Fox News: cutting minimum wage ‘better for workers’

Minimum wage is ludicrous. It should neither be raised or lowered.

Raising it is bad. Less jobs, prices go up.

Lowering it is bad. The amount of "jobs" that it creates, only makes that much more of a poverty gap. Prices do not go down nowhere near as much as the decrease in wages (IMO).

Playing with these "numbers" does nothing besides shifting the picture around. To have a real effect, you must increase/decrease the work force, efficiency, etc.

Funny how government officials get pay raises in accordance to inflation though...

I am surprised to see so many people in favor of a minimum wage reduction. A lot of you were the same ones who were so adamant against higher taxes for the rich...you know the whole "redistribution of wealth thing"...Well, tell me how this is any different? Well actually it is different, because by lowering minimum wage to create more jobs, that IS redistribution of wealth, BUT in this case it is taking away from those who need that money the most instead of those that need it the least.



[edit on 15-12-2009 by Aggie Man]

Never mind, don't want a banning


you guys should try it - really, tell America how conservatives really feel,,, its time.

[edit on 15-12-2009 by Janky Red]

reply to post by Janky Red


Isn't it amazing how easy it is for them to accuse everyone else of all these misgivings?

It's alright though, they're victims. And martyrs. And psychic enough to divine knowledge about anyone with whom they've any kind of animosity.

I've still never heard that dollar amount that would make someone greedy and a fat-cat. Is it $250,000? 500? 10 million? Or is it just "Anyone with more than me"?

I can project too.

[edit on 12/15/2009 by EsSeeEye]

Originally posted by EsSeeEye
I've still never heard that dollar amount that would make someone greedy and a fat-cat. Is it $250,000? 500? 10 million? Or is it just "Anyone with more than me"?

You just don't get it do you? It's not about money; it's about motive.

Bill Gates has more money than God. He deserves every penny as do many other people.

I have owned many small manufacturing businesses and I always paid my helpers what they were worth. Slackers were ran off the job.

It's "intent" both on the part of the workers and the employers. There is no compromise with HONOR and fair play. And paying workers less than min. wage just because of some silly fabricated economic THEORY translates as greed to anyone with honor.

[edit on 15-12-2009 by whaaa]

William Vickrey, though smart, is a Keynesian economist. John Maynard Keynes is one of the reasons we have this whole mess. Lets just continue to spend our way into oblivion....

reply to post by Janky Red


Who's conservative?

Never mind, don't want a banning

No, feel free to speak your mind, just keep it in good taste.

you guys should try it - really, tell America how conservatives really feel,,, its time.

I wouldn't know what conservatives really feel as I am not conservative.

Many times the best possible solution to a problem, short and long term, is not the most obvious. Minimum wage is the most obvious solution to low wages, but it creates greater problems. Handouts and other incentives are also obvious solutions, but are not the best and create other problems.

The best solution is to allow people to be free. The sick and poor will be fine. It is universally preferred behavior to not let our under privileged to suffer.

Originally posted by PD2634
Here we go with those awful, evil, successful people. How dare anyone succeed, let all those nasty business owners lower their standard of living; make unskilled workers feel equal and not hurt their feelings.

Instead of whining about low wages, try going to college or tradeschool, if not don't expect to make alot of money. Don't expect a job flipping burgers to pay anymore money than deserved. If you dont like it, get another job.

so, if we all go to school, become edumencated, ummm....you won't want anyone at the mickey dees flipping burgers for ya?? or you will be willing to pay more for those burgers so that the person flipping them can pay back their student loan? and, of course, there will be need in this economy for all those extra accountants, mbas, engineers, computer specialists, ect!!!

