Minimum wage, a character issue.

Minimum wage, a character issue. That's the essence of personal and political opposition to the FMW rate.
The federal minimum wage, (FMW) rate is of net social and economic benefit to our nation. It has never been among the major causes of the U.S. dollar’s inflation; on the contrary, it’s certainly among inflation's victims.

No employees are poorer and no enterprises suffer any competitive disadvantage to any USA enterprises due to the FMW rate.

[there’s no doubt that USA’s higher wage rates are among the causes of our products’ price disadvantages in comparison to products from lower-wage nations; but although the elimination of our minimum wage laws would be greatly detrimental to our nation’s net social and economic well-being, eliminating it would accomplish extremely little to remedy our products’ global price disadvantages.]

I suppose most USA’s population, (significantly more than a 10% plurality) to some extent approve of federal minimum rate’s existence. There are much fewer among wealthy or competent people that are opposed to the federal minimum rate.

A great proportion of minimum rate opponents lack self-esteem. They need whatever affirmation of their own worth that they can derive by being able to look down upon people experiencing lesser financial conditions. They cannot acknowledge even to themselves their fears of improving the financial conditions of others would consequentially reduce their own social status. That’s the essence of personal and political opposition to the FMW rate.

Respectfully, Supposn

I'm Supposn said:

Minimumwage, a character issue. That's the essence of personal and politicalopposition to the FMW rate.
Thefederal minimum wage, (FMW) rate is of net social and economicbenefitto our nation. It has never been among the major causes of the U.S.dollar’s inflation; on the contrary, it’s certainly amonginflation's victims.

No employees are poorer and noenterprises suffer any competitive disadvantage to any USAenterprises due to the FMW rate.

[there’s no doubt thatUSA’s higher wage rates are among the causes of our products’price disadvantages in comparison to products from lower-wagenations; but although the elimination of our minimum wage laws wouldbe greatly detrimental to our nation’s net social and economicwell-being, eliminating it would accomplish extremely little toremedy our products’ global price disadvantages.]

Isuppose most USA’s population, (significantly more than a 10%plurality) to some extent approve of federal minimum rate’sexistence. There are much fewer among wealthy or competent peoplethat are opposed to the federal minimum rate.

A greatproportion of minimum rate opponents lack self-esteem. They needwhatever affirmation of their own worth that they can derive by beingable to look down upon people experiencing lesser financialconditions. They cannot acknowledge even to themselves their fears ofimproving the financial conditions of others would consequentiallyreduce their own social status. That’s the essence of personal andpolitical opposition to the FMW rate.

Respectfully, Supposn

Click to expand...

I have no objection to the federal MW being indexed to (for?) CPI inflation. Had that been done, using the 1939 value as the basis, the federal MW would be about $10.25/hour today. Of course, many states/cities have higher MW laws.

One could (should?) look at the federal MW as the point below which labor (work?) has no value. In other words, if one's labor (skills?) are not worth the federal MW then one must be paid zero/hour (one simply becomes unemployable).

ttwtt78640 said:

I have no objection to the federal MW being indexed to (for?) CPI inflation. Had that been done, using the 1939 value as the basis, the federal MW would be about $10.25/hour today. Of course, many states/cities have higher MW laws.

One could (should?) look at the federal MW as the point below which labor (work?) has no value. In other words, if one's labor (skills?) are not worth the federal MW then one must be paid zero/hour (one simply becomes unemployable).

Click to expand...

Ttwtt78640, when the federal minimum wage rate was increased to $1.60 per hour in February-1968, it achieved its maximum historic purchasing power.
Refer to CPI Inflation Calculator

CPI Inflation Calculator, ($1.60 in February-1968) = ($11.98 in May- 2019).

I'm a proponent of the minimum rate to be annually increased by 12.5% of its purchasing power until it attains 125% of its February-1968 purchasing power. Thereafter the rate should be monitored and annually adjusted to retain that purchasing power.

Respectfully, Supposn

I'm Supposn said:

Minimum wage, a character issue. That's the essence of personal and political opposition to the FMW rate.
The federal minimum wage, (FMW) rate is of net social and economic benefit to our nation. It has never been among the major causes of the U.S. dollar’s inflation; on the contrary, it’s certainly among inflation's victims.

No employees are poorer and no enterprises suffer any competitive disadvantage to any USA enterprises due to the FMW rate.

