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#27 Dec 20 2013 at 1:51 PM Rating: Excellent
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someproteinguy wrote:
Cleaning less baby bums would be appreciated too.

Baby bums are a result of the Obama economic agenda. Turn 'em into hobos while they're young so they'll vote Democratic forever!
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#28 Dec 20 2013 at 2:01 PM Rating: Decent
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Baby bums are a result of the Obama economic agenda. Turn 'em into hobos while they're young so they'll vote Democratic forever!


I was unemployed before he even started his second term. Times are hard.
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#29 Dec 20 2013 at 2:45 PM Rating: Decent
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Almalieque wrote:
Gbaji wrote:
Corporations pay their workers what the labor market will bear. When government steps in and gets involved, it can affect that market. And in some cases, it affects the market negatively. Corporations don't take into account whether or not government assistance programs exist when deciding how much to pay people.


Yes, it can affect the market. More people start buying more stuff which equates to more business.


Sure. That's a possible effect of government assistance programs. But this does not have any direct effect on how much businesses pay their employees. Businesses do not think "We made more money, so lets pay our employees more". The find whomever will accept the least amount of pay for the job, and they hire that person. The only reason they would pay more is if that person will do a poor job relative to someone demanding a higher salary. That's why its a market. You face precisely the same choice when you go to the store and make a decision between buying the $2 pack of hotdog buns and the $5 pack. You will only buy the more expensive one if it's sufficiently "better" to justify the cost. If they're identical, you'll buy the cheapest one every single time.

No one walks into a store and thinks "I got a 5% raise this year, so I'll pay 5% more for hotdog buns this year than last". I'm frankly mystified why some people think that businesses should think this way.

Quote:
Gbaji wrote:
People may take those factors into account when choosing to accept a job for a given wage, which may in turn cause wages to become lower in some industries where government benefits can/do pick up the slack, but that is not something the employer causes.


So you are saying that people turn down BETTER paying jobs for worse because the government will provide subsidies? "I don't want to make a lot of money, I want to earn less and receive subsidies from the government to barely get by!"


No. That's not remotely what I'm saying. That's just... did you read what I wrote? Because your response makes no sense at all.


What I'm saying is that people are more likely to accept a lower wage for the same job if they are receiving additional financial assistance than if they are not. They don't turn down a higher paying job, but if an employer offers them $X/hour and they know that this plus whatever assistance they're getting is sufficient for them to get by, they are less likely to risk not getting the job at all by demanding a higher wage. Thus, they'll accept a lower wage.

Why does this matter? Because if you're trying to support yourself on your wage and are competing for the same job against a student who is living under their parents roof and therefore doesn't need as high a wage, you're going to have a hard time finding a job that pays enough to get by. Why would an employer pay you a higher wage if he can get the same job done by a student for less? He wont. So even if you are not receiving any assistance at all, your wage potential is affected by the presence of other people in the same labor market who are.

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Gbaji wrote:
And yes, that can mean that in some industries wages would be higher if government assistance wasn't available, but again, that's not a choice of the employer, but a collective choice by the employees reacting to the presence or absence of government assistance. If there's no government assistance then everyone has to seek payment sufficient to pay for their own subsistence at a minimum. This will tend to drive up wages at the low end. It's only when some are willing to accept lower payment that it is driven down. And this can happen anytime someone is in the labor market who is not dependent on that wage for their livelihood (so supported to some degree by some method other than their own labor). This can be a minor entering the workforce, but still living under their parents roof, or it can be someone who's receiving government food and housing assistance.


Complete and utter BS. Employers will ALWAYS pay what they can get away with, regardless if there is a minimum wage or not.


I wasn't talking about minimum wage. I was talking about financial assistance (so housing/food/etc). Totally different things. But it's interesting that you get that employer will pay the least they can get away with, but seemed to completely fail to grasp the implications of this in the earlier part of your response.

Let me put this as plainly as possible (ignoring minimum wage laws and just looking at baseline wages) :

What they "can get away with" is based on what employees will accept in return for their labor.

Employees are willing to accept less for their labor if they are receiving assistance that makes up the difference.

Ergo. The existence of that assistance drives down wages within the labor markets where people receiving assistance make up even a modest portion.


Quote:
If there were no minimum wages, those people working at McDonalds would be paid less than what they are now.


Sure. The high school students working at McDonalds would be paid less than what they are now. And as a result entry level folks competing for the same jobs would be paid less. But those with some work experience and skills that put them even marginally above that entry level will be paid more. So the person working the grill and/or fryolator will be paid less. But the person working the register might be paid more. The shift leads definitely will be paid more. The assistance managers and store managers and what not will be paid more as well.

What minimum wage does is eliminate upward mobility at the low end of the wage range. It makes the guy with two years experience at McDonalds not earn significantly more than the kid who started last week. And that's a killer for a lot of people. When you factor in cost of living increases over time, it's even worse. I said earlier that businesses will not automatically pay their workers because they make higher profits, however, higher profits does set an upward bounds on what they are willing to pay for workers who are better than entry level. They don't do this out of the goodness of their hearts but because those workers have greater skill and can thus demand higher wages. And guess what? If you haven't forced businesses in low margin industries (like retail and fast food) to pay high school students a vastly higher wage than they need (or are worth), then they *could* pay their more experienced workers more. But when you raise minimum wage, you make them less willing to pay their more experienced workers more. And this affects the resulting pay in a negative way.


