Posted on 05/13/2015 8:27:04 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Did you know that 89 percent of all minimum wage workers in the United States are not teens? At this point, the average age of a minimum wage worker in this country is 36, and 56 percent of them are women. Millions upon millions of Americans are working as hard as they can (often that means two or three jobs), and yet despite all of their hard work they still find themselves mired in poverty. One of the big reasons for this is that we have created two classes of workers in the United States. “Full-time workers” are entitled to an array of benefits and protections by law that “part-time workers” do not get. And thanks to perverse incentives contained in Obamacare and other ridiculous laws, we have motivated employers to move as many workers from the “full-time” category to the “part-time” category as possible. It may be hard to believe, but right now only 44 percent of all U.S. adults are employed for 30 or more hours each week. But to get any kind of a job at all is a real challenge in many parts of the country today. As you read this article, there are more than 100 million working age Americans that are not employed in any capacity. And according to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if the federal government was actually using honest numbers the unemployment rate would be sitting at 23 percent. That is not an “employment recovery” – that is a national crisis.
The following infographic comes from the Economic Policy Institute. I certainly do not agree with a lot of the things that the Economic Policy Institute stands for, but I think that these numbers do accurately reflect what “part-time America” looks like today…
So what is the solution to this problem?
Most Democrats believe that raising the minimum wage would fix this. But as Zero Hedge has pointed out, it isn’t quite that simple…
Last week, we noted that Democratic lawmakers in the US are pushing for what they call “$12 by ’20” which, as the name implies, is an effort to raise the minimum wage to $12/hour over the course of the next five years. Republicans argue that if Democrats got their wish and the pay floor were increased by nearly 70%, it would do more harm than good for low-income Americans as the number of jobs that would be lost as a result of employers cutting back in the face of dramatically higher labor costs would offset the benefit that accrues to the workers who are lucky enough to keep their jobs.
Yes, raising the minimum wage would make life better for many minimum wage workers in America. But a large number of them would also lose their jobs completely, and a lot of small businesses would deeply suffer financially.
Ideally, what we would love to see happen is for the U.S. economy to be producing so many good jobs that the only people that are looking for entry-level part-time jobs would be teens, people just starting out in the workforce, etc. Back when I was a teen, I remember walking into a McDonald’s and getting hired on the spot because they were in dire need of workers. Sadly, those days are long, long gone.
Over the past several decades, millions of good paying American jobs have been shipped overseas, and millions more have been lost to advancing technology. And as I wrote about the other day, Barack Obama is deeply betraying American workers by working on a global economic treaty that would destroy millions more good paying jobs.
Thanks to the foolishness of our politicians, there is now intense competition even for minimum wage jobs at this point.
We keep hearing about an “employment recovery”, but it is a giant lie. Posted below is a chart of the civilian employment to population ratio. As you can see, the percentage of the working age population that is actually employed is much, much lower than it used to be…
In recent months, we have seen the employment-population ratio move slightly higher. But can this be called “an employment recovery”? Of course not. We are still way, way below the level that we were at just prior to the last recession, and now the next recession is just about upon us.
Meanwhile, the quality of our jobs continues to decline as more Americans are being pushed into “part-time work” with each passing year.
Since February of 2008, the size of the U.S. population has grown by 16.8 million people. But during that same time frame, the number of full-time jobs in this country has actually decreased.
And at this point, the majority of American workers simply do not make enough money to support a middle class family. The following income numbers come directly from the Social Security Administration…
-39 percent of American workers make less than $20,000 a year.
-52 percent of American workers make less than $30,000 a year.
-63 percent of American workers make less than $40,000 a year.
-72 percent of American workers make less than $50,000 a year.
Are you starting to see why I am so fired up about all of this?
We have developed a business culture in this country which does not care about workers. In business schools all over America, future executives are taught that a corporation only has one goal – to maximize wealth for the shareholders. Taking care of those that are part of your team is treated as an afterthought at best.
As corporations have gotten bigger, they have shown less and less concern for those that work for them. These days, employees are generally regarded as “expensive liabilities” that are to be discarded the moment that their usefulness has come to an end. And news of layoffs is often rewarded by Wall Street by a surge in the stock prices of the companies making those layoffs.
In the old days, more businesses in America were family-owned, and employees were often regarded as almost “part of the family”. Unfortunately, those days have disappeared forever.
Now, employees are treated like scum by many big companies, and if they don’t like how they are being treated they are told that they can leave. For example, just consider what was going on at a security company down in Florida…
Jose Molero worked as a site inspector for the company, which provides security for neighborhoods and companies across the country, for more than a year.
Molero says when he went to the Kensington Golf and Country Club guardhouse, he found wooden paddles on a desk, some with staff names on them and one reading “for staff discipline.”
He says there was also what is called a “Wall of Shame,” where the supervisor points out and posts reports that contain grammatical errors.
When Molero complained about these things to his district manager, he was told that if anyone was offended “maybe they shouldn’t work here”…
Molero contacted his operations manager, who told him to speak with the district manager. He says the district manager sent him an email response that said, “if that hurts their feelings then maybe they shouldn’t work here.”
Do you have a similar horror story to share?
Most of us do.
The U.S. economy is absolutely dominated by cold, heartless corporations that have no interest in listening to the little guy. If they could find a way to do it, many of them would operate with no low-level employees at all. And as technology continues to advance, they will replace as many of us as they can with robots, drones, machines and computers.
I’ll be honest with you – the future for workers in America looks really bleak. The competition for any jobs that can’t be shipped overseas or replaced by technology is going to become even more heated. This means that the middle class is going to get even smaller, the number of Americans dependent on the government is going to continue to explode, and the disparity between the wealthy and the poor is going to become even greater.
