OT: "Minmum" wage crap

From an S&A newsletter: I could explain, using a million examples, why minimum-wage laws are terrible for poor people. That isn't in doubt. When wages rise above the marginal value of labor, there is no longer a reason for employment. Thus, minimum-wage laws destroy jobs.

Why, then, are the politicians so determined to raise minimum-wage laws? Consider the new law in Los Angeles, where city council passed a $15.37 minimum-wage law for large hotels. (There goes room service?)

However, the law contains a provision that allows unions to waive the requirement in collective bargaining. The law is actually a cudgel designed to benefit unions.

If you're a hotel, you have a choice: pay an uneconomic wage? raise your prices to compensate and watch as all of your business goes elsewhere? or partner with the union to force your employees into a collective bargaining agreement that will see them earn less and force them to pay union dues. Guess where those union dues go? Directly to Democrat politicians.

Reply to
Robert Baer
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And if it comes from an unnamed newsletter, it must be true!

Plonk, again -- SNR too high.

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www.wescottdesign.com
Reply to
Tim Wescott

And the alternative to a hotel is???? Basically all the hotels will be in the same boat. Now perhaps hotel occupancy will go down with increased rates.

I never ordered room service in my life. No loss to me.

Reply to
miso

Pardon me -- SNR too LOW.

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www.wescottdesign.com
Reply to
Tim Wescott

Do you believe this crap?

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Rick
Reply to
rickman

Most right-wing nitwits make a habit of it.

Not amongst right-wing nitwits.

ason for employment. Thus, minimum-wage laws destroy jobs.

Or force employers to spend enough money on automating the process to make individual workers productive enough to justify paying them enough to keep them alive and sane.

Hotels do fine all over Europe, where the minimum wage levels are quite a b it higher. One wonders what US hotel proprietors are doing wrong.

That's one way of looking at it.

r

Or find a way of using your employees more efficiently. Taking a trip aroun d Europe might be a good investment

Not all of them. A union's first duty is to it's local members, and the one time I got involved - in the UK around 1975 - most of the work we did was persuading management that individual foremen and managers had unreasonably disadvantaged individual union members. The UK Labour Party and the Austra lian Labor Party were founded by the unions to pursue the political interes ts of the unions. The US Democrat Party goes back further - to 1828 - and t heir relationship with trade unions is less organic.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
Bill Sloman

Right. Hotels keep wages down because they have to compete. If the minimum wage is increased, all hotels can raise their prices a bit. So the hotel guests transfer income to the workers, without any substantial reduction in employment.

Done in moderation, that's not bad.

One thing minimum wage laws do is move more workers, especially undocumented ones, off the books, into the cash/underground economy. That does hurt the citizen workers.

Minimum wage laws don't kill as many jobs as government overhead does. FICA, unemployment taxes, Obamacare mandates, corporate income tax, accounting costs, regulations, workman's comp, city payroll taxes, property taxes, sales tax on equipment, on and on. Those are powerful incentives to not have domestic workers, and they work.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
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Reply to
John Larkin

So why are tax dollars different from employee salary for killing jobs? Isn't a dollar a dollar?

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Rick
Reply to
rickman

There are at least three major problems with your premise:

1 - You've provided no causal link between rising wages and reasons for emp loyment. 2 - You've assumed that an adjusted minimum wage will rise above the margin al value of labor (whatever that is). 3 - Minimum wage is not actual wage. You have not established that present actual wage is paid at the minimum wage. Minimum wage is a legal lower th reshold. If actual wages are already larger than the minimum, raising the minimum wage to at least that level could be expected to have no net effect .

Along those same lines, it's conceivable to me that existing wages could be so far under your so-called marginal value of labor that a moderate increa se in minimum wage would still be under value, and thus hardly capable of d estroying anything.

That is, using your premise, which I don't agree with in the first place.

Reply to
mpm

Except the next jurisdiction sees it as an opportunity to "poach" business. Competition is good.

Sure, like AirBnB. Competition is good.

It's the same thing. Increasing costs (taxes) kill jobs.

Reply to
krw

Next jurisdiction??? You mean Canada?

But Larkin just said it was ok in moderation. I guess all taxes are immoderate?

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Rick
Reply to
rickman

Do you really think that one has to go all the way to Canada to escape Los Angeles?

You really don't need to prove your cluelessness but I'm sure you'll continue.

To pay the extent that they're required to pay for necessary government, they're necessary. Theft is never OK, even in moderation.

Reply to
krw

What tax is *not* theft? Do you have a choice in paying taxes?

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Rick
Reply to
rickman

Some things, like hotels and restaurants, are inherently local. You can't offshore a hotel room. The things that are easily offshored, or moved to Texas, are manufacturing, customer support, stuff like that. Minimum wage increases can drive those jobs away.

What matters are the slopes, the incremental effects of each cost or tax increase. There are many ways a business can react to increased costs, and one of them is to go out of business.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
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Reply to
John Larkin

Tax used to pay for the enumerated powers of the government.

You really don't have to prove you're an idiot.

Reply to
krw

  1. LA *is* local
  2. The reason to stay in the hotel room *can* move to Texas (or anywhere else)
  3. If a job, *any* job, becomes more expensive than valuable, it won't be done. ...by a human, anyway.
  4. Despite what the lefties say, minimum wage is *not* about helping people. It's about power.

Or elsewhere. Neither is goodness.

Reply to
krw

This sums it up pretty well:

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Reply to
krw

Not really. Intelligent politicians are for minimum wage increases because the less intelligent public will vote for them.

If a small increase in the minimum wage is good, why isn't a big increase b etter? Going right to a minimum wage of say $50 an hour would make all tho se that still had jobs rich , until the economy adjusted and the increase i n the cost of living put those that still had jobs back into poverty. A per son making minimum wage will always be in poverty regardless of how high th e minimum wage is.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

Bullshit. It's designed to help unions (public and non), who will give them more money. Screw the poor.

When the assumption is that wrong, any conclusions are just bullshit.

Reply to
krw

Lol, when you can't come up with anything intelligent to say.... well, most of the time, you call people idiots. I really feel sorry for you. What an amazingly limited life you must live spending all your time on the Internet calling people idiots.

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Rick
Reply to
rickman

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