Should we have a minimum wage at all?

[Pangolin]

Indentured servitude?

 

[vulonkaaz]

we need to stop the wage meme go back to the countryside grow our own food grow our own houses grow our own electrecity stop consooming and spend more time with our families and stuff and do our own things instead of relying on (((employment))) and (((society)))

schizoposting aside we definetly need a minimum wage people shouldn't just work their asses off just to be poorfags also idk how it is in other parts of the world but here in France the reason why there are so few jobs ain't cause the wages are too high but cause the taxes are too high when a guy employ someone he literally have to pay the salary twice that's how much we get fucked in the ass with taxes here and i ain't even talking about like everything else

What About maximum one? No going higher than that?

literally unenforceable richfags will always find a way

they are more likely to replace workers with machines

i see this as an absolute win

anyway i think the reason why factories ain't more automated than they are is because they need the employment to convince local authorities to let them build their stuff, there's an Amazon warehouse not too far from where I live and people who live next to that thing get angry at it cause now there are tons of trucks roaming the streets and the main argument to make them shut up is that the thing brings a lot of employment

 

[Some_porcupine]

we need to stop the wage meme go back to the countryside grow our own food grow our own houses grow our own electrecity stop consooming and spend more time with our families and stuff and do our own things instead of relying on (((employment))) and (((society)))

schizoposting aside we definetly need a minimum wage people shouldn't just work their asses off just to be poorfags also idk how it is in other parts of the world but here in France the reason why there are so few jobs ain't cause the wages are too high but cause the taxes are too high when a guy employ someone he literally have to pay the salary twice that's how much we get fucked in the ass with taxes here and i ain't even talking about like everything else


literally unenforceable richfags will always find a way


i see this as an absolute win

anyway i think the reason why factories ain't more automated than they are is because they need the employment to convince local authorities to let them build their stuff, there's an Amazon warehouse not too far from where I live and people who live next to that thing get angry at it cause now there are tons of trucks roaming the streets and the main argument to make them shut up is that the thing brings a lot of employment

10s or 20s idk now (1910-20s) were "socialistic", before Bernays didnt invented "PR" propaganda...

 

[RisingThumb]

Some arguments in favour of ditching it...
My opinion of this is simple. The real minimum wage is 0. Most work on wages is a bullshit job that doesn't provide any societal value, yet they want a minimum wage for doing the same thing unemployed people do, only in suits.

Additionally, it, like anti-monopoly policies, create policies that can be very easily exploited. As an example in anti-monopolies, it creates duopolies... like Apple and Microsoft in OS, like AMD and NVidia in GPU semiconductors, like a lot of American ISPs and American grocery stores(in the UK this isn't quite the case as there's multiple grocery stores and multiple ISPs so competition is a lot stronger here). In minimum wage, you can give people a wage above minimum wage, to choke out smaller companies that can't afford to give minimum wage- and minimum wage is effectively another tax ON TOP OF all the other taxes and licenses and policies you already have to be in line with for almost any smaller work(farming is a very good example. The state of things means you can't just run a farm and sell your produce).

Another point. Minimum wage is in other words, minimum valuation for all work. Where communism equalises the evaluation of work's value above and below, minimum wage equalises all work's value below this line of minimum valuation. The forces of disparity cloaked as equality, once again paving the road to hell with their good intentions

 

[llillilll]

Some arguments in favour of ditching it...
My opinion of this is simple. The real minimum wage is 0. Most work on wages is a bullshit job that doesn't provide any societal value, yet they want a minimum wage for doing the same thing unemployed people do, only in suits.

Have you ever seen one person in suits working minimum wage? Only people that get paid minimum wage do real work while the fake jobs get paid significantly more. The most labour intensive jobs are the ones that get the least wage.
I had to take a water pump out of a 150 Meter hole because it had a hole at the bottom and the pay was around 1k TL for one days work while the higher ups in schools are manually giving school numbers to students for 30K TL and the computer checks if it is done properly, the algorithm that checks for the errors could do their job but doesn't while no computer could take the pump out.

like anti-monopoly policies, create policies that can be very easily exploited. As an example in anti-monopolies, it creates duopolies

It is inevitable for a corporation to create a dictatorship in a sector under capitalism soo them being duopolies is better than monopolies.

