Petitioners Bernie Goldsmith, Joaquin Chavez and Ian Lee took the first step toward qualifying an initiative for the November 2014 ballot when they pulled papers to circulate petitions supporting a minimum wage ordinance in Davis that would raise the local minimum wage to $15 per hour. They must get 20% of all registered voters and are aiming at 7000 signatures.
Their notice of intention to sign petition states their reason, “Someone who works hard and plays by the rules deserves a fair wage. Our current minimum wage subjects workers in our city to economic hardship, sacrifice, and dependence.”
“At a time when our workforce has never been more productive and profitable, we expect our low wage workers to take multiple jobs, be subject to uncertain schedules, and work without health or retirement benefits,” they write. “They are paid so little that they can maintain no hope of improvement. They must rely on government and community resources to make ends meet. Those who work hard for a legal wage should be paid enough to support themselves in comfort and dignity.”
They add, “Furthermore, decades of research has shown that increasing the minimum wage improves the economic climate and the health of small businesses. Providing workers with fairer wages and economic security does not significantly impact the number of jobs. Therefore, we propose an increase in the minimum wage in Davis, implemented in stepwise fashion, to reach $15 by January 1, 2016. It’s smart, fair, and overdue.”
They write, “The state minimum wage has not kept pace with cost of living in California, including in the City,” “worker productivity has dramatically increased during the same period of time that the purchasing power of the state minimum wage has declined,” and “families and workers in the City need to earn a living wage and public policies which help achieve that goal are beneficial.”
They continue, “Payment of a minimum wage advances the interests of the City as a whole by creating jobs that keep workers and their families out of poverty,” “a minimum wage ordinance will enable workers in the City to meet basic needs and avoid economic hardship,” “this ordinance is intended to improve the quality of services provided in the City to the public by reducing high turnover, absenteeism, and instability in the workplace,” and “prompt and efficient enforcement of a minimum wage will provide workers in the City with economic security and the assurance that their rights will be respected.”
Under the proposed ordinance, “Beginning January 1, 2015, the Minimum Wage shall be an hourly rate of eleven dollars ($11.00). Beginning July 1, 2015, the Minimum Wage shall be an hourly rate of thirteen dollars ($13.00). Beginning January 1, 2016, the Minimum Wage shall be an hourly rate of fifteen dollars ($15.00). Thereafter, the Minimum Wage shall increase annually, effective July 1st, in accordance with increases during the preceding year in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers in the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose (CPI-U), as published by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
A recent New York Times editorial noted with regard to the national debate, “The political posturing over raising the minimum wage sometimes obscures the huge and growing number of low-wage workers it would affect. An estimated 27.8 million people would earn more money under the Democratic proposal to lift the hourly minimum from $7.25 today to $10.10 by 2016.”
The editorial notes, “But the results of the wage debate are clear. Decades of research, facts and evidence show that increasing the minimum wage is vital to the economic security of tens of millions of Americans, and would be good for the weak economy.”
The Times writes, “As defined in the name of the law that established it — the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 — the minimum wage is a fundamental labor standard designed to protect workers, just as child labor laws and overtime pay rules do. Labor standards, like environmental standards and investor protections, are essential to a functional economy.”
They add, “The minimum wage is specifically intended to take aim at the inherent imbalance in power between employers and low-wage workers that can push wages down to poverty levels. An appropriate wage floor set by Congress effectively substitutes for the bargaining power that low-wage workers lack.”
The Times writes, “An hourly minimum of $10.10, for example, as Democrats have proposed, would reduce the number of people living in poverty by 4.6 million, according to widely accepted research, without requiring the government to tax, borrow or spend.”
Given Davis’ affluence and higher cost of living, the Davis Minimum Wage Ordinance, if put on the ballot and approved by the voters, would constitute a larger floor for workers in the city of Davis than either the federal or state proposed standards.
There have been efforts in the past to enact a living wage in Davis. In 2006, following his election, Council Member Lamar Heystek attempted to introduce an ordinance on August 1, 2006, which would have required a living wage for all businesses in Davis larger than 50 employees. The council, led then by Don Saylor and Stephen Souza, voted by a 3-2 margin not to agendize the item for discussion.
Instead, they encouraged Councilmember Heystek to bring the item back as a councilmember item – which meant it would not have staff-prepared remarks or a recommendation. When Councilmember Heystek did this back in September 19, 2006, he was excoriated by both Councilmembers Souza and Saylor for “playing politics.”
“There’s just a number of questions about this,” then-Councilmember Don Saylor said. “To bring it up as a discussion is appropriate. To bring it up as a full-blown ordinance for a first reading, that’s not talking about policy, that’s talking about politics in a lead-up to an election.”
Councilmember Heystek in 2007 told council, “I brought up the issue of the living wage at my very third meeting, here as a member of this body, there was consensus from that point on, from the point of bringing it up on our list of goals in December of 2006 to pursue a framework by which the city of Davis hires contract employees with a living wage.”
While Mr. Heystek never enacted a citywide living wage ordinance, he succeeded in setting living wage standards for companies doing business with the city. The city’s minimum wage ordinance would go a step further.
