The Benefits of a Living Wage
THIS STUDY OF THE LOS ANGELES LIVING WAGE ORDINANCE REPRESENTS THE MOST DEFINITIVE ANALYSIS TO DATE of a living wage law's impact on workers and employers. It provides important new insights on the effects of living wage policies, which have been adopted by more than 120 local governments around the country. http://www.losangeleslivingwagestudy.org/
Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
A living wage law in Los Angeles?? :rotfl:
Unless you're in the upper classes, you're lucky to get ANY wage in Los Angeles. The film industry hires as many unpaid interns as it can, and then it takes many years to work up to getting a little more than minimum wage. And most low-end jobs go to illegal immigrants who work for well below the state minimum wage.
Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
from the executive summary at your link ...
"64% of the jobs affected by the living wage are at Los Angeles International or Ontario airports
Major affected occupations include airline service workers, janitors, parking attendants, food service workers, and retail clerks
Most affected jobs are in firms that are service contractors to the city (41%), or service contractors to the airlines ( 37%)"
The one common thread in essentially all of these L.A. area living wage jobs is that these jobs exist in a 'monopoly' situation which is essentially free from economic competition. In other words, local gov't has decided that everything at LAX and Ontario airport can be made more expensive in order to finance the living wage pay rate - and that travellers will pay more because they have no other option (other than driving 200 miles to a more distant airport). Local gov't has also decided that they will increase taxes on local residents in order to pay higher fees to the living wage service contractors local gov't chooses to employ, (with local residents given no option to paying higher taxes other than moving out of the area).
In most areas of the USA, a 'free market' system is still in effect versus a gov't controlled economy. A living wage system simply will not survive in a 'free market' economy because, unlike LAX travellers or L.A. taxpayers, customers have the choice of paying higher prices on general principles to support living wage pay rates versus paying lower prices to support minimum wage pay rates and spending the saved money on their own families instead.
The study you cite (which is de-facto financed by the California state gov't BTW) provides absolutely no data in regard to the long term effects of the living wage law on the financial health of the city of L.A. or of the two airports. However, there is a fair body of anecdotal evidence which shows the long term possibilities of an ever higher California tax burden ...
from
""'Pick almost any index of social well-being, and Nevada ranks at or near the very bottom of the 50 states, though it ranks near the top in personal wealth,'" Vermel read. "'Besides having the highest suicide rate (almost twice the national average), Nevada has the highest adult smoking rate and the highest death rate from smoking, the highest percentage of teenagers who are high-school dropouts, the highest teenage pregnancy rate and the highest rate of firearm deaths.'"
I thought the article must be overstating the case. After all, if Nevada were in such poor shape, why would so many Silicon Valley millionaires be moving there?
It might have something to do with the difference between the California and Nevada tax codes. On the advice of their tax advisers, people who made money on stock options from companies such as Exodus, Netscape, Oracle and Sun have been establishing their legal residences in tiny villages and golf communities like Montreux, Incline Village, Caughlin Ranch and Arrow Creek before selling stock acquired through option grants.
"I'm there a lot," said one nouveau Nevadan who Netscaped to the Silver State, reached at work in the Bay Area. "I sold my house here. I basically live there."
Moving to Nevada for tax purposes is nothing new; the Swiss bank account set has been doing it for years (why do you think they named it Montreux?). But the recent influx of high-tech riche has sparked a wildfire of incubators and venture funds to stimulate high-tech development in the area.
Technology megabucks are floating like a smoke ring around Reno with such outfits as Sierra VisionLaunch and its Bristlecone Ventures (launched just this week), Sierra Angels, and the Tech Alliance.
"A lot of people from Silicon Valley have moved to this area," observed Fred Sibayan, co-founder of Exodus Communications, president of Sierra Vision Launch and resident of Montreux. "They moved here for the quality of living as well as the tax reasons. These people have a lot of expertise and a wealth of knowledge that they could expose to the young companies who are moving here."
... thus nobody has accounted for the potential financial impact of new high-tech jobs which were created in Nevada instead of in California, the loss of California tax revenue on the earnings of very rich former California residents who moved to Nevada plus new employees paying taxes to Nevada instead of California etc. as a result of the passage of living wage laws among a host other California gov't decisions which increased state/local taxes and costs of living to ponderously high levels - thus prompting productive taxpayers (and the future economic activity / new jobs stermming from those productive taxpayers) to leave the jurisdiction.
