Outgoing executive secretary of the Sacramento Central Labor Council Bill Camp told the Sacramento Business Journal on Wednesday that local labor leaders will ask voters in Sacramento and Davis to approve a minimum hourly wage of $15 in 2016.
He told the journal, “We will get $15 an hour when you get a president on the ballot.” He added that he believes that if Sacramento approves the measure, other cities and the state will follow.
The state came close in June to passing a $13 an hour minimum wage, only to have it die unexpectedly in the Assembly labor committee.
Senate Bill 935, authored by Senator Mark Leno, would have raised the minimum wage in three steps, starting at $11 an hour in 2015 and increasing an additional $1 per hour in both 2016 and 2017. Beginning in 2018, the minimum wage would be adjusted annually to the rate of inflation. SB 935 was co-sponsored by the Women’s Foundation of California and SEIU (Service Employees International Union) California State Council.
“Increasing the minimum wage is critically important to millions of hard-working Californians and their families who live in poverty and are forced to rely on the state’s social safety net programs despite being employed full time,” said Senator Leno, D-San Francisco who sponsored the legislation along with Assemblymember Luis Alejo. “By giving low-income workers the pay and respect they deserve, we will also address the growing inequality within our communities, which is a roadblock to economic recovery and a drain on already limited taxpayer resources.”
The Sacramento Business Journal reports that the Sacramento City Council will propose a citywide minimum wage law, but no dollar amount has been proposed, and Mayor Kevin Johnson “has not taken a position on a local law, but called last month for a working group to study the issue.”
Mr. Camp told the journal that they would attempt to gather signatures to qualify for the ballots of Sacramento and Davis.
The law would contain three provisions. First, it would be phased in to avoid disrupting local economies. Second, “No population could be excluded from earning $15, including youth and nonprofits.” Third, “The new minimum wage would include an automatic cost-of-living increase.”
Earlier this year, an effort spearheaded by a group called Raise the Wage Davis fell short of putting a similar $15 per hour minimum wage on the ballot for this November’s ballot.
In April, the group conceded that they would fall short.
“It’s our hope to collect 7000 signatures by May 1. It’s looking increasingly unlikely that we’re going to make that deadline,” Bernie Goldsmith acknowledged to council in April. “Our efforts started around a kitchen table on January 11; since then, we’ve made a bit of a splash locally.”
“It is our hope to raise the minimum wage in Davis to a living wage,” he said. “I’m sure that many of you have read the Enterprise and it has had some opinions about our efforts. The Chamber of Commerce and local businesses have had some opinions about our attempts to engage the community.”
“One of the goals of this campaign was to start a public debate on what it would mean in this town to say as a moral proposition that no one who works full-time here should have to live in poverty,” he continued. “To contribute to this discussion, we’ve discussed engaging several academics, economists to produce a report on what a $15 minimum wage would look like to the economy of Davis, to the everyday worker of Davis, to the businesses of Davis. What the impacts would be.”
The proposal generated immediate pushback from the Davis Enterprise as well as some in the business community.
In an editorial the Enterprise argued that “Davis businesses should not be saddled with a $15 minimum wage,” and that “good intentions don’t fund the payroll.”
The Enterprise notes, “If it lands on the June ballot, and gets approved by Davis voters, the measure would set the minimum wage at $11 an hour in January 2015, $13 in July 2015 and $15 at the start of 2016. At that point, the minimum wage would be 50 percent higher than the state rate of $10, with further increases linked to inflation.”
The Enterprise did note, “We oppose a city-by-city approach to the minimum wage. The state is the appropriate place for this change to occur.”
Meanwhile the Business Journal notes that in late November, Mayor Kevin Johnson of Sacramento “called for a task force to explore a timeline for implementation of a new minimum wage as well as possible exceptions for youth workers and nonprofits.”
The Sacramento Metro Chamber has not taken a position on a local measure “because nothing has been proposed.” The journal reports, “Kevin Greene, the Chamber’s director of government affairs, said that $15 an hour was too high for a region that — unlike San Francisco — hasn’t fully recovered from the economic downturn.”
“We don’t have the strength of economy of places like Seattle and San Francisco,” he said. “A $15 minimum wage could be very damaging to business in Sacramento, decimate the fragile economic recovery and inhibiting efforts to revitalize downtown.”
