Posted on 09/06/2021 6:21:50 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
The federal minimum wage in the U.S. has remained glued at $7.25 an hour for the last 12 years, the longest stretch without a boost since it was first adopted in 1938. Yet there's another revealing figure that underscores how the minimum wage — created by Congress after the Great Depression as a way to ensure that Americans were fairly paid for their labor — has failed to keep up with the times.
Even as workers have been more industrious — helping drive corporate profits, the stock market and CEO compensation to record heights — their pay has flatlined, or even declined when factoring in inflation. If the minimum wage had kept pace with gains in the economy's productivity over the last 50 years, it would be nearly $26 an hour today, or more than $50,000 a year in annual income, one economist notes.
"That may sound pretty crazy, but that's roughly what the minimum wage would be today if it had kept pace with productivity growth since its value peaked in 1968," wrote Dean Baker, senior economist at the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research, in a recent blog post.
Baker's analysis comes at an uneasy time for millions of workers across the U.S., even as they celebrate Labor Day. The COVID-19 Delta variant means many white-collar workers won't return to the office until 2022, while many lower wage workers continue to cope with the risk of getting infected, not to mention confrontations with anti-mask or anti-vaccine customers.
Inequality also widened during the pandemic, with the wealth of the richest Americans surging as stocks soared, while those at the bottom were more likely to get laid off than white-collar workers and also more likely to work in jobs where they faced a great chance of catching COVID-19.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
I have a million mark note from 1923 Germany. it cost me 75 cents in US money.
If you want productivity hire robots.
No minimum wage, no charges of discrimination in hiring or employment or firing, no sick time, no vacation time, no health benefits, no unemployment compensation, no complaining, no showing up late, no calling out....
etc etc etc.
Move to Germany, you’ll be rich!
These America hating commies are pure evil and never stop with lies .
Fascinating news. Except wages and productivity are not related.
$26 an hour for anyone with a liberal arts degree is pushing it. STEM students have pushed productivity while liberal arts majors seem to simmer in their own filth.
Productivity, or inflation?
Sure, CBS, if everyone was doing everything by hand. Productivity grows by makes jobs faster and easier to accomplish, thus getting more done with less labor, whether it be body count or making the job easier and less taxing on the body.
The original power saw cost a weeks wages and had to be rebuilt frequently but added so much productivity over hand saws they were worth every penny.
I once met the guy who held the patent on battery powered caulk guns. They completely revolutionized the auto glass replacement business. Productivity went up. Technicians could do more jobs per day. Injuries like carpal tunnel decreased dramatically. I worked as a supplier to that industry. Within a year, virtually every tech went from a $20 hand gun to a $300 battery gun.
The whole idea is to be more productive with the same or less staff and at a pay scale that is equitable to both.
But, the media is about as economically illiterate as Congress.
Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity
—
The writer fails to understand what “productivity” means. One guy with a backhoe can dig a ditch faster than a dozen men. No company is then going to turn around and pay 12X for the backhoe operator. The whole point of tools and automation is to create economic leverage; to create more with less.
Lots of people—farm workers, teenagers, etc.—were getting below the minimum wage back in that time. That floor helped to keep teens employed and minority adults unemployed.
The real limiting factors, however, are the number of low-skill illegal and legal immigrants we flooded into the workforce since them, as well as the competitive price restraint on exports, especially, given global markets. E.g., lots of unionized auto workers were getting $26/hr for factory jobs 40+ years ago, which essentially priced Detroit out of its global auto dominance.
Still, had we not flooded the low end of the labor market with cheap imported labor, and had wages in that sector risen closer to the productivity gains of the economy overall, we could have saved lots of poverty transfer payments at the governmental level. That could have kept taxes down but also limited the Dems’ voting base.
Well, a lot of folks have been TOTALLY un-productive (more/less than normal) for the past 20 months. Seems to have worked out okay for them. Ends today allegedly.
So CBS News thinks the person who barely speaks or understands English and stands in front of a computerized register at McDonalds or Burger King and pushes buttons that have writing or pictures on them explaining what they are for should be paid $26.00 an hour????
Minimum wage jobs are not high productivity related jobs.
Unions want more $$$.
If you have a “business” that is only profitable when paying a human being $7 an hour, it isn’t really a business, now is it?
Automate. Invest in processes. Update your business model.
But no. You want to continue “rent seeking” behavior with wage slaves.
I work with, don’t you dare call them “employees”, talented, skilled, passionate folks, not wage slaves. Folks are encouraged to seek outside positions. Helps us to keep attractive compensation for quality talent.
Oh that’s right. There’s a labor shortage cuz you can’t find $7 an hour wage slaves to stand a put dildos in wrappers all day.
Would you do it? Would you praise your kid for getting such an excellent job?
Let your shiite all burn.
We’ll be fine here in Gault’s Gulch.
If you need to have a trench dug quickly, that skilled backhoe operator is worth every penny of $30.00 x hour...
...until you find somebody equally capable who is willing to do it for $29.99 x hour or less.
The real minimum wage is zero.
Outside of government what a person is paid (at least on the lower end) is based on how much value they bring to the employer.
My first job was for 75 cents and hour. That was about as much as I was worth.
The most I made in the Army (1966) with jump pay and combat pay and no taxes was $300 a month. At a 40 hour week it works out to $1.85 an hour (but of course it was not a 40 hour week, more like 24/7 )
First job out of the Army was for $2 an hour. I had no real work experience, no skills, no high school diploma. I did have a strong back and a willingness to work.
I then begin to the long road of climbing the ladder to success (by first getting a HS diploma and then a college degree).
I am retired now and have a comfortable life.
My success would not have been possible if the minimum wage was more then my first employers were willing to pay for someone with little skills.
And that is what minimum wage does. It removes the first steps on the ladder to success.
I look back over my life and I can remember many low skill jobs that have disappeared because minimum wage priced them beyond what they were worth. In many cases technology was created to replace humans in other cases the jobs just disappeared.
Want a better more fair society, eliminate minimum wage and allow the worker negotiate their wages with the employer. Yes some would abuse the system but as long as the worker can walk away it is their choice to stay.
“Productivity, or inflation?”
According to the inflation calculator:
$7.25 adjusted for inflation from 12 years ago is $9.23.
The $.25 minimum wage from 1938 adjusted for inflation is $4.84.
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