I leave it to others to assess the relative merits of some 10,000 L.A. area living wage workers receiving a $2 an hour pay increase, versus the probable dollar value of lost L.A. area tax revenue / lost new jobs / lost tax revenue from those who would have held those new jobs as a result of more high earning and productive Angelinos finally deciding that the L.A. tax burden is too high to bear. The gov't can decide to transfer 'gold' from those who have 'gold' to those who don't via living wage laws, but eventually the 'golden geese' get tired of having their 'golden eggs stolen'. This will eventually leave the gov't without an ongoing source of 'gold' to keep the living wage monopoly in operation, but with a host of living wage workers who have become dependent on the living wage subsidy and with a local cost of living which is repriced such that living wage standard of living is no better than minimum wage standard of living used to be.
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Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/we...ts_lw_movement
"First, most workers are not paid exactly what they are worth. Wages are set by a number of factors, including the skill, race, and gender of the worker, the conditions of the local labor market (if there are a lot of excess workers, the wage will tend to fall), the nature of the industry and occupation in which the job is located, and, importantly, the bargaining ability of the worker him/herself.
Second, employers will not always respond to the wage hike by laying off workers, for there are other, less disruptive ways they can absorb the price increase. After all, workers are not bananas, and it is much more difficult for an employer to restructure her workforce than for a shopper to switch to oranges until the price of bananas goes back down. As much as they might not want to, employers might find it in their interest to cut their profit margins, or they might try to pass the increase onto their customers through higher prices. Or, instead of laying off their workforce, they are likely to try to get them to increase their productivity, and thus absorb the increase through more efficient production.
.....municipal policy calls for a middle ground. Some taxes and regulations need to be in place to avoid the race to the bottom, and to preserve both the city's tax base and living standards. What's more, despite their claims to the contrary, employers and contractors will not flee the minute a new regulation is reduced. Instead, they will calculate what the regulation will cost them and, as discussed above, try to figure out ways to absorb the cost increase. And if they can continue to make a profit by doing business with the city, they will stay.
Finally, there is a larger lesson from the living wage movement-a lesson about the nature of the labor market. The movement forces you to step back from the narrow economic arguments for and against the living wage and ask yourself the following question: Why does America, the largest and one of the most productive economies in the world, need to subsidize wages so that full-time, adult workers performing essential tasks can achieve a dignified life style? These workers are taking our kids to school, picking up our trash, and maintaining our public infrastructure. How is it possible that our economy has devolved to the point where we have to subsidize these essential services?
Part of the answer is that we have allowed and even encouraged firms to "take the low-road" in terms of their business practices. Instead of creating incentives to be good corporate actors, to play a positive roll in the economic life of the communities wherein they reside, our policies encourage them to minimize their contributions and maximize their personal gain. This may be a profitable strategy in the short-run, but it will ultimately serve to corrode some of our most valuable resources. The living wage movement, by pointing the way to the high road, offers a timely and progressive alternative route."
Just some quote from the link in this post.
The article about Los Angles points out how the law helped the people it was implemented for. $2.00 an hour might not seem like alot to you but to family it can mean a world of differance. There have also been studies that show that by having a living wage workers are more productive and more inclined to learn new skills.
As the article i just posted points out, this isnt about a goverment entitlement handing out "gold". This is about corporations sharing their high profits margins with workers in fair and more humane manner.
Yekhefah actors are in a job class unto themselves. In the mean time working a job with a decent wage between gigs would help as well. Which is why most successful actors have more than one vocation.
With a living wage in place and immagration reform the issue of illegal workers could be an issue of the past. With reform they would be on worker visas and also receive a living wage. Therefore reducing the risk of them bringing down the general workforce wages.
Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
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Originally Posted by Yekhefah
A living wage law in Los Angeles?? :rotfl:
Unless you're in the upper classes, you're lucky to get ANY wage in Los Angeles. The film industry hires as many unpaid interns as it can, and then it takes many years to work up to getting a little more than minimum wage. And most low-end jobs go to illegal immigrants who work for well below the state minimum wage.
