Kennedy Wants Minimum Wage of $9.50
Kennedy won’t rest until he drives all unskilled jobs overseas!
Just days after the first increase in the minimum wage in 10 years, Democrats on Capitol Hill led by Sen. Edward Kennedy are discussing a further increase to $9.50 an hour.
Kennedy (D-Mass.), one of the original sponsors of the recently enacted minimum wage hike, announced this week his intention to propose legislation for a new increase, Laura Capps, a spokeswoman for the senator, said. The proposal, if passed into law, will aim to take effect in 2009 after the current minimum wage law expires.
And how, pray tell, do you drive dishwashing jobs overseas?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 27, 2007 at 2110 hrs
They may not go overseas, but it will destroy the restaurant business, factories, convience stores and basically destroy the economy. Kennedy is a liberal so he cares, especially since he is a rich liberal. He got his, he doesn’t care about anybody else.
I wonder if his servants, maids and lawn care workers make $9.50/hour currently?Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 27, 2007 at 2222 hrs
I’m still waiting for the great masses of the unwashed and unemployed that was supposed to come after the last minimum wage hike.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 27, 2007 at 2236 hrs
I know in Vegas there were stories of kids and adults being laid off at the mom and pop restaurants because of the wage increase. I am sure they are happy for the wage hike.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 27, 2007 at 2334 hrs
I ran the CPI inflation calculator, to see how much the minimum wage that got me through college would be worth in 2007 dollars. I earned $2.10 an hour in 1975 as a night auditor for a Ramada Inn (oh, halcyon days). $2.10 in 1975 dollars, translated into 2007 dollars, works out to $8.13 an hour.
That means current minimum wage is quite a few percentage points lower than it was back when I moved up from $2.05 an hour at Burger King to $2.10 counting money for the Ramada Corporation.
And Dan, how is it that Ramada, or Burger King for that matter, were well able to afford to pay me minimum wage in 1975 but get all teary eyed about it now?
Ymmv,
hiho
MpetersonPosted by Mpeterson on July 27, 2007 at 2352 hrs
M, apparently you don’t know economics 101. If the price to produce a product goes up, then they have a choice- cut costs or pass the cost along to the consumer. If Ramada and Burger King pass along their costs and McDonalds and Motel 6 do not, they go out of business, so they are going to cut costs. Where do they do that? Mostly by cutting labor. Duh.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 28, 2007 at 0132 hrs
I would have no problem with such legislation if it were worded honestly. Just state that it shall hereinafter be illegal to provide employment to any individual whose value is such that it is not worth paying them the identified wage.
The impact of increasing the minimum wage is subtler than mass lay-offs, especially since the US economic boom means we have a labor shortage. Most entry level jobs already pay more than the minimum, but this is only part of the issue. Those who wish to increase the imposed minimum don’t give an airborne activity about those at the bottom. Its all about those big labor contracts where the wage is pegged to the minimum with a multiplier or adder.
Posted by triticale on July 28, 2007 at 0856 hrs
That’d work Dan, if the cost of producing burgers and hotel rooms had gone up significantly MORE than the cost of selling them—but if you’d paid more attention to the Wall Street Journal than to your econ textbook you’d have noticed they haven’t. You might do better to consider the relative increase of executive salaries over and against those of employees in both the fast food and the hospitality industries. CEO and other administrative salaries have rather more than kept pace with inflation (Inflation = Coyote / CEO salaries = RoadRunner).
Production costs aren’t the major factor in this equation; it’s the cost of CEO pensions, private jets, and condos in Aspen.
Did you miss the whole ‘trickle-down’ economics thing? We’re still using it.
hiho
MpPosted by Mpeterson on July 28, 2007 at 0937 hrs
He has experience driving things over water.
Posted by Fraley on July 28, 2007 at 1014 hrs
Trickle-down? Isn’t that the system that 41 called Voodoo Economics?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 28, 2007 at 1318 hrs
Another lesson in economics: Who owns the the Burger King, McDonalds, Ramada and Motel 6’s franshises? Most of the time it is not the corportation, it is individuals and many times it is a family business. Other than paying franchise fees, they have no say in how much a CEO makes, unless they are shareholders and/or memebers of the board. Communist statements like your’s, mp, are just stupid.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 28, 2007 at 1404 hrs
I wonder how much The Swimmer thinks Mary Jo Kopechne should be making.
Seriously, how much is enough? $10 an hour? $15? $25 $50? Why not just mandate an annual income of $100,000 for all Americans?
No one makes minimum wage except for teenagers and extremely low skilled workers first entering the workforce.
Big Labor is driving a lot of this, since many union contracts are tied to the minimum wage. When it goes up, the union thugs on the job make more money as a result.
Posted by Peter on July 28, 2007 at 1847 hrs
grumps,
Yep, 41 called it ‘voodoo economics’ when I voted for him in the Republican primary back in 1980. I thought he was right then. Still do.
Dan,
Um, yeah. Milton Friedman was a communist. And you’ve never worked for minimum wage, eh? What’s that like?
