The Minimum Wage

[Stevenco]

Then liberal politicians like Byron Brown thrown into jail to improve our “quality of life.”
.

The mayor is in jail?

[Jim Ostrowski]

Sorry--that should read:

"Those shut out of our highly regulated labor markets don't commit suicide. They go underground and into the black market: drugs, sex, petty theft. Then liberal politicians like Byron Brown throw them into jail to improve our “quality of life.”

"You see them in the arraignment part of City Court every morning. Ever seen it? I've seen it for 21 years."

Any reaction?

[Linda_D]

"Those shut out of our highly regulated labor markets don't commit suicide. They go underground and into the black market: drugs, sex, petty theft. Then liberal politicians like Byron Brown thrown into jail to improve our “quality of life.”

"You see them in the arraignment part of City Court every morning. Ever seen it? I've seen it for 21 years."

Any reaction?

The minimum wage doesn't cause crime, Jim. First off, that's because most workers are already working at or above the minimum wage. Secondly, when unemployment hits, most people who want to work manage to find some kind of work, even in the so "gray market" of under-the-table employment.

The people who end up in the criminal justice system for petty crime often don't know any other way because that's what they learned. Some of them are also too lazy to work or too greedy to work for minimum wage. Some of them figure they're too smart to get caught.

Actually, some are just greedy like John Rigas and his boys who hurt as many, if not more, people than any petty thief, prostitute or two-bit druggie ever. Ask the hundreds of people in Coudersport, PA, who lost their jobs because Adelphia was bought out of bankruptcy by another firm that moved the HQ operations elsewhere. Then there's Ken Lay and the boys at ENRON who were earning slightly more than the minimum wage when they trashed the jobs and the retirement plans of thousands of ENRON employees, retirees, and stockholders.

Then there are all the wealthy folks who hire illegal immigrants as nannies and maids and gardeners because they'll work for a lot less than Americans or legal immigrants who can enter into the "regulated" labor market with that terrible minimum wage.

[Linda_D]

Thank you for your reality-based reply.

The poor in this country is comprised to a huge extent of single moms w/o the skills to put them in decent wage bracketts. If these women stay home to raise their kids, in part because they can make more from public assistance than working, we call them welfare cheats.

If they go to work at WalMart, Dollar Tree or where ever their lack of skills take them, and can't afford anything close to decent care for their kids, we criticize them as unfit parents.

All the economic theories in the world won't help them. Their needs are simple, yet strangely ignored -- by everyone.

A reality-based helping hand would include intensive measures, such as:

1.Provide job training -- even life training. How to pay bills, how to apply for jobs, how to dress etc. Outraged that the taxpayers should pay for that? Quess what? We will, one way or the other. We know that. We ignore it.

2. Provide either acceptable child care, or for those who think Moms shouldn't work outside the home, a subsidy. Shocking, I know. Here is why I think that: We will never break the chain of poverty if we don't intervene and look for ways to help produce productive people.

A lot of people will mutter about "personal responsibility" and why should they pay for someone else's lack of responsibility. The short answer: They will pay, one way or another.

You can cut taxes all you want and put a bit more money into the pockets of the poor or working poor, but it won't matter. So they get enough money to buy a thing or two? It won't have a longterm impact.

Enough preaching. I just get sick of economic theorists. Real life rarely adhers to theory. In the meantime, a lot of people suffer who don't need to, meaning the rest of us suffer as well.

I know we can't help everyone. For some people, it will always be too late to try. But we all know a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And the larger our underclass -- which I define as not just the poor but the working poor and even former blue-collar working class -- becomes, the more disenfranchised grow and the larger our "weak links" grow.

Is that what we want? Is that what this country is meant to represent? The rich and privileged become more so, and everyone else doesn't?

Excellent post, ATTF!

[Nicolas II]

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.workersoftheworldunite.org/

[atotaltotalfan2001]

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.workersoftheworldunite.org/

[Jim Ostrowski]

"The minimum wage doesn't cause crime, Jim."