Why should they when they can just hire a border jumper?
Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
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With a living wage in place and immagration reform the issue of illegal workers could be an issue of the past. With reform they would be on worker visas and also receive a living wage. Therefore reducing the risk of them bringing down the general workforce wages.
Hey, it sounds like a 'noble experiment' to me, what the hell ! However, please let me move out of the USA and exchange all of my assets into Euros or Yen first.
Widespread wage controls, and accompanying price controls, have occasionally been tried in the USA as well as extensively employed in various other countries - with typically disastrous results i.e. increased unemployment and shortages.
Wage controls without price controls (i.e. living wage) result in ... higher prices ... as employers who must now pay a higher living wage attempt to recoup their increased payroll costs through the sale of their product/service at a higher price. Wage controls also result in ... higher taxes ... when that employer is a local gov't entity. Living wage laws also result in increased unemployment among the unskilled workforce as both private and public sector employers attempt to mitigate their mandatory per-capita increase in payroll by simultaneously reducing the number of people they employ.
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As the article i just posted points out, this isnt about a goverment entitlement handing out "gold". This is about corporations sharing their high profits margins with workers in fair and more humane manner.
... and just how do you suppose that the L.A. city gov't gets the money to pay for the living wage contractors it chooses to hire ? (think tax increases)
... just how do you suppose that your home state of Michigan's major corporations have been paying union scale wages while losing billions of dollars every year ? (think huge losses by people who invested for their retirement in the stocks and bonds of these corporations)
In both cases, regulations which involve giving people something (higher wages) in return for nothing (the same job they were already performing) certainly fits my definition of an entitlement program ... and particularly so when it is funded by direct tax increases by local gov't. However, the definition still arguably applies when the 'tax' is invisible i.e. higher than necessary prices for products/services provided by workers being paid higher wages under such regulations.
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Why does America, the largest and one of the most productive economies in the world, need to subsidize wages so that full-time, adult workers performing essential tasks can achieve a dignified life style?
herein lies the fallacy of the entire living wage argument ... that being an adult and working 40 hours a week entitles everyone living in America to a "dignified" lifestyle, regardless of the actual 'value' of those 40 hours of unskilled labor on the world market, and regardless of the fact that affording that 'dignified' lifestyle requires the extraction of wealth from some other American whose services are more highly 'valued' by one means or another thus causing the other American's standard of living to decline so that the living wage worker's standard of living can increase. The last point, that the standard of living of living wage workers actually increases, is also arguable, leaving the possibility that the real effect of living wage laws is only to decrease the standard of living of the local middle class whose taxes and pricing of living wage products/ services are increased.
here's a 'professional' analysis on your study, and the 'true' motivation behind living wage laws ... an attempt by unions to justify pay raises for all of their members in order to maintain a 'differential' between the pay rates of the unskilled and the highly skilled ...
(snip)"How do living wage laws benefit unions? Living wages directly increase wages for lower-skill union workers who previously negotiated below living wage contracts. Further, by forcing producers to pay higher wages even if they are nonunion, they reduce competition from nonunion companies, whose costs are forced up (the mechanism Neumark emphasizes). Because of the increased costs, however, such laws also undermine municipalities' attempts to save their taxpayers money by privatizing public services or by putting welfare recipients to work, either of which threatens union jobs.
By forcing affected contractors to pay employees more, living wages allow unions to get pay raises and job security they couldn't get through traditional means. Because they apply to government contracts, they use governments' ability to force taxpayers to bear increased costs, which unions couldn't use in direct negotiations with private employers (much like the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage law for federally funded construction).
Living wage laws also provide other props for unions. They substitute for attempts to impose higher local minimum wages, which would intrude on state authority. By dealing only with municipalities where supporters' power is strong, they divide and conquer opposition that would prevent passage at the state level. And living wage laws are intended as wedges for further wage and coverage expansions in the future. In any event, as local governments expand their reach, involving themselves in ever more aspects of the local economy, these effects will increase over time.
The main conclusion of Neumark's study--that living wages reduce poverty--is not as strong as the headlines make it appear. The study actually shows that some low-income workers may gain more than other low-income workers lose from some types of living wage laws. That is, it only helps "on average," while directly harming low-income workers who lose their jobs as a result. And the most common type of living wage law produces no detectable progress against poverty, even on average.