As corporations have gotten bigger, they have shown less and less concern for those that work for them. These days, employees are generally regarded as “expensive liabilities” that are to be discarded the moment that their usefulness has come to an end. And news of layoffs is often rewarded by Wall Street by a surge in the stock prices of the companies making those layoffs.
There is a good reason workers are not as valued today. There is a huge supply of them. Wages are down and if they need to replace someone, there are a lot of decent workers that are underpaid and/or unemployed. Again, it comes down to supply and demand. Companies will start to value their employees more when they NEED them and are afraid to lose them.
Yes this minimum wage thing is so convoluted. Remember when all the workers at Mickey Dee’s were high school kids? That’s the way its supposed to be. That’s how you keep the fast food cheap. They are entry level jobs not careers. Waiting tables in a restaurant should not be a career. Its a stepping stone.
Now that we have lost over 7 million manufacturing jobs which do pay fairly well people end up in service jobs. Our whole economy is going to end up as a service economy if we are not careful and that will truly be the end of us.
There was a famous statistician about 20 years ago that drowned in a river in northern california that had an average depth of 3 inches.
Exactly! She is overqualified for Burger King but will take what she can get. The 17 year old is out, the ex-manufacturing worker is in.
Good article, but the author fails to mention immigration, legal and illegal. We have brought in 30 million LEGAL PERMANENT IMMIGRANTS SINCE 1990. At any one time there are 2 million LEGAL GUEST WORKERS in this country, And then there are the 12 to 20 million illegal aliens. Is it any wonder that we have low labor participation rates and depressed wages?
The problem is that we have a surplus of labor.
Obamanomics at it’s finest when he said change he mint that’s what you will be working for however per MSM he’s black what could go wrong white guilt is eased.
Interesting thread.
That is an excellent point, thank you for pointing it out!
Well. He certainly proved his point. /S
We’ve Pavlov trained a couple of generations that you come out further ahead voting for it than working for it.
We are SCROOOOOOOOD.
Easy to say but the system does not work as it used to. Current college graduates cannot pass an eighth grade final from my era even though they have spent many more years and a huge amount of money going to school. Jobs of the sort that used to be filled by high school graduates or even dropouts now demand a degree. Just a very short time ago Freepers were insisting that anyone who earns an engineering degree is set up to make a fine income. Now we are hearing of a shortage of employment for new engineers. Young people now can work very hard and not do nearly as well as those of my generation could do with a half hearted effort.
Less than three miles from where I sit is an empty building which used to house a sythetic fibers operation which closed down in November 2008. Young people who have earned a university degree now will be very lucky indeed if they can find employment paying what warehouse workers in that plant were earning fifteen years ago and that was a NON-union plant in South Carolina, not an area known for high wages.
Wasn’t making hamburgers reclassified as a manufacturing job during the Bush years?
What, so brainless Marxist rhetoric doesn't get 'barf-warning' on FR these days?
I wouldn’t say cold & heartless. I would say multinational and indifferent and not tied to the USA. They consider themselves gloBULL corporations and patriotism is a non factor.
89% are not teenagers and 37% are 40 or older. How do you define young and old?
most 36-year-olds are NOT making minimum wage. When the standard deviation from your average is nearly as wide as the data range, there's your clue that computing the average (median, mode) is wrong.
So what is your point? You seem to have missed the most telling statistic that only 40% of all US adults are employed in jobs for 30 or more hours a week. With labor participation rates at their lowest in 38 years and almost 100 million Americans of working age not in the workforce, we have a major problem.
From the article: Since February of 2008, the size of the U.S. population has grown by 16.8 million people. But during that same time frame, the number of full-time jobs in this country has actually decreased. Your response:
When the standard deviation from your average is nearly as wide as the data range, there's your clue that computing the average (median, mode) is wrong.
It's like calculating the average depth of the Grand Canyon: if you average out the entire park, you'll get something like "3 feet".
Again, what is your point? Are you trying to diminish what is happening to American workers? The author sums it up this way, I’ll be honest with you – the future for workers in America looks really bleak. The competition for any jobs that can’t be shipped overseas or replaced by technology is going to become even more heated. This means that the middle class is going to get even smaller, the number of Americans dependent on the government is going to continue to explode, and the disparity between the wealthy and the poor is going to become even greater.
Per recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2013), there are 75.9 million hourly-paid workers in the USA, and 96% of these earn more than the federally established minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
Only 2% of 75.9 million hourly-paid workers make $7.25 per hour. The other 2%, in legally exempt categories such as tippable food service or full-time student jobs, may earn less than minimum.
Half of minimum wage workers are 16-24 years old; half of those are teenagers (16-19). Sixty-four percent of minimum wage jobs are part time. (Pew Research)
Why is the left obsessed with raising the federal minimum wage if only a tiny sliver of the hourly-paid workforce work at this wage level? Though the left couldn’t care less about teenage hamburger flippers, order takers, and sundry clerks who may be let go or replaced by machines because of hikes in minimum wage, government and union labor contracts build in automatic wage increases pursuant to federal minimum wage hikes. Raising the minimum wage, therefore, has a significant multiplier effect in rewarding union and government sectors who feed the political bosses.
What I'm getting here is that we're now lifting business owners up from "cold & heartless" and raising them to merely "bad" but still not as worthy as the oppressed workers. Honestly, I'm still having a hard time not seeing this as just more brainless Marxist rhetoric and I'm not sure what I'm missing.
LOL. And this
“The U.S. economy is absolutely dominated by cold, heartless corporations that have no interest in listening to the little guy.”
Seems as though this guy thinks they hire management from the wrong end of the scale.
Bump for later...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.