The true cost of Low Wages. Who is really to blame.

I have recently had a few debates concerning Jobs, Workers, Low wages. I find it quite surprising how many people blame the poor and exploited for their living conditions and defend the corporations and the rich. Of course most of the people defending this are not poor low wage workers otherwise their view would be different. So i thought I would put together a thread on Low wage exploitation and the benefits and cons to everyone else.

The true costs of goods and services is a secondary issue to stagnant and exploitative wages: The cost of certain goods might go up, but more people would be able to afford them with better compensation. The current price of low-cost goods and services in the United States is low-income, exploited workers living in poverty. But the country as a whole isn’t broke, only its workers are — while corporations and C.E.O.s are richer than ever.

The value of the federal minimum wage has declined 24 percent since 1968. If we re-established the relationship between the minimum wage and the overall median wage to its 1968 level, we would raise wages for 35 million people, a full quarter of the workforce.

It is the pushed rhetoric that the blame rests on these workers themselves as oppossed to the giants who are really to blame for their greedy self interest and manipulation to ensure profits remain high, at the cost of wages remaining low (The biggest cost any employer faces), whilst pushing well crafted propaganda to ensure those who do not feel the pinch as hard blame those that do. People who earn more money are obviously somewhat annoyed they pay towards public programs that support those earning less, blaming them however when in actual fact they are the vitcims of corporate domination is just wrong. In actual fact you are paying support for those people and familys so that TPTB can run away with everyones money. A pretty good divisionary tactic for the elitists and one of the many in use today. Surprising just how many people fall for it.

Low Wages Cost U.S. Taxpayers $152.8 Billion Each Year in Public Support for Working Families

Stagnating wages and decreased benefits are a problem not only for low-wage workers who increasingly cannot make ends meet, but also for the federal government as well as the 50 state governments that finance the public assistance programs many of these workers and their families turn to. Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of enrollees in America’s major public support programs are members of working families;4 the taxpayers bear a significant portion of the hidden costs of low-wage work in America.

This constant dislike, resentment and sometimes pure hatred of the victims who have done nothing wrong except be forced to work for increasingly poor returns, All to keep prices down and profits up, is ridiculous. They may recieve public support, but its the companies that profit it from this, and those who are not struggling as hard pay the bill.

The poor economic outcomes of workers that result from corporate lobbying efforts are scandalous considering the economy’s net productivity has increased 93 percent since 1968 and low-wage workers have far more education today. Employers steal billions in wages from their workers every year because of a lack of will and/or government resources to adequately enforce labor standards. Meanwhile, the powerful lobbies work to effectively disempower workers by convincing legislatures to water down collective bargaining rights and weaken unions.

The current state of affairs are bad enough, the way victimisation of the poor is encouraged and enacted though is quite worrying.

www.epi.org...
laborcenter.berkeley.edu...
laborcenter.berkeley.edu...

Here's the deal. Corporation are not necessarily greedy just keep the poor folks down. Corporation has shares of stock. Shares of stock are sold to individuals and companies. Those individuals have take their OWN money and invested in the corporations. The corporations use that money to make more money and then pay the investors for using their money. Those "evil" corporations are probably made of some of your mom and pop's money which is helping them to retire. Most retirement accounts in this country are funded by corporations returning money on people's investments. It is called investment in their future.

Gotta go.

If you hike up one groups pay you have to hike up everybody's pay. That won't happen unless the economy dictates it.

a reply to: atrollstalker

What about all the millions of people that have gotten rich working for corporations? And the millions of others getting rich from the stocks of corporations?

if corporations are evil and greedy, and they could make more money by paying people just a little bit more, wouldn't they do it.

How much of "poor" people's money goes to taxes? depending on where one lives: gas taxes, clothes taxes, cigarette taxes, food taxes, entertainment taxes, parking taxes, cell phone taxes, and the list goes on and on.

a reply to: WanderingNomadd

The debt based monetary system and the Federal Reserve are the primary forces behind a lower standard of living.

This Rothschild scheme which creates money from debt results in a weakened dollar also known as inflation (ie higher prices).

But instead of dealing with the actual cause of the problem (inflation/debt), its easier to place the burden on the employer.

The only person to challenge the Fed and the debt based ponzi scheme, was Ron Paul.




a reply to: thinline

Excellent point.

If the government cared about the "people's burden", why not cut spending, stop the waste and lower taxes.

a reply to: WanderingNomadd

My problem is that the true cost of the products we buy are hidden.