Fraley,
Am I the only one who remembers the spoof the National Lampoon ran back in 1976 that showed the famous floating Volkswagon advertisement with the caption “if Ted Kennedy had driven a Volkswagon, he’d be president today.” ?
Oh shoot, I found a copy on Wikipedia.
Peter,
For more fun on whether Big Labor is responsible by itself or whether it’s getting help, check the increased percentage of CEO pensions in GM and Ford’s pension plans. I can’t access the WSJ directly, but here’s the Journal’s reprint of that same report. This is the tip of a larger iceberg, but begins the analysis. If you have a better interpretation of this, I’m all ears. When tickle down economics started the top 1% in the US had about 27% of the wealth. Today they have 50% of it. I’m not able to get passed this number.
Still, I’m not arguing this is reprehensible because it robs the workers, but because it robs the stockholders to whom these executives have a responsibility.
Anyway, again, I’m just musing out loud. I could always be wrong.
hiho
MpPosted by Mpeterson on July 28, 2007 at 2245 hrs
I run an independently owned company that owns three cars and runs people to the airport.
I pay my employees a flat $6.00 an hour.
On average they make $15.00 an hour on tips.
Now I’m mandated to pay them an extra $2.00 an hour.
My profit is only $30,000 dollars a year, a living wage by all accounts.
Now, because of Teddy, I can’t keep up the third car. Will I let that third car go? Cut my living wage down to $20,000?
No, I will let that third driver go and keep the car. The car is my key to survival.
I will hire someone who is unaware of these idiot mandates, pay him $6.00 an hour and continue to survive, as the new driver makes more money then he ever thought possible.
What happened to that driver that I let go? Who knows?
Who will that new driver be? Guess.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 29, 2007 at 0025 hrs
mp, I’ve worked at minimum wages many times in my life, when I was growing up and going through college. I survived and it gave me work experience. I didn’t need to make $9.50 an hour to survive.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 29, 2007 at 0114 hrs
Am I the only one who remembers the spoof the National Lampoon ran back in 1976 that showed the famous floating Volkswagon advertisement with the caption “if Ted Kennedy had driven a Volkswagon, he’d be president today.” ?
Hey, I have the original book (National Lampoon Encyclopedia of Humor) in my basement - never bothered selling it on E-Bay, but they go for about $30-$35. I bought mine downtown WB before the next edition was printed without the “offending” ad. Nowadays, this kind of thing would be a big “yawn”.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 29, 2007 at 0830 hrs
And how, pray tell, do you drive dishwashing jobs overseas?
This one is too easy - it’s called “disposable dinnerware”, made in China or wherever. At some point, there can be a tipping point for a restaraunt where the cost of labor (i.e. washing dinnerware) may be more than the cost of using disposable dinnerware. Certainly hasn’t been an issue for fast food places - they are doing it already, and customers have adapted to that.
Now, there may be a lot of other issues - increased use of resources (imagine the impact on use of oil & resultant price pressure) & disposal costs. Less employment for dishwashers.
But, at least the minimum wage theoretically would be $9.50 for those who might have been a dishwasher, if the market had not adapted. And that’s the rub here - the market adapts.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 29, 2007 at 0845 hrs
When tickle down economics started the top 1% in the US had about 27% of the wealth. Today they have 50% of it.
That’s just utter nonsense. Pure socialist drivel and propaganda. But believe whatever gets your rocks off.
Posted by pdigaudio on July 29, 2007 at 1116 hrs
Dan,
Nice to hear you were able to survive on minimum wage during college. I was too—in fact, when I was still working for $2.10 an hour I was able to work a mere 15-20 hours a week and still pay for my beat up 1970 VW convertible, my dorm room, and tuition for my undergraduate education. The people of Alabama subsidized my education in ways that made it possible. (And you may have heard that people from our part of the US are generally disinclined to be taxed at all. And yet.)
To give you the 30 year update on how that’s been going, my students at UWWC now work 30-40 hours a week on average in order to pay for their education at what is easily the best bargain in university education in the entire country. That’s because the people of Wisconsin subsidize their education in ways that would have embarrassed us in Bama 30 years ago.
I just think that’s interesting.
That’s the kind of effect I see from the minimum wage being left behind the rate of inflation and that’s what I thought of when you said you were able to survive on minimum wage. I don’t think it’s a very sound investment strategy for the future of our country.
Ymmv.
Mp
Posted by Mpeterson on July 29, 2007 at 1147 hrs
Pd—
I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable, but that’s no reason to call me names. Facts always screw up our preconceptions. I’m usually pretty careful about my facts—it’s a requirement of my working for you as the taxpayer. But you did catch me being a little careless… in 2001 the top 5% of Americans had about 59% of the wealth and the top 10% own around 70% of the wealth. The top 1% only has about 33%.
This means that those of us in the bottom 90% are getting by on about 30% of the total wealth. It’s amazing how Pareto optimality always shows its face.
