Protests for $15 an hour minimum wage (Page 2)

Have you ever managed to write a post that was not a personal attack?

Feel free to disagree with the point, but leave the personal attacks out next time. 

This brings up another problem with the $15 min wage. $15 an hour is a pretty good wage around here. I know numerous college grads who do not make this much money. If I am a college grad making $12.50 an hour (what I was making right out of school at a cushy government job), why would I continue to to work for that when I can go to McD's and make $15. I had to work a year and get promoted until I was managing 40 people before I got to $15 an hour. If I run a McD's and am looking to hire, am I going to take the single, mother of three, high school drop out? Or am I going to hire the college grad? Might even out eventually once the better jobs start having to pay more money to get qualified workers, but in the short/medium term, there would be tons of "working poor" people who would lose their jobs. Really bad news when they lose their $8 per hour job and prices of basic goods double.

Course all of this is just a stupid ploy to get us to talk about min wage instead of Obamacare. Everyone knows the min wage isn't going anywhere. The big McD's protest managed 200 people in NY. All just media focus trying to get away from the the disaster that takes affect Jan 1. 

No, 100% of the people would be affected.

I work at a gym where the average wage is about $12/hour.  The average membership is $30/month.  Using what I know about the monthly payroll costs and number of members, Raising the minimum wage to $15 would raise dues approximately $3.25/month.  That's approximately an 11% increase to our members, and that's assuming that our average wage only goes to $15.  In reality, I would expect it to go higher, because we would then need to compete with other employers who had been paying their employees less than $12 previously.  In the end, the entire wage scale slides up, driving inflation, and everyone's back where they started, only we're using bigger numbers.

Exactly. Although with all the shiny new printing presses they keep building for the Fed, we will definitely not have a problem printing enough cash for the new numbers. 

Raising minimum wage will do nothing to raise living standards, it is just a numbers game. The same job will still buy the same standard of living.

What the min wage workers should really be peeved about is Obamacare slashing their hours back to 25 hrs a week. 

I'm pretty sure 'work' and 'struggle' are synonyms of each other.  Did you have a point contributing to the topic, or did you just feel like arguing?

I understood that.  My point was that raising minimum wage affects a lot more than just increasing the amount that a percentage of workers take home in their pay check.  There is a domino effect that ultimately ends with everyone making more and paying more for everything.  That part isn't really debatable.  What's debatable is whether in the end it's a net-zero change or if there is a marginal benefit to the minimum wage workers based on the assumption that their wage increases will be a greater % than the inflation that raising minimum wage causes.

Also, just as an aside, when the economy is doing very well, turnover rates in the foodservice sector are ridiculously high.  Anywhere from 120-140%.  When the economy is in the crapper like it has been, that rate drops down to around 70-90%.  I do not know what those numbers look like split between Quick Service and Full Service

At an airport I was in (Kentucky?) I placed my order for a Quizno's sandwich at a kiosk and paid for it there. Then I picked it up. Technically, the only workers needed were to make the food. Of course, they still had counter people for people who wanted to order from them. These are probably people still using phone books in their house.  

I think that used to be the case, but nowadays with this recession, you have more people taking any job they can get.

I was in about the same situation you were -- I think I made $3.85 at my first job.  But I'll tell you, that wage had a lot more buying power back then, too.  Gas was $0.99 / gal, milk, food, everything was far less expensive.

Think about the amount of money the government is printing.  That's where the real discussion is.  Minimum wage protests are just a side effect.

The benefit would be more people making closer to the same wage, we would be increasing the number of people at the bottom and closing the wage gap between the bottom and the middle class. What could possibly be wrong with that?

Correct me if I'm wrong but the higher Minimum wages gets the more incorrect your statements will be. 

I am curious if you could provide support for this statement. I would think the higher you make the minimum wage the more people you would have earning the minimum?

Taking my position to the extreme, prior to any minimum wage there were 0 people earning a minimum wage, after it was legislated you had more. When they increase the minimum wage not everyone gets a raise of the same amount or percentage increase as what the minimum wage earner gets, thus leaving more people making the minimum or closer to the minimum. 

Maybe when we increase the minimum wage we should also put in a clause that increases all other workers wage by the same dollar amount or percent? What would be wrong with that? 

What would you think of someone who only does the minimum?

I agree with the concept that there will be fewer jobs and I think that is what you are saying. 

What I am saying is that there will be more people (a higher % of people working) earning the minimum and more people earning closer to the minimum/bottom wage if the minimum is raised. To add I would think that the higher they raise the minimum wage the fewer jobs there will be and the more people will be earning the minimum or be closer to earning the minimum.

Politicians say they want to do something to lessen the gap between the middle class and upper class yet it appears to me almost every time they try to "help" the consequences are that they actually widen the gap.