Further, those underwhelming conclusions hold only when additional indirect effects which will harm low-income families are ignored. But those laws give unions substantial raises, ultimately funded from higher taxes and reduced services from municipal governments. As a result, a careful reading of his study leaves us a long way from the headlines that "Living Wage Laws Reduce Poverty," unless it only refers to union members."
!~
Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
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But I do find it interesting that with all the lay offs in Michigan, they are now raising the min wage in the state.
"The law lifts the minimum wage from the current $5.15 an hour to $6.95 an hour on Oct. 1. The hourly base wage will then rise to $7.15 in July 2007 and $7.40 in July 2008."
hhhhmmmmmmm wonder why they did that?
Your question and the answer are both purely political in nature ...and thus skirt the limits of Dollar Den
Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
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Originally Posted by Vamp
Yekhefah actors are in a job class unto themselves. In the mean time working a job with a decent wage between gigs would help as well. Which is why most successful actors have more than one vocation.
Who said anything about actors? I agree, they've got it better than anyone else out here.
Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
The guy who did the SuperSize me movie has done something on this issus. He and his wife lived for 30 days on low level pay. It is an eye opener.
BTW, the national min. wage ( $5 and change an hour) full time job leaves the worker under the national poverty level .
I think it's shameful and immoral that anyone would oppose the concept of a living wage.
Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
I agree with Deogol and Yekhefah. As long as there is an unending tide of illegal aliens who will work for next to nothing, unskilled (or low skilled) workers will never be able to make a decent living.
Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
The problem with minimum wage is it is 9 years old, and adjusted for inflation below what it was in the 70's.
Forget the supersize me guy, read Nickel and Dimed
Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
^^^ That is a fucking AWESOME book. I especially loved the first part when she was a waitress... I waited tables for almost 10 years and she really hit the nail on the head there. A lot of people don't realize that in most of the country, waitresses don't even get minimum wage. I got the federal minimum of $2.13 an hour and had to make up the difference with my tips. If the kitchen staff started screwing around and didn't throw out my food on time, it meant no grocery money that week.
That's why so many waitresses are fucking the kitchen staff. If the cooks feel like you're not giving them what they want, they will deliberately fuck up your orders so you don't get paid.
Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
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Originally Posted by TarynJolie
I think it's shameful and immoral that anyone would oppose the concept of a living wage.
I think its shameful some folks think a glitter and shine two-word platitude outweighs a mountain of evidence pointing out that living wage policies actually enslave the very people they're intended to help.
http://www.redandgreen.org/Informati.../ff991123.html
Folks, if everyone from Mom & Pop proprietor to Wal-Mart had to pay a lving wage to their employees, the prices for everything they sell would have to go up in order for those businesses to make a profit. What's the point of giving someone a 20% increase in pay, if everything they buy is going to go up 20% in price, essentially setting them back to square one.
And do those of us working well above the minimum wage get a pay increase too? If so, that's going to exasperate rising prices that much further. If not, the purchasing power of such people is going to be cut. Meaning those people will have less money to spend in these new "living wage" paying businesses, meaning such businesses may have to cut jobs in order to stay afloat.
Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
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Folks, if everyone from Mom & Pop proprietor to Wal-Mart had to pay a lving wage to their employees, the prices for everything they sell would have to go up in order for those businesses to make a profit. What's the point of giving someone a 20% increase in pay, if everything they buy is going to go up 20% in price, essentially setting them back to square one.
Actually this is an optimistic assessment with the embedded assumption that the gov't enforced higher minimum wage would apply equally throughout America. In fact, living wage laws are local, and end at the city limits or county line. Thus potential customers need only drive an extra mile or two to find the exact same product for sale by businesses located just beyond the living wage jurisdiction at a lower price. Because of this, a widespread cycle of price increases to offset the costs of the accompany gov't mandated living wage increases cannot get a major foothold with 'free market' businesses ... forcing those 'free market' businesses within the living wage jurisdiction to either absorb a large decrease in profit margin (possibly leading to bankruptcy and unemployment) or a large decrease in business volume (also possibly leading to bankruptcy and unemployment).