When a min wage employee has an appendicitis and has no med insurance, the tax payer ends up paying the bill (in the US).

When a min (low) wage employee with dependents can't afford food, the tax payer ends up paying.

When a min (low) wage employee with dependents can't afford to pay the utility bill, the tax payer ends up paying.

When a min (low) wage employee with dependents can't afford lunch at school, the tax payer ends up paying.

When a min (low) wage employee with dependents can't afford a cell phone, the tax payer ends up paying.

And the list goes on and on.

As a country this isn't working. So either wages ( manufacturing jobs) go up, taxes go up or we let the poor start to suffer/die by removing the safety nets (social services). The last option would make going safely to the grocery store similar to running from a pit bull wth a chuck roast in your pants.

a reply to: thinline

They make more money this way because the middle class foots the bill for the poor, example food stamps. And where do alot of food stamps go? Back into big corps. So instead of paying living wages they pay lower ones, the middle class makes the difference, and that money then goes back into the corps. Lose - Lose - Win.

a reply to: seasonal

As a country this isn't working. So either wages ( manufacturing jobs) go up, taxes go up or we let the poor start to suffer/die by removing the safety nets (social services). The last option would make going safely to the grocery store similar to running from a pit bull wth a chuck roast in your pants.

Excatly well said. The civil war that would explode from the last option would be Guerrilla warfare against the rich but we all know the middle class would end up taking the brunt of it. Millions of people with nothing to lose is a dangerous social experiement.

It can only go those two ways. You cant effectively test the first way without just doing it and seeing how that goes, small tests have been positive but it is'nt necessarily relative to wide scale. The second option we all know the outcome.

a reply to: WanderingNomadd

It's only and always about money, period. The only number that matters is that the corporations profit this quarters meets/beats estimates.

We are led to believe these huge corps make decisions in a vacuum. Just takes a few minutes of research to truly see how this system is funneling money to the 1%. Unions used help assure sharing in productivity gains, but they are all but gone. Right to work is another potential nightmare.

Hope to see a calm and peaceful resolution to this, but all evidence points opposite.

Wages are just where supply and demand meet for an individual's services. The more people who can do a particular job, the less money it will pay. It really is that simple.

Jobs are a by product of a business being able to make a profit. As long as an employer can make more in profit than you cost as an individual, it will make sense to have a person in that job.

You cannot artificially increase wages without it causing other issues somewhere else. If you raise wages at the lowest rung, it means you will have to raise wages across the board. They guy who bust his ass to make $20/hr now is not going to be happy when a new employee with no skill is also making $20/hr. The $20/hr guy will now want $30 or whatever and this will continue up the supply chain.

In the short term, an increase in wages would help. However, over the long term they will not be any better off after inflation starts. What good is making $20/hr if everything else like rent, food, etc has also increased? Instead of being broek making $10/hr, you are now broke making $20/hr.

Finally, these jobs were not designed to be careers. They are designed to be stepping stones to better opportunities. You work the job, gain some skills and move up or find a new job at a higher salary. If you are stuck in a minimum wage job, you've made some seriously bad choices in your life. Hell, teenage baby sitters around here charge $15/hr.

a reply to: Edumakated

You cannot artificially increase wages without it causing other issues somewhere else

But you can keep wages low with 10-30 million illegal immigrants. And lobby congress to keep a steady flow of invisible labor.

these jobs were not designed to be careers

No manufacturing jobs are good careers, but those are gone.
We are in a huge transition in our country. I can tell you people making 9$ an hour making products they can't afford would like to make a better living, be off social services. But I'm not sure we have an economy set up to do that.

a reply to: gladtobehere

That's the start of it all right there. The source of the money. Government Borrows Money at Interest then that money goes into circulation. But the Government then owes that money back plus interest. Which means they owe back more than they borrowed which is in circulation. After time the payments that are being paid go to pay the interest which has been building. Then they borrow more and more, interest payments get bigger and bigger, etc.

If they borrow more money and gave it to everyone it seems like we all just got richer. Wrong, you just got poorer. But they instead simply wiped out the same amount of interest, which is all just invented non existing money in the first place, that would instantly make everyone more wealthy without issuing a single dollar to anyone. Your current dollars would just be more valuable.

We're in a cycle that just keeps making us all more and more poor all the time overall. A Million bucks used to be a lot. When I was young if you had a million bucks you'd be set for life. Now a million bucks ain't sh*t. Billionaires weren't even a thing back then.