In their framework they note, “This ordinance is intended to apply in harmony with the City of Davis Living Wage Ordinance, such that all persons being paid hourly wages in the City are paid hourly wages in accordance with this ordinance or the City of Davis Living Wage Ordinance. Accordingly, this ordinance shall not apply to Employees who are required to be paid hourly wages in accordance with the Davis Living Wage Ordinance during the time they are required to receive such hourly wages.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
What a waste of time and money. No one in California is working for the federal minimum wage that is discussed in the New York Times editorial. Everyone working in Davis already is being paid at least the California minimum wage, which is likely to be increased.
The argument that Davis has a “higher cost of living” than other places in California and, therefore, should have its own minimum wage to assure “economic security” is interesting. How many Davis minimum wage workers other than students actually live in Davis, subjecting them to our “higher cost of living”?
Most of the arguments made here are convincing if applied to federal and state minimum wage debates. But, to spend the effort and money to have our special, quirky, tiny town develop its own minimum wage standard is about the lowest priority battle I could come up with.
I guess that’s why you aren’t the one doing it. Obviously Bernie Goldsmith feels otherwise. So we’ll see if 7000 people agree with him.
Hmmmm. Will Bernie, et al rely on volunteers to circulate the petitions? If the petition folks are paid, will the petitioners model that which they seek?
As I understand it, they have a huge grassroots organization, he’s put months of work into this already. Hopefully he’ll come on at some point and lay it out better than I can.
“Grass roots” = volunteers/unpaid?
My guess is that they will not be using paid signature gatherers. That is a guess.
This is the kind of comment that led to my earlier observation about your grouchiness, the out of hand disregard for issues raised in a comment. It suggests disagrement without offering alternative thoughts, just a smart Alec brush off. I’d give a pass on this too, but it seems to be happening more these days. I’d think you’d want to encourage comments even if you’re in disagreement.
” How many Davis minimum wage workers other than students actually live in Davis, subjecting them to our “higher cost of living”?”
I’d be worried about having an underpaid, out of town workforce. With no sense of belonging or ownership, why would anyone do their best work? Knowing how little you regard their services only breeds resentment and jealousy.
;>)/
Please. Isn’t it obvious that this comment simply refers to the justification that we need a different minimum wage than California’s because of “Davis’ affluence and higher cost of living”? It’s not disrespecting those who come from out of town to work our minimum-wage jobs, just that it’s silly to claim that our cost of living is their cost of living.
Underpaid workers should get relief via state minimum wage law, not a small town ordinance that likely would affect a handful of workers who seek a livable wage.
If you have some idea of how many workers other than students are making under $15 an hour in Davis, I’d like to know. Please don’t jump to unwarranted conclusions about my level of regard for workers, out of town or otherwise.
I can only reply anecdotally of course, but my husband works for 50Cents above minimum wage, and many of his co-workers and their families live here in town, making the same wage. It’s very hard to make ends meet, actually, they just don’t meet. I’d also be curious to see the numbers, but I’d say if you don’t make life livable for those people working in your town, you’re not a very responsible community. You’re benefiting from their cheap labor while they shoulder the commute costs and time.
Trying to make it as a family on $8.50 an hour has got to be a tough go.
Assigning responsibility and blame to Davis as a community is not appropriate.
Looking to a small city government with a small low-paid workforce to solve the shortcomings of federal and state minimum wage levels with a local ordinance and enforcement makes no sense.
I don’t entirely disagree with you. And I’m not blaming Davis for how hard it is to get by on minimum wage, I just don’t want to hear people pretend that those who work for minimum wage aren’t part of this community while benefiting from their contributions.
”How many Davis minimum wage workers other than students actually live in Davis, subjecting them to our “higher cost of living”?”
More than you would think. As the campaign gets moving, expect to see some profiles of Davis’s own working poor up on the Raise the wage website.
It’s important not to assume that your own experience of Davis mirrors that of everyone in the town – people are struggling to feed families on very little. I have friends who are unable to take community college classes because of the number of hours that they must work to survive.
I’d contest that an increase in the minimum wage is very important. I hope that $15 an hour goes state wide, and beyond.
There’s something a little wacky with the reporting here. The CC can be “led” by only two CC members? Were Sue and Ruth sitting in the back of the bus? Who was the third vote in the 3-2 vote against agendizing the item? And what were the votes when the proposed ordinance was put forward?
-Michael Bisch
Two things. The reporter here (A) didn’t sleep and (B) pulled language that was used in August 2006 to describe what happened at the time. I don’t have much independent recollection of what happened.
Perhaps the reporter should have slept, collected thoughts, then hit the “post” button. But hey, I’ve posted before I’ve really thought things thru. As for me, I’m giving you, David, a “hall pass”, mulligan, whatever you need.
Don’t really have that option today. But I am holding off on my commentary for that reason.
Actually, you did have that option. Those who were passionate on the issues watched on TV or streaming video. The rest could have waited.
BTW, did you meet your fund-raising needs?
I respectfully disagree on waiting today. Yes, we exceeded the fundraising goal.
