Comments on: Why Minimum Wage Represents Maximum Stupidity

By: Obama's Healthcare Plan: A Prescription for Disaster

Obama's Healthcare Plan: A Prescription for Disaster — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:00:51 +0000

[...] 8% across-the-board pay hikes, they will have to offset these costs by reducing wages. However, for employees working at the minimum wage, the only way for employers to offset the costs would be through [...]

By: Lisa Bessen

Lisa Bessen — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:43:20 +0000

Does anyone remember reading "The Grapes of Wrath"? If there is no minimum wage, then there will always be another group of hungrier people who will do the job for less. Eventually, the people doing the job for almost nothing, can't buy enough food to live. Meanwhile, the richest get richer on the backs of the poor. Remember Ford paying his workers enough so that they could afford to buy a Ford car? I've volunteered at lots of homeless shelters. What amazes me is when I recognize the clerk who works full-time for minimum wage at the local store. In high rent areas, a person can't meet their own food and shelter needs by working full-time at minimum wage. Does that seem right? Peter Schiff then states that obviously people on minimum wage should not be having families until they are financially stable. (BTW, are you even pro-choice, Peter?) On minimum wage, if you can't pay for food and rent, can you afford condoms at 50 cents each? Can you afford a medical appointment for other birth control? No. For a first hand look at life on minimum wage, I recommend Barbara Ehrenreich's book "Nickled and Dimed: On (not) getting by in America". This highly qualified individual does under cover reporting and writes about her experiences living on minimum wage for a year. From personal experience, I worked harder at McDonalds's as a teenager where "if you have time to lean, you have time to clean" then I did designing software for Wall Street. Everyone deserves a living wage --at least $14/hour.

By: Gary Wardell

Gary Wardell — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:56:14 +0000

Health care insurance not an increase in minimun wage.

Why should taxpayers be subsidizing the cost of health care instead of the employer?

Any job without health care insurance is not worth having is it?

By: Shah

Shah — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:21:58 +0000

How about ALL the politicians taking a pay cut along with these warped execs who think laying people off while handing themselves bonuses with no improvement in company productivity. The relevant compensation vs. productivity is so unbalanced it's no wonder that people can't make ends meet. I mean seriously, how many big wigs have given themselves bonuses at the expense of their employees? It's absolutely appalling!!! As a business owner, I expect to have to pay a fare wage for the work being performed.

On a related note, I fully understand that many companies were overstaffed anyway and hopefully those who really made a difference were retained.

Lastly, isn't it less expensive to have someone work OT than hiring another person? Do more with less, sure but make sure you are setting realistic goals!

By: Richard E. Lipinski

Richard E. Lipinski — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 05:31:46 +0000

Peter I am sure YOU can answer this question. Do people or companies that generate profits have to hurt other people by doing so?

By: Lori

Lori — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:18:58 +0000

Mr. Johnson and the others who agree with him...wake up. I'll take your word that you are a different sort of business owner -- there are always a few people who are different -- but the vast (vast!) majority of businesses are run the way Mr. Schiff describes. This is the way the world works. It's human nature...human nature hasn't changed since the beginning of time, and it's not going to change now. You can scream, "Why can't we all be kinder, more compassionate people?" until you're blue in the face, but it's not going to make a difference. Until our politicians face the truth and start lawmaking with the real world in mind (rather than some utopian fantasyland), we are all screwed.

By: Gazza

Gazza — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:28:55 +0000

You have to ask yourself about your peers. (check out the profile link). there are two problems around most of the world, you have some people earning stupendious amounts, and then those stuggling to earn a decent modest living nothing more just enough so they are happy. Now ask how much the cleaners in your company are getting paid. go and do that now, and compare that to the amount you are getting paid. See the problem. Now how easy is it to fix considering the amount you would need to shift in wage balance to give them a decent it is not that hard. The huge problem is world wide that there are too many greedy people at the top of their company who do not share out the company earnings properly and only worry about themselves.

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:43:21 +0000

The real fun begins when deflation starts hitting and turns that $7.25 an hour into $72.50 an hour in today's terms, then $362.50/hour, then $725/hour, then $3625/hour in today's terms, as surviving dollars buy 10, 50, 100, or 500 times as much as today. The minimum wage law, started with the explicitly stated goal in its minutes of "keeping blacks from taking the jobs of whites" back in 1930, if not abolished or adjusted for deflation, will make it prohibitively expensive to hire ANYBODY by the time deflation is over. A deflationary depression should wipe out the insanity (among other things).

By: Bruno Vartuli

Bruno Vartuli — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:52:00 +0000

minum wages are stupid in a democracy system. We can be comunist society or democrasy. we can't be both at the same time. In the old days people lived in rural area earned their living from working their land. Now governments and employers are responsable for people living. Sorry, I mean tax payers have to support people living? But, hang on! people that haven't have to live at the expences of people that have! One way or another. Safety fences and high sophisticated security would not promote pacific living.

By: Don Fishgrab

Don Fishgrab — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:07:33 +0000

A minimum wage hike is only a temporary boost for the minimum wage earner. The increase causes an immediate increease in take home pay, but it also produces an increase in the employer's labor cost, both in increased wages, and in increased payroll taxes. A one dollar increase in wages increases expenses by $1.25 to $1.50, That makes the cost of their products increase, which is passed along to the consumer. The increased cost of materials requires an additional price increase. The benefit of the minimum wage increase is only felt until the adjustments to prices are made. Ultimately, minimum wage is the same percentage as it originally was, and the low man is in exactly the same position as before.

Most owners base their earnings on a percentage of cost, and at any point, they experience losses only if the increases reduce sales. Workers in in between jobs come out as the biggest losers, as the cost increases hit them before their wages increase. They must have a wage increase of the same percentage to maintain the same standard.

There is nothing in a minimum wage increase to reduce the gap between the highest and lowest paid. It only occurs if ownership is willing to settle for less profit. Many are not.