In minimum wage, you can give people a wage above minimum wage, to choke out smaller companies that can't afford to give minimum wage- and minimum wage is effectively another tax ON TOP OF all the other taxes and licenses and policies you already have to be in line with for almost any smaller work(farming is a very good example. The state of things means you can't just run a farm and sell your produce).

When there is no minimum wage the bigger corporation can build their factories in places where there aren't a lot of jobs and reduce the wage indefinitely and compete at lower prices against the smaller corporations that couldn't reduce the wages because they can't carry their operations to low income areas. The "big corporations will eat smaller ones" doesn't have much weight thought because under unregulated capitalism it is inevitable for big corporations to destroy smaller ones.

 

[handoferis]

Some arguments in favour of ditching it...
My opinion of this is simple. The real minimum wage is 0. Most work on wages is a bullshit job that doesn't provide any societal value, yet they want a minimum wage for doing the same thing unemployed people do, only in suits.

Additionally, it, like anti-monopoly policies, create policies that can be very easily exploited. As an example in anti-monopolies, it creates duopolies... like Apple and Microsoft in OS, like AMD and NVidia in GPU semiconductors, like a lot of American ISPs and American grocery stores(in the UK this isn't quite the case as there's multiple grocery stores and multiple ISPs so competition is a lot stronger here). In minimum wage, you can give people a wage above minimum wage, to choke out smaller companies that can't afford to give minimum wage- and minimum wage is effectively another tax ON TOP OF all the other taxes and licenses and policies you already have to be in line with for almost any smaller work(farming is a very good example. The state of things means you can't just run a farm and sell your produce).

Another point. Minimum wage is in other words, minimum valuation for all work. Where communism equalises the evaluation of work's value above and below, minimum wage equalises all work's value below this line of minimum valuation. The forces of disparity cloaked as equality, once again paving the road to hell with their good intentions

most of the duopolies you mention are in high-wage industries, and the cost of entry isn't wages, but investment in tooling and infrastructure (or cronyism). as a professional computer toucher, I haven't thought about or cared about the minimum wage since I was a fucked up student, and startups still pay a talent-retaining wage.

the thing stopping people in the US from starting their own ISP isn't wages, it's laying cable, which has usually received a contract at a reduced rate from local government in exchange for essentially a monopoly.

 

[brentw]

The real issue with wages is that our workforce has been flooded with immigrants.
This is deliberately done to suppress wages.
Pro-immigration politicians don't care about the "human rights" of any so called "asylum seekers" or any of that bullshit, it is all about keeping the price of labor down.

---

Anyways, minimum wage doesn't help. Price controls literally always make the problems they seek to solve worse.

Any example you could try to claim the contrary (like insulin) is only due to other government meddling in the market.
Medications like insulin are only expensive because of regulatory capture. If the market for insulin was opened up so we could import it freely, or more companies could start manufacturing it, the price would drop like a rock. It is artificially kept high, on purpose, by the government, for the profit of their cronies.

---

Also the concept that all jobs must provide a "living wage" is fucking retarded.
Teenagers should be able to get part time jobs.
A unskilled teenager working 10-20 hours a week does not need to be, should not be, and fucking can not be, paid a "living wage".
Literally all shit like that does is erase jobs for unskilled teenagers. Denying them the ability to earn spending money and work experience during their high-school years.

 

[llillilll]

The real issue with wages is that our workforce has been flooded with immigrants.
This is deliberately done to suppress wages.
Pro-immigration politicians don't care about the "human rights" of any so called "asylum seekers" or any of that bullshit, it is all about keeping the price of labor down.

I don't know where you live but they don't need immigrants to flood the workforce, there are most likely enough poor people to fill the low paying dangerous jobs. It is inefficient to import low skilled workforce that won't even know your language campared to just using poor people in your own country.

Teenagers should be able to get part time jobs.
A unskilled teenager working 10-20 hours a week does not need to be, should not be, and fucking can not be, paid a "living wage".

Literal serfs in middle ages or most slaves in Ottomans would hard disagree with you on the 10-20 hour work weeks being impossible.

Literally all shit like that does is erase jobs for unskilled teenagers. Denying them the ability to earn spending money and work experience during their high-school years.

