I think they should take that into account. Not just for minors living at home, but also some people who are supporting family members who aren't able to work. Regardless, it's a win/win because if you're not supporting anyone, you get extra money!
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Rasing the minimum wage could cost jobs
- Thread starter esmith
- Start date
I think they should take that into account. Not just for minors living at home, but also some people who are supporting family members who aren't able to work. Regardless, it's a win/win because if you're not supporting anyone, you get extra money!
Alceste
Vagabond
No, I don't see why it would make it hard to start a new business. The province I live in has the highest proportion of small business owners in the entire country. What that looks like on the ground is that when you go into a book store or a coffee shop, the person who is serving you is often the owner of the store. THAT is a small "start-up" business. Mom and pop stuff. Do they employ people? Sure they do, if they need to, but an extra buck or two per hour is not going to make or break them because they already do most of the labour themselves.
I think commercial real estate prices are a bigger problem for small businesses than labour. When I was doing market research when I was considering opening a music store, the price of commercial real estate rental was what stopped me - not the price of labour. I knew that while I could easily adjust my staffing levels very quickly to instantly adapt to upturns and downturns in business, rent is rent. The only people making serious money in retail in my area were the landlords.
Antibush5
Active Member
Oh how nice, you've got a bunch of anecdotal evidence, now you see I run a business and yes, adding more to employee pay would in fact be very detrimental to me, because you see when you run a small business you don't want have to pay a large amount per hour, because you're actually not making much.
Now there's something you might not have considered as well, minimum wage jobs aren't actually meant to be lived on, because shock and horror, they are meant to be resume fillers for young people, so they have some experience in the work place, it's why you aren't meant to see 30 year old baristas.
1: That's a terrible idea for a business who buys music physically anymore?
2: Staffing levels are flexible, but what you're saying proves my point, you'd of had to have hired less due to increased cost.
Alceste
Vagabond
I was addressing your belief that the difference of a buck or two an hour in labour costs would be a deal breaker for start-ups. Not whether you, personally, as an established business owner paying minimum wage, would complain about it cutting into your profits. That's pretty much a given.
Not a record store, a music store.
You know, where musicians shop for the things musicians need.Your point was that labour costs would inhibit new businesses starting up, not that new businesses would adapt to the cost of labour. So no, I didn't prove it. I made a completely new point that you apparently agree with.
esmith
Veteran Member
Guess you haven't been reading my post. The reason I say this is I posted this on post #82 and just a hour ago on post #168. I used this site as my contention that I posted the following:
freethinker44
Well-Known Member
Wow, you're right that is a problem. We should raise the minimum wage to $21 per hour.
esmith
Veteran Member
Antibush5
Active Member
There isn't really much of a difference, a start up business would still be worried about the cost of labour.I was addressing your belief that the difference of a buck or two an hour in labour costs would be a deal breaker for start-ups. Not whether you, personally, as an established business owner paying minimum wage, would complain about it cutting into your profits. That's pretty much a given.
Thank goodness, I thought you were insane for a moment there, but even so, people could just buy the same stuff off the net and you wouldn't have to pay for all that rent.Not a record store, a music store.
for every business that "adapts" it's new businesses that don't start at all, while I'm not saying it's the sole issue for a business not starting up, I'd say it'd be a factor.
Antibush5
Active Member
Maybe if we raise it to a million per hour, everyone can be millionaires, I know a fantastic Zimbabwean economist called Mugabe who just completely remade the country with this idea.
freethinker44
Well-Known Member
Sounds good, let's do it.
You must be in a really really depressed part of MI then....northern MI is wore than where I am.
You should move here!
"They" are always saying things.
Don't treat it with blind faith.
Dirty Penguin
Master Of Ceremony
esmith
Veteran Member
So when you say "those are advocating for everyone earning a living wage are beyond optimistic... except if one is single." it sounds like you're actually agreeing with us.
You will notice that I previously had said that the minimum wage should be COLA adjusted. Now the last time the minimum wage was raised was 2009 from $6.55 to $7.25 or almost a 11% raise. Now according to the Social Security Administration the COLA in 2010 was 0, 2011 was 0, 2012 was 3.6, and 2013 was 1.5
So if we had adjusted the minimum wage each year the results would be as follows:
2010 $2.75
2011 $2.75
2012 $7.51
2013 $7.62
Got tired when I was writing and misspoke about everyone getting a living wage if they were single. I retract that statement. I now say that minimum wage jobs are just that, minimum wage. It also depends on what one considers the basics to be in order to have a living wage. One does not need, cable TV, smart phone, car, internet, entertainment devices, etc. One only needs the means to subsist on a nutritious diet
shelter( like an efficiency apartment) and clothing (Goodwill)
dawny0826
Mother Heathen
Checked out the numbers for my city...