Living wage laws do work when the authority of the local gov't provides the means to force local residents to patronize living wage businesses instead of doing business outside of the living wage jurisdiction, as was the case with the LA airports and LA gov't contractors. However, this creates an incentive for productive taxpayers to personally escape the jurisdiction in order to avoid the increasing taxes necessary to fund the higher labor cost living wage workers.
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I think it's shameful and immoral that anyone would oppose the concept of a living wage
I'm not following ... one of the 10 commandments says 'thou shall not covet thy neighbor's goods', and living wage laws confiscate the goods (more precisely tax dollars) of higher earning more productive citizens and hand them to lower earning less productive citizens in exchange for essentially nothing (performing exactly the same job) with exactly the same effects as if those goods had been stolen directly.
Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
I had a long response to the well-intentioned, yet woefully myopic fallacy of the living wage, but I accidentally closed the browser tab I was using, so I'll just echo what Melonie and Doc have said, which is essentially that penalizing capitalist motivations in business is wholly counterproductive to the very class of people affected by low-skill/low-wage job prospects.
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As the article i just posted points out, this isnt about a goverment entitlement handing out "gold". This is about corporations sharing their high profits margins with workers in fair and more humane manner.
This redistributionist tripe is exactly what is wrong with the fallacy of the living wage. Basically, this is just another way of trying to impose government-mandated wage and price controls why maintaining the illusion of a free market and labor force. And we all know how well this has worked in the past.
Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
The true fallacy lies in the idea that somehow 'the gov't' actually has an income which it can decide to share with the poor. If this were true, I would actually support the living wage. In other words, if the city of LA wanted to set up a bunch of drilling rigs off Los Angeles harbor and the LaBrea tar pits, sell the gas and oil produced, and then use those proceeds to subsidize the minimum wage of city residents by some $2.00 an hour, then hey go for it. However, under present circumstances, 'the gov't' does not have an income ... merely the legal authority to confiscate the incomes of certain residents and to transfer that confiscated money to others.
As you again point out, the history of such redistribution schemes is typically that the very rich are comparatively unaffected (after all if you're earning $1 million a year in Hollywood then having your property taxes increased by $10,000 or your weekly grocery bill increased by $50 is small potatoes). However, the 'middle class' are heavily affected (where a $3,000 increase in property taxes or a $50 increase in the weekly grocery bill makes a sizeable impression on a person with a $50-75k annual income). 'Middle class' small business owners are affected most of all, since they take a tax increase whammy on both their home and business property, they must come up with the increased living wage payroll in the face of declining profit margins or business levels etc. Ironically, it is these small business owners who are the most likely to be responsible for creating new jobs for unskilled labor, such that the living wage's negative impact on small business owners will directly translate into increased unemployment among the very unskilled laborers that the living wage law was morally intended to help.
I would risk making the politico-economic observation that the lack of a middle class ... i.e. countries which have a small group of very rich very powerful elite, and have a large group of very poor laborers, and have few if any 'entrepreneurs' ... is typically the result of such redistribution policies. Thus the living wage policy, if taken to extremes in L.A., may indeed help solve the illegal immigration problem ... by eventually making the economy of L.A. very reminiscent of the economy of Mexico !
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Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
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Originally Posted by Melonie
Thus the living wage policy, if taken to extremes in L.A., may indeed help solve the illegal immigration problem ... by eventually making the economy of L.A. very reminiscent of the economy of Mexico !
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I think it is going to turn out that way anyhow.
Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
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Originally Posted by lunchbox
The problem with minimum wage is it is 9 years old, and adjusted for inflation below what it was in the 70's.
Good point.
How many of us here could live on $5 and change an hour ?
Now add just one child to that equation .
Could you make it on that income with no debt ?
Could you save anything for the future on the amount ?
I venture to say the answer for most of us is going to no. So why would we expect anyone else to do it ?
Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
If a strip club tried to arbitrarily conviscate dollars from higher earning dancers and pass them out to low performing dancers purely to ensure that said low performers earned a living wage, imagine the stampede as the higher earners headed for the hills seeking work elsewhere. Soon there would be nothing but low end performers at that club, earning no more than before. Maybe even less as the high end dancers (read: more talented, better looking, harder working etc) probably attracted customers who would sometimes spend money on the low enders.
