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Which would you prefer?

Would you prefer to make $7.25 an hour or $7.25 an hour?

  • $7.25 while minimum wage is $5.15

    Votes: 11 37.9%
  • $7.25 while minimum wage is $7.25

    Votes: 1 3.4%
  • It doesn't matter. They are the same.

    Votes: 17 58.6%

  • Total voters
    29
  • Poll closed .
Please answer my question. Do you prefer $50,000 or $1,000,000? I am so curious to hear what your opinion is.

It's not that simple. Not everybody can be millionaires, there's not enough money.
Naturally, I'd like to earn enough to be comfortable and on $50K with my savings, I'd live like a king.
 
You obviously have never worked at Walmart, the nations largest employer. What if everyone was like you? Who would ring up our sales?

No one? :D Did you forget about self check out?
 
Assuming everything else is equal would you prefer to make $7.25 an hour while the minimum wage was $5.15 an hour or $7.25 an hour while the minimum wage is $7.25?
Unless the difference in min wage changes the cost of the things I would need to purchase to survive, I'm not sure it matters.
 
I fail to see the difference. If we were talking $7.25 relative to the price of a big mac this poll would make more sense.

It would seem to make more rational sense to compare with a Big Mac. But psychologically humans derive a lot from being 'better' than others. There has been lots of research that confirms that.
 
You obviously have never worked at Walmart, the nations largest employer. What if everyone was like you? Who would ring up our sales?

Self check out. Automation. AIs. But not everyone is going to be like me. So there will always be those available to do it. If that is all they earn for themselves, then that is all they deserve.
 
I am sure those companies that outsourced to China agree with you.

Chinese Workers Pay for Wal-Mart's Low Prices | International Labor Rights Forum
Li said these factories often require employees to work as many as 80 hours per week during the busy season for $75 to $110 per month,

I agree with many of the companies that outsource. Why should they be forced to pay high labor rates for unskilled labor? Just like their products are sold on the world market, their labor costs are the result of a world market. Just like their products have to stay competitive, American workers also have to stay competitive. And just like the world market, quality and costs control what consumers purchase, so quality and cost control what the labor rates should be. American workers definitely don't offer cost and rarely qualify as "quality".

Uneducated, unskilled labor is cheap on the market. If that is the market you put yourself into, then what you get is what you've earned. Don't like, change yourself.
 
I can think of arguments for both, and I voted wrong. Whoops.

There's a plus to making more than minimum wage, but not that it "feels better." I don't need to one-up people.

The reason is because it shows the company is trying at least a little. Not much -- Costco, after all, pays their lowest paid, unskilled employees dramatically more. But at least they're not paying as little as they can get away with, and that shows some basic respect.

On the other hand, having a $5.15 minimum wage means some people are making that little, and while one would hope most of them are minor teenagers, the fact is there are bound to be some who are adults who are making that little, and in this economy, that could simply be bad luck in the market. And that is a very troubling thought.
 
Self check out. Automation. AIs. But not everyone is going to be like me. So there will always be those available to do it. If that is all they earn for themselves, then that is all they deserve.

So you have no problem with the Govt. making up the slack in their wages with food stamps and Medicaid? I seems to me that employers should foot the bill for the welfare of their own employees. But it seems you would rather pay than Walmart.
 
So you have no problem with the Govt. making up the slack in their wages with food stamps and Medicaid? I seems to me that employers should foot the bill for the welfare of their own employees. But it seems you would rather pay than Walmart.

Welfare shouldn't exist either. Welfare should be labor camps/farms where they earn food and shelter, nothing else. Shelter should be like old style military barracks, rows of bunks.

It's not the governments job to keep adult residents alive or provide them with anything, but since it can be nice, those labor camps/farms should be sufficient.
 
Welfare shouldn't exist either. Welfare should be labor camps/farms where they earn food and shelter, nothing else. Shelter should be like old style military barracks, rows of bunks.

It's not the governments job to keep adult residents alive or provide them with anything, but since it can be nice, those labor camps/farms should be sufficient.
Let me see if I get this straight. The government slapped its lips on the cocks of big business and gave citizens the big middle finger by allowing companies to outsource and for some reason you think its not their job to provide for citizens who can not find sufficient work.
 
Unless the difference in min wage changes the cost of the things I would need to purchase to survive, I'm not sure it matters.

The OP states that all things would be equal.
 
psychologically humans derive a lot from being 'better' than others.

That's the point I was trying to make. So many college graduates are pissed off because they make minimum wage. If they were making the same amount but it was double them minimum wage, they wouldn't be pissed off.

Minimum wage is too high and ends up making some of our most productive citizens angry.
 
I suppose it's an emotional thing. It feels better emotionally to be making 40% above minimum wage than to be making 20% above minimum wage.

It doesn't feel good to be labelled as bottom of the barrell even if that's not neccessarily true.

If minimum wage goes up to $9.00 an hour, the people already making $9.00 an hour will not be content with $9.00 an hour any more. It's just a speculation. I am going to see what others say when they chime in.

I would not be happy working for minimum wage with my skills and I don't care if it's $15/hr. It's insulting. Why bother learning a skill if it pays the same as a burger flipper.
 
So you have no problem with the Govt. making up the slack in their wages with food stamps and Medicaid? I seems to me that employers should foot the bill for the welfare of their own employees. But it seems you would rather pay than Walmart.

This is a good argument to have. Is the Earned Income Credit more efficient than the minimum wage at remedying poverty?

I firmly believe new business would exist if the minimum wage was $2.00 an hour and the government subsidized the remainder. This strategy is very good for small business but bad for big businesses. This might require me to go deeper in order to explain what I mean. Does anybody get what I am saying?

I think somebody was discussing this in another thread. They were saying that Singapore uses this strategy. Labor is heavily subsidized thus entrepreneurship is often a more profitable gig than working.

At $7.25, who wants to take the risk of starting a business when you can earn $7.25 without taking any risk at all. Who wants to start a business when the labor cost are too high? This leaves existing and established businesses to remain with little competition. Our government subsidizes food to prevent hunger in our country. That strategy worked well. In some countries gasoline is subsidized to prevent shortages. Why can't subsidizing labor prevent the shortage of jobs?

I think it does/could work. Labor is already subsidized to a certain point but not enough to make our labor costs competitive with other nations. With this strategy the poor would be taken care of just the same. The only difference is that the economy would be a bit stronger and people might be more fullfilled at work rather than being pissed off that they are getting screwed over. That could be a good thing.
 
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I would not be happy working for minimum wage with my skills and I don't care if it's $15/hr. It's insulting. Why bother learning a skill if it pays the same as a burger flipper.

That's exactly what I was trying to say. :) Some people are getting what I am saying.
 
Assuming everything else is equal would you prefer to make $7.25 an hour while the minimum wage was $5.15 an hour or $7.25 an hour while the minimum wage is $7.25?

I care about other people. Therefore I would want more of them to have jobs. I would therefore prefer to work for $7.25 while MW is $5.15. "It is the same" only to my particular bank account, with one notable exception - if I have a $7.25 job around others earning $5.15, then I am probably operating in a senior capacity, and building a mentoring and managerial skill set that I will later be able to translate into a higher paying position.
 
Welfare shouldn't exist either. Welfare should be labor camps/farms where they earn food and shelter, nothing else. Shelter should be like old style military barracks, rows of bunks.

It's not the governments job to keep adult residents alive or provide them with anything, but since it can be nice, those labor camps/farms should be sufficient.

That would make you feel good. Huh? It's fun to punish people and make fun of them for being poor. Then people could drive by, point and laugh. You could even take your kids by there to encourage them to make good grades in school.

It sounds lovely world but you sound like a jerk. Very few people think this way. You do know that your fantasy will never be reality. Right?
 
I would prefer to make $7.25 while the minimum wage is $5.15 for two reasons.

1) Ego - I would prefer to not be making minimum wage.

2) If the minimum wage is $5.15 instead of about 40% higher at $7.25; that means that all goods that utilize minimum wage labor will be less expensive (to varying extents) due to lower operating costs. This will make things slightly cheaper, plus make American manufactured goods more competitive with similar foreign goods, thus decreasing the trade gap, thus meaning more Americans will be hired (vs. the $7.25/hr. mw), thus lowering the unemployment rate and so on. Additionally, since things will be cheaper to buy, my dollars will go farther then they would were the minimum wage $7.25.
 
Welfare shouldn't exist either. Welfare should be labor camps/farms where they earn food and shelter, nothing else. Shelter should be like old style military barracks, rows of bunks.

It's not the governments job to keep adult residents alive or provide them with anything, but since it can be nice, those labor camps/farms should be sufficient.

LOL You were born 100 years too late otherwise you would probably be "enjoying" one of those labor camps yourself. We will never go back to the hell of poorhouses and labor camps. The Govt. is charged with securing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that includes not letting people starve or freeze to death.
 
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Personally, I'd ask myself what kind of a loser I am making $7.25 an hour. I haven't made that little in decades. That's pathetic.
 
Personally, I'd ask myself what kind of a loser I am making $7.25 an hour. I haven't made that little in decades. That's pathetic.

Yeah. I left off the option of making $1,000,000 per year because I thought everybody would choose that option. I thought it would limit the discussion. Out of the two choices, which one would you prefer?
 
Yeah. I left off the option of making $1,000,000 per year because I thought everybody would choose that option. I thought it would limit the discussion. Out of the two choices, which one would you prefer?

I already voted that it doesn't make any difference.
 
2) If the minimum wage is $5.15 instead of about 40% higher at $7.25; that means that all goods that utilize minimum wage labor will be less expensive (to varying extents) due to lower operating costs. This will make things slightly cheaper, plus make American manufactured goods more competitive with similar foreign goods, thus decreasing the trade gap, thus meaning more Americans will be hired (vs. the $7.25/hr. mw), thus lowering the unemployment rate and so on. Additionally, since things will be cheaper to buy, my dollars will go farther then they would were the minimum wage $7.25.

That doesn't quite relate to the scenario that I described but in real life this is probably what would happen. I agree that cheaper labor creates more productivity.
 
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