Glad you reached the needed funding goal. The rest is, obviously, your perogative. Was not trying to tell you what to do… was presenting options… just (my suggestion) take care of yourself, your family and your friends…and may they all take care of you.
May you and yours be blessed.
Why are they only going for $15/hour? I mean if $15 is so good for both the economy and the workers why not go for $50/hour? That should make Davis Shangri-La for everyone.
You won’t be signing then, GI?
;>)/
I agree. These petitioners are looking to exploit the lower paid struggling workers by paying them only $15 per hour. Try raising a family on that kind of money. It won’t even pay for our many parcel taxes, after you pay for food and a mortgage.
If you tried working in a fast food place, rather than having the luxury of sitting in a lawyer’s or a doctor’s office, then you would know what hard physical work is. Why should they be paid less?
Let’s set the minimum wage at $50 per hour, so that everyone can live well, have a nice vacation once in a while, buy nice things for their children and save for retirement. If nothing else, think of the children before you sign a petition to condemn our neighbors to a life of struggle at $15 per hour.
I’m guessing that $15/hour was not pulled out of thin air, that some calculations were done to determine what the cost of living in Davis is, and the number was set accordingly. It’s seems like Bernie is putting a lot of effort into the is movement and, again I’m guessing, but I’ll assume that the information on how this number was calculated is or will be made publicly available.
I’d hope your guess is correct and that this information is available to the public soon. Making a case that Davis’ cost of living is proportionally higher than California’s so that the city’s minimum wage should be $15 compared to the state’s of $8 or $9 requires data I suspect doesn’t exist.
I tried in about 2000-01 to get the CC to adopt a living wage of about $11/hour. Got zero support from anyone. I wrote up a memo. It sure got the student’s attention, but business and their electeds hated it.
This should be an issue in the June 2014 CC race.
I’m completely in agreement with the $15/hour.
Yeah Mike, I can’t imagine why businesses would be against it. With the rise in sales tax, charging for paper bags and customers paying for parking, having to pay a minimum $15/hour to their staff won’t hurt their businesses at all.
Are we to infer that since you proposed the 11 dollar minimum wage, you have modelled that for all those who have provided services to you?
Who are the petitioners?
Some Canadian friends remark that their $8/hr minimum is made palatable by universal healthcare, but that seems unpopular with many Vanguard posters.
Healthcare cost employers a lot of money, which comes out of employees paychecks.
“$8/hr minimum is made palatable by universal healthcare”
We have universal healthcare for public employees and elected officials. Is that the same thing?
“How many Davis minimum wage workers other than students actually live in Davis, subjecting them to our “higher cost of living”?
My son and his girlfriend share an apartment with another family member, and make about 10 cents over the minimum wage. They have both been at their jobs in Davis longer than one year. My son is not a student, his roommates go to community college part time, and work full time. They pay as they go and fortunately have no student loans. My son lived in Woodland for a while, (cheaper rent) but returned to Davis due to the cost of gas & wear & tear on his old car. Also, he found Woodland to be not as bicycle friendly, and not as great a community. I know many other young people in their early 20’s who love living in Davis and make very low wages. Your post implies that minimum wage earners don’t deserve to live in Davis, unless they are UCD students? I thoroughly support this petition. I’ll be making sure all the low wage earners I know are signing it.
“Your post implies that minimum wage earners don’t deserve to live in Davis, unless they are UCD students?”
Geez, I must have been really sleepy this morning to have implied so much that is the opposite of what I intended. I think everyone who depends on a job (or two)–like your son–deserves a livable wage, and that should be determined at the state level rather than at the tiny town level. (In fact, I do not think the fact that UCD students might hold many of our minimum wage jobs is a reason for a city ordinance.)
So you want $15 an hour statewide? Great! Come talk to us, let’s work together to make this spread outside of Davis!
Statewide is where this initiative belongs. Doing it only in Davis will just put the business in town at a disadvantage and drive more of them out. We need to bring more business into town to provide good jobs for everyone, not drive them away.
“Your post implies that minimum wage earners don’t deserve to live in Davis, unless they are UCD students?”
I agree, I should too have the right to live in Beverly Hills, I love it there. I by right shouldn’t be shut out and Beverly Hills should pass a $40/hour minimum wage so I can afford to live there.
Those that push for an increase of the minimum wage demonstrate either their economic ignorance or a Marxist political agenda. And they are in fact represent a significant danger to everyone that benefits from a well-functioning economic ecosystem.
Today in this country and state we have more unemployed and underemployed youth than at any time since the Great Depression. The problem is not a too low minimum wage. The problem is too little economic activity and too anemic economic growth. The problem is too high taxes. The problem is too many regulations that discourage job creation. The problem is too crappy public education that cranks out too many unskilled workers for the limited number of jobs available. The problem is too many uneducated and undocumented immigrants adding to the pool of unskilled labor.
I have a manufacturing business start-up I am working on. I can located it in the region on in Nebraska. Raise the minimum wage and I will locate it in Nebraska.
If I had already started the business and got hit with this, I would lay off enough employees to cover the expense increase – including any that I know vote for the Party that tends to cause business more harm – and tell the remaining employees that they had to work harder to pick up the workload need or they too will be fired and replaced with those that will.