How?

 

[Some_porcupine]

How?

 

[brentw]

I don't know where you live but they don't need immigrants to flood the workforce, there are most likely enough poor people to fill the low paying dangerous jobs. It is inefficient to import low skilled workforce that won't even know your language campared to just using poor people in your own country.

You apparently have never left your house or worked a day in your life.
How is it even possible for someone to be this completely detached from reality?

Literal serfs in middle ages or most slaves in Ottomans would hard disagree with you on the 10-20 hour work weeks being impossible.

I see your head has been filled with propaganda.
Oh what I would give for the power to send you back in time to see what it was like to be a serf or slave in the middle ages.

How?

It's not simply economically feasible to pay an unskilled teenager full time wages for the work of an unskilled teenager.
Instead employers will just eliminate those jobs entirely and look for other ways to replace the work, like automation.

 

[bnuungus]

You apparently have never left your house or worked a day in your life.
How is it even possible for someone to be this completely detached from reality?



I see your head has been filled with propaganda.
Oh what I would give for the power to send you back in time to see what it was like to be a serf or slave in the middle ages.



It's not simply economically feasible to pay an unskilled teenager full time wages for the work of an unskilled teenager.
Instead employers will just eliminate those jobs entirely and look for other ways to replace the work, like automation.

lily there lives in Turkey so the dynamics for him are way different

 

[llillilll]

You apparently have never left your house or worked a day in your life.
How is it even possible for someone to be this completely detached from reality?

Ok mister real life expert, go start a business where you employ people that don't know your language, lived in shitty economic situations and have less fear of authority. Make another post when they inevitably create a localised race war inside the factory because they refuse to interact with locals.

t's not simply economically feasible to pay an unskilled teenager full time wages for the work of an unskilled teenager.
Instead employers will just eliminate those jobs entirely and look for other ways to replace the work, like automation.

Real laws don't work like that. They won't write "LET THERE BE MINIMUM WAGE" in a stone wall, they will write 50 subsections to that and it will inevitably include some exemptions for part time jobs that would specify different rates for different weekly hour groups.
About the "unskiilled teenager" part... thats literal propaganda, unskilled labour isn't real. The jobs that are called unskilled labour are significantly harder than any higher management job. They are called unskilled labour to create the illusion that they are easy or simple soo they can be paid less. You can't automate most of those jobs with robotics because at the end of the day humans need less maintanance and supervision than most machinery while being far more resourcefull. A robot might flip burgers in a restaurant but he can't argue with the boomers that will inevitably give stupid requests or kick out a drunk guy that harasses customers.

 

[brentw]

Ok mister real life expert, go start a business where you employ people that don't know your language, lived in shitty economic situations and have less fear of authority. Make another post when they inevitably create a localised race war inside the factory because they refuse to interact with locals.

The kitchen of basically every single fast food restaurant in the entire US is staffed by gruff Mexican guys who don't speak English.
Knowing Spanish is basically a requirement to be hired as a manager at McDonalds.

Food packaging plants and a whole bunch of other places are similarly staffed by mexican immigrants who don't speak english. One of my favorite stories of the brief period Trump had INS and ICE working on illegal immigration a few years back is when a meat packing plant was raided and they were forced to end the illegal under the table employment of people without greencards. A few big things happened in short order:

• The plant was forced to pay real wages.
• Real citizens from the local community were lined up to fill the now vacant jobs.
• The economic health, from wages to everything else, for the local town all went up.

My only complaint is that the scumbags running the plant weren't sent to prison.

silly angry teenager rant

... how old are you?

 

[RisingThumb]

most of the duopolies you mention are in high-wage industries, and the cost of entry isn't wages, but investment in tooling and infrastructure (or cronyism). as a professional computer toucher, I haven't thought about or cared about the minimum wage since I was a fucked up student, and startups still pay a talent-retaining wage.

the thing stopping people in the US from starting their own ISP isn't wages, it's laying cable, which has usually received a contract at a reduced rate from local government in exchange for essentially a monopoly.