education isn't the answer, yes, if someone has the gumption and the ability, I am all for them getting a good college education, but, there are many that don't have that ability! and of course, we will always want our waitresses, our store clerks, ect. heck, I was even cutting gaskets for the US navy to put in their planes for near minimum wage pay.....guess we could go without them also??
as far as lowering our pay to the point where we are able to compete with china's slave labor, I doubt it that would stop the outsourcing, ya see the low wages being the incentive is just part of the story. do a little research into the amount of pollution these companies are letting lose on the people in these developing nations, and you get a clearer picture...it costs money to be evironmentally friendly, the companies don't want to waste money doing that one either! better to hand that money over to the top echelons of the company!

reply to post by ownbestenemy

I've worked as a die cutter, and a screen printer, and no it wasn't minimum wage then, it would be now....it was near minimum wage. I've also worked at a food processing plant...for what was then minimum wage.
there's 80 years old ladies working at the shop I am working at now because they never made much over minimum wage so they never had the opportunity to save for their retirement and social security doesn't pay enough to live on for crying out loud!!!
there were alot of old ladies working at that food processing plant way back then, earning not that much more than minimum wage also...
I go into many of these resturants, and what do I see? oh ya, alot adults!!! working for near minimum wage!!

well, one cannot live on minimum wage over much of the country! and I would like to ask the person who worked 25 years for minimum wage, just how did they live? did they have a spouse that worked also, earning more? did they have two or three jobs....or did they get most of their substinance from the friendly...all so generous taxpayer??

see, this is where the problem comes in, you have way too many people working those low wage jobs who really need to be making more, you have this outrageous cost of living, healthcare expense, ect.....and how do you think that that burger flipping middle aged adult at burger king is if feeding their family??

well....I bet there's quite a few of them who are turning around after getting their paycheck, taking that pay stup right up to social services, and it's the taxpayer feeding them, housing them, ect!! only.....it's that government involvement that is throwing the whole thing out of wack to begin with...what, you think all those nurses and doctors out there would be making the kind of money they are if we all had to pay the bill?? would they even have a job, if it wasn't that somewhere between 50%-70% of the hospital's revenues were coming from gov't sponsered programs?? heck no!!! matter or fact, didn't the government recently send the people out a little money telling them to go spend it, for the sake of the economy? ya know things are bad when the gov't has to hand out the money to convince the people to spend!!!
only.....it costs a heck of alot more for that money to circulate through the various government agencies than it would for the employer to just pay a little more.
and, as I already said, it's throwing our whole economy out of wack!!
it HAS killed the free market, what, you think that employers would be able to keep workers at that level of pay long, big shot ceo would be getting those high salaries, or there would be so many stores selling their goods at the prices they do, without the government supplying customers for them through those programs??? heck, I'd be willing to bet, we wouldn't have nearly as many college grads as we do without them!!!
the free market is already dead!! so, well, there is no reason to try to preserve it, we should be trying to bring it back to life!! which, requires LESS money being siphoned out of the economy by the government to be redirected to those "more important areas".....like healthcare...which well, if things keep going the way they are, you all might as well all go back to schiool for some medical field, because that's where all the gov't money is going to be going to!
but...in order for you to get the gov't out of it, you are gonna have to provide an alternative way for people to get the necessities of life! sorry, I am a bit old fashioned, I believe they should be getting it through EMPLOYMENT! and minimum wage isn't cutting the grade!!!

oh, by the way, any of you glenn beck fans out there catch the show where he reveals that all those great "green jobs" that the gov't is creating is going to prisoners, who will be paid some rediculous price like 40 cents an hour???

so, well, looks like we might be getting a choice to make, either buy our insurance at a rediculous price and still reallly not be able to afford our healthcare, or well, don't and we will get fined, then put into jail, when we can't pay the rediculous fine, but don't worry, once in jail, the taxpayer, well, they will be more than happy to pay for your healthcare, your food, lodging, college education, and hey, you will even get training in the newest, hottest, gov't subsidized field...."green"!!
of which, well, if they pass that cap and trade, well, more jobs will be flying to those developing nations who will be exempt, because, like I stated in my previous post, they aren't moving to these countries just for the low wages, they want to be able to dump their toxic waste where ever they want!!!

this is what a truly "free" market would bring to the US

www.chinahush.com...

if you really want to be competitive with china well, be prepared to live in the cesspool that the business world wants to dump on you!!!

personally, if they pass a version of that cap and trade, well, I would like to also see them not allowing imports from the companies not adhering to the standards set in our country from entering in! otherwise, we will all be, are all, participating in something very close to mass genocide every time we go to the store to spend our money!

