Obama to raise the Min. wage... WILL THIS WORK? (video)

The minimum wage sounds nice on the surface: workers earning $8 per hour would certainly be better off if they were earning $12 per hour instead. The minimum wage does not force employers to pay a particular wage to every worker; it forces employers to pay a particular wage to every worker they choose to keep. While the minimum wage may be well-intentioned public policy, it often hurts the very workers most in need of help.

Minimum wage should be 21.75, if it kept up with living standards since the 60s

Raising the minimum wage would only hurt everyone earning above those wages because those people would not see a raise. Next you would get inflation, hurting us all, due to the price of goods going up to cover the increase in wages for the unskilled jobs.

Not only that you would see most small businesses fail. No one will pay $25 for a fast food burger. Inflation would go through the roof and unemployment would skyrocket. Young people with no experience would be basically unemployable. The best thing to do to help the economy would be to abolish the minimum wage altogether. That would employ teenagers who could be learning job skills and make them more valuable employees as adults. Of course, if your real intent is to wreck the economy and move toward a socialist state, this would be the way to go.

i think both Øbama & his Administration handlers are convinced that the shriveled up consumer spending at places like WalMart will get to be OK again....with a hike in the 'Minimum Wage'


these jokers still do now know how to stimulate the creation of NEW jobs... all they know is govt spending

As schuyler and the post above his/hers says, it won't do much good, and will likely hurt the economy. I disagree that abolishing the minimum wage is the way to go. None of these numbers changing will much matter until the fundamentals are changed. I mean actual objective changes, not just abstractions.

That means bringing jobs back to the states. I don't know exactly what policies have changed in the last 15-30 years, but am certain some good minds out there have a clue. Whatever regulations and trade policies lead to the outsourcing of jobs, it needs to be reversed. We simply don't have enough high paying jobs to match all the people holding college degrees out there.

Until we take on these failed policy changes under the guise of "free trade", all of these talks of improvement are nonsense.

Originally posted by schuyler
Not only that you would see most small businesses fail. No one will pay $25 for a fast food burger. Inflation would go through the roof and unemployment would skyrocket. Young people with no experience would be basically unemployable. The best thing to do to help the economy would be to abolish the minimum wage altogether. That would employ teenagers who could be learning job skills and make them more valuable employees as adults. Of course, if your real intent is to wreck the economy and move toward a socialist state, this would be the way to go.

Yes.. because corporations are such honest and trustworthy groups, who truly care about the individual worker. No.. abolishing the minimum wage would only serve to have these bloated corporations start paying way below the current minimum wage (which is a joke... no human being could survive on it). The minimum wage helps people to at the very least not be paid slave wages. My very first job as a teenager was working at an animal farm. They got away with not paying me minimum wage of $6 an hour (i think at the time), by claiming I was "farm wages".. and only paying me $3.50 an hour.

Companies are all about the bottom line. Any way they can cut costs to keep spending down and profits up, they will do it.

reply to post by CALGARIAN


Can we have a video with some guy who doesn't think screaming makes his points valid?

Seriously.

Did raising the minimum wage in the past work to help those workers making minimum wage make more because they are paid more per hour (number of hours worked is a different debate). Yes.

Did raising the minimum wage in the past significantly and adversely affect people to the point where it was a bad idea or it didn't work? No.

It gave people more money in their pockets. The market adjusts for minimum wage.

Will this "work." Yes. It will give an increase in income to those who slave for virtually nothing and are barely able to make ends meet.

I know a LOT of people who need and deserve this, especially since minimum wage is not currently proportion or reflect the increases in cost of living!

That in itself it the most important socially human factor.

If the government is so authoritarian these days, why dosen't Obama just do an executive order that says NO ONE can raise any prices for 10 years.

Idk, don't let people use raising the minimum wage as an excuse for artificial price gouging. I mean, sure tiny businesses will suffer -- but big companies (where most people buy most of their goods) will just take a dent in their already obscene profit margins.

Force those companies to not raise prices.

It's to simple and not exactly democratic to work. I know. I'm simply trying to find solutions.

ETA: Besides, money is nothing more than numbers in computer systems anyway!

The minimum wage needs to be raised period.

All this talk about inflation and loss of jobs is bs, it's high time people stooped identifying with those who enslave them and got real on the subject.

You know what's hurting people right now? The face that to avoid damn health insurance businesses all over the country particularly fast food and others wont assign more than 20-25 hrs a week. I have a buddy working 3 jobs so he can do 10 hrs better than a 40 hr work week...

Meanwhile that same kids register is clocking 2500-4500 a night of which he gets 52.00 - taxes - student loan deduction over six hrs...

It's INSANE already, I own a small business and this is all LIES I can pay the stupid health insurance and make... 120 instead of 190 G whatever and handle the freaking 1.50 or whatever pay increase too, it doesn't do me any good to have retarded unhealthy employees who can't eat right or live like humans our workers are reduced to walmart drones, morons who can't do anything but a specific function...at best.

Raise it to 10.00 please, I can NOT watch people starve and suffer, we're a step above North Korea at this point... I have money, i'll make less or work harder, I have to LIVE amongst people who in the end might carry DISEASES or KILL me for a cheeseburger

ENOUGH... 40 extra G a year in my pocket is NOT worth Hepatitis or getting stabbed or rampant drug abuse around me from poverty... One gets you killed the other makes you work an extra 90 minutes a day to make up the money EVERYONE should be on board with this.