Ok, how about a low-wage industry. Coles and woolworths in Australia. I dunno how much of a wage you get for Coca Cola vs Pepsi manfuacturing and all their subsidiaries. Similar companies exist in loads of places. If it's a universal demand, and the cost is hiked up way above its actual valuation, you can be pretty sure duopolistic forces are at work. The actual wage isn't relevant, so much as the valuation of a currency and the valuation of that work in that currency(and currency being regional makes this a valuation of that work within that region), but when you attach a minimum wage, you attach a minimum valuation all people must put on work.

Contract work is often auctioned out to the best bidder(cost, contract terms and quality of service from contractor). This is akin to the government putting a minimum buy cost on all contracts. If you want to crystalise work into a product you can, and then this becomes the Government putting a minimum buy on ebay auctions... but you don't see that, so it's a valuation of work(the time you put in) not a valuation of work(the actual product). As the Government doesn't evaluate the value of products, this means the only way of subverting minimum wages is in selling products and contracting on products(and some companies do this! Etsy! Farmer's Markets and other Markets like this!)

If you're employing people on time, and selling to others time, this works fine(Contract work). If you're employing people on time, and selling products, your product has to be worth a significant amount above minimum wage... otherwise the people with more cash to burn, can just price you out of the market in the time department. This is also why the UK hasn't had an economic crash despite producing very few products worth a damn to anyone- they're selling time... services. Note that most 1st world country jobs are service jobs, not product jobs.

Minimum wage also has issues on employing kids, which should be a thing. It's stupid that a kid can't find work and get real life experience before he's 18. Possibly a contributing factor towards the lack of accountability and responsibility most men have nowadays

 

[sleepwalker]

Ok, how about a low-wage industry. Coles and woolworths in Australia. I dunno how much of a wage you get for Coca Cola vs Pepsi manfuacturing and all their subsidiaries. Similar companies exist in loads of places. If it's a universal demand, and the cost is hiked up way above its actual valuation, you can be pretty sure duopolistic forces are at work. The actual wage isn't relevant, so much as the valuation of a currency and the valuation of that work in that currency(and currency being regional makes this a valuation of that work within that region), but when you attach a minimum wage, you attach a minimum valuation all people must put on work.

Contract work is often auctioned out to the best bidder(cost, contract terms and quality of service from contractor). This is akin to the government putting a minimum buy cost on all contracts. If you want to crystalise work into a product you can, and then this becomes the Government putting a minimum buy on ebay auctions... but you don't see that, so it's a valuation of work(the time you put in) not a valuation of work(the actual product). As the Government doesn't evaluate the value of products, this means the only way of subverting minimum wages is in selling products and contracting on products(and some companies do this! Etsy! Farmer's Markets and other Markets like this!)

If you're employing people on time, and selling to others time, this works fine(Contract work). If you're employing people on time, and selling products, your product has to be worth a significant amount above minimum wage... otherwise the people with more cash to burn, can just price you out of the market in the time department. This is also why the UK hasn't had an economic crash despite producing very few products worth a damn to anyone- they're selling time... services. Note that most 1st world country jobs are service jobs, not product jobs.

Minimum wage also has issues on employing kids, which should be a thing. It's stupid that a kid can't find work and get real life experience before he's 18. Possibly a contributing factor towards the lack of accountability and responsibility most men have nowadays

So your argument is that grown adults who weren't able to get better jobs should be paid less so that some teenagers who'll fuck up the job and get fired can have their first job? You act like most kids these days don't have jobs one way or another, it's the last generations shit parenting that has given them this attitude and they refuse to take accountability (just like the boomers before them). With the additional caveat that its mostly poor children that work to help supplement their parents middling incomes, when they should be spending that time studying or pursuing college. This makes it harder for them when compared to the rich kid that doesn't need to do any of that.

There is a poverty problem in the country and the solution posited by the earlier posts link is to take away their only safety net. There's all these fancy terms and large scale factors that matter to people heavily invested in the stock markets and housing markets, who are people that do not work minimum wage jobs, and likely never will again. The minimum wage however, is what barely keeps many people afloat and sets a solid starting line for everyone everywhere. It used to be enough to raise a family on, but we as a society have agreed that families are unimportant and minimum wage is now for teenagers with "starter jobs" as if a teenager who needs to work has "starter bills" (unless you count 20k+ in student debt "starter bills").

