colourwheel Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 (edited) In America About 42% of the financial wealth is in the hands of the top 1% of the nation. the bottom 80% have their hands on only 5% of financial wealth. Globally about 400 people control over half the worlds financial wealth. It is undeniable there is a huge problem even globally when the average CEO or company owner makes over 500-700% more than the average worker at the bottom of the line. Both the Republican party and the Democratic party note this is a problem they need to address but neither side has really agreed on how to deal with with this disparity that is ultimately becoming worst every decade.... One of the ideas that has been put out by the Democratic party is to raise the minimum wage for the entire country to at least $10.10 an hour but most of the Republican party disagrees this would help.... I personally think just raising the minimum wage to just $10.10 isn't enough to help. I would go the extra step and mandate that minimum wage should be adjusted yearly to inflation or just slightly above. Because if "currently" minimum wage was adjusted to inflation it should be around at least $15.00 an hour... What is everyone else's thoughts? Edited January 28, 2014 by colourwheel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeyYou Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 Raising minimum wage isn't the answer. All that would do is temporarily make folks feel better. Then, the price of EVERYTHING would go up to compensate for the additional labor cost, and we would be right back where we started. Minimum wage jobs were SUPPOSED to be 'entry level' jobs, that those just starting out in whatever industry, or, the workforce in general, would be able to get, work at for a while, and then move on to better paying jobs. Trouble is, the better paying jobs seem to have left the country..... Fully 70% of the jobs created in the last year, were low-wage, part-time. Not exactly something you can work at to support your family. What this all comes back to is: We need to bring those good jobs BACK to the US. All of our manufacturing, and mid-skill jobs, (tech support, for instance) need to come back to the US. We need to dump the free trade agreements with third world nations, and repeal the tax breaks for "creating jobs in developing nations". (moving jobs to developing nations.) Our government has slit the throat of the middle class, and their answer to it was Obamacare...... Just stupid. We need the JOBS. That would go a long way toward solving a host of ills we see in our country today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRoaches Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 I personally think just raising the minimum wage to just $10.10 isn't enough to help. I would go the extra step and mandate that minimum wage should be adjusted yearly to inflation or just slightly above. Because if "currently" minimum wage was adjusted to inflation it should be around at least $15.00 an hour... I'm no economist, but I think that increasing minimum wage would actually cause more inflation, which would trigger higher minimum wage, which would cause more inflation, and so on in a perpetual economic feedback loop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vagrant0 Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 I would argue that the problem lies in the fact that you are trying to elevate the remaining 99% by giving them more money. For as long as humanity has had anything which can be considered an economy, there has been some form of hierarchy or caste system in place. The many are lead by the few, the dirty impoverished masses serving the merchants, the merchants serving the ruling class. You cannot eliminate the bottom level of workers and still expect the same amount of work to be done for the same cost. Industrialization may have actually hurt things whereby you started needing fewer people to do the same work, or didn't need to pay them as much, creating an abundance of labor that has now flowed back up (lower level workers getting more education so that they can get higher skilled jobs, creating too many applicants, leading middle tier workers to get more education to get even higher skilled jobs, leading to too many applicants at the top). Then there is a distorted notion related to how much people earn and how much they need to pay in order to afford those things that form the basis of what is considered "normal", despite most of those things not being in short supply. But of course, nobody would willingly want to live in a slum since these areas are prone to disrepair, crime, filth, ect. So we build houses and condos for the middle and upper middle class, never minding the relatively small amount of people who can actually afford them. The problem isn't wage, it is scarcity. Scarcity can only be reduced through production, and in most cases this means inexpensive energy to produce, process, and ship those goods. But again, people are greedy and will try to price-fix certain things just so that they earn more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colourwheel Posted January 28, 2014 Author Share Posted January 28, 2014 (edited) Raising minimum wage isn't the answer. All that would do is temporarily make folks feel better. Then, the price of EVERYTHING would go up to compensate for the additional labor cost, and we would be right back where we started. Minimum wage jobs were SUPPOSED to be 'entry level' jobs, that those just starting out in whatever industry, or, the workforce in general, would be able to get, work at for a while, and then move on to better paying jobs. Trouble is, the better paying jobs seem to have left the country..... Fully 70% of the jobs created in the last year, were low-wage, part-time. Not exactly something you can work at to support your family. Of course "just" raising the minimum wage isn't the ultimate answer. But if you haven't noticed prices everywhere go up regardless of even the minimum wage ever being touched... The Republican party hasn't even suggested anything to help. If Minimum wage jobs were supposed to be only "entry level" jobs then why such an income disparity still even over a decade ago? most people who have worked in the same job don't even see a pay raise for at least 3-4 years and even that it's about only a few cents added to their hourly wage at entry level... I agree one of the trouble is the "better" paying jobs have left the country. But if you noticed the reason why is because these companies realize they can get away paying people less than 'better" for the same jobs in other countries. These types of job will never be coming back to our nation.... I'm no economist, but I think that increasing minimum wage would actually cause more inflation, which would trigger higher minimum wage, which would cause more inflation, and so on in a perpetual economic feedback loop. Economist suggest raising the minimum wage to inflation yearly would put back in our country annually about over $2 billion into our economy each year and create at least over 80,000 jobs yearly... Raising the minimum wage annually to adjust to inflation would stop your so called "perpetual economic feedback loop" theory. Ultimately this would probably lead to less disparity when it comes to income inequality over all. When it comes down to it , No one should be working a full time job in America and still be living in poverty... Edited January 28, 2014 by colourwheel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRoaches Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 (edited) Economist suggest raising the minimum wage to inflation yearly would put back in our country annually about over $2 billion into our economy each year and create at least over 80,000 jobs yearly... Raising the minimum wage annually to adjust to inflation would stop your so called "perpetual economic feedback loop" theory. Ultimately this would probably lead to less disparity when it comes to income inequality over all. Who is this economist that you are citing? Does this economist have a name? Also, raising the minimum wage every year is not the same as pegging it to the inflation rate. Also, one economist suggesting does not make it true. Economics is a social science in which there are no "right" answers. There could be one economist suggesting something that they think is brilliant while 500 other economists roll their eyes at what a noob that first economist is being. I don't think there should be any minimum wage law at all. If I don't like the pay that an employer is offering me I will simply not take that job. If an employer refuses to pay a decent wage they will end up with only the worst, most unemployable employees and the will likely fail. It really could be that simple if we actually had a free market. Edited January 28, 2014 by TRoaches Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colourwheel Posted January 28, 2014 Author Share Posted January 28, 2014 (edited) Who is this economist that you are citing? Does this economist have a name? Twenty years ago, a landmark study by Alan Krueger (now chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers) and David Card used a natural experiment to study an increase in the minimum wage. It found that raising the wage did not reduce employment. (Casey Mulligan and Larry Katz have pointed to lots of earlier studies that also used empirical data.) Other studies have had more mixed results, and some have shown negative, though generally small, employment effects. Ask economists about whether raising the minimum wage is worth the potential risks to low-skilled workers and the responses tend to be much more favorable to a minimum-wage increase... I don't think there should be any minimum wage law at all. If I don't like the pay that an employer is offering me I will simply not take that job. The problem with this is not everyone can just "not" take up a job offer. Even jobs of above average wages there is only about 1 job available for every 5 people looking and this has been this way for over a decade... Edited January 28, 2014 by colourwheel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimboUK Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 Raising the minimum wage like that would most certainly be inflationary, costs would increase right down the line which would be passed onto consumers, those on minimum wage will not be any better off and everybody else would be worse off. The problem isn't the minimum wage, it's the lack of jobs that warrant higher pay or the lack of jobs period, the higher unemployment is the less employers have to compete to hire people, lower unemployment and wages rise. HeyYou hit the nail on the head, you need to bring the jobs back, use import tariffs on companies that outsource labour to countries like China, take the advantage of outsourcing away. Reduce regulation and thus costs on companies so investing the U.S becomes more attractive, invest in skills and training so you have a workforce that can compete on more than cost, there's plenty that can be done if your political class were to put the interests of the people first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kvnchrist Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 Why is everybody talking about income equality and not equality in opportunities? Everybody seems to think that the answer to everything is to manipulate the money to make all jobs equal instead of creating better opportunities for those working in mediocre jobs to get better education and with that gain access to a larger more personally productive world. Without education and the opportunities that comes with it these people will always be struggling, even to address the realities of a changing world. Without education there will always be a portion of the public locked into neediness. Without the need for the government to step in the vast resource of the government can be better placed to take all of the country foreword. They can fully get behind the sciences and not have to explain every detail of everything to a public that hasn't the education to know what is being tried and more important, understanding the benefits to them and other so that cultural an theocratic obstructionism will be kept to a minimum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colourwheel Posted January 28, 2014 Author Share Posted January 28, 2014 (edited) HeyYou hit the nail on the head, you need to bring the jobs back, use import tariffs on companies that outsource labour to countries like China, take the advantage of outsourcing away. Reduce regulation and thus costs on companies so investing the U.S becomes more attractive, invest in skills and training so you have a workforce that can compete on more than cost, there's plenty that can be done if your political class were to put the interests of the people first. These jobs if you haven't noticed will never be coming back. Why would companies bring back jobs to america where as they can get away paying employees fractions of an average american wage in 3rd world countries.... Reducing regulations only encourages corporations to out source and take advantage of the consumers more. Import tariffs only cause prices to go up and reduce the pay to the people they employ in 3rd world countries... Corporations have no interest in investing to train people in america when they know full well they have about 5 people waiting to take up only one job opening.... The logic of just deregulating and cutting taxes for corporations has never worked in America and hasn't for decades... Why is everybody talking about income equality and not equality in opportunities? Everybody seems to think that the answer to everything is to manipulate the money to make all jobs equal instead of creating better opportunities for those working in mediocre jobs to get better education and with that gain access to a larger more personally productive world. Without education and the opportunities that comes with it these people will always be struggling, even to address the realities of a changing world. Without education there will always be a portion of the public locked into neediness. Without the need for the government to step in the vast resource of the government can be better placed to take all of the country foreword. They can fully get behind the sciences and not have to explain every detail of everything to a public that hasn't the education to know what is being tried and more important, understanding the benefits to them and other so that cultural an theocratic obstructionism will be kept to a minimum. To effectively address equality in opportunity people need money to pursue the education 1st. This is why income equality has to be addressed even before equality in opportunity. By reducing the disparity of income people make who are working full time jobs won't be broke their entire lives who wish to pursue a higher education for more opportunity... Edited January 28, 2014 by colourwheel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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