Why is it so radical about living wages?

[Solon]

Seriously, what is so radical about being able to have a single job that you can support yourself (or Gods forbid, a FAMILY) on?

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. The argument is whether a employer has the responsibility

or the whole society, for making sure a person, or family, can live OK. If you look on employment as a business transaction between employer and employee, then it's of no concern to the employer whether the wage is enough to live on - it's just set at a market rate. Why should the employer have more care for the employee than you or me? You talk about a family - do you think an employer should pay more to people with children? Most people would say not - they might say the employer should pay the higher wage, and then the state could tax the non-parent more. But you could turn that around, and say the employer should pay the lower wage, and then pay the parent some money for bringing up the children. In economic theory, this should make the job market more efficient, which would raise production, and thus overall wealth. You could then fit a social welfare system, funded by the increased incomes and profits, around this to take care of people.

That's not exactly my personal point of view. I think an employer and employee have a more complicated relationship than that, involving trust and loyalty, so it's more reasonable to expect them both to take more things than just the job market into account when setting wages. I do support a minimum wage, but I don't think it has to be able to support a family of 2 adults and some children from one minimum wage job.

I can see some of the attractions of the first paragraph's argument. The problem is that most people who think like that don't also think a decent state welfare system needs to be added to it.

[BlueJazz]

2. For My 2 cents.

The Minimum wage earners would immediately get a 1.00 an hour raise
if the rich and the corporations paid their fair share of taxes.

The take home pay of the average citizen would increase
2000-6000 per year.

[AP]

5. How would taking more money from corporations in taxes

leave more money for salaries?

Salaries are a write-off on taxes, but I'm not sure what the direct connection would be.

I do think companies should be taxed progressively so that super-large companies have a tax burden that means that they don't have a competitive advantage over small firms becasue of tax burden alone. (Ie, it's ridiculous that a huge corp like IBM pays and efffective rate of 0-4% tax on an additional $10,000 in business, but its competitor -- some tiny business consultancy that advises local businesses on their computers -- might have to turn down that business because an effective tax rate of 20-35% means that that the added income might not be worth the added cost of providing that business.

What I'm saying is that the tax burden alone should never determine whether anyone is going to work more or less, and it should never allow wealthier, larger corporations to pay lower rates than small, poorer corporations.

[laura888]

3. family values

its funny (and tragic) that those who proclaim the value of "family values" also are against a living wage.

Without a living wage, mothers and fathers are forced to work 2 or more jobs, meaning that they cannot spend time with their children.

The lack of a living wage is contributing to the break-down in the family, in my opinion.

[AP]

4. Here's the issue as a I see it: it's about competition.

Everyone talks about competition between corporations and about how that's important to the economy. You want to have competitiveness so that companies are driven to make better, cheaper products, and provide better services. It keeps American moving forward in terms of innovation. Competition is good. Corporations, once they get large, no longer want competition. Republicans generally protect them from competion. We all know this.

However, there's another competition. There's competition in the labor market. One form is obvious: between employees for a job. You go to school, you work hard, you build up expericence, and you try to do that better than other potential employees so that you get hired first.

There's also competion between and employer and and employee. After getting all that education and experience, you put a price on it and try to sell it to an employer. Now, in much the same way that Republicans have destroyed the need for companies to compete with each other (and have legislated profits for companies, whether by going to war for them, or taking away their tax burdens, etc.) they have also legislated away the need to compete in the labor market. They have tipped the field to advantage capital over labor every way they can think of.

During the Clinton years, there was a little competition for labor that drove up its value, but a lot of that was driven by another problem: delivering wealth to people through capital gains which ultimately benefitted the super-wealthy investor class way more than the class of people who have little capital and nothing more to sell than their labor.

In any event, labor has been utterly devalued in the last 30 years because it's something EVERYONE can do, and much of economic history of the last 30 years has revolved around the theme that we're not delivering wealth to everyone. We're delivering wealth to people who already have a great deal of money -- ie, to capital and not to labor.

Incidentally, the notion that legitimizes holding wealth back from labor in America is a fear of inflation. Economists believe that if you give too much money to people, it will drive up prices and drive down profits. Economists thought there was a magic unemployment number below which inflation would happen. Clinton went below that number by about 20% and there wasn't any inflation. But that was because there was no real increase in wages for most Americans and because people spent more money on more things, and because there was a lot of room for increased production without comodities becoming scarce because we were coming of the Bush I recession during which that capacity had been built up.

