Where's the money going to come from?

Employer's have a choice.. raise the cost of goods and services.. or cut existing employment. Which do you think they will choose?

Granted that the cost of goods and services will probably go up as a result (less workers usually equals less production) of cutting employment, but your average employer isn't going to be the first on his block to jack up the cost to the customer.

Most certainly aren't going consider taking less pay for themselves as a solution.

Just my opinion but I am certainly not an expert, feel free to rebut ;)

What everyone seems quite willing to forget

is that the extra $2 an hour is going to go right back into the economy. No one I know who makes minimum wage could afford to not spend it on something (food, shelter, gas) What I've been finding is that as my wage goes up, I spend more. I keep thinking I'll start saving soon, and it never happens. There's always something we need (last week it was the dryer that busted. My point is that more money to the poor means the poor are going to be going right back to Walmart with it cause they still can't afford to go anywhere else. That's the bottom line.

Aye

When the rich hoard all the money, the peasant goes bankrupt. The greedy do not think that if there is noone left who can afford their trinkets, they will become poor themselves. But then the greedy are far too busy counting their coin than thinking of what happens when there is no more to be squeezed from the poor. They will just call the poor "lazy" and "inferior" and demand the impoverished give the wealthy their labour for FREE, because they are unworthy of anything but slavery in the eyes of the Scrooges of this nation.

The rich of this land are setting up the same conditions that existed in France in the 1780's. A corrupt and bankrupt court, throwing every cent at imperialist war and court extravagance, the aristocrats demanding more and more out of an ever poorer proletariat and peasantry to keep them in their luxuries.

Yes, heaven forbid...

...that business owners should make a little less profit off of the sweat of their peons! Or worse yet, have to cut their own mega-bonuses by a percent or two!! Heaven forbid!! By all means, pass the cost on to the consumer! Or, better yet, fire some of those sweaty peons!

Good question.

---"Where's the money going to come from?"---

That's exactly what less fortunate people say when they are faced with bills each month. The people who have to exist on a minimum wage that hasn't been raised in seven years.

Dave

There was this heart wrenching story in a recent Time article that compared the positive experience of Pittsburg who adopted a LIVING wage with the experienced of one of the comparably sized cities in Ohio. There is a campaign to bring the living wage to that particular city. I can't remember exactly which city in Ohio it was. They highlighted the experience of two janitorial workers. The one in Pittsburg made almost $13 an hour and the one in Ohio made $6.50 and hour. The later didn't even work a full 40 hours (he worked I believe it was 5 hours per night five days a week) which I understand is a common practice of companies who do this to minimize the number of employees they would consider eligible for health benefits. The article was replete with photos. The Pittsburg worker lived in a comfortable modest little home that she owned and the Ohio worker rented a room. He had a mattress on the floor, a microwave, and an apartment size refrigerator. His cabinet contained mostly canned goods and items that could be easily heated in his microwave. He had a bandage on his face where he had recently been shot in a mugging after leaving his place of employment late one night. He said he often walked the long distance to work to save money.

A little background please..

June O'Neill of the National Bureau of Economic Research is often billed as a non-partisan economist. The NBER, while it bills itself as a non-partisan research organization recieves the majority of its funding from the Smith Richardson Foundation (of the VicksVaporRub Fortune) who along with the Olin Foundation and Richard Mellon-Scaife also fund the AEI and the Heritage Foundation.

Smith Richardson Foundation [link to rightweb.irc-online.org]

Henry Ford

had the right idea when he radically upped the wage of production workers to $5 a day, a princely sum for the times. It meant his workers could afford to buy one of his cars. Workers who earn more can buy more. Small businesses are the winner when Walmart has to pay its employees $10/hour and can't open as many stores.

Here's more

About who funds the National Bureau of Economic Research

[link to www.mediatransparency.org]

See many familiar suspects?

As devilsadvocate said

most bosses/owners aren't going to cut their own pay.

But the oddball freak who considers doing that could theoretically attract better employees by paying better, and attract customers by beating the competition's prices.

That would, theoretically, increase his pay.

