Posted on 08/05/2022 12:55:12 PM PDT by Red Badger
The federal minimum wage has all but died of old age.
Why it matters: The benchmark hasn't received a lift in 13 years — it’s been stuck at $7.25 per hour since 2009. The longer it stays there, the less relevance it has, and the closer it comes to meaninglessness.
By the numbers: Measured in 2009 dollars, the minimum wage has fallen over the past 13 years to just $5.27 per hour.
Most states have a higher minimum wage. The Washington, D.C., wage of $16.10, for instance, is more than double the federal minimum. It's now legal in only 20 states to pay an employee as little as $7.25 per hour.
The big picture: The minimum wage is so low that precious few employers can find anybody willing to work for such a sum.
The most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report on the subject finds that just 1.5% of all hourly paid workers are making the minimum wage or less.
Between the lines: The minimum wage doesn't even do much good for the lowest-paid workers. 78% of the 1.1 million workers making at or below the federal minimum were actually making less than the minimum wage in 2020. (That's often legal, thanks to various exclusions and exemptions in the statutes.)
The bottom line: The federal minimum wage is only meaningful insofar as there are workers who would make less than they’re currently earning if it didn’t exist. That population now probably numbers less than 0.2 million people, out of a civilian labor force of more than 164 million.
Good riddance to business and job-killing and utterly stupid “minimum wage.
Wage and price controls. Run by dunces who never made it through Econ 101.
There is no enumerated power for a federal minimum wage effective anywhere within the jurisdiction of a State. Such could be in effect over the Territories or a place not under any State jurisdiction like Washington DC though.
This is the beginning of the drumbeat for a $30 minimum wage..............
“Fight for 15” became a joke as inflation rages.
30 ain’t that far down the road.
I remember in 1966 that $2.67/hour I made on the line at GM was real good money.
Union wage scale......................
Well every state has their own anyway...and here’s where I add, there should be no minimum wage, state or federal.
The minimum wage is always ‘0’.........................
In 1977, the minimum wage was $2.30, I think. I was able to live and operate a car on that. I don’t believe I could do that today on $7.25/hr, but then I didn’t stay working for minimum wage very long, certainly not my entire career.
Even Taco Bell is starting 15 year olds at $12/hour in our town. Guys standing at the off-ramp with a sign do better than $7.50/hr.
Here in Georgia there are blue collar managers making much less than $30/hr. Most first time jobs here are paying at least $10, some as much as $15. And people still don’t want to work. Staffing problems particularly in retail are shocking
Same here on the Gulf Coast. Tourist oriented businesses are normally higher pay and still can’t fill all positions......................
It should be up to the states to establish their own minimum wage. You can’t have the same wage in Los Angeles with Jackson, Mississippi. That said, leave it up to the marketplace to establish wages. If we are having problem with getting fair compensation for our workers, that as where we need to restrict our immigration. But right now that is not the case because we have a labor shortage.
The covid spike in starting wages plus all the free money pumped in has to be inflationary pressure. The problem is wage compression where starting wages creep up but mid level stagnates so the wage gap shrinks. The middle class takes the hit.
Yup. It seems like just the sort of thing the Democrats would push to, you know, fight inflation and unemployment.
The government has given itself the power to set a minimum hourly rate of pay. It does not have this right. Unless we are a communist country, which we are rapidly becoming.
Nobody around me is trying to hire at minimum wage, it’d be a waste of time.
Which just shows how unnecessary it is.
[“Fight for 15” became a joke as inflation rages.
30 ain’t that far down the road.
I remember in 1966 that $2.67/hour I made on the line at GM was real good money.]
In comparison, GM builds the same light-duty pickups at Fort Wayne Assembly in Indiana and will start building the light-duty Silverado at Oshawa Assembly in Ontario soon. GM builds its heavy-duty pickups at Flint Assembly and Oshawa. At those plants, wages in the UAW contract range from $18 to $32 an hour.
A New York Times article earlier this year reported the pay for starting workers at GM’s Silao plant at that time was lower than the pay “at some Nissan, Audi and Volkswagen plants in Mexico that are represented by independent unions, and just 60 cents above the country’s daily minimum wage.”
But according to Reuters, Nissan this year agreed to increase wages in Mexico 6.5%, while last year Volkswagen agreed to a 5.5% raise. Audi’s contract lists a wage increase of 5.4% each year from 2020 to 2022. GM’s increase would be the largest.]
If anybody in D.C. even thinks about raising the minimum wage donations will drop like a rock Biden let all the illegals in for a reason.
Todays job report was high but house holds hires not to high in those numbers as noted on Larry Kudlow report (Fox Business program).
And why is it that low? For more floods of cheap, extremely subservient labor imported from near the equator.
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