The Inflation is bs.... the .99 cent meal would have to be the 1.25 meal it wont make or break many businesses a movie ticket going up a buck is fine... the TRUTH is Corporations will take advantage of the protest to GOUGE us that's where the only real and meaningful inflation would come from and GOUGING should be punishable by Death...I mean that

Do you think it's only fair that minimum wage be raised to standard living
& what ever that difference is, it should be applied to everyone? Doesn't
seem like there's any room for different classes & there are people that paid big
bucks for an education & they are not making much more than minimum
wage. So it seems logical that whenever minimum wage is raised $2.00
that everyone should get that $2.00 / hr raise.

I have no clue how this all works, just me thoughts & trying to learn.

Cheers
Ektar

Raise the minimum wage ok but companies will just jack up their prices to make up for the short fall . not really a win win situation

I think he needs to focus on job growth.

Not stagnation.

No matter how you cut it. A minmim wage increase will kill job growth and creation.

No excuses no BS, businesses will adjust to the increase. This will not work out to more jobs.

This should be decided at the state level. How can you average Minnesota prices with California and Hawaii and have the result have relevance to each? We might as well just ask the UN to set our minimum wage so we can compete with China.

Well I can say honestly that this will kill the middle class. When the minimum wage was raised to $7.25 or whatever it is now here in Louisiana it really hurt. It was great people got a little bigger number on their check. But as many have said all that did was raise the price on milk and bread about $2 more to cover the cost. Now me making around $15 an hour didn’t magically go to $17 dollars an hour. It just meant that EVERYONE that wasn’t making minimum wage took a $2 an hour pay cut. This is the most retarded thing I have ever seen and I personally believe it is all just part of a bigger plot. I really think that Obama just wants to completely tank the economy and start over. And I really don’t think he cares what happens when it does.

Everyone says that a depression wont be that bad. Look at the last one. People were hungry but basically ok and it helped even out. You know what they didn’t have back then? Massive firepower and DRUGS. When there is no money and no way to get it through depression do you think your average crack head will just say “oh there’s no money, guess I’ll stop doing crack for a little while.” NO! This entire country will simply implode into meaningless violence and robbery. You will need guns to protect yourself while the government is screaming to take the guns to protect you. There is such a massive drug problem in this country that people don’t even see because it is hidden. Mainly in plain sight. I bet almost everyone on here knows someone that takes pain medication or something of the sort for whatever medical “problem” they have. What do you think happens when that all goes away or is unaffordable.

My advice, everyone stock up on ammo. The day is coming and I personally think the government knows and is trying to usher it in. Great changes don’t happen without great things happening. Look at Pearl Harbor and the twin towers.

By raising the Federal minimum wage to such a point it will force the States to match or beat it. In a time where the job market is over-saturated with supply and not enough demand, artificially placing a wage-floor will drive that demand down even more while pushing the supply of labor even higher. It is simple economics really but it is a feel-good measure that no one examines beyond -- "If it helps out the low-income, then yes I am for it".

reply to post by CALGARIAN


You need to CAP profits not increase wages. I think capping yearly earnings at $150,000 a year would create a great trickle down effect.

If you prevent gross wage abuse of empoyees and price gouging then all those massive profits that line the bank accounts will have to go elsewhere. Money is the blood of the economy and right now its clotting because rich people just want to get richer for no other reason than greed.

I work for a small company. The company has to stay competitive with pricing in order to stay in business. So the owner has a choice. Keep all employees and pay out the new minimum wage or get rid of a quarter of the employees so the prices of our products will not rise.

If the minimum wage is risen and one quarter of the employees are laid off that leaves 75 percent of the people to do 100 percent of the work.

Employees start getting very stressed from the heightened work load and go home and carry on their stress. Family life suffers from the earnings makers new stressed out life. Parents play with their kids less, parents don't feel like helping kids with homework.

Parents now stressed start getting addicted to drugs in order to start coping with the stress from work. Parents get divorced forcing their children to live with one parent. With the only parent now, who is working all day, the child is left to him/her self to be bored all day. Bored kids get into trouble.

So I conclude that when the minimum wage is set to a higher level, the childrens future lives will be in jeopardy.

Minimum wages are set in good faith. But they carry great expenses.

Originally posted by penninja
The minimum wage needs to be raised period.

It's INSANE already, I own a small business and this is all LIES I can pay the stupid health insurance and make... 120 instead of 190 G whatever and handle the freaking 1.50 or whatever pay increase too, it doesn't do me any good to have retarded unhealthy employees who can't eat right or live like humans our workers are reduced to walmart drones, morons who can't do anything but a specific function...at best.

Raise it to 10.00 please, I can NOT watch people starve and suffer, we're a step above North Korea at this point... I have money, i'll make less or work harder, I have to LIVE amongst people who in the end might carry DISEASES or KILL me for a cheeseburger

ENOUGH... 40 extra G a year in my pocket is NOT worth Hepatitis or getting stabbed or rampant drug abuse around me from poverty... One gets you killed the other makes you work an extra 90 minutes a day to make up the money EVERYONE should be on board with this.

The Inflation is bs.... the .99 cent meal would have to be the 1.25 meal it wont make or break many businesses a movie ticket going up a buck is fine... the TRUTH is Corporations will take advantage of the protest to GOUGE us that's where the only real and meaningful inflation would come from and GOUGING should be punishable by Death...I mean that

REALLY!!!!! Why the hell aren't you paying your employees $10.00 an hour already???? You need a damn federal law to be enacted for you to do what you feel is the right thing? Freakin fraud.

Corporations spend billions to make even MORE billions by outsourcing. There's a reason for that.... it's called cheap labor, AKA overhead. Since a good fraction of expenses is personnel......figure it out. If minimum wage rose by 25%, the cost of items will raise by at least 25%. When prices go up, people spend less. It’s called the law of demand. The higher the price, the less the demand. There are NO KNOWN EXCEPTIONS to the law of demand (Economics 101).