There's somewhat of a feedback loop in the system itself. And not a good one. The rules that people put in place out of a presumably honest desire to help people actually creates something of a wage trap, often hurting exactly those people they originally set out to help.

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#30 Dec 20 2013 at 3:02 PM Rating: Decent
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You face precisely the same choice when you go to the store and make a decision between buying the $2 pack of hotdog buns and the $5 pack.

Right, exactly the same as people, hot dog rolls. You just don't like the taste of pumpernickel ones, we know, it's nothing else.
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#31 Dec 20 2013 at 3:33 PM Rating: Excellent
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Quote:
Employees are willing to accept less for their labor if they are receiving assistance that makes up the difference.

For the love of God, NO. Folks living in abject poverty will take ANY job they can get at ANY pay scale. There isn't any negotiation or market forces involved.

This flawed logic is one of the reasons I'd never describe myself as a conservative, even though I lean slightly to the right. This absurd ******** that poor folks should hold out for a better job and go to college to get a better one and such tripe, is just that, absurd.

Poor folks don't have the luxury of holding out and once they do get a job, everything goes to mere survival. Any money left over will go to maintaining their hunk of **** car that's a money pit as it was already well beyond it's useful life before it ever plummeted to be within their price range.

Let's not forget that since they are poor they also have poor credit, so that hunk of **** car and insurance and everything else costs them more. There's always something claiming what few dollars they do have. Poverty is a sucking black hole trap. It's almost impossible to claw your way out.

I got lucky. I clawed my way out and I can tell you from experience that the more conservatives talk about the solutions to poverty, the more it's obvious they have either never been poor or just want to pat themselves on the back and claim "hard work and brains" when it was really "help and luck." Especially when they claim it was "market forces" that set them free. The "market" ***** poor people.
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#32 Dec 20 2013 at 3:44 PM Rating: Excellent
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CoalHeart wrote:
Poor folks don't have the luxury of holding out and once they do get a job, everything goes to mere survival. Any money left over will go to maintaining their hunk of sh*t car that's a money pit as it was already well beyond it's useful life before it ever plummeted to be within their price range.
Poor people can't afford cars.
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#33 Dec 20 2013 at 3:48 PM Rating: Excellent
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#34 Dec 20 2013 at 3:49 PM Rating: Good
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someproteinguy wrote:
CoalHeart wrote:
Poor folks don't have the luxury of holding out and once they do get a job, everything goes to mere survival. Any money left over will go to maintaining their hunk of sh*t car that's a money pit as it was already well beyond it's useful life before it ever plummeted to be within their price range.
Poor people can't afford cars.



I stand corrected.Smiley: smile
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#35 Dec 20 2013 at 4:42 PM Rating: Decent
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CoalHeart wrote:
Quote:
Employees are willing to accept less for their labor if they are receiving assistance that makes up the difference.

For the love of God, NO. Folks living in abject poverty will take ANY job they can get at ANY pay scale. There isn't any negotiation or market forces involved.


First off, there is always negotiation and market forces involved. Even if those market forces are "I will starve to death if I don't take this crappy job", we're still talking about market forces. Hand waving this away and pretending it doesn't exist or matter is just sidestepping the issue IMO.

Secondly, not everyone is in abject poverty. Leaping right to the most desperate scenario and ignoring the masses of people living at levels above that also constitutes a sidestep of the larger issue. People don't just magically wake up one day in abject poverty. They arrive there, usually as a result of a long sequence of events and choices. Ignoring those things, and all of the factors that conspired to create their condition is incredibly disingenuous.

Most people are not actually in abject poverty. Most people do have choices about whether to take a job or not. And, as I quite clearly described above, their decisions and every factor that affects their decisions, also tends to have an effect on the wage market of everyone else in the same basic industry and skill level. Someone who is living under their parents roofs, or under some other form of financial assistance will weigh that against the value of the wage they are paid (or even whether to take a job at all). And this will tend to drive wages at the low end down. Which, ironically, actually helps lead to more people ending out in the very state of abject poverty you mentioned.

Quote:
This flawed logic is one of the reasons I'd never describe myself as a conservative, even though I lean slightly to the right. This absurd bullsh*t that poor folks should hold out for a better job and go to college to get a better one and such tripe, is just that, absurd.


That's not what I said. You are repeating the same incorrect assumption Alma made and assuming I'm talking about an individual choosing to not take a specific single job. But that's not my point at all. I'm saying the opposite: That the presence of financial assistance of any kind tends to make the choice to accept lower pay for the same job easier. And this will drive wages down for that job, and other similar jobs. And that's why one might be put in a position of being offered a job for pay that isn't sufficient to pay the bills, but feeling that he must accept it because if he doesn't, someone else will.