Minimum wage can't drop unless UBI or something that infuses a similar amount into at least like 70% of the country is instituted. Other wise people go hungry, lose their homes, and most importantly lose their distractions. Any one who proclaims its economic benefits would very quickly become acquainted with its social-political negatives (as in poor people riots a la BLM). Fuck if I even took a pay cut because of a company wide decrease in response to a minwage cut, fuck it, Im throwing molotovs. I have a limit to how much the government fucks me in the ass, and it really truly is when they start fucking with my money, and there are millions of normies who are the exact same way because money is what pays for their favorite sedatives.

Minimum wage is supposed to scale with inflation and it hasn't for quite a while. And yet no one can do the simple math to link it to the shrinking middle class and widening wealth gap. Removing it wouldn't reinvigorate America's economy, it would turn it into neo-feudalism. But I guess that would be on track for the stated of goal of "You will own nothing, and you will be happy".

 

[RisingThumb]

So your argument is that grown adults who weren't able to get better jobs should be paid less so that some teenagers who'll fuck up the job and get fired can have their first job?

So your argument is "X", I've said my argument and you're blending all the nuance out of it. That's not my argument, read it again. Teenagers being able to do jobs doesn't immediately equal jobs being paid by those grown adults. It's normally(and with good reason) assumed teenagers will take part-time work or full-time in summer breaks, so they can act like seasonal works who can be "polyfill" to changing demands according to seasons(Yes, demand for work changes according to seasons, hence seasonal workers...).

This interpretation is equivalent to the notion that outsourcing work is bad, or that immigrants shouldn't have jobs in the same way that teenagers shouldn't by their status. For immigrants there's fair national security reason occasionally, but the way you describe it, you're saying there's a cause and effect that a larger workforce results in lower wages across the board. Can you support this idea for the specific case of teenagers? I certainly can't.

There is a poverty problem in the country

Which country? USA? UK? Thailand? If you think there's a poverty problem in the USA or the UK and you've not seen 3rd world countries and you're whining too much... I'm not denying that being broke in 1st world countries sucks, but it's either a hole you dig yourself deeper into, or a hole you can get out of. There's opportunities there. The biggest difficulty in this poverty problem(that is acknowledged and there are PO boxes and address forwarders for those folks) is holding an address. Loads of paperwork for licenses, job seeking, bank accounts etc require an address.

What you probably see as a poverty problem is in reality a cost of living problem to sustain an equivalent quality of life to everyone around you- herd effects and advertiser effects. Most people burn their money. Count how many people know anything about saving money, minimising taxes, investing, pension funds etc. Even lots of very intelligent people do not care about this- yet whine when the keys are dangling right there.

but we as a society have agreed that families are unimportant and minimum wage is now for teenagers with "starter jobs" as if a teenager who needs to work has "starter bills" (unless you count 20k+ in student debt "starter bills").

I'm guessing you're in the UK. Student debt in the UK is a joke that gets written off after 4 decades and is just another tax(unless you make so much it's not, but that's significantly abnormal. People below £21k annun iirc don't have to pay on it). America? Different story. I'm not American and don't know loads about this, but there's entire education system, healthcare system, bank and insurance lobbying as the government want to have too many levers to control. The government policies around this create "effective" monopolies(i.e. patents on lifesaving medicine) for several decades. This is an institutional issue with the US Government at both the federal and state levels, and is frankly... outside the scope of the thread and an uninteresting US-centric discussion point.

I agree on the points of families being viewed as unimportant. We're sleepwalking into a population crisis on all fronts. East Asia with China policies and Japan's declining rates. North America with their pile drivers dog piling on the gender split and agitating both sides into hyperstitions that both hate each other, and the same effect in West Europe. As I see it, Family remains important in Southeast Asia, Latin America, East Europe. I dunno much about Africa(but they have a lot more issues about corruption and 6 months of power outages if you looked at South Africa recently...)

Minimum wage can't drop unless UBI or something that infuses a similar amount into at least like 70% of the country is instituted.

Your implication is that 70% of the population, their output is as valuable as the unemployed(on UBI), or just a bit more valuable(you can distinguish UBI and Minimum wage income). Also implies that just existing is worth more(even though if we're being honest, some people probably provide negative value to everyone's life...) and that the actual work done for the minimum wage is worth less.

I have a limit to how much the government fucks me in the ass, and it really truly is when they start fucking with my money, and there are millions of normies who are the exact same way because money is what pays for their favorite sedatives.

40% inheritance tax in the UK. 40% of what you make, will never be given to your kids. Similar things happen in the US(but not under the name of inheritance tax... healthcare, education for your kids... other money sinks). As a result, no real generational wealth is passed down. I can't find a % on the stamp act for 1760s America when they declared independence, but it was almost certainly far less than this FLAT OUT USURY.

and there are millions of normies who are the exact same way because money is what pays for their favorite sedatives.

My guess is something bad will happen in West Europe and North America in 2 decades, It's like a Weimar republic we're sleepwalking through and joyously accept sedated and dizzy. The generation above us are realising what they've done for women in their mid 30s without husbands and the consequent lack of families and atomisation of them, and our generation and the generation below are following suit to make a tailor blush, under the propaganda and zealous idealism of our mentoring elders above us(and equivalent institutions from them because most of the folks in these institutions are aged 30-60). We're close following Japan's population issues, and we have a far less homogenised population causing race riots and gender/queer/sex conflicts. It's slight tremors that feel like they're so deeply set and ignited that you can't fix them... only avoid the fallout on yourself.

Ah, where were we? Minimum wage? Honestly, I agree with you. Removing minimum wage will cause a lot of shifts and will hurt a lot of people, but the end-products will be higher quality, and these end-products trickle down into housing prices, electrical bills, water bills... but on the amount of time these need to trickle down, probably after many years(and a lot of those markets have extra policy strings like licenses and strict building codes and regulations for homes which means a cheaper and quality workforce isn't necessarily a cheaper product).

Minimum wage is supposed to scale with inflation and it hasn't for quite a while. And yet no one can do the simple math to link it to the shrinking middle class and widening wealth gap. Removing it wouldn't reinvigorate America's economy, it would turn it into neo-feudalism. But I guess that would be on track for the stated of goal of "You will own nothing, and you will be happy".

Removing it without removing a lot of the other crap would turn it into neo-feudalism, and it's one of those keystone policies that form the arch of Leftism. Trying to remove it or play Jenga with it, in such a chaotic system is... well... anybody's guess. As for the last point... do *you* currently truly own anything within your current policies in America?

As always, I remind you, large scale economics are large scale chaotic systems that all feed into each other and the butterfly effect spins the whole thing around. I would recommend on points of economics, to set your own affairs in order and learn how it affects you personally, how to reduce the damage to you and your family and your steps forward within the chaotic system.

 

[WALFTEAM]

yes

 

[sleepwalker]

I started my post poorly as you could see I don't only boil it down to that and address other issues (sorry about that), but I don't think any of your observations are entirely wrong. As you pointed out different countries face different issues with something like that, but I was speaking more so for America. No minimum wage may work for a hypothetical non-specific country, but as you also mentioned economies have extremely complex and large systems that interact in wildly different ways.

Poverty can actually get quite bad here in America because the country is almost the size of the entire European continent with various different climates and geologies. Not all places have been caught up to snuff as a result and we are currently undergoing a massive push just to get our rural communities online, much less connect them to major cities. We lack things like affordable medical care and we have a pretty shoddy welfare system designed to trap people in it. Maybe it doesn't get as bad as third world countries do, but it's an embarrassment for us as a country it even gets close.

Things are looking bad and there are so many ways that abolishing it could make it all worse at the moment. Especially here in America where there the safety nets were manufactured by the lowest bidder.

 

[Obake]

I don't understand American media's obsession with the minimum wage. The minimum wage is for teenagers and people who have never worked a job in their life. If you're a grown adult and are only earning the lowest possible amount that you are legally allowed to be paid, then you need to stop and think for a moment.

 

[handoferis]

I don't understand American media's obsession with the minimum wage. The minimum wage is for teenagers and people who have never worked a job in their life. If you're a grown adult and are only earning the lowest possible amount that you are legally allowed to be paid, then you need to stop and think for a moment.

agree, but there is also kind of a problem of undervaluing the kind of work that nobody wants to do, but actually needs done if you want a nice place to live. like, i don't think cleaners and the like should be paid dirt wages like that, you would definitely miss them if they all disappeared.