[there’s no doubt that USA’s higher wage rates are among the causes of our products’ price disadvantages in comparison to products from lower-wage nations; but although the elimination of our minimum wage laws would be greatly detrimental to our nation’s net social and economic well-being, eliminating it would accomplish extremely little to remedy our products’ global price disadvantages.]

I suppose most USA’s population, (significantly more than a 10% plurality) to some extent approve of federal minimum rate’s existence. There are much fewer among wealthy or competent people that are opposed to the federal minimum rate.

A great proportion of minimum rate opponents lack self-esteem. They need whatever affirmation of their own worth that they can derive by being able to look down upon people experiencing lesser financial conditions. They cannot acknowledge even to themselves their fears of improving the financial conditions of others would consequentially reduce their own social status. That’s the essence of personal and political opposition to the FMW rate.

Respectfully, Supposn

Click to expand...

an odd juxtaposition

I'm Supposn said:

Minimum wage, a character issue. That's the essence of personal and political opposition to the FMW rate.
The federal minimum wage, (FMW) rate is of net social and economic benefit to our nation. It has never been among the major causes of the U.S. dollar’s inflation; on the contrary, it’s certainly among inflation's victims.

No employees are poorer and no enterprises suffer any competitive disadvantage to any USA enterprises due to the FMW rate.

[there’s no doubt that USA’s higher wage rates are among the causes of our products’ price disadvantages in comparison to products from lower-wage nations; but although the elimination of our minimum wage laws would be greatly detrimental to our nation’s net social and economic well-being, eliminating it would accomplish extremely little to remedy our products’ global price disadvantages.]

I suppose most USA’s population, (significantly more than a 10% plurality) to some extent approve of federal minimum rate’s existence. There are much fewer among wealthy or competent people that are opposed to the federal minimum rate.

A great proportion of minimum rate opponents lack self-esteem. They need whatever affirmation of their own worth that they can derive by being able to look down upon people experiencing lesser financial conditions. They cannot acknowledge even to themselves their fears of improving the financial conditions of others would consequentially reduce their own social status. That’s the essence of personal and political opposition to the FMW rate.

Respectfully, Supposn

Click to expand...

How do you then account for the lack of minimum wage in Sweden?

pinqy said:

How do you then account for the lack of minimum wage in Sweden?

Click to expand...

Pinqy, Sweden's national economy is entirely different from ours. Their government much more (than the USA) supports individual's standards of living. Their economic system (which I understand is likely to change in the moderately long future), is not one that's particualrly within my scope of knowledge but its unlikely that their nation its society doesn't have aggregate provisions of laws or practices performing fuctions similar to our federal minimum wage rate.

Google " BRIA 14 3 c The "Swedish Model": Welfare For Everyone ". Respectfully, Supposn

These arguments are always nonsensical.

Using the above CPI Inflation Calculator above does not take into account that the common basket of goods and services in this nation is radically different from 1968 to 2019, spending power of a dollar then and now becomes debatable in terms of what the expectation is for all income quintiles to participate well in the economy today. Moreover, the job market itself in terms of the shift away from a mostly manufacturing and production economic model then to a largely services economic model today suggests a change in expectations for both education and conditions of work across the typical 25 to 65 age range (by the averages.) Lastly there is no association then to now when it comes to expectations of debt and investment. What the typical family did in 1968 against what is the more or less norm today is very different impacting how money is spent. Union levels and other means of that type of labor market distortion is very different today against the landscape in 1968.

At the end of the day these 1:1 narrow minded arguments about what a dollar in 1968 buys against what it does in 2019 misses just about every practical expectation of macro economic thinking.

So a suggestion that the Federal Minimum Wage should be $11.98, or $15, or $20 or whatever else is the same throwing darts at a board mentality that earned us the $7.25 standard today. Political expectations for making a Federal Minimum Wage of any amount tends to have different application than the economic impact of any arbitrary number (meaning when a number is picked vs. when a number is found by labor supply and demand models.)

Because we are talking about distortions then the only real argument is what we expect the lowest income quintile to do with any Federal Minimum Wage. We know, empirically without a doubt, that the lowest earners tend to spend just about everything they earn then any impact to that means impact to velocity of money. However, the same distortion suggests business models who employ at the lowest income quintile will change their models based on the increased costs. History in this nation alone as proved conclusively that any distortion to labor rate sees an impact, in this economy it is a practical impossibly to change any one factor and expect (or through controls) all other factors to remain constant. Big business appeals to governance all the time to mitigate their costs. That is also true of the cost of goods and services by at least 7 of the top 10 employers in this nation today (meaning, they employ at typically lower income quintile levels and have business models reliant on government actions via trade agreements and/or international labor markets.)