If every single person applying for the job you're applying for need to support themselves on the pay, the pay will be higher. Labor has power to negotiate wages even in the absence of organized groups (like unions). It happens all the time, all around you. You just don't notice it because usually it's just that the wage for a given job is X, period. You don't know why it's X, but it is. Why does the guy working the register get paid more than the guy who stocks the shelves? Even at the same place of employment, and in the absence of a union, this is true. If you understand why that is true, then you'll understand why the market forces I'm talking about really do have the effect I'm talking about.

Quote:
Poverty is a sucking black hole trap. It's almost impossible to claw your way out.


Yes. Because our government creates so many helpful programs which make it that way. We create the equivalent of an earnings gravity well near minimum wage. It's very hard to get away from that. Once you do break free, much like breaking orbit, you suddenly find your salary increasing significantly. But until or unless you do that, you are "stuck". To an outside observer, this appears like some people just get lucky and everything works for them, while others are not and end out in an eternal cycle of poverty. But IMO, this effect is largely caused by the very social spending programs we have created. In their absence, economic advancement would be a much more smooth progression, with every raise making a difference.

Quote:
I got lucky. I clawed my way out and I can tell you from experience that the more conservatives talk about the solutions to poverty, the more it's obvious they have either never been poor or just want to pat themselves on the back and claim "hard work and brains" when it was really "help and luck." Especially when they claim it was "market forces" that set them free. The "market" @#%^s poor people.


No. The government screws over poor people. The market is indifferent. I think the biggest flaw in your position is that you think something should be present to "set them free". It should not work that way. Let people be paid based on the value of their labor, and the market will work. Force employers to pay people more than their labor is worth, and they pay that by reducing the amount they pay to everyone else. Give people "help", and it further reduces their need to demand higher wages. The net effect of this is to flatten upward mobility at the bottom end.

I've been there. I worked at near minimum wage jobs for the first 10 years of my working life. Guess what? It sucked. But you want to know what sucked the most? The realization that I was continually "near minimum wage" precisely because the government kept raising the minimum wage. There is nothing more demoralizing than working hard and getting that 50c/hour raise, only to see minimum wage go up 50c/hour and effectively eliminate your gain. Suddenly, you're making the same amount more than a guy who started yesterday, as you did a year ago. You realize you're not making any progress at all. And it sucks.


So yeah, I personally dislike when people assume that "if you're a conservative, you've never been poor". That's complete BS. Most people who are conservative are so because they realize that government help is as much of a hindrance to success as it is a help. We're trading an easier to live on bottom, for a steeper slope to get away from that bottom. I suspect that most people would rather be dirt poor when they're in their early 20s if the trade off is a greater likelihood of a upwardly mobile career in their 30s and beyond, than greater comfort financially when they need it least in exchange for increased odds that they'll be dependent on that support 10, 20, or 30 years later.



I just find it interesting that the bulk of your post was about how poverty sucks, but you spent absolutely zero time examining why people end out poor in the first place. Don't you think it's more important to figure that out and try to prevent people from being poor rather than making poverty more bearable? I do. And that's why I'm a conservative. We want to cure the disease, not just treat the symptoms. Government assistance does the opposite.
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#36 Dec 20 2013 at 5:02 PM Rating: Decent
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First off, there is always negotiation and market forces involved. Even if those market forces are "I will starve to death if I don't take this crappy job", we're still talking about market forces. Hand waving this away and pretending it doesn't exist or matter is just sidestepping the issue IMO.

Yes, they are market forces. Just not "free" market forces. Rape can be expressed by market forces, as well, it's a completely meaningless distinction. Any exchange requires "market forces". Taxation is a "market force". What a moronic thing to fixate on.
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#37 Dec 20 2013 at 5:06 PM Rating: Decent
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gbaji wrote:
CoalHeart wrote:
There isn't any negotiation or market forces involved.


First off, there is always negotiation and market forces involved. Even if those market forces are "I will starve to death if I don't take this crappy job", we're still talking about market forces. Hand waving this away and pretending it doesn't exist or matter is just sidestepping the issue IMO.


Smasharoo wrote:
First off, there is always negotiation and market forces involved. Even if those market forces are "I will starve to death if I don't take this crappy job", we're still talking about market forces. Hand waving this away and pretending it doesn't exist or matter is just sidestepping the issue IMO.

Yes, they are market forces. Just not "free" market forces. Rape can be expressed by market forces, as well, it's a completely meaningless distinction. Any exchange requires "market forces". Taxation is a "market force". What a moronic thing to fixate on.



I'll stop "fixating" on it the moment people stop claiming that there aren't any market forces involved.
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#38 Dec 20 2013 at 5:12 PM Rating: Good
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I'll stop "fixating" on it the moment people stop claiming that there aren't any market forces involved.


Well, those of us here in the prepared food buying, credit card using, capable of inferring things from context world of the "human" social contract understood "market forces" to mean "free market forces" because we don't have recent severe brain injuries nor any interest in feigning such to erect a pointless straw man. So I guess when people "stop" using language that's {universally - 1 person } understood, your problem will be solved.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Oh wait, sorry. Let me rephrase.