Meanwhile, Roger Niello, the outgoing Metro Chamber CEO said, “They’re worried about unintended consequences.” He told the journal, “It’s a multifaceted issue. I just don’t see how a simple ballot measure put forth by unions could take into consideration those unintended consequences.”
In November, San Francisco’s voters approved a measure to raise that city’s minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2018 while Seattle’s city council adopted a similar measure earlier this year.
According to the Sacramento Business Journal, Mr. Camp disagreed with the concerns of the chamber and argued “that a $15 wage would result in a spike in local consumer spending.”
Mr. Camp argued that the “most efficient, most experienced” workers would flock to Sacramento and Davis, which would help employers.
“The chamber of commerce and labor movement agree on a fundamental principle: What drives economic growth is high skill, high wage jobs,” Mr. Camp stated. “You don’t get that if people are struggling at $9 an hour.”
In Davis, the push to put a $15/hour minimum wage ordinance on the ballot stalled after it generated a lot of controversy and concern.
Proponents argue, “It’s time to bring a $15/hr minimum wage to Davis. We can change things. Right now, the minimum wage is just $8 per hour. This translates to less than $17,000 per year. We’re trying to put an initiative on ballot for a $15 minimum wage in Davis. This ensures that nobody who works full time should have to live in poverty.”
But opponents are quick to cite data that many minimum wage earners are not the primary wage earners in their family. And that most minimum wage earners are young.
One thing seems certain. Even amid turnover among business and labor leadership locally, this issue is only going to gather steam in 2015.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Other states across the nation are salivating at the prospect of businesses fleeing California if a $15/hour minimum wage ever gets enacted here. Also, say goodbye to much of the youth after school and summer jobs.
you mean they’re going to steal our mickey d’s?
““We oppose a city-by-city approach to the minimum wage. The state is the appropriate place for this change to occur.”
I am starting to see a theme here in posts that basically boil down to “let someone else deal with this problem”. We see this with regard to public health in the argument that this is not the business of the City but belongs to the county or the state. Or banning plastic bags in Davis won’t affect the amount of plastic in the ocean ( true but irrelevant to whether it will affect the aesthetics or environment of Davis). And now, we don’t want to address the issue of full time workers who are unable to support themselves on their wages.
“But opponents are quick to cite data that many minimum wage earners are not the primary wage earners in their family. And that most minimum wage earners are young.”
Which ignores completely the plight of those who are the primary wage earners for their family ( often the only wage earner) and those who while they may be young, have no other means of support as is true for many of the foster children who age out of the foster care system.
I find appalling the willingness to pretend either that these problems do not exist, or are “de minimis” or are not our business because it is the responsibility of someone else. I look forward to the day when the concept of “personal responsibility” includes our own responsibility to provide decent wages to those who work for us and to contribute to the well being of our community at whatever level the problem is recognized rather than brushing it off as someone else’s responsibility. Now that change of perspective would represent some real change instead of the perpetuation of increased material wealth in a vast ponzi scheme of consumption that is our current model.
I just hired a 17-year-old with no prior experience. Should I pay her $15 an hour?
I think that illustrates the issue: is $15 per hour is a lot to pay someone?
If you answer David, Don, be sure to include your wage based costs, such as SS, Medicare, SDI, UI, etc.
A business does not hire employees and then determine what to pay them using factors like “Is this a lot to pay someone?” or “It’s my personal responsibility to pay them X” If you run a business and the cost of the labor your need is less than their expected increase in revenue you hire them. If not you don’t.
That is correct, so there will be some layoffs and then some rehires in the process. That’s part of why they phase these things in.
It is for me. And it’s a lot to pay a teenager with no experience. And it’s more than the living wage in this area.
what is a living wage in davis?
http://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/06113
so that’s yolo county, not davis. and for anything more than a single person, even accounting for yolo, it’s over $15 anyway.
I’m not hiring a family. I’m hiring a person. A living wage for a single person in Davis is $11 – 12.
A young man just came in. He’s about 20, shares an apartment with friends. He really needs a job, but has no experience in our type of business and only limited experience at all. Should I pay him $15/hour?