The collision of economic principles with political intentions suggest any number picked for Federal Minimum Wage has some degree of impact to the very area of our economy we assume would see net benefit.

Pick any number you want, there will be a consequence. It just comes down to reshuffling the deck on economic outcomes.

I'm Supposn said:

Ttwtt78640, when the federal minimum wage rate was increased to $1.60 per hour in February-1968, it achieved its maximum historic purchasing power.
Refer to CPI Inflation Calculator

CPI Inflation Calculator, ($1.60 in February-1968) = ($11.98 in May- 2019).

I'm a proponent of the minimum rate to be annually increased by 12.5% of its purchasing power until it attains 125% of its February-1968 purchasing power. Thereafter the rate should be monitored and annually adjusted to retain that purchasing power.

Respectfully, Supposn

Click to expand...

So we agree that not having a minimum wage is not necessarily a character issue. Good.

pinqy said:

So we agree that not having a minimum wage is not necessarily a character issue. Good.

Click to expand...

Pinqy, it would be both economically and socially unjustified to eliminate the federal minimum wage rate unless we replaced it with something superior to the minimum wage rate. The minimum wage is a simple economic concept. Those who would have us do otherwise have a character deficiency.

Respectfully, Supposn

who is trying to do away with the minimum wage?

no one i know.....

only issues i know is that some dont believe it should be raised as far as others (i am in that category)

my feeling is that as a national number...FMW needs to go up to approx 9 bucks and hour....and then we can relook at it every 3-5 years

if a state or a local community wants to set it higher, be my guest

some places have done okay with higher numbers....some have struggled mightily

I'm Supposn said:

Pinqy, it would be both economically and socially unjustified to eliminate the federal minimum wage rate unless we replaced it with something superior to the minimum wage rate. The minimum wage is a simple economic concept. Those who would have us do otherwise have a character deficiency.

Respectfully, Supposn

Click to expand...

If we eliminated the Federal minimum wage, 11 states would be affected, though in Wyoming and Georgia the state min wage of $5.15/hr would apply, and in Oklahoma, $2/hr
So I don’t think it would be a disaster and those states currently do not have their own min wage would likely adopt one.

OrphanSlug, yes; your paragraph is true:

OrphanSlug said:

These arguments are always nonsensical.
Using the above CPI Inflation Calculator above does not take into account that the common basket of goods and services in this nation is radically different from 1968 to 2019, spending power of a dollar then and now becomes debatable in terms of what the expectation is for all income quintiles to participate well in the economy today. ...

Click to expand...

CPI has well served to retain Social Security retirement monthly benefits' purchasing powers and it's served well for other government and non-government applications.
USA' government and/or our other institutions have not agreed upon anything that will serve us in a manner superior to CPI.
USA's congressional politicians rather than civil service statisticians determining the extent of federal minimum wage rate's modifications, and our congress's ad hoc scheduling of its modifications have not served us well.

[I suppose the manner of the consumer price indexes, (i.e. CPI's) calculation rather than the concept itself was changed within Obama's administration, (which I consider to be an economically poor decision), was another of his futile attempts to placate Republicans].

Respectfully, Supposn

I'm Supposn said:

OrphanSlug, yes; your paragraph is true:CPI has well served to retain Social Security retirement monthly benefits' purchasing powers and it's served well for other government and non-government applications.
USA' government and/or our other institutions have not agreed upon anything that will serve us in a manner superior to CPI.
USA's congressional politicians rather than civil service statisticians determining the extent of federal minimum wage rate's modifications, and our congress's ad hoc scheduling of its modifications have not served us well.

[I suppose the manner of the consumer price indexes, (i.e. CPI's) calculation rather than the concept itself was changed within Obama's administration, (which I consider to be an economically poor decision), was another of his futile attempts to placate Republicans].

Respectfully, Supposn

Click to expand...

CPI is reviewed and manipulated all the time, usually in terms of what is and is not included in the standard basket of goods and services we apply the “typical costs of.” This is amplified when looking at CPI vs. PPI.

The point I am trying to bring you to is how we define the purpose of a Federal Minimum Wage, and often that is a political term to mean something associated to living wage. Political desire does not always equate to economic reality.