DINSTAAR....while the GDP has doubled since 1970, yes, our wages have increased a bit, but that increase is less than the inflation amount, so our buying power has actually decreased. If minimum wage had increased at the same rate as productivity increased, currently it would be rated around $19.50/hour.

reply to post by pexx421


yep....something to that effect.....
go take a look at the income guidelines for the schips programs from some of the various states....
gee, if you make close to
$100,000 you can get help with your kid's health insurance!!

not that it in actuality costs that much to insure a kid, but well, they value the healthcare for kids so much!! but, still....if we were to increase the minimum wages to the point where it's above the guidelines of these social programs, it would be quite a bit higher than the minimum wage!
but, on the other side of the coin, I'm sorry, but these programs are costing us more than it would cost for us to just pay the people a decent wage to begin with, and expect those that can work, to work, and only help those who truly can't work!
and, well, what does that $100,000 guideline do as far as incentive for companies to provide affordable family care...
give ya a hint, on boss of mine, when asked about the cost of their family coverage referred me to the state program, since well, it would cost me more than I was making! which, well, in turn, caused on of my co-workers to figure out just how much overtime she could do, without losing that child's healthcare, and well....good luck getting her to work more hours!

there is no incentive, as it is now, to keep the cost of living low, what the heck right, doesn't matter, since the gov't will just increase the help that it is giving, the workers, although having a tough life, will manage to keep themselves alive and working, and well, since those good paying jobs are out of their reach, well, they will be happy for the job they have, right?? and well, there's no incentive for the company to pay a decent wage for most occupations, since well.....ain't like their employees are gonna starve or anything...
only.....now it's teachers and other professionals that aren't keeping up, that aren't able to repay their student loans, their healthcare and such.....
and well, they are also the ones getting hit with higher and higher taxes, for the massive network of agencies and such, that are doing the jobs that have been left neglected by corporations who have place the dollar above community responsibility!

It is not paying the minimum wage that stifles the economy. It is the MAXIMUM WAGE that is payed to executives and ceo's that is the dead weight in the economy.

WE NEED TO LOWER THE MAXIMUM WAGE, NOT THE MINIMUM WAGE.

reply to post by DINSTAAR


DINASTAAR, you need to spend sometimes on the market data thread, perhaps there you will see the reality of what is going on with productivity in the nation, the raising unemployment and shadow figures and the real numbers behind the GDP.

Sorry, but you seem to follow government main stream.

Originally posted by DINSTAAR

The best solution is to allow people to be free. The sick and poor will be fine. It is universally preferred behavior to not let our under privileged to suffer.

Dinstaar, with that absurd statement you lost all credibility.

Here is a glimpse of the real world.

www.youtube.com...

Yeah, allow people to be free; free to be sick and poor. You call that fine.
I call it a national tragedy, brought about by capitalist greed and market criminal behavior.

as far as it being cheaper overall for the employer to pay a decent wage than it is for the gov't to siphon it off of the taxpayers and divert it...I offer this example as proof!!!

----------------------------

"About 35 million people are expected to receive food stamps each month through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, according to the budget that President Barack Obama sent to Congress in May. "

www.bloomberg.com...

-------------------------------

this article also says that 35 million was budgeted in, but there was no dollar sign, so I look elsewhere...and found this....

the total cost of the food stamp program was...
37,656.7

but, if you look at the top, it says....

"millions of dollars"

so, I got a feeling it is costing us around a million dollars a year for each recipient of food stamps to get their food!!

correct me if I am wrong, but....
think I am right...although might be a little low on my estimate?

