Posted on 12/06/2005 6:46:29 AM PST by AmericaUnite
Nassau County Lawmakers Weigh in on Living Wage Legislation
(12/05/05) MINEOLA - Nassau County lawmakers are weighing in on whether the county can afford a new law that requires certain agencies and companies to pay their employees a living wage.
The proposed legislation calls for agencies that contract with the county to pay their employees at least $9.50 an hour starting in 2007 and $12.50 an hour by 2010. An independent budget review says that would cost the county $1.5 million in the first year and up to $7 million when fully implemented.
The state panel monitoring Nassau's finances is concerned about the plan. Republican legislators also question its impact on the county's bottom line. Advocates for a living wage, however, contend it's positive for everybody.
(Excerpt) Read more at news12.com ...
Of course the COUNTY can afford it. Its the taxpayers that might experience a bit of difficulty.
If you raise the minimum wage to $500 an hour, everyone will be a millionaire in about one year.
Is that your final offer? Is that California's rate?
In Nassau County? Try more like $75/hour.
Excellent idea! I hope that some lurking DUmmies pick up on it!
Thanks! Problem solved.
(Might want to raise it in the future so that everyone can take lavish vacations.)
Oh nonsense.
Paying your workers enough to live is not a bad thing. Workers who can't afford health insurance, or car insurance, or other necessities of American life doesn't do anyone any good.
IMHO, the minimum wage ought to be somewhere around $10.00 hour, and living wage even higher.
parsy, who isn't a socialist.
Geez, when will people understand that every time there's a raise in pay there's an equal or greater raise in the cost of living. That in turn, takes a great hit at everyone's savings. Our savings aren't worth a fraction of what they were when the $$$ were first put into the bank.
Bill....is that you.....??? You forgot the sarcasm tag didn't you? What I need to LIVE ON is different from what my NEIGHBOR needs to LIVE ON....get it? Setting wages is just like setting fees in medicare......you get a LOUSY system, screwed up by bureaucrats. Taken and Economics course, ever?
You are DEAD wrong my friend - here's why:
Minimum wage, maximum folly
Mar 23, 2005
by Walter E. Williams ( bio | archive | contact )
Senators Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rick Santorum, R-Pa., both introduced proposals to increase the minimum wage from its current $5.15 an hour. Sen. Kennedy's proposal would have raised the minimum wage to $7.25 in three steps over 26 months, while Sen. Santorum's would have raised it to $6.25 in two steps over 18 months. Two weeks ago, both measures failed passage in the Senate.
Sen. Kennedy said, "I believe that anyone who works 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, should not live in poverty in the richest country in the world," after telling fellow senators that minimum wage workers earn $5,000 below the poverty line for a family of three. Sen. Santorum said, "I feel very comfortable that our proposal keeps the balance between the ability of lower-skilled employees to enter the work force at a wage in which they are compensated for the skills they bring to the job."
The idea that minimum wage legislation is an anti-poverty tool is simply sheer nonsense. Were it an anti-poverty weapon, we might save loads of foreign aid expenditures simply by advising legislators in the world's poorest countries, such as Haiti, Bangladesh and Ethiopia, to legislate higher minimum wages. Even applied to the United States, there's little evidence suggesting that increases in the minimum wage help the poor. Plus, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 2.2 percent of working adults earn the minimum wage.
The crucial question for any policy is not what are its intentions but what are its effects? One of its effects is readily seen by putting yourself in the place of an employer and asking: If I must pay $6.25 or $7.25 an hour to whomever I hire, does it make sense for me to hire a worker whose skills enable him to produce only $4.00 worth of value per hour? Most employers would view doing so as a losing economic proposition. Thus, one effect of minimum wages is that of discriminating against the employment of low-skilled workers.
For the most part, teenagers dominate the low-skilled worker category. They lack the maturity, skills and experience of adults. Black teenagers not only share those characteristics, but they are additionally burdened by grossly fraudulent education, making them even lower skilled.
Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment data confirms the economic prediction about minimum wage effects. Currently, the teen unemployment rate is 16 percent for whites and 32 percent for blacks. In 1948, the unemployment rate for black teens (16-17) was lower (9.4 percent) than white teens (10.2 percent). Plus, black teens were more active in the labor force.
How might we explain that? How about arguing that there was less racial discrimination in 1948, or back then black teens were more highly educated than white teens? Of course, such arguments would be nonsense. The fact of the matter is that while there was a minimum wage of 40 cents an hour prior to 1948, it had been essentially repealed by the post-World War II inflation; however, with successive increases in the minimum wage, black teen unemployment rose relative to white teens to where it has become permanently double that of white teens.
If the minimum wage law has these effects, then how does it pass political muster? The current Social Security debate over private accounts gives us a hint. In the political arena, you dump on people who can't dump back on you. Few politicians owe their office to the youth vote. Despite the "concern for the children" malarkey they spout, it's voting age adults to whom politicians are beholden. It turns out that adults benefit from the discriminatory effects of minimum wages, and older adults benefit from Social Security intergenerational transfers.
Dr. Williams has served on the faculty of George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics, since 1980.
Minimum wage ALWAYS has the effect of creating unemployment, and especially so among those that need jobs the most. It prices the marginally employable menatlly-handicapped kid that sweeps the floors at Mickey D's right out of his job and robs him of his pride in doing something for and by himself.
Is this what you prefer?
Pssst, we live in a free market economy and a free society, thus, I can pick up my business and move it to where there is no such requirement as a living wage. Isn't that just great for the local economy!?!? Now, you don't have to worry about a living wage, because those workers will be making an unemployment wage or a no wage at all.
No, sensible minimum wage legislation doesn't send you into a miasma of confusion. Quite the contrary. It gives all the capitalist running dogs the same playing field and the same set of basic rules. You reduce the number of businesses trying to obtain a competitve edge by reducing the cash to their employees.
The ways things are now, for example, the WalMart, KMart, Targets, guys all UNDERPAY most of their workers. If any of their CEO/mgt woke up some morning with the desire to do what is right by their workers, they would not be able to do so for fear they would be driven out of business.
Several years ago I did a post here about chicken farmers and chickens. It still applies.
parsy, who fears not that the common man might be able to pay his bills.
Okay, so the next time your boss offers you a raise, you'll turn it down, right? Think about it. Its the same thing.
parsy, the just.
Here's a giant raft of articles that prove minimum wage advocates have more "feelings" than economic understanding, or common sense.
It is a tool of politicians seeking votes and very little else.
Only minor percentages of minimum wage earners stay at minimum wage, it is the just success ladder's first rung.
Abolish it, the 40hour week and other impediments to individual's choices such as unions - and see the power of America unleashed once again!
Ooops, forgot the link
http://www.townhall.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?q=minimum+wage&ps=25
Minimum wage ALWAYS has the effect of creating unemployment, and especially so among those that need jobs the most. It prices the marginally employable menatlly-handicapped kid that sweeps the floors at Mickey D's right out of his job and robs him of his pride in doing something for and by himself.
This is the same bs that has been flaoting around for years. It is propaganda from the folks who want to justify cheap wages. Shame on you for buying into it.
I bought into it for years, too, but after living a few years and seeing what was going on in the economy, I started to recognize it for what it was. Ask yourself if all this "every time we raise the minwage we lose jobs" was true, then wouldn't it hold true for YOU every time you got a raise???
parsy, who hopes you will see the light.
Was the raise EARNED????
What foolery!
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