I would not anticipate other people completely engineering the agreed upon framework of English vernacular to suit your idiotic requirements.
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To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

#39 Dec 20 2013 at 5:17 PM Rating: Decent
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Gbaji wrote:
Sure. That's a possible effect of government assistance programs. But this does not have any direct effect on how much businesses pay their employees. Businesses do not think "We made more money, so lets pay our employees more". The find whomever will accept the least amount of pay for the job, and they hire that person. The only reason they would pay more is if that person will do a poor job relative to someone demanding a higher salary. That's why its a market. You face precisely the same choice when you go to the store and make a decision between buying the $2 pack of hotdog buns and the $5 pack. You will only buy the more expensive one if it's sufficiently "better" to justify the cost. If they're identical, you'll buy the cheapest one every single time.

No one walks into a store and thinks "I got a 5% raise this year, so I'll pay 5% more for hotdog buns this year than last". I'm frankly mystified why some people think that businesses should think this way.

Welcome to my point. The ultimate decision on pay wages comes down to what the employer can get away with. Just as a normal person wouldn't pay $5 for a pack of hotdog buns when there is an equivalent for $2, an employer would not pay a person $5 an hour, if they could get an equivalent for $2.
Gbaji wrote:
No. That's not remotely what I'm saying. That's just... did you read what I wrote? Because your response makes no sense at all.


What I'm saying is that people are more likely to accept a lower wage for the same job if they are receiving additional financial assistance than if they are not. They don't turn down a higher paying job, but if an employer offers them $X/hour and they know that this plus whatever assistance they're getting is sufficient for them to get by, they are less likely to risk not getting the job at all by demanding a higher wage. Thus, they'll accept a lower wage.

In order to blame the government assistance for enabling low wage paying jobs, you would have to argue that people turned down better paying jobs in order to receive government assistance. That is, unless, you are also advocating that a person would NOT work the same job without the government benefits. That is just as asinine, as minimum wage is better than nothing.

Gbaji wrote:
I wasn't talking about minimum wage. I was talking about financial assistance (so housing/food/etc). Totally different things. But it's interesting that you get that employer will pay the least they can get away with, but seemed to completely fail to grasp the implications of this in the earlier part of your response.

Let me put this as plainly as possible (ignoring minimum wage laws and just looking at baseline wages) :

What they "can get away with" is based on what employees will accept in return for their labor.

Employees are willing to accept less for their labor if they are receiving assistance that makes up the difference.

Ergo. The existence of that assistance drives down wages within the labor markets where people receiving assistance make up even a modest portion.

1. Your failure to comprehend my post isn't any indication of my own understanding. Maybe you should read entire posts to get the concept instead of simply posting by sections.

2. You are arguing that without GA (Government assistance), the lower wages would go up to meet the demand. I'm saying that is blatantly false, because your boss doesn't care if you have 5 kids, a spouse and a pile of debt. Your starting salary will be determined on what the employer thinks your worth is, which is mostly predetermined by the position/job that you are performing. If what you said were true, then we wouldn't be having this discussion because the corporations would raise the wages themselves to meet the demand now.

Gbaji wrote:
Sure. The high school students working at McDonalds would be paid less than what they are now. And as a result entry level folks competing for the same jobs would be paid less. But those with some work experience and skills that put them even marginally above that entry level will be paid more. So the person working the grill and/or fryolator will be paid less. But the person working the register might be paid more. The shift leads definitely will be paid more. The assistance managers and store managers and what not will be paid more as well.

Have you worked fast food before? Because it doesn't work that way. The primary people who get paid more are shift/swing managers and maintenance. Contrary to popular belief, you don't get paid just to do fries. As a crew member, you are able to do all jobs for the same wages. You may primarily work front counter or the grill, but your wages don't change because you changed positions.

Gbaji wrote:
What minimum wage does is eliminate upward mobility at the low end of the wage range. It makes the guy with two years experience at McDonalds not earn significantly more than the kid who started last week. And that's a killer for a lot of people. When you factor in cost of living increases over time, it's even worse. I said earlier that businesses will not automatically pay their workers because they make higher profits, however, higher profits does set an upward bounds on what they are willing to pay for workers who are better than entry level. They don't do this out of the goodness of their hearts but because those workers have greater skill and can thus demand higher wages. And guess what? If you haven't forced businesses in low margin industries (like retail and fast food) to pay high school students a vastly higher wage than they need (or are worth), then they *could* pay their more experienced workers more. But when you raise minimum wage, you make them less willing to pay their more experienced workers more. And this affects the resulting pay in a negative way.


There's somewhat of a feedback loop in the system itself. And not a good one. The rules that people put in place out of a presumably honest desire to help people actually creates something of a wage trap, often hurting exactly those people they originally set out to help.

Minimum wages prevent employers from paying nickels a day. As you said, there is no regulation preventing employers from paying the more experienced and better employees more. If the employer believes that there exist such a person, then the employer believes that those wages are comparable for the job. If their concern is overpaying high school students, then don't hire high school students. It's really that simple.