If the goal is to ensure the lowest income quintile has a more healthy participation in the economy then ultimately all we are talking about is how we define the number of, and quantity of, goods and services the lowest income quintile can buy.

If that is $15,080 per year (minimum wage x 40 x 52,) or your estimate of $24,918 ($11.98 x 40 x 52,) or higher perhaps somewhere in the $31,200 ($15 x 40 x 52) our concern then is what that inflationary pressure does on the very goods and services we are assuming a higher minimum wage allows someone to buy. If those costs go up, then so does CPI and you have a bit of a vicious cycle where the minimum wage ends up chasing “healthy participation” in buying enough goods and services. Said another way the real concern is how economic distortion plays out.

Back to my point, pick any number you think it should be and we have to see the impacts to the economy (including the cost of labor impacting the cost of goods and services.)

OrphanSlug said:

These arguments are always nonsensical.

Using the above CPI Inflation Calculator above does not take into account that the common basket of goods and services in this nation is radically different from 1968 to 2019,

Click to expand...

Yes, it does...the index is updated to reflect changes in spending patterns.

OrphanSlug said:

CPI is reviewed and manipulated all the time, usually in terms of what is and is not included in the standard basket of goods and services we apply the “typical costs of.” This is amplified when looking at CPI vs. PPI.

Click to expand...

How do you think the goods included are chosen? Oh, and “typical cost” is not a CPI concept.

pinqy said:

How do you think the goods included are chosen?

Click to expand...

Observation of behavior.

pinqy said:

Oh, and “typical cost” is not a CPI concept.

Click to expand...

Weighted average of prices of a basket of consumer goods and services, happy now?

OrphanSlug said:

Observation of behavior.

Click to expand...

Ah, then you meant “manipulated” in the neutral sense of conforming to objective reality rather than implying it was manipulation towards an end.

But now I’m not sure why you brought it up.

Weighted average of prices of a basket of consumer goods and services, happy now?

Click to expand...

Eh...close enough. But completely different than ‘typical cost.” So yes, I am happy you educated yourself and corrected your error.

pinqy said:

Ah, then you meant “manipulated” in the neutral sense of conforming to objective reality rather than implying it was manipulation towards an end.

But now I’m not sure why you brought it up.

Click to expand...

We decide what is included.

pinqy said:

Eh...close enough. But completely different than ‘typical cost.” So yes, I am happy you educated yourself and corrected your error.

Click to expand...

Your arrogance aside, I did not say anything wrong.

OrphanSlug said:

We decide what is included.

Click to expand...

We? No. There is no subjective decision. Items included and their weights are based on the Consumer Expenditure survey, and the individual items priced at each outlet are randomly selected proportional to sales.

So again, what exactly is your claim of manipulation? How and by whom and what is your source?

Your arrogance aside, I did not say anything wrong.

Click to expand...

It’s not arrogance if it’s justified. I promise you I’ve forgotten more of price index theory than you’ve ever learned.
The CPI does not calculate typical cost. It is an index: a measure of the change in average prices. When prices are collected, all that is relevant and used is the change in price of the same item from the last collected price.

pinqy said:

How do you then account for the lack of minimum wage in Sweden?

Click to expand...

No Mexico on their southern border driving wages down by working for less money, no benefits, and with no concern for job safety.

OrphanSlug said:

These arguments are always nonsensical. ... So a suggestion that the Federal Minimum Wage should be $11.98, or $15, or $20 or whatever else is the same throwing darts at a board mentality that earned us the $7.25 standard today. Political expectations for making a Federal Minimum Wage of any amount tends to have different application than the economic impact of any arbitrary number (meaning when a number is picked vs. when a number is found by labor supply and demand models.)

Because we are talking about distortions then the only real argument is what we expect the lowest income quintile to do with any Federal Minimum Wage. We know, empirically without a doubt, that the lowest earners tend to spend just about everything they earn then any impact to that means impact to velocity of money. However, the same distortion suggests business models who employ at the lowest income quintile will change their models based on the increased costs. History in this nation alone as proved conclusively that any distortion to labor rate sees an impact, in this economy it is a practical impossibly to change any one factor and expect (or through controls) all other factors to remain constant. Big business appeals to governance all the time to mitigate their costs. That is also true of the cost of goods and services by at least 7 of the top 10 employers in this nation today (meaning, they employ at typically lower income quintile levels and have business models reliant on government actions via trade agreements and/or international labor markets.)