“I am starting to see a theme here in posts that basically boil down to “let someone else deal with this problem”. We see this with regard to public health in the argument that this is not the business of the City but belongs to the county or the state. Or banning plastic bags in Davis won’t affect the amount of plastic in the ocean ( true but irrelevant to whether it will affect the aesthetics or environment of Davis). And now, we don’t want to address the issue of full time workers who are unable to support themselves on their wages.”
it’s a good point.
I find it appalling that we lack basic common sense, and that the professional do-gooders continue to take contradictory or illogical stances.
1. A recent minimum wage hike was proven to have cost hundreds of thousands of jobs
2. When we allow 20-35 million illegal immigrants to work for the Republo-Democrat Machine, we eviscerate the Middle Class. This is Economics 1A.
3. UC Davis computer science professor Norman Matloff has written extensively of the “indentured servants” called H1B Visas, their average or below-average STEM skills, and how they put pressure on the middle class and put American STEM workers at risk. He has also documented widespread age discrimination.
The turn of phrase from “minimum wage” to “living wage” is a clever marketing ploy, but most minimum wage workers are first time workers, teenagers, and minimally skilled individuals. In many cities many illegal immigrants make much more than the minimum wage, which proves that the free market works. I’d also bet that like Europe, the higher the minimum wage goes, the more off the books wages we’ll see (or not see).
The vast majority of minimum wage workers supplement the family income. Is it better to have a job at $10 an hour and gain skills, or be unemployed?
Wistful pondering:
In this day, I am not sure people are interested in skills. I work with people who have motivated children, and see many more in the summer who want to work, at the best thing they can get. They have supportive parents.
There are many more who just want something and have never been taught by the world, their parents, or the TV shows and movies that reward and respect comes with learning and doing.
But then, I grew up in the Midwest, and I feel so out of touch with people who grew up here, until I go to the small towns. Kids there know what it is like. You don’t see the frivolous toys and escapades like around here, Or the parents who defend it.
I’m with you Miwok.
Here is what is going on: VICTIM MENTALITY
People that work at low skill jobs are vicrims.
People that work for minimum wage are victims.
People that work for less than a “sustainable” wage are victims.
And then there are the other people afliced with an obsession to save victims.
Because as we all know, once a victim you will never be able to fix your own problems… you will need a social justice crusader to come to your rescue.
And it does not matter that the remedies prescribed by the social justice crudsaders have negative consequences… because it creates more victims that the social justice crusaders will have to save.
And so we have it… a spiral upward in the number of victims so that the social justice crusader is never want for purpose in life.
Minimum wage is supposed to be an entry-level wage. People stuck making minimum wage are not saved by government forcing business to raise the minimum wage because they will still be stuck making minium wage… or they will have no job at all after they are fired due to the company’s inability to keep as many employees after the minimum wage is raised. What they need to more training and skills to advance. And they need plentiful job oppotunities and afordable, quality education.
They need a career, not a minimum wage job.
TBD
It is better to have a job that enables you to provide the necessities for your dependents.
I’m pretty sure the teenagers I’ve hired don’t have dependents.
Honestly, Tia, this proposal will not help the people you are trying to help. And it will hurt a lot of people you probably want to help. I wish there was some way to make you understand that.
I blame the elementary school system for this one for not teaching basic economics. Nobody remembers supply and demand? Unskilled labor is a product. Raise the price and the demand will go down.
Vote yes on $15 minimum wage, if you don’t like the young unskilled people living in Davis. Don’t waste time on a study, San Jose was nice enough to show us what is going to happen. (If you just want the cliff notes unskilled unemployment went up 50% during a time when the general unemployment went down)
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_27094248/minimum-wage-dissent-san-joses-law-resulted-lost?source=infinite
The problem with basic economics is that they don’t take into account dynamic systems. So it may be that you raise the price of labor, jobs go down. It’s possible however that is a temporary impact, and once the system adjusts, consumers have more purchasing power, the impact will be different.
Yes, the system in dynamic. I agree. As labor costs rise goods and services will then be produced outside of the high wage area in lower wage areas. Look at the auto industry. The big three way over paid for unskilled/semi-skilled labor. They had to charge high prices for poorer quality cars due to those labor costs. Your argument is that by paying those workers more they will be able to buy enough cars to keep them in business. I am saying that some other company is going to start producing cars in lower wage areas and they are going to be in bankruptcy court.
It’s not my argument, but is a factor the simple supply-demand analysis lacks.