You are living in this fantasy world where employers care about the well being of their employees more than money. They hire high school students BECAUSE they will work for minimum wage and not have high demands. It goes back to buying the $5 buns instead of the equivalent $2 buns just because you have the money. The average person wont do it, so why should employers?

#40 Dec 20 2013 at 5:31 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
I've been there. I worked at near minimum wage jobs for the first 10 years of my working life. Guess what? It sucked. But you want to know what sucked the most? The realization that I was continually "near minimum wage" precisely because the government kept raising the minimum wage. There is nothing more demoralizing than working hard and getting that 50c/hour raise, only to see minimum wage go up 50c/hour and effectively eliminate your gain. Suddenly, you're making the same amount more than a guy who started yesterday, as you did a year ago. You realize you're not making any progress at all. And it sucks.

When this happened, I told my employer "Hey, I've been here five years, you want to keep me here, and I'm now making 20¢ more an hour than a guy who starts tomorrow" and they raised my wages to keep me happy. I guess either your employer didn't find your work especially valuable compared to a minimum wage earner or you were just too scared to ask.
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#41 Dec 20 2013 at 5:37 PM Rating: Default
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#42 Dec 20 2013 at 5:49 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:


I just find it interesting that the bulk of your post was about how poverty sucks, but you spent absolutely zero time examining why people end out poor in the first place. Don't you think it's more important to figure that out and try to prevent people from being poor rather than making poverty more bearable? I do. And that's why I'm a conservative. We want to cure the disease, not just treat the symptoms. Government assistance does the opposite.


I didn't cover that because in my experience, most poor folks "got there" the same way. They didn't fall asleep on the bus, miss their stop and wake up in poverty town. There's this phrase, you might of heard it. "Cycle of poverty". It means what you'd think. Most poor people I've known were born there. And make no mistake. There is a caste system. Breaking free and transcending your class is very difficult.


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#43 Dec 20 2013 at 5:59 PM Rating: Excellent
Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
I've been there. I worked at near minimum wage jobs for the first 10 years of my working life. Guess what? It sucked. But you want to know what sucked the most? The realization that I was continually "near minimum wage" precisely because the government kept raising the minimum wage. There is nothing more demoralizing than working hard and getting that 50c/hour raise, only to see minimum wage go up 50c/hour and effectively eliminate your gain. Suddenly, you're making the same amount more than a guy who started yesterday, as you did a year ago. You realize you're not making any progress at all. And it sucks.

When this happened, I told my employer "Hey, I've been here five years, you want to keep me here, and I'm now making 20¢ more an hour than a guy who starts tomorrow" and they raised my wages to keep me happy. I guess either your employer didn't find your work especially valuable compared to a minimum wage earner or you were just too scared to ask.


If Gbaji argues IRL like he does here then an employer would not wait an hour for Gbaji to argue why he needed a raise ....

#44 Dec 20 2013 at 7:34 PM Rating: Decent
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Almalieque wrote:
Welcome to my point. The ultimate decision on pay wages comes down to what the employer can get away with. Just as a normal person wouldn't pay $5 for a pack of hotdog buns when there is an equivalent for $2, an employer would not pay a person $5 an hour, if they could get an equivalent for $2.


Uh... That was my analogy. So we're agreed that people don't pay more for something if they don't have to, and that includes wages for employees. Great! Progress.


Quote:
Gbaji wrote:
No. That's not remotely what I'm saying. That's just... did you read what I wrote? Because your response makes no sense at all.


What I'm saying is that people are more likely to accept a lower wage for the same job if they are receiving additional financial assistance than if they are not. They don't turn down a higher paying job, but if an employer offers them $X/hour and they know that this plus whatever assistance they're getting is sufficient for them to get by, they are less likely to risk not getting the job at all by demanding a higher wage. Thus, they'll accept a lower wage.

In order to blame the government assistance for enabling low wage paying jobs, you would have to argue that people turned down better paying jobs in order to receive government assistance. That is, unless, you are also advocating that a person would NOT work the same job without the government benefits. That is just as asinine, as minimum wage is better than nothing.


No. I've said this twice now. You even quoted me and quoted me asking if you'd actually read it the first time.

I'm arguing that people are more likely to accept a lower wage for the same job if they are receiving additional financial assistance than if they are not. What part of this is confusing to you? You need to earn $1000/month to scrape by. You fill out an application for a job. Your potential employer tells you that he'll pay you $800/month. If you're currently receiving $200/month in food stamps (for example), you'll take the job because it fulfills your earnings requirements. If you are *not* receiving any government assistance, you'll have to take the job because if you don't, the guy who is will.

The point is that the wages for that job are set at $800/month because there are sufficient workers in the market for whom that's a sufficient wage and they wont demand higher. This means that those for whom it isn't a sufficient wage are screwed. Get it? If there was zero financial assistance being provided to anyone looking for that job, the job would pay $1000/month. And I get that this looks at first glance like I'm saying that people would turn down that job, but that's not really how it would work. The market force of people looking for jobs that pay at least $1000/month will force the employer (who presumably needs someone to fill that job slot) to raise his pay to meet that need.