Where are the people forced not to work by the minimum wage law? None are in the black market?

In every advanced welfare state where liberals make it extremely difficult to hire people, there are vast pools of unemployed people who therefore drift into crime and black market behavior. Do you deny this? If so, based on what expertise or experience?

I think as a criminal defense lawyer for 21 years, I have some right to opine about who's been filling all those crowded courtrooms.

Nice change of subject with John Rigas. Let's stick to the minimum wage.

Like I'm some sort of defender of John Rigas's crimes. (I did criticize the manner in which he was arrested.) Where do you get that liberal propaganda from? It's kind of pathetic.

[steven]

Any reaction?

the only reaction I have is you totally bypassed what I and atotaltotalfan2001 said. We are talking about real people.

Could we get back into the realm of reality and talk about real people that have niether the money nor the time to wax philosophical because they are to busy tring to work two jobs to feed their familys? We used the single mother working retail as an example that would be a good place to start.

[Jim Ostrowski]

This thread was specifically structured as a debate on the minimum wage with a poll to that effect. I didn’t choose to do it that way; Mike did.

I'm speaking of an issue directly related to that debate: the fate of those shut out of the system by the minimum wage law. I can understand why you don’t want to talk about it but to say it's not relevant or real is absurd. Just visit the arraignment part of City Court any morning--50 Delaware Ave., 2nd floor.

You're talking about people who are productive enough to be hired under present law. Since they don't have to hired at all, it's apparent that they are hired for their productivity at or above the minimum wage, not because the law compels them to be hired, which is does not..

You don't seem to get it--I'm talking about people who can't get hired under the law!

What would I do about the working poor? Slash taxes so they get to keep more of what they earn and can pay less for everything they buy and can increase their productivity because their employers have more money to invest in the equipment and tools they use on the job.

[steven]

No I do get it, you see a correlation between crime and the minimum wage. I just dont agree with you. If that where true then there would be no minumum wage jobs available in the classifieds as all the criminals would be happy to work for Mcdonalds for minumum wage. I open the sunday paper and theres tons of 6.75 dollar and hour jobs available for workers.

Crack dealers are not crack dealers because they are "shut out of the system by the minimum wage law".

There is no shortage of 6.75 dollar an hour jobs.

[mikewrona]

Lots of bashing of economic theory. Best to avoid this thread. The premise of this thread is that there is true economic theory that is knowable and applies to the world.

If you don't believe that, why waste your time here?

If there's no economic truth, then there's no economic falsity. Thus, my arguments can't be false.

Aristotle taught us the circular pointlessness of skepticism 2300 years ago.

Pretty good economist too, I might add.

Also, the skeptics lapse into this rich v. poor thing. Please understand that we believe our policies would be vastly beneficial for the working poor.

Finally, I oppose occupational licensure and, being one of about five lawyers in this area who practices in the arcane areas of 42 USC 1983 and habeas corpus, which 99 percent of lawyers know little about, I hardly fear competition for non-lawyers.

Economic theory is exactly that "economic theory." That doesn't make you right. Is that what you do cut and run when people disagree with you?

4.3 million: Number of Americans who have fallen into poverty since President Bush took office

$5.15: Federal minimum wage

26%: How much the inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage has eroded since 1979

0: Number of times minimum wage has increased since 1997

7: Number of times Congress has increased its own pay since 1997

$0: How much more a year people earning minimum wage earn today compared to 1997

$28,500: How much more a year members of Congress make today compared to 1997

$10,700: Amount a person making minimum wage will earn in a year

$5,000: Amount below the poverty level working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year at minimum wage will leave a family of three

7,300,000: Number of workers who would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage

72%: Percentage of adult workers who would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage

1,800,000: Number of parents with kids under the age of 18 who would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage

11 million: Number of jobs added to the economy in the four years after the last minimum wage hike

$8.70: Amount minimum wage would have to be today to have the same purchasing power it had in 1968

2.5 years: Amount of health care for two children which could be bought by raising the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25

86%: Percentage of Americans who support raising the federal minimum wage

[Linda_D]

"The minimum wage doesn't cause crime, Jim."