But I'm no economic or biz expert. That's probably too crazy to even think about.I think I'll just listen to the really rich guy on TV and vote Republican.

Right after I take a bath with my radio.

The American Dream

has been hijacked and parlayed into the goal of being able to transcend your genetic structure into a superior being capable of looking down on the poor or the mildly-affluent. Many thanks to the CEO culture who have taught generations to step on their peers in a race to the apex of snobbery.

Costco works just fine paying their people well with far less turnover. The neighborhoods with Costco stores aren't going under. Costco isn't producing three of the world's richest people, either.

Februs, there you go again

with that dang "class warfare"

It's that gap between the $10,000 and $20,000 a year Americans that's outrageous.

Look! Over there !

Here's a thought...

Let's guess that the CEO of WalMart makes about $10 million a year...probably a low-ball guess, but let's go with it. If he took a one million dollar pay cut, WalMart could hire 90 more minimum wage workers (at the current rate). Now, would the CEO's lifestyle be diminished at $9 million? Not really. Would those 90 previously unemployed workers see a change in their lifestyles? Probably.

Just a thought.

Minimum Wage

I agree the minimum wage should be raised. I also thought I read somewhere (maybe on this site) that if employers paid ABOVE the minimum wage it actually was a net benefit to them because of a better retention of employees, therefore less turnover and training expenses. If that's true, I'm surprised more employers don't recognize this.

Also, I don't believe that minimum wage jobs were ever meant to generate enough income to sustain a family. These jobs are not supposed to be done by heads of households.

Bruce

but unfortunately they are. Every state handled their welfare reduction plans differently. My state pays for education and job training and welfare recipients MUST participate in these programs to receive benefits. They have a 5 year maximum to receive benefits, but many are brought up to the level that they can be employed above the minimum wage much sooner than 5 years. Some states just kicked their welfare recipients off the rolls with no training. This placed unskilled heads of households in the work force .What else are they going to do but take a minimum wage jobs? Now there are those who are going to say they got what they deserved because they didn't plan adequately. But as a caring society we could at least offer job training and raise the minimum wage. Minimum wage workers are still eligible for section 8 housing, food stamps, and medical assistance. If we trained these people adequately you could get them off public assistance entirely. They could get jobs that paid a living wage and provides health benefits. I haven't seen any numbers on this, but it would seem to me that in the long run that would be the less expensive route to take.

Good Points

You make good points, I just wanted to say that I'm not one of those conservatives that doesn't believe in a safety net for people. It is a necessary thing to help our neediest citizens.

I do get nervous when I hear talk of raising the minimum wage to a "living wage" level. It should be raised every so often to keep up with the economy. Better to raise the people in those jobs into different jobs through training as you said.

Transference

of wealth from the middle- and lower-classes to a single-digit percentage of uber-wealthy families qualifies as warfare. Denying voters via fraud who are trying to get pernicious legislation reversed, legislation written by corporate lobbyists that keeps those voters in economic incarceration, is warfare. Spraying antiwar protestors with mace is warfare. Seizure of phone records and financial transactions in violation of the Constitution is warfare. Its the gap between the $9/hour worker at Delphi and Lee Raymond that I reference.

The other

aspect is inflation, making that $5.15 an hour worth much less in its capacity to purchase goods and services. Plus you've got predatory paycheck lenders charging 400% interest on payday loans, regressive taxation, power companies hitting fixed-incomes with selective rate increases and rent-to-own outfits getting $1200 for a $300 TV ad nauseum. War is indeed hell for the lower end of the economic spectrum.

CEO pay has reached obscene levels

and I am glad to see posters pointing that out. We receive "BusinessWeek" magazine in this household, and though I don't read every word every week, much of its editorial commentary has scolded the extremely disproportionate wealth which CEOs often take home compared with the average worker's pay. Even economists don't like seeing the rising gap between the rich and poor.

Here is a petition to support raising the minimum wage:

[link to oneamericacommittee.com]

Tapper has an agenda

You guys should do a profile of Jake Tapper. I believe that his reports have a definite conservative/religious bias to them.

Here's his blog: [link to blogs.abcnews.com]

He makes Stossell look like Michael Moore.