At any time there is a stack of business starts and expansion proposals. The financials have to pencil out for the endeavor to be funded. Raise the minimum wage and you just cause a percentage of them to no longer pencil out.
Only economic idiots or leftist ideologues demand an increase to the minimum wage.
By the same token, to promote new economic activity, should we be LOWERING the minimum wage?
Labor is a commodity. The level of pay should be keyed to the supply and demand. The supply and demand is keyed to the value of skills contained within the labor.
We should not be setting a minimum wage. If there are people out there that are not working and need a job and they are willing and eager to work at a job paying a low wage, then it is a fair contract between employer and employee to accept that contract.
If the worker believes he is worth more he can quit and take another job that pays what he believes he is worth. If he cannot find a job that pays him what he thinks he is worth, then he is not worth what he thinks, and he must strive to make himself more valuable to employers that would pay the rate he demands. If enough people quit or if the employer cannot find enough people to fill the jobs, then the employer will have to increase wages.
The main problem with too low wages is supply and demand. We have too little demand from crappy economic policies and other policies that prevent business starts and growth. We have too big of a supply from our crappy education system and because we continue to allow millions of uneducated immigrants.
But raising the minimum wage just exacerbates these very problems.
The minimum wage started covering all non-farm workers in 1978. If you start there and track the continued rise with our economic growth, the trend lines balance pretty well. This is the reason that some economists can say that raising the minimum wage does not cause a drop in employment… because the economy was growing.
But what they don’t includes is the results of the predictive models for how much economic growth would otherwise have happened with cheaper labor. They also don’t include how many more jobs were outsourced overseas as a result of minimum wage increases.
Because minimum wage increases cause a corresponding need/pressure to increase other wages. Why do a more difficult job that pays what the new minimum wage pays?
It is lunacy to increase the minimum wage. We should abolish it.
Frankly
And if the worker cannot find a job that is willing to pay a living wage, then he can of course just go ahead and starve ? Yes ?
Are there no “work houses” ? Are there no debtors prisons ?
Well, no actually there aren’t. We don’t actually make any provisions for this situation for people who actually want to work.
An increase the minimum wage in Davis only would create less jobs, higher prices and less business for our store owners and put our city at a huge disadvantage to our nearby towns.
Most economists (but not all) would agree with Frankly. An increase in the minimum wage would be harmful to low income workers, who would be shut out from getting a foothold in the employment world. Many people start at minimum wage and move up to well paying jobs.
However there are other considerations then the prosperity of the workers and the businesses. There is the question of how this topic makes us feel about ourselves. If we can feel like we are munificent by voting for this increase, then isn’t that more important than whether its effects are helpful or harmful?
You’re on to something there J.R. It’s all about feel good policies, not about what actually works. But it’s important to liberals to always be able to feel good about themselves.
The effects of a minimum wage increase are well-studied in the field of economics, and while some of the details are under debate, there are a few facts that are well-settled.
First, an increase in the minimum wage does not result in a significant decrease in overall employment; jobs are not lost. While some jobs might be displaced, as mechanization and efficiency measures are put into place to reduce costs, others are created to replace them. The stimulatory effects of putting money in people’s pockets to spend in local businesses creates enough jobs to offset any that might be lost. It is a net-zero effect. What raising the minimum wage does do is decrease employee turnover, which levels the playing field for small businesses, who do not have a dedicated PR or training department to constantly recruit and retrain workers who have to churn through these low paying jobs for economic reasons.
Second, low wage work no longer represents a “foothold” or starter job. Low wage jobs predominate among the jobs that have been created since the economic downturn. The majority of food stamps recipients have shifted from children to working age adults for the first time in history. Paying workers less than what it takes to live is fast becoming the new economic model for us all. It is a myth that increasing the minimum wage would “shut out” workers or cause a net loss of jobs.
To say that we must keep the wages of the working poor at or below poverty levels “for their own good” is a particularly vicious piece of misinformation. It is to no one’s advantage to keep these working people in poverty and to deny them a fair wage. It causes suffering to our workers, it hurts customers, and it ultimately hurts businesses.
Pay people enough to get by, enough to spend, enough to buy locally instead of cheaply, and you will see a renaissance in the business climate of our town.
An increase in the minimum wage is good for your college kid who has a job. It is bad for your high school kid who doesn’t have a job.
I would need to increase my gross sales by 20% to cover this increase in my payroll expenses. I don’t anticipate that happening, so the reality is that I would have to cut expenses elsewhere. I usually have one or two high school students working for me. They’d probably have to go.
It is correct to say that one of the documented effects of raising the minimum wage is a shift in the workforce mix from high school students to more adult employees. If you knew the number of people like me who stay in at night, cut our own hair, leave holes in our teeth unfilled, and generally do not participate in the economy to which we contribute, you’d understand why, to me, in comparison, fewer high schoolers occupying these jobs is not such a big problem. You’d also understand the economic impact on your business of having individuals like me with more money in pocket. Give people like me money, and we spend it, because at current wages workers are budgeting by choosing which necessities to do without.