Where are the people forced not to work by the minimum wage law? None are in the black market?

In every advanced welfare state where liberals make it extremely difficult to hire people, there are vast pools of unemployed people who therefore drift into crime and black market behavior. Do you deny this? If so, based on what expertise or experience?

I think as a criminal defense lawyer for 21 years, I have some right to opine about who's been filling all those crowded courtrooms.

Nice change of subject with John Rigas. Let's stick to the minimum wage.

Like I'm some sort of defender of John Rigas's crimes. (I did criticize the manner in which he was arrested.) Where do you get that liberal propaganda from? It's kind of pathetic.

You made the claim that street crime -- minor drug dealing, prostitution, theft, etc -- stems from people who cannot be employed because of the minimum wage. I took issue with that connection. For every person who turns to crime because of unemployment there are 9 or 10 or more who manage to find some kind of work rather than turn to crime like drug dealing or theft. Whether somebody decides to become a criminal has a lot more to do with his/her state of mind than his/her income, which is why I brought up Rigas and Lay. It's greed, arrogance, a displaced sense of entitlement, a lack of values, drug abuse, etc that breeds criminals not simple poverty.

You don't seem to get it--I'm talking about people who can't get hired under the law!

What would I do about the working poor? Slash taxes so they get to keep more of what they earn and can pay less for everything they buy and can increase their productivity because their employers have more money to invest in the equipment and tools they use on the job.

These "people who can't get hired under the law" don't get hired because they don't have job skills;some don't have good work habits; some are functionally illiterate or worse; some have criminal records; some have drug or alcohol problems; some aren't interested in "menial" work; some won't work for minimum wage.

There are plenty of employers who are willing to hire people "off the books" on the "gray market". There are lots of Americans who work that way because they can't find regular jobs at better wages. You don't even know they're there because they don't show up in court because they don't commit criminal acts. There are even more illegal immigrants who are willing to work for even less money than Americans -- and do jobs that Americans won't do.

[Linda_D]

Somebody asked before if raising the minimum wage actually caused unemployment to rise. My answer: unemployment appears to be linked to the business cycle rather than to the minimum wage.

I looked at the 1990s to the present. The minimum wage was raise in 1990 to $3.80; in 1991 to $4.25; in 1996 to $4.75; and in 1997 to $5.15. The 1990 raise in minimum wage didn't seem to have much impact on unemployment. The 1991 raise coincided with the increase in unemployment due to the recession in 1991, but after 1992, unemployment declined steadily, despite the 1996 and 1997 raises, until the recession of 2001. It has not yet reached pre-recession levels.

You can check the graph out at this site: Unemployment, 1990-2005

[atotaltotalfan2001]

Somebody asked before if raising the minimum wage actually caused unemployment to rise. My answer: unemployment appears to be linked to the business cycle rather than to the minimum wage.

I looked at the 1990s to the present. The minimum wage was raise in 1990 to $3.80; in 1991 to $4.25; in 1996 to $4.75; and in 1997 to $5.15. The 1990 raise in minimum wage didn't seem to have much impact on unemployment. The 1991 raise coincided with the increase in unemployment due to the recession in 1991, but after 1992, unemployment declined steadily, despite the 1996 and 1997 raises, until the recession of 2001. It has not yet reached pre-recession levels.

You can check the graph out at this site: Unemployment, 1990-2005

Excellent post!!!

[Jim Ostrowski]

Not much time.

If you don't believe in true economic theory, let's terminate the thread and admit that you can't disprove my position. I'll take that.

If the minimum wage law doesn't cause unemployment, let's raise it to $100 an hour.