Minimum Wage
 

I thought I'd see everyone elses oppinions on minimum wage here. I've been hearing a lot of talk saying that they are going to increase minimum wage, and, frankly, this kind of irritates me. I just barely started making a decent amount higher than minimum wage, so raising it doesn't help me even remotely, it just hurts.

The way I see it, if you increase minimum wage, then all the places that pay minimum wage increase and you get a chain reaction thingy until everything costs more. This puts the people who got a wage increase at exactly the same place they were before, and hurts the people who don't make minimum wage, because they're still making the same amount and everything costs more.

So is there an angle I'm missing here or something?

No, you pretty much hit the nail on the head right there. A raise in the minimum wage does increase the prices of many things, and I could go on for a while on market equilibrium, but we'll just say that yeah, historically a raise in the minimum wage raises the prices of everything about the percentage that minimum wage was raised, but everyone feels better now that they are getting more money, even if it is a fake and hollow feeling.

But then again you also have to correct wages for inflation or people making minimum wage just sink deeper into poverty. Rising minimum wage alone isn't enough though you also have to keep a tight reign on you're inflation. Also, given the fast number of factors effecting prices, especially now with oil prices going through the roof, I don't think its possible to attribute the entirety of price increases to the rise in minimum wage though it could very well contribute.

There are other ways to recover the extra money without rising prices which is what a lot of companies do. Generally it means laying people off but it could be as little as cutting back hours or switching people to part time. For example, back when I worked for Price Chopper part-timers were forbidden to have overtime there was a big stink if they got any. On the other hand all the managers worked 12-16 hour days 5 or more days a week. Huge waste of capital in my opinion and reducing them to non-overtime would save hundreds a week per manager.

Also, as economist like to assert supply and demand does kind of work. Companies can't just rise prices as much as they want unless they have an oligopoly or monopoly. That is unless the demand is there for the product. To which I would add that with the money added to the minimum wage the price the public will tolerate might very well increase slightly. However, not to the exact same degree as the minimum wage increase. The rest of the increase is probably natural inflation which minimum wage is having a horrible time keeping up with in the first place.

Gas prices are going up because the government has failed to regulate them like natural gas or any other fuel for that matter and the oil companies are going HAHAHAHA let me charge whatever I want because I don't care about the secondary costs such as job losses, lowered national economy, or general poverty! That'll teach 'em to be poor.

Well to be fair most of those managers have careers there, they're full timers and need to make that money to pay rent/car insurance/food/mortgage if they have a house etc. You can't, as a part timer, expect to be treated anywhere near as well as a full timer because you don't work as much. You were probably going to school or something while adults worked 40+ hours a week in the same position to make ends meet. Cutting back on their hours to give you some interrupts their living wage which they need to survive in this country of 90+% wealth in 1% hands.

Except supply and demand isn't the whole of it, you get stuff like; how far are they willing to drive? What difference in price between stores will they wave off? Because the government does attempt to regulate certain things- food, for example, is usually managed by paying farmers to not farm their entire land- and in some situations, like oil, companies can do whatever the fuck they want.

I have no idea why this was said really. My point was not anything about what was causing an increase in oil prices. My point was that increasing oil prices, and they are increasing for a reason that doesn't really matter to this argument, are rippling out and effecting other prices to a degree that cannot be properly extricated from other price increasing factors. Your statement seems oddly out of place to me.

I didn't care either way about it at all really until my Manager was complaining about it on break. See generally the unskilled people working the part time jobs are the people really scraping to make ends meet. Like the guy that worked the bathroom isle who had like 5 kids and a wife to support. My manager was constantly trying to redo the schedule so no one pulled crazy long shifts or got over time and the higher management kept giving him crap about it. In fact they started making him cut the part timers to below 15-20 hours a week so they could give more hours to the managers. This included the guy trying to support his family that had been working there at least 6 years and had been continuously fighting for a full time position.

I would contend most people working part time jobs are not infact teenagers looking for a quick buck but people like you mentioned. People I might add that are a heck of a lot worse off than the managers because the managers need a business degree to even become managers. Although my experience might be a bit prejudiced because I worked the over night shift.

I didn't mean to imply it was the whole of it. In fact I listed a couple of other things right after that effect the prices. I would draw attention to the rather general phrase "price the public will tolerate" which includes all the things you mentioned but not in a specific sense. My fault for keeping it far to general.

In general I would say that anyone in a job situation where their wage is shitty enough that a minimum wage would come to look as though it were stealing from them (which it actually wouldn't be but that's a longer post) doesn't have an issue with the minimum wage, they have an issue with whatever boss is choosing to pay them so fantastically badly.

This is actually a great illustration of why a minimum wage doesn't actually affect all that much in terms of jobs and working conditions - because all of the above happens totally regardless of whether or not there is a minimum wage. Generally speaking a given employer is already doing everything he can to employ as few people for as little money as possible so there's nowhere to cut people or hours or conditions in response to any specific change in labor laws. I mean unless a given employer is really big on cutting off the nose to spite the face.

It was acknowledgement of your statement and disgust at the government for being easily bribeable fuckwits. Carry on!

It honestly depends on where you're working. Up north, especially in the northeast, it's mostly teenagers. Full time positions are generally reserved for adults not going to college or making up for lost time while going to community. Down south it's different, at least in the two states where I worked retail for 3-4 months each. However in the north every single manager I've met has been working as much as possible to earn cash to live on.


I probably shouldn't have assumed you didn't know it, so equally bad on my part.

I actually live in Upstate New York which I here tell is one of the more expensive places to live tax-wise and such. Generally speaking anyone working is generally working their buts off as much as possible to earn cash to live on but anyone not a teenager that's not a manager is probably worse off than a manager. I'd also assert that they out number the teenagers as a whole in general they just aren't always as visible. That and it sounds as if you got a job while a teenager in which case you'd probably be hired during the day shift which is where the teenagers have to work by law. Though I'm not sure about that. The point is if you just base your observation on the later afternoon shift you're missing both the early morning and over-night shifts which will be mostly populated by adults making ends meet in all positions.

Actually I worked day, night, and graveyard shifts.

Well if you're fortunate, the place you work at raises your wage proportionally to the minimum wage increase. Probably lucky too if that's the case, I've had one place (retail) do that while three didn't (all not retail).