Google up “Distribution of wealth in the US” and see how you do.
Best,
MarkPosted by Mpeterson on July 29, 2007 at 1203 hrs
I didn’t call you any names. But whatever floats your boat. You can literally google any info you want, so that’s a non-starter. That stuff comes from lefty blogs and lefty websites, not from anything official.
You talk like a socialist, you run the risk of being labeled one.
But WHATEVER!!!
Posted by pdigaudio on July 29, 2007 at 1218 hrs
You have a Masters in Education and you believe that the university course sites I cited are the same as lefty-blogs?
Huh. Okay, you win. “Whatever” it is.
Posted by Mpeterson on July 29, 2007 at 1228 hrs
Trickle Down worked folks.
There is MORE WEALTH in MORE HANDS post Reagan than pre-Reagan.
Some look at the disparity between rich and poor and see the gap. But if you look at the relative prosperity of society today compared to the 70s, it’s clear that supply side theories benefit all. A rising tide indeed lifts all boats.
For a solid analysis of the Reagan Economic Record see:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-261.htmlFrom 1981 to 1989, every income quintile—from the richest to the poorest—gained income according to the Census Bureau economic data. The reason the wealthiest Americans saw their share of total income rise is that they gained income at a faster pace than did the middle class and the poor.
Posted by Fraley on July 29, 2007 at 1722 hrs
I think it’s entertaining that a guy who’s clearly exercised about the current distribution of wealth, and who advocates changing the minumum wage as a way to change the current distrubution of wealth doesn’t like being called a socialist?
Funny!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 29, 2007 at 1921 hrs
Fraley said, “There is MORE WEALTH in MORE HANDS post Reagan the pre-Reagan. Nice of him to admit to Clinton’s success. Too bad Bush had to ruin it for most of us.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 29, 2007 at 1925 hrs
Capper -
Clinton was President from 81-89? Okay.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 29, 2007 at 2052 hrs
Most universities are run by someone to the left of Castro. Same with their “studies.” And with their courses, which teach anti-American concepts and socialism.
Posted by pdigaudio on July 29, 2007 at 2201 hrs
University course sites ... they’re teaching socialism. Most of the profs are to the left of Stalin.
Posted by pdigaudio on July 29, 2007 at 2202 hrs
Publius-
When used as a prefix, post- means after. Hence post-Reagan would mean after Reagan. Got it?Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 29, 2007 at 2222 hrs
Pdig—
You’re going to have a hard time convincing me, or anyone who knows me, that I’m to the left of Stalin. I’m not even sure I can say that Stalin was a “lefty” at all… that would suggest he was interested in the workers. The truth is he was the most murderous and petty-minded totalitarian thug of the last 100 years—apart from his 1960’s counterpart in China, of course.
So sorry, but you’re not making any sense to me.
hiho
MpPosted by Mpeterson on July 29, 2007 at 2254 hrs
Mp, now, comparing you to Stalin is insulting, but your about left as say, Chavez, Castro, Polosi, Reid, Kennedy.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 29, 2007 at 2330 hrs
Dan, all I did was raise some interesting numbers. I didn’t say anything you couldn’t find echoed in Friedman or Goldwater, or Hamilton for that matter. Maybe in your universe Milton Friedman is a socialist, but in mine he’s the exemplar of sound market driven economics and the best current argument for the role of government in business.
Posted by Mpeterson on July 30, 2007 at 0936 hrs
The fact remains that driving up the minimum wage—or having a minimum wage set at any price—is detrimental to a pseudo-free market economy.
You can get other people to chase their tails about whether you are or aren’t a pinko commie, but your initial assertion that somehow we’re robbing the poor folks in this country to feed the super-rich capitalists is wrong. To quote myself from last year:
Right now in the US the poverty line is $9,800. For a family of two, it is $13,200. For three its $16,600 and so forth. However, this means to me that if you go and get a job, any job, you won’t be classified as below the poverty line. Even at 5 dollars an hour working full time you slide right into $10,000 a year. Two parents working full time below minimum wage generate enough income to be above the poverty level for having two children.
How can anyone at all claim that people who are in poverty are there by any other reason other than their own decisions?
As a parting shot, let me add this: 91% of households in the bottom ten percent own a color televisions, 55% own a VCR, and 42% own a stereo.
At that point, you’re not poor.
Poor people don’t exist in the US—not like the socialists want you to believe. Raising the minimum wage won’t “fix” anything because the system isn’t broken.
Posted by k2aggie07 on July 30, 2007 at 1433 hrs
Total Entries: 19656
Total Comments: 129831
Most Recent Entry: 02/11/2012 09:52 pm
Most Recent Comment on: 02/11/2012 04:55 pm
Total Members: 9751
Total Logged in members: 0
Total guests: 105
Total anonymous users: 0
Most Recent Visitor on: 02/12/2012 04:43 am
The most visitors ever was 538 on 12/01/2007 02:11 pm
Protected and licensed under a Creative Commons License (some rights reserved).