But it's all just a BS game we invented and have lost all control over and it's used to kill us, abuse us and crush our will as human beings and manipulate everyone and everything. But it doesn't have to be that way. We've just lost control of it all.

a reply to: Edumakated

Jobs are a by product of a business being able to make a profit.

Profits and wealth have increased exponentially, but poverty has been increasing and opportunities decreasing. So saying the more profits Big companies make the better off poor people will be is completely against stastics and fact.

They guy who bust his ass to make $20/hr now is not going to be happy when a new employee with no skill is also making $20/hr.
What good is making $20/hr if everything else like rent, food, etc has also increased?

Increasing the minimum would obviously increase the next few brackets aswell. That is'nt a bad thing. The video above shows the kind of impact this would have on products. It really is'nt that much and those poor people are now able to support themselves and spend more into society. Keeping people poor and exploited to protect your low prices is selfish and costs you more in welfare programs anyway.

You work the job, gain some skills and move up or find a new job at a higher salary. If you are stuck in a minimum wage job, you've made some seriously bad choices in your life.

Not the case. Minimum wage jobs are effectively dead end careers for alot of people as the chance for progression is'nt there for everyone. The best way to put it is a fastfood restuarant with say, 30 people (cleaners, servers. cooks etc...) and only 2 management type roles. Everyone could work themselves to the bone but only 2 of them will see an improvement regardless. And fastfood "Skillsets" are not going to suddenly get you considered for better jobs.

The myth is that people working minimum wage roles are teenagers making their first mark.
www.epi.org...

The average age of affected workers is 35 years old;

Minimum wage jobs make up A fair portion of available jobs in a system where there is'nt enough for all. Claiming everyone can leave this exploitation is 1. Flase 2. Does'nt justify paying less than a living wage and forcing people onto welfare just to eat all to protect low prices and profits. Profits that despite people claiming benefit everyone have actually made no difference even with a monumental, and still rising, increase. These people are not slaves. Constantly corporations are campaigning for laws that attack the rights of low wage workers and for laws that increase their own rights. They are winning. This is more propaganda from banks and corporations to protect their entrenched and special interests.

a reply to: avgguy

and, just what part of the economy would dictate it??
the lowest wage earners demanding higher wages??? that ain't gonna happen as long as we have a welfare system that is making it more advantageous for those workers not to have a small wage increase..since losing those benefits would be a loss of resources regardless of the small wage increase.
higher profits for the corps?? sorry, again, they've been seeing record profits, and yet, don't see much in higher wages.
maybe if the people would be willing to pay higher prices for thier goods?? um...ya... sorry,regardless of their promises that the outsourcing of manufacturing and lower wages would reduce our costs at the check out, it seems like the prices only go up!!!

nope the only economy that would change this would be for the fake economy to collaspe to the point where those in power end up facing ruin!

Low wages...very sad.

One of the old farts at the tennis club was bitching about the high number of people on food stamps where we live...Southwest Florida is a seasonal service based economy...if you are not a white middle to upper middle class retiree
then you are working in the service industry that lays you off six months of the year. (over 60% of the homeowners go to their summer homes during the Florida summer)

So a low wage service based community is going to have a higher percentage of food stamp recipients...sad but a fact of life. The old fart can't see past his military pension, military health care and social security check...he eats well each day yet would deny Joe and Jane worker the same privilege.

Fook old farts like him...unlikely he will vote for HRC.

Cheers

Low wages...very sad.

One of the old farts at the tennis club was bitching about the high number of people on food stamps where we live...Southwest Florida is a seasonal service based economy...if you are not a white middle to upper middle class retiree
then you are working in the service industry that lays you off six months of the year. (over 60% of the homeowners go to their summer homes during the Florida summer)

So a low wage service based community is going to have a higher percentage of food stamp recipients...sad but a fact of life. The old fart can't see past his military pension, military health care and social security check...he eats well each day yet would deny Joe and Jane worker the same privilege.

Fook old farts like him...unlikely he will vote for HRC.

Cheers

Low wages...very sad.

One of the old farts at the tennis club was bitching about the high number of people on food stamps where we live...Southwest Florida is a seasonal service based economy...if you are not a white middle to upper middle class retiree
then you are working in the service industry that lays you off six months of the year. (over 60% of the homeowners go to their summer homes during the Florida summer)

So a low wage service based community is going to have a higher percentage of food stamp recipients...sad but a fact of life. The old fart can't see past his military pension, military health care and social security check...he eats well each day yet would deny Joe and Jane worker the same privilege.