Every business is different, but on the whole, the net job effect is zero.
This is an economic issue that must be looked at from the macro perspective. Ask any small business what the effect will be, and they will look at their own bottom line. Ask any person what shape the world is, and they will able to provide a very authoritative and detailed account of their surroundings, which suggest that it is flat.
Instead, to get a true picture of the effects of such an ordinance, we must take a global view of the effect on the general economy of Davis. We must look beyond the bottom line of a single business to see what the effect will be in terms of increased consumer demand, increased economic security (which encourages spending rather than hoarding), and improved measures of small business health, growth, and vitality.
The case is pretty well settled in economics. The science is in. It’s just a matter of doing the research and getting beyond the politics of it.
I hire people like you, Joe, and train them. I don’t pay minimum wage, but I also don’t start people at $15/hour. Someone who comes to me with no knowledge in our field and no experience is simply not worth $15/hour at the outset. But people who have worked for me over the last three decades have often taken the job skills they acquired and gone on to start their own businesses, or to get better-paying jobs in the industry, or go back to school with useful life experiences that have helped them focus their studies. With only one or two exceptions, they have lived in Davis. They are part of the community, I am very much aware of their lives and how working at a small retail store affects them and the community.
Joe:
“The case is pretty well settled in economics. The science is in.”
LMAO, okay, if you say so.
You are cherry-picking some economic studies over others. And by the way, the ones that you are cherry-picking are from left-biased economists.
So if you want to complain about politics getting in the way of science, I think you need to look in the mirror.
lol at supply side economics
Who would be investigating and enforcement of such an ordinance? What are the penalties for noncompliance?
The employee would have to complain, “The city manager or designee may issue an Administrative Citation in the maximum amount permitted by state law against any Employer or person who violates this ordinance.’ Also, “The City may initiate a civil action for injunctive relief and damages and civil penalties in a court of competent jurisdiction. The City shall be entitled to recover its administrative costs of enforcement from an Employer who violates this ordinance.”
And, “Except where prohibited by state or federal law, the City may revoke or suspend any registration certificates, permits or licenses held or requested by the Employer until such time as the violation is remedied.”
What percentage of people are stuck living on minimum wage, and who are these people?
Answer that question factually, and you will clearly see that the move to increase the minimum wage is 100% political, benefits few, and has consequences that harm many.
I suspect that no one knows the answers to your questions. But, they’re basic to making a case about the supposed special need for an ordinance to require higher wages in Davis than in other California cities.
California’s minimum wage is going to $9 this year. How many Davis workers will be employed at this salary? How many Davis minimum wage earners are trying to make a living at this level and how many are students getting some experience and spending money?
Which Davis businesses keep anyone other than starting workers at minimum wage? How many are employed at this level within the city limits and how many are so employed on campus (which I assume wouldn’t be covered by the proposed ordinance).
The idea of a town our size taking on such a task by ordinance is a significant departure from existing municipal responsibilities, and petitioners should deliver up an impact statement than provides answers to these kinds of questions.
Finally, do we really want to impose on our city manager the new duty to take and investigate wage complaints, to issue citations, to file civil suits and to pull licenses and registrations?
Nationwide, 13% of minimum wage workers are teenagers, and 37% are age 20-29. So, 50% of the nation’s minimum wage workers are people that are launching their careers and should not be permanently stuck living off those wages.
About 14% are seniors working to supplement their social security or retiree money.
That leaves about 37% of minimum wage workers at the age they should be making more based on expectations for the American climb up the ladder of prosperity.
How many of those are uneducated minorities that come to this country because the lowest wage they would make is still many times better than what they could have made at their home country? Immigrants are 11% of the total population, but comprise 20% of our low-wage workers. So out of that 37%, 20% are immigrants.
Three-fourths of all U.S. workers with less than a ninth-grade education are immigrants. Two of every five low-wage immigrant workers are undocumented.
So, out of that 20% immigrants making minimum wage, 8% are undocumented.
Do you get the crony irony of the Politics here?… the left demands open borders and amnesty and dream acts and increases to the minimum wage and then benefits from the glow of popularity from the flood of uneducated immigrants.
Meanwhile, there are fewer jobs for teenagers. There are fewer jobs for seniors. And the consequence of the labor market disruption will be fewer jobs and opportunities for growth at the higher pay levels. And higher costs for goods as companies have to raises prices to compensate.
There is nothing unique here. It is just more of the same politicians screwing the future and the children of the future so that they keep or gain political power used to pad their own pockets.
This is my biggest concern about these proposals. I don’t fault people trying to help that 37% who are older and have resorted to minimum wage jobs for one reason or another. But the unintended consequence will be a reduction of opportunity to those just entering the labor market. Businesses like mine, and Davis Ace, and local coffee places, and others that peg their pay to the minimum wage will hire fewer younger workers. It’s that simple.
Payroll and the related taxes are 25 – 30% of my expenses, which is pretty typical for retailers. Cost of goods is 50%. Most of the other expenses aren’t things I can reduce (insurance, bank charges, etc.). So the only manageable major expense is payroll. That’s the case for most of the businesses that hire in the minimum wage range (again: wages pegged to minimum, not necessarily actual minimum).
