An interesting way to spend a few minutes
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An interesting way to spend a few minutes
A living wage? Is that from the same place that leprechauns, water sprites and Bigfoot come from?
^^^ no, Leprechauns, water sprites and Bigfoot come out of 'thin air'. Money to pay a 'living wage' comes out of the pockets of taxpayers (for public sector jobs subject to living wage laws) or retail buyers of products / services rather than from 'thin air' - taxpayers and businesses that must pay a higher price by law to allow the living wage business owners to cover the gov't mandated higher living wage pay rates for their employees.
In general, the only way that living wage laws can be put into effect without causing bankruptcies or job losses is if the gov't has a regulatory monopoly on a certain business group. The typical example is airport jobs, where would-be travellers are forced to pay higher prices / fees for goods and services if they want to fly into or out of a certain city, or gov't contract jobs where the local gov't chooses to pay a higher price for goods and services from companies paying their employees living wage (and pass that extra cost along to local taxpayers).
In a 'free market' situation, living wage businesses will be bypassed / insourced by lower cost alternatives. When a particular city has attempted to enact living wage laws, 'coincidentally' there is a major new trend of retail shoppers or businesses driving outside the city limits to avoid paying higher local prices which were raised to cover the extra costs of living wage labor.
In a semi regulated situation, businesses covered by living wage laws find themselves at a competitive disadvantage and will either be forced to 'cheat' (i.e. hire illegal aliens off the books), forced to lay off a certain percentage of employees and make the remaining employees work harder or to invest in automation in order to maintain the same total labor costs (virtually every living wage study shows an increase in unemployment rate of unskilled workers), forced to relocate outside of the jurisdiction, or forced to face eventual bankruptcy.
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Actually they seem to have some counter-arguments to the concerns you bring up, Mel.
Well, all I can say is that for centuries some people argued that the world was flat, too ! At any rate, here are some major 'assumptions' which seem to be shared by the participants in your podcast ...Quote:
Actually they seem to have some counter-arguments to the concerns you bring up, Mel.
- that the 'living standard' provided by collecting wall to wall social welfare benefits (i.e. medicaid + subsidized rent + food stamps) should always be exceeded by any American working at any job ... even if it is unskilled and pays $7 per hour.
- that a realistic living wage level (to meet the above assumption re 'living standard') should be $15-16 per hour on the average ... even if this sort of pay level bears no correlation whatsoever to the actual 'value' of the job being performed.
- that the 'system' is to blame for the difficulty in finding / landing good paying blue collar and white collar (replacement) jobs, rather than any past / present actions (or lack thereof) by the (displaced) former workers.
- nowhere in the podcast was there any serious discussion as to where the money must come from in order to finance living wage pay increases, let alone the ripple effects - other than a general assumption that the 'super-rich' top 3% of American earners can easily afford to pay for it.