The larger point is that the market will adjust to this and a typical person looking for a job wont actually be forced to choose not to take the job that doesn't pay him enough, because the job will simply naturally be valued at a reasonable wage that will fill his needs. Your argument is like insisting that food prices will rise without end because people have to eat. Clearly, they don't though. Some force prevents food buyers from having to make a choice between starvation and paying more than they can afford for food. And guess what? They don't have to make that choice. The market forces exist naturally and keep food prices down at an affordable level.

Same deal here. Just as you don't have to run around town refusing to pay $100 for a loaf of bread (and going hungry because of that choice), the potential employee doesn't have to run around refusing to work for low wages (and going without sufficient income because of that choice). The market will adjust those things without you physically having to run around suffering because of it. What's bizarre is that we see this market effect working all around us every single day and yet some people have built entire socio-political agendas around the assumption that it wont happen.

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2. You are arguing that without GA (Government assistance), the lower wages would go up to meet the demand. I'm saying that is blatantly false, because your boss doesn't care if you have 5 kids, a spouse and a pile of debt. Your starting salary will be determined on what the employer thinks your worth is, which is mostly predetermined by the position/job that you are performing. If what you said were true, then we wouldn't be having this discussion because the corporations would raise the wages themselves to meet the demand now.


No. You apparently don't understand what I'm saying because you keep responding to me in nonsensical ways.

First off, I'm not talking just about government assistance. I'm talking about the wage effect when there are participants in the labor market who are receiving any sort of financial assistance. This includes dependents btw. It's really not speculation (or should not be one). It should be completely obvious that if you are competing for a job against someone who doesn't need as much money as you do, you'll lose (losing being defined as having to take lower pay than you need). Everything else being the same, the fact that someone is getting $X/month in financial assistance means that their personal wage "floor" is lower by that exact amount.

Secondly, you're still missing the point. Your (potential) boss doesn't care if you have 5 kids, a spouse, and a pile of debt, but you do. Those facts will push you to obtain employment that will pay for your needs. And the degree to which that is "typical" of the labor force will determine to what degree that need does apply pressure on wages in the market. And guess what? Businesses (and especially "corporations") do raise wages to meet relative cost of living demands. If that wasn't true, and the only thing keeping wages up was minimum wage, then everyone would earn minimum wage.

What you mean to say is that it doesn't always increase to meet the demand of every single individual's needs in the labor market. That is true. But is not necessarily a flaw, nor should we chuck out the whole system because there are some exceptions where the rule doesn't generate a good outcome. I'd say someone with 5 kids and no ability to demand a sufficient wage to support them perhaps shouldn't have had those 5 kids in the first place. Wouldn't you agree?


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Have you worked fast food before? Because it doesn't work that way. The primary people who get paid more are shift/swing managers and maintenance. Contrary to popular belief, you don't get paid just to do fries. As a crew member, you are able to do all jobs for the same wages. You may primarily work front counter or the grill, but your wages don't change because you changed positions.


Uh... I was saying what would happen if we changed things, not how they are now. In jobs outside the gravity well of minimum wage laws and financial assistance, people who do tasks which require more skill or experience tend to get paid more than those who perform simpler tasks. But, as you just confirmed, in low wage and/or entry level jobs in our current workforce (that's inside the gravity well I spoke of), this doesn't tend to happen. The guy working the register (which presumably requires more skill and isn't something you put people on the first day) doesn't earn appreciably more than the guy who just learned how to operate the fryolater.

There's a host of reasons for this, but the most important point is that it's not normal and it shouldn't happen that way. We cause it to happen because we've created an environment where all workers within that gravity well range are considered interchangeable and their wages reflect it. This is precisely what I was talking about when I said that upward mobility at the low end of the wage scale is flattened. The guy working the register *should* earn more than the guy working the fryolater. And in higher paying jobs (even just marginally higher paying), the equivalent situation does happen. All the time.



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Minimum wages prevent employers from paying nickels a day.


No, it doesn't. In precisely the same way that a "maximum loaf cost" law isn't required to prevent bread from costing $100/loaf. You've been taught this false belief your entire life, but it is really false. We don't need a minimum wage, and it's quite arguable that minimum wage laws contribute more to causing and perpetuating poverty than they help anyone at all.

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As you said, there is no regulation preventing employers from paying the more experienced and better employees more. If the employer believes that there exist such a person, then the employer believes that those wages are comparable for the job. If their concern is overpaying high school students, then don't hire high school students. It's really that simple.


Sure. And that does happen. But there's a constant flow of new/young workers entering the labor market, and they tend to have lower financial needs than everyone else who's already in the market. Put another way, every single year you work, your financial needs increase relative to this years crop of new workers. This isn't something you can legislate away. The only way to offset that is with upward mobility. You need to maximize the odds that the longer someone is in the labor market the more valuable their labor will be. My argument is that financial assistance retards that upward mobility at the lower income ranges, which is precisely where it is needed the most. You need to be able to have a clear market advantage against the teen who just entered the market this year. But the way our system is rigged, it makes it far more likely that unless you've managed to get out of those entry level industries entirely, your going to be viewed identically and have to constantly compete with their lower financial needs (and lose, as I mentioned earlier).