I am using the simple analysis because it will fit in the comment box. A detailed dynamic analysis will come to the same conclusion.
Why doesn’t David also note the other affect, how food prices went up 8% at UC Davis food service when the minimum wage was raised? Therefore, a smaller number of students benefit from the wage hike, but 100% of the students suffer the price increase. And this was just with a $1 hike!
NEWS BRIEFS: CoHo price hike is first in 4 years
http://dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.lasso?id=14932
“Why doesn’t David also note the other affect, how food prices went up 8% at UC Davis food service when the minimum wage was raised?”
probably because the food prices were raised at a time when other funding was cut.
But that wasn’t the reason proffered for the price hike.
Raising the minimum wage will not solve the problem it purports to address. If a business has to start paying more to its workers, it will pass those costs on to customers. That causes the costs of goods and services to rise. Then the low wage earners making $15 an hour will be no better off, because everything costs so much more.
So true and not only will it cause inflation but many of those workers will no longer have jobs.
it will cause inflation?
doesn’t seem likely: http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2014/0714macewan.html
A potentially huge point appears to be missed. With a higher minimum wage in Davis, AND new ACA requirements, many employers, particularly in the food and other service industries, will more likely make sure that they give workers less hours, so as not to trigger the ACA requirements for employer contributions to health care. If I were to do anything locally, I’d encourage/require local employers to give part-time employees more hours, provide healthcare, and leave the minimum wage alone in exchange.
I just learned last night that as the ACA costs rise on the state level (due to rising Medical costs), education will get much less money. Talk about lose-lose.
This is as dumb an idea as it was before.
Free market. End of discussion.
“Free market. End of discussion.” he says without irony
“he says without irony”
Because there isn’t any.
so you want the free market wtihout the free market of ideas (end of discussion)?
As my dad used to say, “Some people are so open minded that their brains fall out.”
well that’s something you won’t have to worry about
You got that right. You got that right. Sure got that right.
-Leonard Skinurd
What I see is everyone will be for it, and the State will exempt them selves, and Cities and Counties as well. I hope they don’t.
IF people will vote for this, they will see their rent go up as budgets will be out of whack, and all the government workers now making substandard wages will ALSO have to get a raise. Insurance companies will raise rates for people thinking they should get part of this as well, millions of low income workers will not be eligible for ACA subsidies, etc. Or should I say ad nauseum?
You want unintended consequences? Here we go! I am sure some of you are thinking of how it affects just you and yours, but if you apply that to everyone on this thread, you have as many stories as there are people.
Isn’t it funny how we have people who live off others, and propose more things to get more from them?
“The Los Angeles economy continues to recover from the Great Recession, but not nearly fast enough to keep up with other major cities, according to the latest forecast released Thursday from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.”
“Both California and U.S. payrolls have now surpassed their pre-recession peaks, but not L.A. payrolls. About 4,191,000 people are employed in the county, which is 0.9 percent below the peak; 1,585,000 people are employed in the city, which is 2.3 percent off the peak.
In fact, the study finds that more people were employed all the way back in 1990 than are now, even though almost half a million more people live here”.
How is that possible? Higher costs, and a massive underground economy fed by illegal labor. And people both legal and illegal can earn money, and still qualify for numerous welfare programs.
http://www.scpr.org/blogs/economy/2014/09/11/17281/los-angeles-job-growth-falling-behind-other-cities/
CBO report: Minimum wage hike could cost 500,000 jobs
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/02/18/cbo-minimum-wage-jobs/5582779/
How about $11-$12 per hour (I agree with Don this is a liveable wage for a single person in Davis). $11-$12/hr is a 40-50% increase from the current $8/hr–a pretty good raise!
Seems to me $15/hr would significantly impact many local businesses (that’s nearly a doubling of the current minimum).
I bet a proposition to hike the wage to $11-$12/hr would pass a general vote (I’d vote for it); whereas many more people, like me, would not vote yes for a $15/hr minimum.
Current minimum wage in California is $9/hour.
Don
“I wish there was some way to make you understand that.”
The best way to “make” me understand that would be to show me a proposal that would work better. Bear in mind when you are showing me the better way, to not having children living below the poverty line, that I do not believe in some mythical invisible hand of the “free market”. If this were the solution, we would all be fine and there wouldn’t be any folks like myself who I guarantee you would have been better off with a “living wage” rather than supplementing my mom’s earnings from busing tables and cleaning houses with what I could make babysitting and selling raspberries from our property.