So a minor increase of $1 – 2 per hour, most of us could absorb. But a jump of this magnitude would have drastic consequences across the labor market, and much of that would be adverse.
If you want to help young adults, keep community colleges inexpensive. Don’t try to micromanage the labor market.
I propose the even more unpopular idea that we should instate a wage/salary cap for individuals. Allow businesses to take in as much as they can, because a good business can do a lot of valuable work. But just the same as the idea that people’s legitimate work should not be undervalued, no one can actually create $ millions with their only bodies and ideas. That requires technology, resources, associates, infrastructure, etc, which should be priced higher (as the result of minimum wages, environmental regulations, financial regulation, empathy, etc).
This forces successful business operators to re-invest into their business by hiring, building, even donating.
I propose that you just move to Russia as they already have many of the policies you want. BTW, they have a booming economy, NOT!
Is that a helpful comment toward promoting discourse.
Has GI ever made such a comment?
;>)/
I see that as a valid point, although delivered in a bit of a sarcastic and snarky way that, of course, I would never use. 😉
The point is that the idea of wage and salary caps head toward a socialist and communist orthodoxy and we have plenty of proof that those systems do not work.
The US system of democratic free market capitalism is a bad system that happens to be orders of magnitude better than any other system… so why would we accept changes that make it more like any other system.
I don’t think Russia has wage caps, and last I checked it was well on its way to becoming pretty capitalistic. So GI’s comment isn’t even accurate. Maybe he was thinking of the Soviet Union? News flash….
That is a reasonable point. Although I think in Russia they just jail successful business owners and take their assets instead of capping their income. At least this cronyism is direct and transparent.
lol at your logical fallacies
lol at your use of the plural
There is so much lacking in this point that I at first could bring my self to hold my nose and respond.
And I am not going to respond in whole. I am just going to raise a simple point that might help others get their head out of the sand and see some sunlight.
Let’s take a California business owner-operator CEO that gets take-home pay of $1 million per year. He makes more gross compensation than that, but he has a retirement account and mortgage interest and other things he uses to reduce his tax liability. But after all that 1099 magic, he is still left with taxable wages of $1MM.
Including his Federal and State income tax rates at that income bracket, his marginal income tax hit will be 50%. So, out of his $1MM in take home pay, he sends checks to the government for half… $500,000.
That is $500,000 in tax revenue that would otherwise not exist. It would not exist if the business owner did not earn it. It would not exist if the business owner had not been incentivized to start and grown the business to the level that could pay him this income. None of the employees that work for the business owner-operator would have jobs working for that company. So none of their taxable income would exist.
And then this owner-operator would have have his wealth to spend in the economy so that other business could benefit and other people would earn a living and generate tax revenue.
So, why not celebrate wealth and success instead of demonizing it? In our system everyone is reasonably free (although it is becoming less free due to the explosion of regulation), to start and grow their own business and wealth.
What is the alternative? It is success and wealth through political connection instead of personal freedom and self-determination. It is state-owned and operated enterprise. It is crony capitalism. It is socialism. It is communism. It is Marxism.
And as bad as our current system is, it is still better than any of these by a long shot.
What the neighbor up the street makes does not impact your prosperity, he only inflames your envy. And envy is a most unappealing and destructive of all emotions, IMO.
ya, sorry i didn’t write a 150 page peer-reviewed independently funded objective paper for the idea i decided to play around with earlier today. I’m sure you would be glad to respond to it with your hole.
i’m really unclear on what you are trying to say, or what you think im trying to say.
also, sorry you can’t imagine and are stuck in a cold war haunted house.
Ok, I reread what you wrote and there are some nuggets of potential interesting points. Sorry, I just went off on your first idea to cap compensation. Should we cap IQ or grades? How about limiting the number of PhDs since it can’t be fair that some achieve this much success. What about all those other students that don’t achieve as much. How about the speed of an athlete? Should we hobble those speedier ones? Artists… make them paint or sculpt with their less dominated hand if they are more successful?
I would support a new minimum wage between $11-$12/hr; but not $15/hr.
Why do we veer from one extreme (the current immoderately low $8/hr) to another (the immoderately high proposed $15/hr).
I would contend that $11-$12/hr is the “Goldilocks” range of minimum wage:
–feedback to my Goldilocks proposal is welcome; if it makes everyone miserable (employers feel they will be paying to much; employees that they are still not receiving enought) and everyone disagrees with it then we can feel assured this Goldilocks proposal is good.
San Francisco has a higher minimum wage, and it hasn’t seemed to hurt that city. I can guarantee if my son and his roommates made $15 an hour, they would save a little, and the rest of their paychecks would be spent on more community college classes, eating out, going to the movies, and buying other goods and services in Davis. I seriously doubt it would put Davis employers out of business. It would also raise employee morale. Less stress, less sick days, less job turnover, higher productivity.
D.D. wrote:
> San Francisco has a higher minimum wage, and it
> hasn’t seemed to hurt that city.