I've talked with a conservative who, with a straight face, sincerely advocated that Americans should accept the wages workers are paid IN MEXICO, which are what? Around $2 an hour, if that much? He believes this would keep jobs in America. Well, it might, but then again, there are all these environmental laws that businesses here in the U.S. have to abide by, so it's really cheaper to pollute the hell out of somebody else's country while turning their citizens into wage slaves. They're not going to return from the third world out of patriotism. It's the profits that are key.

At the end of World War II in this country, union activity and public opinion established a national minimum wage, which was periodically raised. This had the effect of pushing up wages at the next level, and so on up the ladder. More money in wages resulted in more money to spend, so these new consumers kept the economy humming through supply and demand. It was a period of unprecedented, bottom-up prosperity that ended roughly at the end of the 1960's, definitely during the recession of the 70's.

Since then Reaganomics has been the bible of a lot of people in this country. But the fact remains that "trickle down" economics has resulted in real wages remaining flat for decades. The source of prosperity is not solely in big corporations and the rich.

The whole relationship between employees and employers has returned to the class struggle that existed before the period I just outlined.

Before you start screaming because some people at the bottom of the wage scale have had a salary increase of about $1.50 per hour, consider that the average salary, not to mention bonuses and other perks, of top executives has been multiplying at phenomenal rates for years. It's part of the corporate culture. You can't have Joe the Vice President driving around in a mere Honda. It just wouldn't look right. So you keep giving more and more to the top tiers of society in order to preserve their "standard of living."

But do Dinstaar or many others on this thread say anything about cutting out corporate excess? Of course not. Just cutting the wages of people who can't survive on the little they earn to begin with.

The mythology that those who are paid more are more valuable than those at the bottom just isn't always so in real life. From my own experience I can say I worked harder, had more demands made of me, and was more stressed out by a couple of minimum wage jobs I've held than I ever was as a professor.

True, to be a professor required quite a bit of education, but I worked my way through grad school. At low wages. Where I was treated as entirely expendable, even when my employers depended heavily on me.

Many employers today are requiring college degrees, but that is often just a further example of the class divisions that are going on. Giving the privileged positions to those who are already privileged. Often the jobs involve on-the-job training which no college can give you, so the demand for a degree in many cases is just unnecessary. It's just a snob thing. There are many intelligent, hard-working, competent people who just have not, for a variety of reasons, including family responsibilities, been able to attain that degree.

But I digress.

My main point is that there have been periods in our history -- prosperous periods -- when the minimum wage allowed everyone who could work at all to put food on the table and provide a decent standard of living for their families.

It can happen again.

It's not the case now, but it is possible.

[edit on 18-12-2009 by Sestias]

Lowering minimum wage will create jobs, yes especailly for illegal immigrants* not necessarily us US ciizens. now, how can anyone afford anyting on minimum wage? get a 2nr or 3rd job, so no one has time for school or other free activitys in thier life? How about cutting the salarys and bonus's of CEO's, since they make millions a year.. you cant even eat on minimum wage!!! yuo can either pay yuor cell phone bill or eat, not both. FOX news eally has thier head up thier arse this time, really they do..tthier brains are up amongst sluphur methane digested matter rather than in critical solution thinking*
it sounds like the system wants to get people to work for much much less than what business people make...seems kinda like a war they started between the middle calss to make em lower class. i smell NWO, how arrogent and selfish of people. i hate using the word people in momnents like this, screwing everyone else over so the few can have a better life. not to mention all the crimes that go on behind closed doors of wokrplace conditions, to top it off. I work in retail manaemnt, ive seen my fair share of violence against other unfavored crew members* and no one gives a damn..tis all about who yuo know for the msot part, snd being money* sounds like the Lafia dosnt it???? this is corporations methods means and thinking. yuo dont wanna be a part of it, out you go or worse...