real median personal income at $47,589 in 2016. ...

I'm Supposn said:
The federal minimum wage rate’s net beneficial to USA’s economy and society.

The federal minimum wage rate increases the purchasing powers of USA’s aggregate wages.Its less a cause and much more a victim of inflation.

The purchasingpower of the federal minimum wage rate affects all other USA wage rates but itsproportional effect is inversely related to job’s differing wage rates.
USA’s lowest paying jobs performed by the least desirable employees, (i.e. the working poor) are, (proportional to their wage rates), the greatest beneficiaries of the federal minimum wage rate. But all USA wage rates are bolstered by the federal minimum wage rate. ...

Lafayette, you're holding Amazon and WalMart responsible for USA's failure to increase the federal minimum wage rate and pegging it to the consumer price index, U-CPI?
Respectfully, Supposn

Lafayette · Feb 6, 2018

I'm Supposn said:
Lafayette, you're holding Amazon and WalMart responsible for USA's failure to increase the federal minimum wage rate and pegging it to the consumer price index, U-CPI?
Respectfully, Supposn

Nope. They are just indicative of what a great many American companies do because the law allows them to do so.

I'm just showing that the US Minimum Wage rate is ridiculously low. How would YOU like to live in the US on $15K (annual minimum wage) when the Poverty Threshold is $24K?

It is indecent. We are treating human beings as if they were animals.

Throw the dog a bone ...

I'm Supposn · Feb 6, 2018

Lafayette, obviously we agree the minimum wage rate's much too low and more importantly it's rate and its likely to always be much too late corrected to a much too low modified rate of lesser benefit to our nation's economy.

Although all federal branches of government would continue to be empowered to monitor and if necessary oversee the minimum wage rate, if our U.S. Congress would just once set a realistic rate pegged to the consumer price index, the rate would remain hence forte a matter subject to civil service statisticians rather than to congressional politicians.

I'm an old man but I hope and do believe inevitably this will occur within my lifetime.

Respectfully, Supposn

Lafayette · Feb 7, 2018

I'm Supposn said:
Lafayette, you're holding Amazon and WalMart responsible for USA's failure to increase the federal minimum wage rate and pegging it to the consumer price index, U-CPI?
Respectfully, Supposn

I gave just two examples of what is meant by Minimum Wage (because they were available as factual information) in respect to actual wages in the two companies mentioned.

In reality, the number of people who actually work in the US at or below the minimum-wage look like this (from here):

That group represents 4.3% of the nation’s 75.9 million hourly-paid workers and 2.6% of all wage and salary workers. In 1979, when the BLS began regularly studying minimum-wage workers, they represented 13.4% of hourly workers and 7.9% of all wage and salary workers.

(Bear in mind that the 3.3 million figure doesn’t include salaried workers, although BLS says relatively few salaried workers are paid at what would translate into below-minimum hourly rates. Also, 23 states, as well as the District of Columbia, have higher minimum wages than the federal standard; people who earned the state minimum wage in those jurisdictions aren’t included in the 3.3 million total.)

People at or below the federal minimum are:
*Disproportionately young: 50.4% are ages 16 to 24; 24% are teenagers (ages 16 to 19).
*Mostly (77%) white; nearly half are white women.
*Largely part-time workers (64% of the total).

They’re employed in the industries and occupations you might expect: More than half (55%) work in the leisure and hospitality industry, about 14% in retail, 8% in education and health services, and the rest scattered among other industries. Broken down occupationally, the picture is similar: Nearly 47% are in food-preparation and serving-related occupations; 14.5% are in sales and related occupations, 7% in personal care and service occupations, and the rest are scattered.

They’re also more likely to live in the South than anywhere else – in part because only one southern state (Florida) has its own higher state minimum wage.

Now the question remains:
*What are we going to do about it (if anything), and
*Why do we not increase the Minimum Wage universally (throughout the US) in order for this minor percentage of workers to benefit from a higher-salary and a far better life-style.
*The consequence being that far too many crimes come out of the desperate need simply to survive. Our crime rate in the US is nothing about which to be proud. (International Per Capita Crime Rates)

The question goes a bit further: And if we had a decent policy of free Tertiary Education how many of these people would benefit and move into a higher-salary level because of their enhanced educational credentials?

That's all I am asking. Why is it sooooooo difficult for the American nation to understand that POVERTY IS STRUCTURAL.

Meaning you are born into it, and therefore most wallow in poverty if there is no helping hand out ...