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Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity
CBS News ^ | September 6, 2021 | By Aimee Picchi

Posted on 09/06/2021 6:21:50 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity and the cheapest loaf of bread would be over $70.
Minimum wage should be $0.00 an hour

21 posted on 09/06/2021 6:40:27 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

The type of work matters. A surgeon might be more productive because technology allows some surgeries that were not possible before and other surgeries can be done quicker. An accountant now has calculators, computers and spreadsheets. A pilot can do the work of a pilot, navigator, and flight engineer. A factory worker uses robots. But for the less skilled, manual labor jobs, technology has had less of a productivity boost, although it has eliminated some jobs.


22 posted on 09/06/2021 6:41:16 AM PDT by Wilhelm Tell (True or False? This is not a tag line.)
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To: Flick Lives

You are 100% right, of course. This article is just red meat for the mouth-breathers.


23 posted on 09/06/2021 6:41:20 AM PDT by Empire_of_Liberty
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To: 9YearLurker

Also the impact of more women in the job market further depressed wages.

Back when women stayed home, the supply of labor was less, which put higher pressure on wages, and also given the fact that people needed less “stuff” then, was why a family could survive on one salary.

And the thing is, when you take into account all of the extra expenses you occur to have both parents working, unless that second salary is six-figures, it really isn’t all that beneficial to have both parents working.


24 posted on 09/06/2021 6:41:47 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Theoria

The top chart is misleading. How much of that gap is consumed by payroll taxes, regulation and inflation?


25 posted on 09/06/2021 6:42:04 AM PDT by frogjerk (I will not do business with fascists)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Globalism, unlimited immigration, and printed money - all benefit government, their cronies and Wall Street.


26 posted on 09/06/2021 6:43:20 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: Flick Lives
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.

Exactly. Very insightful comment.

27 posted on 09/06/2021 6:43:34 AM PDT by Blennos ( )
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Not all sectors of the economy have grown at the rate suggested. Some sectors have seen very little increaes in productivity, fast food industries, room cleaning positions etc. So those wages would be less than $26.00 per hour.


28 posted on 09/06/2021 6:43:36 AM PDT by Maine Mariner
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Minimum wage: if you can’t produce enough, you’re not allowed to produce at all.


29 posted on 09/06/2021 6:43:41 AM PDT by ctdonath2 (All worry about monsters that'll eat our face, but it's our job to ask WHY it wants to eat our face.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
"minimum wage" is NOT a government purview!

It SHOULD be determined by the labor market.

The problem is flooding the labor market with cheap and illegal laborers, as it imposes slave wages on minority and legal immigrant workers.

30 posted on 09/06/2021 6:43:54 AM PDT by G Larry (Those destroying the Constitution must demonize those who would defend it.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
The minimum wage rate in PA is less than $8 but an article in the local paper was about 14 year olds making $16/hr working in a pizza shop.

The market will determine the worth of labor, it's called supply and demand, and it works every time {if the political pricks stay out of the mix}.

The pols get involved because of pay offs {and they don't care who carries the paper bag full of cash}.

31 posted on 09/06/2021 6:44:05 AM PDT by USS Alaska (NUKE ALL MOOSELIMB TERRORISTS, NOW.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

“Why not $260 per hour? “

That’s what people a little higher up the chain will make. They won’t want the extra headaches for just minimum wage.


32 posted on 09/06/2021 6:44:11 AM PDT by KrisKrinkle (Blessed be those who know the depth and breadth of ignorance. Cursed be those who don't.)
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To: All

Stop flooding the country with low skill labor maybe that would have helped with wages. Also completely getting off the gold standard probably was a mistake.


33 posted on 09/06/2021 6:44:20 AM PDT by escapefromboston (Free Chauvin)
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To: protoconservative
$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.

Not true. Many, many "liberal arts" majors work in the technology sector. I have been an IT director for a small company and a Backup Administrator for some big ones. My degree is in Political Science and Economics. My co-workers and IT friends have had degrees in Psychology, Humanities, Philosophy, Sociology, etc. Most Hillsdale graduates are in liberal arts, and plenty of liberal arts majors go on to graduate schools in chemistry, mathematics and even med school.

I have also met STEM cell graduates who wind up with holes in their reasoning when discussing political or moral issues. We NEED both liberal arts and STEM, and we need schools like Hillsdale, Christendom, TAC and Grove City College that actually provide excellent liberal arts instruction. Because the liberal arts have been mostly gutted, the school administrators with liberal arts degrees are ruining STEM with wokeism, CRT, and cancellation too. (Jordan Peterson, does a good job of describing what is happening.)
34 posted on 09/06/2021 6:44:29 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana (There is no salvation in politics.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Minimum wage isn’t the minim required to be paid, it is the minimum job allowed to be paid.


35 posted on 09/06/2021 6:45:31 AM PDT by CodeToad
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To: CIB-173RDABN

It’s not 1966 grandpa, and society doesn’t reward hard work anymore.
How many H1-B’s did you compete against?
How many women and blacks got promotions for being under qualified but minorities?
How globalized was the US economy?
How white was the US when you were born?
Be happy you came up when you did, you were lucky it wasn’t like now.


36 posted on 09/06/2021 6:47:20 AM PDT by EEGator
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To: Zathras
Right. Union contracts are tied to the Minimum Wage rate.
If the union guy gets $20 hour and the Minimum Wage to raised from $8 to $15 hour, then the Union guy gets the difference added, or $27 hour for the same job and hours of work.

37 posted on 09/06/2021 6:47:30 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: Fzob

One of the wealthiest people I know owns five McDonald’s franchises. He is a multimillionaire. He also happens to be an African American.

He began working for McDonalds as a teenager at minimum wage. He excelled in performance and was rewarded with supervisory and management positions at higher pay, eventually managing a company owned store. He lived frugally, saved his money and by the age of 30 had purchased his first franchise. He continued to work hard, increased the performance of that franchise and used the cash flow to purchase a second, then a third, fourth, and fifth. He is married and has two wonderful children.

I know others who started the same way in a number of industries. None stayed at minimum wage pay long. Their performance was well above “average” and they were quickly rewarded with more responsibility and pay. All moved into middle class roles and some became quite wealthy after being promoted to executive positions or moving on to start and successfully run their own businesses. I know a welder who started as an apprentice earning minimum wage at 18. Today he is a multimillionaire owning two extraordinarily successful businesses.

Pay for performance still exists. The labor shortage is real and companies will reward entry level employees who demonstrate initiative, enthusiasm, honesty and superior performance in a minimum wage job.


38 posted on 09/06/2021 6:47:46 AM PDT by Soul of the South (The past is gone and cannot be changed. Tomorrow can be a better day if we work on it.)
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To: Dr. Sivana

The way wokeism is eventually going to disappear from universities will be that universities will disappear.

Society just needs to move past “credentialitis” and start asking the tough questions—”Why are we doing this?”.

In the age of the Internet, almost all university studies will flunk that test.


39 posted on 09/06/2021 6:48:40 AM PDT by cgbg (A kleptocracy--if they can keep it. Think of it as the Cantillon Effect in action.)
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To: CIB-173RDABN
"The real minimum wage is zero."

That is exactly right. We had a guy in my group that kept complaining about income inequality and that it was unfair you had to work a full week to get a full week's wages. He wanted a huge increase in minimum wage because it was fair. After getting caught padding his timecard twice, he found minimum wage was zero. Did he learn from that experience, no one bit. You can not pay employees more than they can produce. The company will eventually die.

40 posted on 09/06/2021 6:49:00 AM PDT by Dutch Boy
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