Making a few bucks an hour in San Francisco sounds great until you find out that your rent is THOUSANDS (double or triple the rent in Davis) more a month and is costs almost $4 to get some toast with your $6 coffee:
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/4-toast-prompts-housing-petition-4962002.php
The last home I rented in south Davis was old, needed repairs, no ac for the entire month of July. 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, $1400. I have many friends in the city who spend between $1600 and $2800 for the same. (One of the main difference of homes in the city is they are rarely single family homes.) That is not 2 or 3 times higher. 2 bedrooms are more common for these prices, but it is possible to search for a few months & find a decent place for $2600. Jobs are more plentiful. The higher minimum wage has not hurt employers there.
* that is not 3 times higher*
The article below says the median rent in SF is $3,398 with the average rent at large apartments at $3,096 (about 2 to 3 times the rent at large Davis apartments).
http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Rents-soaring-across-region-4924282.php
> I have many friends in the city who spend between
> $1600 and $2800 for the same.
Your friends may spend that much under rent control but you are going to spend 2-3 times that much if you want to rent a 3 bedroom house today. Here is a typical current rental:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/apa/4328241287.html
I’m extremely familiar with the rents there, because I just spent a week last September, helping my daughter find a place. She works 2 jobs, goes to college fulltime, and spends $2800 for a lovely place in a safe neighborhood that she shares with roommates. The higher minimum wage makes all the difference for her & her friends. They would not be able to live there without it.
Only one place she considered had rent control, but it was in such disrepair, they didn’t rent it. And it was only about $100 less than the other rentals.
San Francisco apparently has the highest minimum wage in the country, $10.74 an hour. Since a 2003 city ordinance tied the minimum wage to the regional rate of inflation, the minimum wage increased annually from $8.50 an hour in 2004. Arguments continue about whether this has pushed many restaurants out of the city.
And the financial justification for little Davis to take over in the Guinness Book with a gigantic leap to a $15 an hour rate?
Is it possible that this whole project is bogus, designed to generate publicity to support efforts to increase the state’s minimum wage?
“Is it possible that this whole project is bogus, designed to generate publicity to support efforts to increase the state’s minimum wage?”
If you knew the guy involved, you would know that’s not the case (and I’m not sure what impact Davis would have on the state anyway).
Maybe I should, but I don’t. In fact, SODA asked yesterday morning about who the petitioners are and hasn’t gotten any response that I can see. It would be a good service to your unenlightened readers to add some biographical information about the three. Or, give them a column opportunity to make their case.
It’s a missed opportunity not to use the Davis initiative in the statewide effort. It would be great publicity and get people’s attention focused on the need for increasing the California wage.
Some folks might write it off as just another quirky Davis deal, but others might give things more consideration if they knew that the minimum wage is seen as hardly half large enough for one California town.
iPad Guy wrote:
> Maybe I should, but I don’t. In fact, SODA asked yesterday
> morning about who the petitioners are
One of them is Bernie, a super smart guy that seems to be looking for something to spend his (high) energy on since the Occupy movement kind of faded away
http://davis.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/occupy-uc-davis-the-problem-is-bigger-than-sad-sad-katehi-video
“When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich. ”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
First, today, in this county, people have plenty to eat… while they watch cable on their big flat screen TV in their air-conditioned flat, with their smart phone by their side.
Second, when the poor eat the rich, then they truly will starve.
That’s not exactly true.
Which is not true… that the poor will truly starve when they eat the rich?
Or that people in this country have plenty to eat?
That there aren’t people in this country who don’t have plenty to eat.
list of countries by food intake…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_food_energy_intake
But that’s an average not a differentiation.
Listen, I’m not arguing that there is hunger in the US. But there is nowhere near the problem claimed by the left and left media. And for every real case of hunger, there are causes that are not related to economic class… for example, the single mother strung out on drugs and does not remember to shop for groceries or to feed her kids.
The problem with the political hyperbole on this is that it detracts from working on the real problems and real solutions.
Correction… I’m not arguing that there is NOT hunger in the US.
San Francisco has the most restaurants per square mile than any city in the U.S.
*Sorry, this should have gone under IPadGuy’s comment.*
San Jose recently raised its minimum wage and here are some results:
“Out of the 163 South Bay restaurants surveyed, 108 — or two-thirds — raised prices after the $10 minimum wage took effect. Another 73 reduced workers’ hours, and 69 restaurants cut staff entirely.”
But that’s a reaction by business – perhaps an unreasonable knee jerk one – so what you then have to look at is how things settle out. In the end, a market sets prices based on supply and demand. And the market will dictate employees as well. So the survey if it occurs immediately after the raise isn’t that helpful. What is helpful is the long term impact and we don’t know that yet.
Soa survey backs just what we’ve been saying that a hike in minimum wage will cost jobs and work hours and cause inflation and you just call it a knee jerk reaction. Tell that to all the employees that lost their jobs or had their hours cut. San Jose just raised it to $10/hour. I can’t imagine what would happen in Davis if we went to $15/hour.
It’s not a reaction to actual events – loss of revenue, it’s a reaction to the anticipation. That’s the point I’m making here. The question is how things look after the policy shakes out.