Fook old farts like him...unlikely he will vote for HRC.

Cheers

Bolding aside...

There are several reasons why we are in the poor economic state we are in:

• We have no more anti-trust laws.
  
  Or perhaps I should say we no longer enforce anti-trust laws. It's true that corporations can easily grow so large as to be detrimental to the economy. In the past, this problem was solved by breaking up large corporations so fair competition was maintained. Today we have corporations merging into larger mega-corporations, and the result is that we now have businesses 'too big to fail'... which I interpret as 'too big to exist.'
  
  Fault for this can't lie with the corporations; their whole reason for existing is to grow and produce more profit. It lies with the government which has abdicated its responsibility to "provide for the general welfare."
  
  
• We are losing jobs.
  
  We have been in a depression/recession for the last eight years. The biggest difference between this one and the Great Depression of the 1930s is we keep being lied to about this one. Unemployment figures are a joke; they count anyone struggling to survive on a low-wage part-time job making a fourth of what they used to make as fully employed, and anyone else is dropped from the numbers after a short time. Our manufacturing base, once the backbone of the middle class, is gone. In its place we have the financial sector... banks, insurers, investment brokers. That sector is closed to much of the population. The service sector is trying to make up the difference, but it struggles when so many can't afford to pay for services. It has also had another unwanted effect: jobs that once helped the younger generation gain a foothold, mowing lawns, babysitting, even tutoring are now being filled by adults desperate to get by.
  
  For fault, look to the trade agreements that give other countries free and unfettered access to our domestic economy with no restrictions.
  
  
• Tax rates / regulations
  
  The US has high corporate tax rates, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see where that would drive businesses away. Anyone who has ever looked at a price tag knows you save money and get more if you shop at the lower-priced stores. So why wouldn't a corporation use the lower-priced infrastructure? That is, after all, what they are paying for. And it's not just tax rates; it's also regulation. Every regulation is another tax on business, and together with the tax rate, we have made profit all but impossible for most domestic corporations.
  
  Fault obviously lies with the government.
  
  
• We have an entitlement society
  
  In order to buy votes and keep the general public from rebelling amid the failed policies of our leaders, politicians have established so many entitlement programs that it is hard to find someone who hasn't at some time benefitted from at least one. Some entitlement is a good thing for a capitalistic economy; no one wants to see people starve to death. But too much entitlement can be a very bad thing when it becomes more profitable for people to live on entitlements than to get a job. A lack of good jobs intensifies this effect, and the end result is that the tax burden (or deficit) can grow astronomically. Deficits are no better than tax burdens; they just turn into inflation.
  
  Fault obviously goes to the government.
  
  
• Bad economic policy.
  
  Everyone wants more money. But raises in the minimum wage aren't really raises. More money in the hands of consumers means prices can rise, and increased labor costs mean prices must rise. The result is that, while the number on the paycheck may rise, what one can buy with that money stays the same or actually decreases. It's happened with every single minimum wage hike since it was first implemented. And to make matters worse, minimum wage hikes hit smaller domestic companies harder than the mega-corporations, often causing massive layoffs, drastic reduction in hours, or even closures. Minimum wage levels have no effect on the unemployed.
  
  Fault: the government.
  
  
• Personal mandates.
  
  Not only is this mess making it hard enough to get ahead financially, but we have new sweeping mandates as well. From local ordinances requiring purchase of everything from garbage service up, we have state regulations requiring car insurance and Federal mandates requiring health insurance. On the surface these sound like good ideas, but in tough economic times they are another burden on an already overburdened taxpayer. They also ignore the business considerations that allow the suppliers of these services to make a profit through innovation and efficiency. The end result is that quality of services decreases while prices increase, every single time.
  
  Fault: who else? The government.

So hate the businesses all you want; the government is the real problem. This same thing has been being preached since I can remember, but the only solutions actually tried are always more of the same failed policies.

Which kinda shifts some of the blame from the government to the guy you see in the mirror every morning.

TheRedneck

People are stuck in a manufacturing economy mindset but the U.S. isn`t a manufacturing economy anymore. what worked in a manufacturing economy won`t work in a service economy.
In a service economy the employee doesn`t need the company,the employee is providing the service not the company.
The way to make money in a service economy is to work for yourself providing a service through learning a trade.

In an manufacturing economy it isn`t practical to try to make your own automobile or T.V and sell it, but in a service economy it is your labor and know how that is providing the service,you don`t need to work for a company and share the profits with them.