[bobbieinok]

6. arguments here make some 'sense' but I think many people

FEEL other people don't 'deserve' money like they do.

Or that there's just a set amount of money, and if other people get more they'll get less.

Most people operate politically on feelings, not thought.

"Also, if Walmart workers are paid more, then I'll have to pay more for stuff. And THAT'S JUST WRONG, WRONG, WRONG."

[Dark]

7. What?!

You want to take away an executive's extra couple thousand and give it to the worker just so he can SURVIVE?!?! What is wrong with you? That CEO needs another wave runner! He's worked hard all year, avoiding taxes and exploiting workers.

Don't you think he deserves a little compensation?

[bruce21040]

8. So the CEO does not deserve to have more money?

What is your number for the cutoff on salary?
Or, should the guy sweeping the floor make as much as the guy running the business?
Is the education, the hours spent building the business, the exposure to possible loss mean anything?

Why should the CEO of a company not have that second wave runner if he wishes to have it?
Why should the workers below him be able to make as much as he does?
Where does the incentive to start business and hire people come from if not the desire to be filthy rich?

Fact, without the corporations, none of us would have the money to sit here on our computers and complain about the way things are.
Like I tell everyone else around me when they complain.
Start your own business, and then you can have all the money you want without working.

None of them have taken me up on it yet.

[G_j]

10. Average CEO $155,769 a Week, up 313% from 1990 to 2003:

Average CEO $155,769 a Week , Average Worker Takes Home $517


http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/0414-10.htm

CEO Pay/Worker Pay Ratio Reaches 301-to-1
Average Worker Takes Home $517 a Week; Average CEO $155,769 a Week

BOSTON - April 14 - After declining for the last two years, the gap in pay between average workers and large company CEOs surpassed 300-to-1 in 2003. In 2002, the ratio stood at 282-to-1. In 1982, it was just 42-to-1.

According to Business Week's 54th Annual Executive Compensation Survey, published this week, the average large company CEO received compensation totaling $8.1 million in 2003, up 9.1% from the previous year. Business Week's survey covers the 365 largest companies that have reported their executive pay to date.

From 1990 to 2003:
CEO pay rose 313%
The S&P 500 rose 242%
Corporate profits rose 128%
Average worker pay rose 49%
Inflation rose 41%

The average production worker fared less well in 2003. Their annual pay was $26,899 in 2003, up just 2.1% from 2002 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average worker took home $517 in their weekly paycheck in 2003; the average large company CEO took home $155,769 in their weekly pay.

If the minimum wage had increased as quickly as CEO pay since 1990, it would today be $15.71 per hour, more than three times the current minimum wage of $5.15 an hour.

..more..

[camero]

12. Without the gov't we wouldn't have corporations

It's largely a social construct. You have to file papers to be incorporated or to have property and you have them at the behest of your workers. Treat them well, you do good. Treat them not so nice, and you eventually fall.

We don't need corps. We can have any kind of social construct we want.

[indypaul]

9. In the meantime

while you are fretting over a living wage. The administration
is busy taking away overtime to anyone making $455 per week.
Better change subjects before it is all lost. The present
issue, unfortunately, is not so much increased benefits but
protecting what we have and getting rid of this administration.
The quicker the better, wake up.

[kodi]

11. is it too radical to have you define "a living wage" ?

what amount of money are we talking about here?

what living conditions are included within the penumbra of "a living wage"?

food, clothing, shelter, and safety, obviously. health care. your children's higher education too?

does it include hot meals and hot showers? or is a sandwich and sponge bath okay?

what else? a stereo system? a tv? a car? a mortgage?

is one pair of shoes adequate for a person to have to be making "a living wage" or is the number of footwear higher for one to be considered to be making "a living wage"?

seriously, what boundary conditions of the human condition are used for your definition of "a living wage"?

are you going for the mean or the average here or is "a living wage" somewhere inferior to these?

and i am not being an asshole about this, since i agree with you in spirit, but if i wanted to debate an issue such as this with an adversary, i sure better be able to define the term "a living wage" because my opponent will surely ask what i mean by it.

[JanMichael]

14. Here's a starting point.

National Rent Wage 2003.

Here's how you use these numbers.

It's not that difficult.

[JanMichael]

13. It's not radical, it's Pro-Family, it's what we should strive for.

But the rightwing DU'ers will bitch and whine about it. Why? Beats me:shrug: