GOP-run Senate kills minimum wage increase http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060621/ap_on_go_co/minimum_wage Would like to hear a Republican Conservative point of view as to why this isn't a decent idea?? what does my "Independent party" lack of a brain fail to understand here??? Seems to me just another make the rich richer and the poor poorer........
An increase in minimum wage laws creates more unemployment for people who would likely get jobs at this pay rate. A store that is paying 20 people $5.50 an hour will drop 1-2 employees when they have to pay $6.50 an hour to employees to make up the difference. Sounds like the rich stay the same and the poor get poorer when they don't have a job at all.
Another point that should be made is that less people are hired because the extra cost makes employers leery of hiring new people they know nothing about. If they are a good, reliable worker, they will get a pay raise for their hard work.
I think that logic was used by the anti-poor last time the increase was enacted. They predicted the doom and gloom, but it was followed by a decent spurt of growth. I just feel sickened how some people justify paying working people below living wages and support their cause with all the bull crap about increasing unemployment.
the logic behind the point u are tryin' to make against min wage increases has fallen apart as soon as it was done in england...all conservative politicians were argunin' as u are here and were proven wrong on every issue.
That essentially is the same BS argument that keep illegals working under scale, and under the table, and the republican administration doing squat about it. Without illegals all wages will go up, yada, yada, yada....and legals will lose jobs. Horse Shit. Corporate profits soaring, wages not going up, those living in poverty increasing, tax cuts for those who don't really need them, and are not investing that tax savings in job creation.... Oh yeah, the right wing is really afraid to take jobs away from the workers by increasing minimum wage. Horse Shit....
That's economic nonsense, if the store is paying 20 people - they need 20 people, if they could drop 1-2 employees they would have done it a long time ago regardless of the minimum wage and would have added $5.50 - $11.00 to their profits.
Hell yes. What they do now is hire illegals, or export the jobs overseas....it has nothing to do with keep existing legals and/or Americans employed....quite the opposite.
I guess you liberals are right. But why stop at $10? Why not $100? Then everyone could live well. No wait, why not $500 an hour? Think what that would do for the economy. That's too high you say? How do you know? What makes the congress competent to decide that $10 is "fair?"
John Hawkins: Can you explain why the minimum wage is a bad idea? Walter Williams: First, Congress can indeed legislate that people get a higher wage. But, they can't legislate that people are more productive. For the most part, in a free market economy, wages are related to a workers productivity. For example, if a worker can produce six dollars worth of productivity per hour, if that's all he can produce, and you legislate that he must be paid eight dollars and hour, then it's a losing proposition to pay someone eight dollars an hour when he can only produce six dollars worth of value. So the employer may have several different responses. Either he's going to discriminate against the employment of low skilled workers who can only produce six dollars worth of value and hire someone who can produce eight dollars worth of value or he's going to automate. Both responses mean lower employment for low skilled people. So, the minimum wage law discriminates against low-skilled people. Minimum prices in general tend to discriminate against the lesser skilled person or the less preferred item. Let's say ten workers show up and you only can hire five. Well, you can't discriminate based on price because you have to pay them all eight dollars an hour. So you may hire according to what you like. So if you prefer Catholics to Jews or whites to blacks, you'll have a tendency to indulge your preferences. You can apply that phenomena to anything. If we made a law, let's call it a "minimum steak law", that is, fillet mignon and chuck steak both sell for $10. Well, the cost of discriminating against chuck steak would be zero, because you have to pay $10 anyway. The way that less preferred things compete with more preferred things is by having a lower price. Even though people prefer filet mignon to chuck steak, chuck steak doesn't have any problems selling at all. As a matter of fact, I wrote a book a number of years ago called "South Africa's War Against Capitalism" and in that book I give quotation after quotation from white, racist, unions that would never have a black as a member of their unions. Yet, they were the major supporters of minimum wage laws for blacks. Their stated reason for doing that was because they said they wanted to protect white workers from having to compete with low wage, low skill, black workers. Of course, the rhetoric behind the minimum wage in the United States is different, but it has the same effect.