[bkmartin]

I think that the gender pay gap is a social bias whereas the minimum wage is an even deeper devaluing of people and recognizing the value and dignity of someone's time. Even if you eliminated the pay gap today wages would still be stagnated. Once people are paid a respectable wage for a full day's work, we'll truly see what our society values... what are we willing to pay increased prices for? (Not that raising the minimum wage to a respectable number would really have much of an effect on the consumer price index anyway)

Just a little link on the minimum wage. http://www.dol.gov/minwage/mythbuster.htm (this thread is starting to drift a bit, sorry)

[frogpelt]

Where did this notion come from that wages equal the value of a person? If this were true, shouldn't every single person make the same amount, regardless of age, experience, knowledge, or ability?

About minimum wage: do you know who really lobbies the hardest for increased minimum wage? Unions. Because they peg their base-line wages to the minimum wage. If they can succeed in getting the minimum wage raised, they can raise the pay for all of their workers who are already making 3 to 5 times the minimum wage.

[task_queue]

What's with the union hate? Unions are corporations for workers. They are trying to maximize their compensation from the amount of value that their workers create, just as business owners are trying to maximize the profit they scrape off their workers.

They are fighting for a fairer wage for their constituents, and if such organizations existed for the majority of laborers, we wouldn't need a minimum wage.

But that's beside the point. A fair minimum wage is important because in 2013, 88.7% of American workers did not have a union to negotiate just compensation for them.

[frogpelt]

There was no union hate in my comment. There were facts about unions who lobby to have minimum wage increased because it affects their bottom line.

[bkmartin]

The value of a person is not equal to their wage. That is exactly my point! All people, in my belief, have AT LEAST the right to earn enough money to live off of without government assistance if they work 40 hours a week. They should have a safe place to live, clothes, enough quality food to eat, and enough to afford their other basic living expenses. It would be tight. But I'm not advocating everyone should have 10s of thousands in disposable income, just that they shouldn't need any government assistance to get by. That is simply valuing them as a person. That means stop exploiting people. There is a difference between free market and exploitation. And guess what... the exploited are tired, very tired... and that is why minimum wage reform is becoming an issue... because the problem is REAL. Try living it sometime... helps add perspective.

[unreal37]

I think there is a natural downward pressure on wages, and it takes real effort to fight it. Unfortunately, people have these unfounded fears that raising the minimum wage will cost jobs when in fact there's no evidence that places with higher minimum wages suffer job losses as a result of the increase.

They should just make increases to the minimum automatic and then congress doesn't have to worry about appearing to harm businesses when they are actually not.

It's a good example of lawmakers doing something stupid that harms real people just to "appear" to be pro-business or fiscal conservative.

[briandear]

I am not sure how you can make the statement that higher minimum wages don't equate to job losses. Do you have proof? It's common sense that if you wage the price of something you buy less of it. Unfortunately for the poor, minimum wage jobs are rather elastic. In France, with a relatively high minimum wage, unemployment is double digits and places like McDonald's have gone to digital order machines as opposed to hiring more cashiers. While that might increase demand for computer machine manufacturing and services, the minimum wage students and unskilled persons aren't likely to have the skills needed to gain those jobs.

You also have the chronically unemployed in both the U.S. as well as places like France where it's livable to simply collect the government check.

Minimum wage shouldn't be a career. I have little sympathy for those who haves worked minimum wage for ten years or more. That suggests a lack of ambition, intelligence or both. Even the pimple faced 16 year old at Chick fil'a eventually gets promoted to team leader potentially in a matter of months or a year. Those who have worked minimum wage for 5 years or more, I'd be very interested in their work history, their criminal record, their tardiness, their productivity.

At a place like McDonalds, if you just show up on time consistently, you get raises. If you're a hard worker and express the desire there are plenty of assistant manager trainee tracks available.

Raising minimum wage isn't the answer -- taking away the incentive to be lazy would do more than throwing people an extra $2 per hour. The same bad decisions that got them in that situation are still the same bad decisions that they will keep making; unless there is incentive to stop.

Someone right now could go to North Dakota and get a job doing local truck deliveries paying up to $100k per year, some positions will even train. Working in the oil patch down in Texas and Louisiana offers high paying entry level positions that quickly end up paying over $100k.

My point is that there is always a way out of a minimum wage existence, the problem is that many people are content getting their free Medicaid, EBT cards and subsidized housing; so there is less incentive to move across the country or take a class somewhere or join a union apprentice program.

I am not saying end welfare or anything like that, but a safety net ought not become a way of life as it has for millions of people.

[unreal37]

There's plenty of evidence for what I said if you look.[1]

France is basically a socialist country, so there is a lot more going on there other than minimum wage. It's difficult to compare with other countries, because there are different tax rates and other social programs like free health Universal care that make the costs of being poor less.

But within the U.S., minimum wage varies by state, right? So PA has a $7.25 minimum while CA has $9.00. What is the unemployment rate difference between those two states?

Minimum wage has been increased dozens of times over the past few decades. There is ample history of what happens when it's increased, and I don't think there were massive layoffs every time it was increased in the past.

Raising the minimum wage is an answer, because without a legal lower limit, there will always be an incentive for employers to pay less and less. It's like gravity. You need a floor to stop the fall. And then you can build up from there.

If I can say, I don't think your statements about how easy it is to get a higher salary than minimum wage is correct for a lot of people. Perhaps you can't see yourself living at that level for too long, but there are plenty of people who work 2 and 3 jobs, hardly see their kids, are ruining their health, just to make ends meet. Can't call those people lazy.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#Criticism_of_the_n...

[refurb]

There is ample history of what happens when it's increased, and I don't think there were massive layoffs every time it was increased in the past.

You have to remember than increasing the minimum wages won't necessarily have an impact if current wages are already higher than the new minimum wage.

I remember reading that the new $15/hr minimum wage in Seattle (which is being phased in) will have almost no impact at first since very few folks are paid less than the new minimum.

[Crusoe123]

>I am not sure how you can make the statement that higher minimum wages don't equate to job losses. Do you have proof?

Sure there are some studies that say it doesn't. http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/157-07.pdf

But it's a point of contention with economists.

In any case your examples are a gross simplification based on anectodes and reduced to typical republican/libertarian talking points.

[wavefunction]

Actually the oil-patch job bonanza ended with the fall in oil prices and the bust phase is kicking in for the "boom-bust" economy here. Layoffs abound.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/20/us-baker-hughe-res...

[JoeAltmaier]

Change wages, there's always a period of adjustment. Some jobs do disappear. Others get more work to do. Then prices adjust, and things settle down.