The collision of economic principles with political intentions suggest any number picked for Federal Minimum Wage has some degree of impact to the very area of our economy we assume would see net benefit.

Pick any number you want, there will be a consequence. It just comes down to reshuffling the deck on economic outcomes.

Click to expand...

we know when there's nothing other than market's behaviors determining wage rates, (excluding scarcity of available workers for any particular job), the indefinite market determined minimum wage rate for the least desirable employees, (i.e. a labor market's minimum rate) “races to the bottom”.OrphanSlug, the following are not my opinions but are facts:

We know (excluding scarcity of available workers for any particular job), due to the economic concept of wage differentials, and also due to the mathematical concept of the median value, a political jurisdiction's highest effectively enforced minimum wage rate affects ALL other of the jurisdiction's wage rates. This is true for jurisdictions where the highest minimum rate is a definite legal or socially enforced, or it's an indefinite socially or market enforced rate.

[We know if there's greater proportion of the working population earning lesser rather than greater wage rates, reduction of the population's minimum wage rate's purchasing power adversely effects their median rate's purchasing power; (i.e. all rates are effected)].

Pegging and annually updatig the federal minimum wage rate to a customers price index, (aka CPI) is not similar to randomly or ad hoc politically determining the minimum rate.

Respectfully, Supposn

OrphanSlug said:

... The point I am trying to bring you to is how we define the purpose of a Federal Minimum Wage, and often that is a political term to mean something associated to living wage. Political desire does not always equate to economic reality. ...

Click to expand...

OrphanSlug, refer to post #21: I define the effective consequences of the U.S. federal minimum wage rate rather than what I or you believe is or should be it's purpose. If you disagree with my understanding of that reasonably effectively enforced federal minimum rate's consequences, we can discuss that.

(The intended purposes of laws may differ from the actual consequences of those laws' enactments).

I'm Supposn said:

we know when there's nothing other than market's behaviors determining wage rates, (excluding scarcity of available workers for any particular job), the indefinite market determined minimum wage rate for the least desirable employees, (i.e. a labor market's minimum rate) “races to the bottom”.
OrphanSlug, the following are not my opinions but are facts: ...

Click to expand...

I'm Supposn said:

Minimum wage, a character issue. That's the essence of personal and political opposition to the FMW rate.
The federal minimum wage, (FMW) rate is of net social and economic benefit to our nation. It has never been among the major causes of the U.S. dollar’s inflation; on the contrary, it’s certainly among inflation's victims.

No employees are poorer and no enterprises suffer any competitive disadvantage to any USA enterprises due to the FMW rate.

[there’s no doubt that USA’s higher wage rates are among the causes of our products’ price disadvantages in comparison to products from lower-wage nations; but although the elimination of our minimum wage laws would be greatly detrimental to our nation’s net social and economic well-being, eliminating it would accomplish extremely little to remedy our products’ global price disadvantages.]

I suppose most USA’s population, (significantly more than a 10% plurality) to some extent approve of federal minimum rate’s existence. There are much fewer among wealthy or competent people that are opposed to the federal minimum rate.

A great proportion of minimum rate opponents lack self-esteem. They need whatever affirmation of their own worth that they can derive by being able to look down upon people experiencing lesser financial conditions. They cannot acknowledge even to themselves their fears of improving the financial conditions of others would consequentially reduce their own social status. That’s the essence of personal and political opposition to the FMW rate.

Respectfully, Supposn

Click to expand...

Here in North Texas, the minimum wage is nearly irrelevant. Even fast food joints won't get applicants for less than $10 and some start as high as $11.50. I would rather see a strong economy where people have options instead of a minimum wage. Your disparaging of people of a different opinion than you is low.

OrphanSlug said:

... CPI vs. PPI. ...

Click to expand...

What do you ean by PPI? Respectfully, Supposn

SDET said:

Here in North Texas, the minimum wage is nearly irrelevant. Even fast food joints won't get applicants for less than $10 and some start as high as $11.50. I would rather see a strong economy where people have options instead of a minimum wage. Your disparaging of people of a different opinion than you is low.

Click to expand...

SDET:

I'm Supposn said:

... We know (excluding scarcity of available workers for any particular job), due to the economic concept of wage differentials, and also due to the mathematical concept of the median value, a political jurisdiction's highest effectively enforced minimum wage rate affects ALL other of the jurisdiction's wage rates. ...

Click to expand...

Respectfully, Supposn