I heard a clown from this "think tank" on Money with Melissa Francis tonight. Article is long, but essentially an argument for raising the minimum wage. One of the arguments was that the workers will turn around and spend the money in the store they work for, so it's no big deal to the company. Laughably ridiculous arguments - had to find the report (but I'll admit I couldn't make it through the whole thing).
The writer must have flunked Econ 101.....communism has NEVER worked
Artificially raise labor costs for retail workers and Internet shopping will get an unneeded shot in the arm. The trend to self-checkout will accelerate, and customers will be assisted by remote shopping assistants in India — or robots.
The market will figure out how to do without overpaid workers.
I was going to say Catherine needs to quite writing and go find someone with some brains who’ll be able to take care of her the rest of her life but, I’m single. I don’t want her mucking up the dating pool.
The Henry Ford school of thought. Instead of trying to produce the best product possible at the lowest price, hobble yourself by overpaying your employees. Ford rapidly became number 2. I have to wonder whether its stupid pay policies made it the benchmark for the UAW’s shakedown artists, thereby ensuring that all of Detroit became a life support system for the UAW instead of businesses run for profit. I suspect Detroit’s fall from grace - in large part caused by insane UAW pay and benefits packages as well as featherbedding work rules - was postponed for decades because of the complete destruction wreaked upon its foreign competitors and their domestic markets by WWII.
Check out their “tag line” and you’ll know all there’s need to know about what “Demos.org” is about.
“IDEAS AND ACTION TO PROMOTE THE COMMON GOOD”
Anytime I see someone promoting the “common” good I think collectivism and marxism.
Just as a “gold standard”, minimum wage imposes a “mundane labor standard” on money.
Labor has inherent value. Goods/services have inherent value. Money, however defined, is just a way of normalizing the exchange thereof. Basic labor which pretty much anyone can do with nigh unto no training has an inherent value which we currently peg at $7.25/hour. Two gallons of gasoline cost about the same. It’s not the pegged value that creates this equality, it’s that an hour of floor sweeping, burger flipping or gas clerking is worth about two gallons of gas - change that pegged minimum wage value to 10x that, and you’ll see gas prices soon increase tenfold to match.
The only benefit increasing minimum wage has for the poor is that there is a delay between the increase in wages and an increase in prices charged. During that brief delay, mundane workers enjoy a bump in buying power ... then prices again normalize, ends aren’t met, and the demand for increased minimum wages resumes.
Fact is, regardless of imposed wages, 8 hours of floor sweeping isn’t worth 12 meals and 1000 sq ft of urban real estate daily.
This person is delusional. Reminds me of a song "I owe my soul to the company stoooooo"
“the typical retail sales person earns just $21,000 per year. Cashiers earn even less, bringing home an annual income of just $18,500.”
Would it be fair to suggest that, say, an iPhone app developer’s labor has an inherent value of about 4x that much? As an example of highly trained & skilled & specialized work, vs what pretty much anyone can just walk in and do with an hour of orientation?
The employee will not be able to purchase as much as he could before the raise!!!
The only reason to be in business is profit, employees are a commodity and worth only as much as the labor supply demands.
Wages raise with the scarcity of employees in a given field.
Only government is stupid enough to set pay by compassion!
The author is a fool! Here is how it works in fast food, first the number of employees on any given shift are cut and the remaining workers have to pick up the slack. The reason for this is of course that the operators can only raise prices so far before sales drop. Now that the employees that are left get a small increase in income in return for a large increase in work load. On top of all this they get a lesson in economics when they see increased prices across the board to pay for it. Yet they never learn, they always believe they will come out ahead.
Well this is true. Wal-Mart, for example, is well aware that its employees are its best customers. However, it doesn't at all support her argument.
This is a setup for sympathy for the coming Walmart walkout.
Let’s make a long story short shall we? Lower taxes == an across the board pay raise for the entire workforce. Mission accomplished.
Hey, Mr. Think-Tanker, I have a cunning plan:
I’ll trade my hat for a pair of pants; then trade the pants for shoes; and then trade the shoes for another hat!
Pretty soon, I’ll have cornered the market on hats, pants, and shoes, and retire in style.
Retail will make us all rich!
They already spend the money in the store they work in. My daughter used to work at Gap and she had to wear the Gap’s clothes while you were on the floor and you had to purchase them.
Well when you bring in 1 million legal immigrants a year and countless illegal ones. It does tend to suppress the price of labor. Especially for the low skilled and entry level jobs.
20K a year would be pretty hard to live on.
Someone should explain to this guy that all future money that could have been used for raises is now going to go to Obamacare and the millions of bureaucrats that will have to administer it.
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/08/obamas-chief-economic-advisor-made.html
See above link by economist Mark J. Perry for a classic debunking of a 1994 study claiming that minimum wage hikes result in GREATER employment. That study was conducted by two lefty economists, David Card and Alan Krueger, and is still often cited today by those unaware that it has already been refuted. Alan Krueger, by the way, now chairs Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, having replaced Christina Romer.
Oh dear gawd. Please FO and die.
These retail workers better count themselves darned lucky they have a job running a cash register.
It takes no skill to punch some buttons on a register, scan a product for sale or wait for the buzzer to go off telling you it’s time to flip the burgers .
All jobs I held early in my life. one because my family owned a string of convenience spires and others I had in college and when I was trying tofsure out what to do before I found sales and eventually running companies.
Increasingly retail operations are adding self checkout and you know what? I use that before I go to a clerk. I’m way faster and not chatting with everyone as they pass by.
Self checkout will replace 75% of checkers in the next 7 years.
When I worked as a checker/burger flipper the job paid what it paid. I didn’t pretend it was worth more than what it was. I knew better, I knewte cost for operations and what the total cost of an order was(parts and pieces) I also knew the burdened cost. That is the cost of everything and labor + keeping the lights on.
If people running registers want better pay “Yo! Babes! Hub gotz to get sumb skills”
If I have to pay the burdened cost of $15 per hour for a hamburger you better believe I’ll be eating them at Smith and Wollensky since the cost will essentially be the same but I’ll get something that is fatter and juicier than your McD or InandOut.
Get a life people and get a better having job.
As it is because you voted for your vaunted and hailed master you are going to lose hours. Which means you are now going to waste hours and hours as you travel for two jobs.
Jack wagons....
Does this writer have any idea at all of how a market economy works?
I doubt it.
She seems to have overlooked the fact that an increase in wages without an increase in productivity will force prices up.
Once the repercussion of the unearned wage increase works its way through the economy, workers will just be paying more for the same quantity of goods.
The only entity to benefit will be the government:
- Higher wages mean higher income taxes.
- Higher wages means higher FICA and Medicare taxes paid by employer and employee.
- Higher prices means higher sales taxes paid on the same item.