Taking from those that produce and giving it to those that produce at a much lower level or not at all hasnt worked so far.
FBR
Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
We talk on this board how "entitlement" spending is out of control. Prisons in this country on average are over crowded. Subsidize them here or there the tax payer will be paying for it no matter what happens to them.
Some talk about how unions have brought down companies being paid more then the workers are worth. How welfare is a hand out to those that dont work.
The living wage aka raising min wage is for people who do work and pay taxes. Most studies on the subject are about raising min wage workers by 3% to 4 %.
If you follow history you know most companies will not give lower level workers a fair salay without being forced. With the fall of unions there is no recourse on the part of those workers.
To me a living wage is not a hand out like welfare. It is a way out because they are working and contributing to the system like the rest of us.
Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
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To me a living wage is not a hand out like welfare. It is a way out because they are working and contributing to the system like the rest of us.
Excellent point in principle, but generally not true in the real world. A person earning $12,000 per year does pay 7.5% (= not quite $1000) SSI and medicare tax, but they do not pay income tax. Additionally, they receive an Earned Income Tax Credit worth say $300 in tax 'refund' over and above the amount actually withheld. But the real costs to other taxpayers involve medicaid benefits, low income housing benefits, subsidized utility benefits, etc. collected by that person whose equivalent cash value (= cost to other taxpayers) usually exceeds $10,000 per year in states like California and New York. So on balance, the person earning $12,000 per year creates a net drain on other taxpayers amounting to at least $9,300 per year. If you throw in benefits for some dependents, the net drain on other taxpayers increases even further.
If living wage laws mandate that another $2000 per year be paid to this worker previously earning $12,000 per year, eligibility for medicaid, subsidized rent, subsidized utilities etc. will either be unaffected or the equivalent payout slightly reduced (rent and utility subsidy programs usually have some sort of income adjustment). However, any reduction in the other benefit programs doesn't come close to equalling the $2000 mandated increase in gov't payroll (in the case of gov't contractor workers) or private payroll (businesses located in the living wage area).
Unless laws were changed such that earning more than $12,000 disqualifies workers from the EITC, medicaid, subsidized housing, subsidized utilities and dependent programs (i.e. WIC), living wage workers still won't actually contribute one iota of positive cash flow to 'the system' to offset the cost of their mandated $2 an hour pay raise.
According to various IRS data and individual state benefit eligibility thresholds, a person doesn't actually start contributing positive cash flow to 'the system' until their annual income rises into the $20,000+ range ... in New York it's somewhere around $27,000. Thus, given America's current 'minimum standard of living' paradigm and social welfare benefit program eligibility thresholds, every person legally working in America who earns less than the above 'break even' annual income amounts is having their standard of living subsidized by taxes on other Americans earning more than those 'break even' amounts - or as you put it, receiving a 'hand-out'.
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Re: The Benefits of a Living Wage
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How many of us here could live on $5 and change an hour ?
Now add just one child to that equation .
Could you make it on that income with no debt ?
Could you save anything for the future on the amount ?
Please understand that I'm acting as Devil's advocate here, but ...
millions of illegal aliens are living and working in America for $5 an hour. These illegal aliens consider a $10,000 per year earning opportunity to be far above that which is available in Mexico, which is the major reason they keep crossing the US border by the thousand. These illegal aliens are able to save and send back to their families in Mexico significant amounts of US$ (to the point where money sent 'home' to Mexico is now Mexico's #2 source of foreign exchange after oil exports). Thus these 'legal enough' aliens actually determine the 'value' of unskilled labor in America.
As long as these 'legal enough' aliens keep coming and living and working in America, the 'real world' financial equation of unskilled labor pay rates cannot really be changed. Yes particular cities can attempt to 'meddle' with the unskilled labor rates in their own jurisdiction i.e. living wage laws, but if the 'real world' is still just a few minutes away just past the city limits, that 'meddling' will merely provide an incentive for those who are negatively affected by the 'meddling' (i.e. higher earning city taxpayers, small businesses) to relocate outside the jurisdiction, and encourage those who would potentially be positively effected by the 'meddling' (i.e. more 'legal enough' aliens) to stream into the jurisdiction.