David, would you still tip a waiter 15% who’s making $15/hour?
Why wouldn’t I?
But you do illustrate a problem in the system. Restaurants rely on customers to augment the pay of their servers, but in the meantime neither the bussers nor hostess nor the cooks get tips.
According to the USDA’s most direct measures of childhood hunger, 1.3 percent of families reported that a child was hungry, 0.8 percent answered that a child skipped a meal, and 0.2 percent reported that a child went without food for an entire day at least once over the past year. Usually, if a family reported one of these items, it checked them all.
The USDA’s finding therefore is that around one percent of families with children have children who experienced hunger at least one day in the last twelve months. This is already a far cry from the “one in five” bandied about by the child-hunger lobby.
What’s the acceptable number of hungry children in America?
;>)/
That is a nonsensical question.
Of course nobody wants any child to go hungry. But if food and food benefits exist and are provided and accessible and the child still goes hungry, then we are talking about something other than just hunger.
If parents get assistance and they spend the money on drugs or alcohol other than food, then we are talking about something other than just hunger.
But there is a rule that the last 10 percent of a problem costs 90% of the cost of the solution, and the last 1% costs 900% of the cost of the solution.
In other words, perfection is the enemy of the good.
I wish we lived in a world where no child would go hungry.
But then many of the people demanding we keep chasing that elusive goal of making sure 100% of children get enough to eat, are the same that will fight any level of school reform that results in any impact to a teacher even though their school keeps failing to education hundreds and thousands of children… thereby convicting them to a life of low prosperity and high food insecurity.
If you REALLY want to fix hunger problems in this country, you would demand perfect schools and a perfect number of jobs so that people can feed themselves and their families.
The W.I.C. Program gives food coupons to be redeemed at grocery stores or farmers’ markets for food only. Healthy food, too. So pregnant and/or nursing moms/caregivers cannot redeem them for anything but food for themselves and their children who are five yeas old and under. Approx. 1.5 million families in CA use W.IC. services.
They can sell their benefits, or sell the “food” that they acquire with their benefits. And this is routinely done.
I would love to see your stats to support that this practice is “routine”. Of course there is fraud. All large government programs have fraud. That does not mean the majority of W.I.C. participants are selling their food instruments. They are not. There is probably more fraud occurirng from the grocery store owners (overcharging) than from the participants.
And that kind of evasive clap-trap is what makes registering new Democratic Party voters so easy.
;>)/
Said another way… when the problems and solutions get too complicated, vote for the Party that lies to make you feel better.
Frankly, did you see this?
San Jose recently raised its minimum wage and here are some results:
“Out of the 163 South Bay restaurants surveyed, 108 — or two-thirds — raised prices after the $10 minimum wage took effect. Another 73 reduced workers’ hours, and 69 restaurants cut staff entirely.”
Just what we’ve been saying would happen.
Yeah. No surprise GI.
If you really care about hungry children you wouldn’t be pushing bad economic policies that increase poverty. But that’s what many leftists do.
Re: hunger in CA: Approximately 1.5 million women, infants and children receive W.I.C. benefits in CA. That means they are at 130% of the poverty line.
On another note, here’s an interesting article that appeared on the web today:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/making-economic-case-more-minimum-110007239.html
*130% or worse*
Two thirds of all minimum wage earners are women.
Most of the unemployed shut out of a toehold in the job market by too high a minimum wage are minorities.
On the other hand, voting for a higher minimum wage makes us feel good about how compassionate we are.
Hmm.
Early support of minimum wage in this country was to prevent too many undesirable low-class people from making it their home. The thought back then was that the demand would fill for low-end wages, and by increases the wages the demand would shift to more skilled and “socially acceptable” people… and the low-class people would leave.
I see this as a probably a similar driver for those living in Davis pushing this minimum wage increase. it is probably the same people that would block any and all housing growth that might lead to more affordable housing. Inexpensive housing and low wage jobs… it attracts low-class people. We can’t have that can we?
The only problem I have with this initiative is that $15 per hour is too high. Most of those who make less than $15 working in Davis don’t live in Davis, are college students, or are high school students still living at home. I graduated from UCD and now work for the university managing a lab for an associate professor. I earn a little over $18 per hour, but also have close to $80K in school loan debt. When we consider how much I send away each month to pay those school loans, I make less than $15 per hour. So in essence, a person can work in the city of Davis without going to the very university that supports this town, and earn more money than someone who actually went to that school, graduated from it, and now works for it. This initiative totally devalues my job.
On top of that, I tutor local high school kids in math, chemistry, biology, etc. From now on, I’m gonna tell them that college may not be the right direction to go. You can work in Davis flipping burgers or delivering pizzas and earn a comfortable living, without having to take out giant loans to go to college. Heck, they might even earn more than someone like me, who went the route they were supposed to and are getting the shaft for it.
Raise the minumum wage to $10 or 11 an hour, not $15.
This is just the elitists way of keeping lower class people from actually moving into town, all while still using them to buss their tables, or cut their grass. Kinda reminds me of the battered woman’s shelter that was approved but never found a home. All a front, just to look good..