Only 3.3 million Americans earn minimum wage or less excluding tips and commissions. Those who earn less earn tips and/or commissions. So in all likelihood they actually earn moer (often significantly more) than minimum wage.
In total just 1.7 million Americans earn minimum wage (excluding those who earn less because they probably earn more than minimum wage after tips/commissions). Some of those 1.7 million actually earn more because some also earn tips/commissions.
Of those 1.7 million Americans, about 1.2 million earn minimum wage working part-time. Who can survive on part-time minimum wage alone? You can’t. That means that the vast majority of these people are probably supplementing incomes or perhaps are students, etc…
In reality, you only have fewer than 500,000 people in the US (477k in 2013 according to the BLS) working full-time earning minimum wage.
So what effect would an increase in minimum wage have? Those looking to supplement other income through additional part-time work would have a much harder time finding work and they would be worse off. Just so that the 477 thousand people who earn minimum wage working full time can be a little better off (and be disincentivized to better themselves).
EBT cards are a commodity. By trying to direct how people trade, all you really do is introduce a black market. This hurts the very people you are trying to help. Yes, cash for everyone. No more demeaning food stamp applications. I think we can agree we are going to feed everybody a bottom shelf burrito per day. $0.50. I say let the States do it. But if you prefer the feds are involved, because they do everything efficiently, I won’t argue. Where’s my check?
^ Logical flaw. You assume minimum wage is already a sustainace wage. Let’s say you need $15/hr to live (I don’t know). That’s more folks than those at minimum wage. A lot more. What’s relevant is how many Americans are living in real poverty due to income (and I mean like going hungry kind of poverty). That’s a bigger number than minimum wage earners. Much bigger. Edit: stop posting so damn fast… This one was for two posts up.
US GDP per person is $58k. 75.24% of people make under 50k, about 45% make below $25k. Whether this percentage is too high is up for debate. I have to believe that many of them would like to make more and have hit a ceiling for one reason or another.
The same is true of people in minimum wage jobs. Many people who perform these jobs cannot learn to be better or to do better because, frankly, they are not equipped to do so. It would be great if everyone could be smart and motivated, but the fact is that many people are not either of those things, let alone both. By creating a situation where people would starve or work for food, people would be motivated to work of course. But, what if they are just not equipped to do anything important enough to earn beyond minimum wage? They starve?
This is where basic humanity enters into it. These arguments aren’t just about economics.
I don’t recall if it is BK or McD, but one of the two is already test marketing POS systems where the customer makes their selections on a touch screen and someone brings the food out. It’s not like the folks currently taking your order are doing linear algebra on the machine, they’re just pressing pictures of hamburgers and fries, so turning the screen around to allow the customer to do it themselves isn’t really much of a change. Wawa has had such a system for years in their fresh sandwiches section and it works wonderfully.
considering most of the 50.67% goes to EU countries, i still think they’re very similar. heavy in manufacturing though germany more so. great IT economies, though US more so. large service sectors. robust and deep financial markets. more self-sustaining than the majority of economies (i.e. both have a strong presence is almost all industries). plenty of trade in general. strong global brands. i have a hard time identifying how they’re different.
What does it matter that their primarily trading with other EU countries? It’s held Germany back for the last six years. They should be doing much better than they are but instead they have to wait for the rest of Europe to catch up and start buying their stuff again. You think having Spain as a trading partner is a good thing?
Not sure how any of this is germane to the whole minimum wage thing, but Germany’s economy is export driven while ours is consumer driven. You’ll probably say Germany’s economy is still consumer driven just not by their citizens, but that’s a pretty material point.
i guess i’m saying that it doesn’t matter how much Germany exports if it imports nearly the same amount from the same trading partners. germany’s net exports = 6% of GDP while U.S. net imports = -0.5%. all this means is a higher german savings rate. how does that effect germany economic makeup?
i’ll agree that germany is focused more towards raw materials and “business-facing” goods and the U.S. is focused more towards final products and consumer goods but the sizes of their heavy industries are close relative to total GDP. plus their sizes within the global economy and quality of their financial markets are similar. they are both economies that drive economic growth for their region and thus have influence that is unmatched outside of China and Japan.
if germany isn’t like the U.S., which economy is? it surely isn’t Japan or China and after those two, the smaller and shallower financial markets of other economies are not comparable to the U.S.'s and thus are incomparable. Edit: i guess the UK would be comparable but i still think Germany is more so due to manufacturing scale and economic influence but its a close call.
Maybe the minimum wage should be based on household? And the employer can’t discriminate. If the burger flipper has a husband and three children, she gets $30 an hour. If she is single and no dependents, $7.50. And minors, let’s say $2.50. They have a place to live and health insurance after all.
Should there be a maximum wage? $15 an hour for the sophomore in high school might be a little much. He’ll be partying like a rock star. I was on a lot less. And who really needs more than say $200 an hour. Not fair to live better than that when some are only making minimum wage.
how about you take any job and get paid based on IQ. i like this. i’d personally get a slight raise from what i make now, until i slip in the shower, fall into a coma and see my pay drop to the 1st percentile.