This calculator is excellent in demonstrating the importance of raising mininum wage, but, I disagree that $10.43 translates to a feasible living wage for a single, Newport News resident, unless you wish to scrape by with the bare basics without the means to invest in savings at all, which might be fine for some people, but, for many, this would pose a siginificant hardship.
I find the provided budget for food and medical to be feasible, however, between transportation and other, you're only allotted a budget $402.00.
Contingent upon your form of transportation, this $402.00 hardly accounts for the average car and car insurance payment, let alone cellular bill, internet, and anything else categorized under "other". Not to mention, not all of the apartments in the area have all utiliies included.
You may be paying for your gas and electric as well as your laundry if your apartment doesn't yield a washer and dryer as well.
$774 isn't going to get you the nicest apartment around here, but, it should suffice.
Though there are ways to pinch pennies and make things work, particularly if you're sharing the expenses with a roommate or getting help from Mom and Dad, this is still pretty tough.
And what about revolving debt?
This is a great tool and I appreciate you sharing it! But, I really wasn't lying when I said that my "living wage" as a single woman was more like $26.00 per hour. I had credit cards, utilities and I wanted to enjoy a little bit of what I had earned as well.
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Alceste
Vagabond
Except in very rare cases, musicians don't shop for instruments and expendables on the net. We're firm believers in "try it before you buy it". Also, most of us don't buy replacement expendables (strings, reeds, rosin, etc) until ours are toasted, and then we need them NOW, not five days from now. But even if they did shop online, my business plan included an online store and a physical store. There would also have been substantial income from renting instruments and equipment and teaching music lessons. In fact, the majority of the income would have come from those things, for which you need a physical store.
It's a good business plan, trust me. I was managing a music store that has thrived in that community for over 30 years, despite the owner being greedy, cheap, and as stupid as a bag of bricks. And despite the fact he was vehemently despised by every musician in the community and anybody who had ever done business with him. People drove 40 minutes to the next town to buy a $6 packet of guitar strings rather than deal with this guy.
At the time I was planning to open a store, he was in hospital and things did not look good for him. His shop was closed all the time and I felt confident he was pretty close to going out of business. Also, I knew he'd had a consultant come in to give him a figure on what his business was worth, so he was thinking of selling at one point.
So yeah, my business plan would have worked out just fine, but commercial rents in my area were $3 to $4 per square foot, which made it impossible for me even to begin.
That was a fun little tangent. Suffice it to say that the cost of labour did not enter into the equation at all in my business plan. like every start-up and entrepreneur I know in this bustling province, I would have been doing the labour myself and only hiring additional staff if I needed them to keep up with local demand.
freethinker44
Well-Known Member
I am from northern Michigan. That's kind of messed up that I could talk about being poor in Michigan and you would know where I was from. I did move though, to upstate New York. It's not great but it's definitely a step up from northern Michigan.
By "they" I meant sociologists. There's a little bit of science behind it.
Alceste
Vagabond
You will notice that I previously had said that the minimum wage should be COLA adjusted. Now the last time the minimum wage was raised was 2009 from $6.55 to $7.25 or almost a 11% raise. Now according to the Social Security Administration the COLA in 2010 was 0, 2011 was 0, 2012 was 3.6, and 2013 was 1.5
So if we had adjusted the minimum wage each year the results would be as follows:
2010 $2.75
2011 $2.75
2012 $7.51
2013 $7.62
Got tired when I was writing and misspoke about everyone getting a living wage if they were single. I retract that statement. I now say that minimum wage jobs are just that, minimum wage. It also depends on what one considers the basics to be in order to have a living wage. One does not need, cable TV, smart phone, car, internet, entertainment devices, etc. One only needs the means to subsist on a nutritious diet
shelter( like an efficiency apartment) and clothing (Goodwill)
A "cost of living adjustment" does not mean that the minimum wage has been pegged to the actual cost of living. It only means that the minimum wage has been increased by the same percentage as the cost of living has increased. So if you were underwater before the increase, you're in exactly the same position after it. You're just not in a worse position.
You'll be happy to know that living wage advocates don't take any frivolities into account. Not even home ownership, savings or retirement planning. We just want the lowest wages in our society to still cover basic food, clothing, shelter, energy and transportation for all full time employees. Otherwise you're either letting working people starve in the gutters or you need tax payers to pick up the slack, and that's not cool.
freethinker44
Well-Known Member
You're actually right, though. Sociology is a branch of psychology, so right from the start it's borderline pseudo-science. It's tough to study human societies, for one, because the person conducting the study is already biased on account of also being human, and two, because experimenting on people is frowned upon for some reason.
It's not exactly a laboratory science. But there have been some fascinating studies done. The Stanford Prison experiment is a good one, and a good example of why it's difficult to study humans.