That's how people get sucked into poverty for their entire lives.

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You are living in this fantasy world where employers care about the well being of their employees more than money.


Nope. Not even remotely close to what I've been arguing. It's amusing though how no matter how many times I keep saying that's not it, you keep returning to that assumption. You've somehow fallen into this trap of assuming that no one will ever pay a higher wage unless they're doing it out of the goodness of their heart or are forced to by some government action. The fact is that there are market forces outside those which force employers to pay higher wages. We don't need the government to make this happen.


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They hire high school students BECAUSE they will work for minimum wage and not have high demands.


Yes. Duh. I've been saying that all along. See, the problem isn't that you and I disagree with this, but that you think that the only reason an employer would pay more than minimum wage is if the government forces them to (ie: raises that minimum). That's where I disagree with you, and at the risk of repeating myself, the proof that I'm right is in the fact that most people make more than minimum wage. An overwhelming majority of workers do. If you were correct, most people would make minimum wage, with perhaps a small number of super valuable people earning more.

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It goes back to buying the $5 buns instead of the equivalent $2 buns just because you have the money. The average person wont do it, so why should employers?


Sigh... You completely missed the point of that example. The average person wont do it just because he has the money. The average person will buy the $5 buns if they are sufficiently better buns to justify the extra cost. I think your hangup is that you've taken the example too literally. What will actually happen is that there will be $2 buns, and $2.50 buns, and $3.00 buns, and $3.50 buns, etc, on up to $5. And based on the quality of the buns and the desire any given consumer has for higher quality buns, different consumers will purchase different buns. Similarly, in a free market, employers will pay very little for labor which gains them very little, and pay a bit more for labor which is more valuable to them, and a little more for the next step in value, etc.

The employer doesn't pay more for labor because he has the money, so the comparison you're trying to make doesn't work. The employer pays more because the labor is worth more to him. Just as a consumer will pay more for a higher quality bun. Is this really a hard concept to grasp? Again, if that wasn't true, there wouldn't be $5 buns for sale in the grocery store. They'd all be priced at the lowest level. But that's not true, is it? There's a wide variety of products in the store, for a wide variety of prices. Your argument basically rests on the assumption that no one will pay more than the minimum priced version of something. But that isn't true, is it?

The fact that consumers absolutely do choose to pay more for a better product means that employers will pay more for a more skilled/experienced employee. That's the analogy. You don't buy the higher priced brand because you have more money, or because you feel like helping out the store owner. You buy it because you believe its worth the extra cost. That's the market force which forces employers to pay their employees more money even in the absence of a wage law mandating it.

Edited, Dec 20th 2013 5:44pm by gbaji
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#45 Dec 20 2013 at 7:54 PM Rating: Decent
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Hahaha Alma trolling people Gbaji in a thread about trolling people. I have to give him a rate up for that.



Edited, Dec 20th 2013 8:56pm by rdmcandie
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#46 Dec 20 2013 at 7:57 PM Rating: Decent
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CoalHeart wrote:
Most poor people I've known were born there.


Yes. Born to parents who were unable to break free of the entry level job gravity well. Raised in an environment where they were dependent on financial assistance to get by. Taught that the significant gap between their expected standard of living and the value of their labor was normal. And then thrust into a job market that can't possibly provide for that expected outcome. And then falling back onto yet more financial assistance themselves when the nearly certain outcome of their own inability to provide for themselves occurs.

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And make no mistake. There is a caste system. Breaking free and transcending your class is very difficult.


I agree. However, I believe that this caste system exists (well, is much more pronounced anyway) because of those assistance programs, not in spite of them. At some point, doesn't it ever occur to you to ask if maybe the massive correlation between poverty and children raised on public assistance programs maybe has something to do with the assistance itself and not just with the poverty of their parents?

Do you think the odds of a child of poor parents succeeding today is greater or less than it was prior to the creation of those programs? Did we have the same degree of generational poverty prior to say the "Great Society" changes? I would argue we have much more generational poverty than we did then. We've made things worse, not better. But the folks in charge of creating and maintaining these programs have a massive interest in making sure that people, most specifically the poor folks they target their programs towards, don't ever figure this out.
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#47 Dec 20 2013 at 8:32 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
CoalHeart wrote:
Most poor people I've known were born there.


Yes. Born to parents who were unable to break free of the entry level job gravity well. Raised in an environment where they were dependent on financial assistance to get by. Taught that the significant gap between their expected standard of living and the value of their labor was normal. And then thrust into a job market that can't possibly provide for that expected outcome. And then falling back onto yet more financial assistance themselves when the nearly certain outcome of their own inability to provide for themselves occurs.

Quote:
And make no mistake. There is a caste system. Breaking free and transcending your class is very difficult.


