No, that's not how you ask for a raise. You want a raise? Demand the government force your employer to give you one. But seriously, in the real world, if you ask for a raise, if your employer believes you're that valuable, you'll probably get it.
I thought we hashed this out in the last "automation" thread. That's okay. We can go through it again.
Automation happens when the cost of developing and implementing it is less than the cost of the labor it would replace. So, if you want to make minimum wage jobs ripe for being taken over by automation, yeah. Go ahead. Raise the minimum wage so that you cross that threshold.
You both get the point I'm making. Saying "if $15 is good, why not make it $30" is avoiding the issue.
You both get the point I'm making. Saying "if $15 is good, why not make it $30" is avoiding the issue. We aren't talking about $30, we're talking about $15. If we discuss a 70 mph speed limit and I say, if 70 is safe, let's make it 10 and be even safer, am I really discussing a 70 mph speed limit? Making the argument about something it isn't is just a diversion and you can reduce or expand anything to absurdity with the same technique.
We're not disagreeing about automation. I'm not sure what you think I don't get. All else being equal, automation replaces human labor when its cheaper. Its inevitable. The question is how do we deal with that. If we want continuously falling wages (as automation only gets cheaper as technology improves) across more and more fields (as technology only gets better and more adaptive), resulting in an ever wider wealth gap between workers and the owners of capital, then do nothing. Just don't expect a healthy middle class to result, and if we accept that increased wealth results in increased political influence, then expect an ever shrinking slice of influence in our representative democracy. Assuming that education will continue to rise in cost as wages continue to fall, the "just get an education" route of climbing the financial ladder will be available to fewer and fewer people. Society will adjust either by changing the focus on the role of money in happiness (material goods, home ownership, etc.), by redistributing wealth, or by force. If we see something like the US during the advent of anti-trust laws, something like the French Revolution , or a rise of some poverty affirming philosophy/religion that contents the masses with their lot in the economic system who knows? However the path of the ever widening wage gap and accumulation of wealth my a smaller and smaller part of the population is unlikely to result in an America that we know, from say the post-WW2 era through the Great Recession after a few generations. The only certainty is change.
I can see the government mandated signs on the inside of every exit from your home.
" No Food or Drink allowed beyond this point ! "
This is going to be an excellent test case of the $15 dollar rule. Can't wait to see the results after a year or so. Nobody really knows how it'll play out. For an economics geek like me, this is pretty big news.
Odd that so many seem happy that automation is preferable to paying a living wage. Ah well, the machine isn't here for your job. Yet.
As things become automated ie one person can produce more widgets in less time the cost of the widget goes down....
We're not disagreeing about automation. I'm not sure what you think I don't get. All else being equal, automation replaces human labor when its cheaper. Its inevitable. The question is how do we deal with that. If we want continuously falling wages (as automation only gets cheaper as technology improves) across more and more fields (as technology only gets better and more adaptive), resulting in an ever wider wealth gap between workers and the owners of capital, then do nothing.
The cost to *make* the widget goes down. The price is not set by the cost of production, however, and the cost of production is irrelevant to what price the market will tolerate. You go to buy a t-shirt. One is $5 and one is $3. Do you care how much EITHER cost to make as you decide which to purchase? No, that's not how you decide which, if either, is worth the money to you. The market as a whole is the same.
Raising minimum wage is the functional equivalent of lowering everyone else's wage. Businesses will not simply absorb the hike and lower their profits, they'll pass the costs on to the consumers. All of us who have worked hard to make ourselves valuable are now being pulled back down to help people who typically won't even help themselves. There are exceptions to this but the majority of minimum wage workers are that way because of the choices they've made in life. We're hurting the majority to help the minority. Ultimately that will end badly for all of us.
Welcome to socialism.
Raising minimum wage is the functional equivalent of lowering everyone else's wage. Businesses will not simply absorb the hike and lower their profits, they'll pass the costs on to the consumers. All of us who have worked hard to make ourselves valuable are now being pulled back down to help people who typically won't even help themselves. There are exceptions to this but the majority of minimum wage workers are that way because of the choices they've made in life. We're hurting the majority to help the minority. Ultimately that will end badly for all of us.
The price is not set by the cost of production. However, it's not irrelevant to the market.
Has it occurred to you that perhaps the middle class has a natural state that it tries to gravitate towards, and as much as different forces try to manipulate it this way and that, it still tends towards its place? I can't say what that natural state is, just that it's someplace between rich and poor.
Personal case in point. When we eat fast food, my kids like McDonald's, I much prefer Wendy's. Wendy's has always been more expensive, but I would eat there when I felt like it. But, over the last couple of years Wendy's has raised their prices more times and by greater margins. Result, I don't buy Wendy's anymore. I can't abide the price. I won't until they either lower the prices or every one else (and my wage) catches up. And I have expressed that to the ownership. I can take the family to Bob Evans or Cracker Barrel and get better food for almost as cheap and eat in the restaurant getting full service. At $15 an hour I might just as well eat in a full service establishment. WHEN I CAN AFFORD IT.
Yes. Historically, the middle class is not widespread throughout a society. A tiny portion of the population holds the vast majority of the resources, a small middle class based on a few specific trades exists below them, and then there's everyone else. Not everyone can be a knight or silk merchant, just as today not everyone can be an engineer or doctor. Our post-WW2 world is an anomaly, and one brought about by a confluence of circumstances previously unseen in history. The GI Bill (one of the most successful transfer of wealth programs ever), the breakthroughs and growth in technologies that created more jobs instead of less, a regulatory environment that prohibited trusts and monopolies, strong trade unions, etc. etc. A middle class does not just organically grow. Of course there's a "natural" state of a middle class, which is what we're returning to. The question, as I keep pointing out, is do we want that?