I agree. However, I believe that this caste system exists (well, is much more pronounced anyway) because of those assistance programs, not in spite of them. At some point, doesn't it ever occur to you to ask if maybe the massive correlation between poverty and children raised on public assistance programs maybe has something to do with the assistance itself and not just with the poverty of their parents?

Do you think the odds of a child of poor parents succeeding today is greater or less than it was prior to the creation of those programs? Did we have the same degree of generational poverty prior to say the "Great Society" changes? I would argue we have much more generational poverty than we did then. We've made things worse, not better. But the folks in charge of creating and maintaining these programs have a massive interest in making sure that people, most specifically the poor folks they target their programs towards, don't ever figure this out.


I think poor kids grow up to be poor adults due to lack of money. If you're born into a middle class or above household, you have a significant advantage. Yes, you may start off making low wages at your first job or in college, but how many of these "upper class" kids received no assistance from their families? Hell, many brag about how they made minimum wage and 'understand" poverty, but leave out that their parents paid for their car among other financial assistance.

Those "little favors" make all the difference in the world. Note, I'm not crying about it, just stating that I'm tired of hearing "solutions" from folks that have no actual experience.


Edited, Dec 20th 2013 9:34pm by CoalHeart

Edited, Dec 20th 2013 9:36pm by CoalHeart
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#48 Dec 20 2013 at 8:52 PM Rating: Excellent
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CoalHeart wrote:
I think poor kids grow up to be poor adults due to lack of money.
Smiley: dubious

...

...

...


Um... really?


Smiley: banghead

Edited, Dec 20th 2013 6:54pm by someproteinguy
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#49 Dec 20 2013 at 8:53 PM Rating: Default
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CoalHeart wrote:
I think poor kids grow up to be poor adults due to lack of money.


I'd say they grow up to be poor adults due to lack of good employment when they become adults. This can be affected by their parents lack of money, but your parents income has nothing to do with your income *now*. It only affects your life situation when growing up under their roof. The question I'm asking you to consider is whether the rate of poor kids growing up to become poor adults is higher, lower, or the same since we started creating tons of assistance programs for poor people.

And if the answer is anything other than "the likelihood of a poor child being a poor adult is much lower than it was prior to the creation of these programs", doesn't that by itself call the value of those programs into question?

Quote:
If you're born into a middle class or above household, you have a significant advantage. Yes, you may start off making low wages at your first job or in college, but how many of these "upper class" kids received no assistance from their families? Hell, many brag about how they made minimum wage and 'understand" poverty, but leave out that their parents paid for their car among other financial assistance.


I'm sure some do. But "some" is not "all". And unless you're willing to argue that every single conservative who says this really received help, you can't dismiss what they're saying on that grounds (ie: come up with a better counter argument).

Quote:
Those "little favors" make all the difference in the world. Note, I'm not crying about it, just stating that I'm tired of hearing "solutions" from folks that have no actual experience, just what seems logical and works on paper.


This is circular if you assume that everyone providing those solutions which you disagree with must really have no actual experience. Look. I received zero help from my parents. Not one dime for a car. Not one dime for education. I moved out (was kicked out actually) of the house at age 18. I worked near minimum wage jobs because I had to in order to pay rent and eat. I worked through that and eventually out of it. So for me personally, it's kinda offensive for you to dismiss my entire position, not on any sort of logical grounds, but because you just assume that I "don't really get it" (btw, this is where Smash usually injects his "you fell out of a white ****** and thus into the easy life" bit, so please don't go that direction either).

That's a BS cop out. If you disagree with me, state why. Tell me why you think I'm wrong. Tell me how you were unable to overcome adversity as a result of any hard work or effort on your own part, and the only thing that saved you from eternal poverty was a government handout. I mean, that's what we're talking about, right? I'm not arguing that everyone will succeed. I am saying that most government assistance programs not only don't help people succeed, but actually make it harder for people who grow up in poorer neighborhoods/households to succeed. As I stated earlier: Conservatives want to find solutions to the problem, while Liberals just want to treat the symptoms.

And that may sound just fine, but no amount of food stamps and housing assistance makes you not poor. Only employment can make you not be poor. So it should be apparent that the only real solution to poverty is increased opportunities for employment. I just happen to think we should not abandon that just because the fact remains that not everyone will get a good job. That's just tossing the baby out with the bathwater.
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#50 Dec 20 2013 at 9:06 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
I received zero help from my parents. Not one dime for a car. Not one dime for education. I moved out (was kicked out actually) of the house at age 18. I worked near minimum wage jobs because I had to in order to pay rent and eat. I worked through that and eventually out of it.

I've said before that I don't for a second believe the bolded bit; but just for a second I'll pretend to.

Having said that; What was the great transition for you from "so poor I slept in my car" to "6-digit income and a condo"?

Did you get an education? Was it free? Was it subsidized?

Or did you, as Smash has suggested, luck out by being in the right place at the right time for your career field?

Edited, Dec 21st 2013 7:25pm by Bijou
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#51 Dec 20 2013 at 9:08 PM Rating: Good
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Bah haha God you are ******* oblivious aren't you.

Poverty having no lasting effect on someone after they move out of mom and dads house...God damn that is funny.
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