I have posted my suggestion with no takers. So what is yours ?
How is raising the minimum wage to $15/hour going to get children above the poverty line? How is making small businesses pay teenagers and young single childless adults going to raise children above the poverty line? How is this proposal going to help the people who will not get jobs because they lack skills or experience and thus become even more unhirable?
Please look at the link I provided earlier. http://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/06113 A “living wage” in Yolo County for a person with a child is over $20/hour.
How can you support a proposal which doesn’t accomplish the stated objective, and then respond to me that I need to “show you the better way to not have children living below the poverty line.” What you support doesn’t achieve that.
There’s another problem. It simply isn’t wise or even safe for business owners to discuss these issues on a public forum. The blowback on this issue is going to be bad.
My suggestion would be that you hire someone and pay that person $20 an hour. Don’t forget to add on 20 – 30% for the other costs of employing them.
“What you support doesn’t achieve that.”
You make this statement because you are assuming that I support the $15 minimum wage. That is not what I support. As I have stated many times, what I would support is paying everyone who makes a positive contribution to the society the same “living wage” as the baseline. This would by definition provide everyone, whether student, or janitor, or teacher, or doctor, or executive or homemaker enough to live on. If someone wanted to make more they could by working more hours. No one would live below the poverty line. Everyone’s work would be respected.
Talk about real change !
Please define “live on” (amount)?
And if a person is part of a large family with many members who work, should they be paid differently than one single adult trying to survive?
Dear Ms. Will. I do not practice medicine because it requires education and training I don’t have and there are professionals available to do the job. Might you consider the same for business and economic issues? Because it is clear that you don’t know enough to effectivley comprehend the full impacts of what you recommend.
That isn’t the question at hand.
Would you sign a petition to put a $15 minimum wage on the ballot in Davis?
Would you vote to impose a $15 minimum wage on anyone doing business in Davis?
From David’s account, there would be no exceptions. Do you support that?
Don: no, no, and no.
TBD
I will defer to Don’s numbers with regard to “live on”. I believe that income should be attributed to the individual, not to the family. Family structures can change. Deaths happen, divorces happen, wage earners become incapacitated. None of these events should ever leave dependents unsupported. And yet this occurs on a regular basis. It would not occur if each individual had their own income stream.
Frankly
“Because it is clear that you don’t know enough to effectivley comprehend the full impacts of what you recommend.”
And neither does anyone else, because it simply has never been done.
And your assertion about you staying out of the issues of medicine is simply not true. You were certainly willing to opine publicly that I was attempting to “poison children” ( and then retract that statement after the vote went your way) when the issue was one of public health. I believe that we both have the right to advocate for our own positions.
Don
I would happily go along with paying the $20.00 + dollars an hour that you have proposed….which by the way, was also not the question at hand, but you were willing to put it forth in response to my question.
Now to your questions about the $15.00, I don’t know yet. I have not decided whether or not I think this enough to make a difference for those that as you rightfully point out, I would like to help. The difficulty with your assertion is your black and white interpretation of the word “help”. You seem to be implying that unless an individual is fully supported on their full time wage from their primary job, they are not “helped”. And I would agree that it is not optimal. However, it would be hard to convince me that it does not “help “the single mother who is currently managing to scrape by working two 10.00/hour jobs to be able to work less hours at one of those jobs, or to rely less heavily on the generosity of those who give to the food banks, or to be able to spend more time with her children rather than to spending it scraping up dollars on the underground market babysitting or cleaning for others or selling whatever commodity she has available ( fruit in my case) , homemade food or crafts in the case of others.
I know that mine is a very unpopular position. Yet I find it unconscionable that in a nation with as much aggregate wealth as we have, we are willing to allow our own people to go without the basics of a healthy, productive life.
“And neither does anyone else, because it simply has never been done”
People know and it has been done. Like I said before, GM paid non/low skilled workers a higher than market rates to build cars for them. Soon other competition came along and sold better cars cheaper. This drove GM into bankruptcy.
If you raise the unskilled wage in Davis to $15 an hour, anything that requires low skilled labor and can be moved out of town will. Any business that can’t will raise prices to compensate. If you raise the Federal minimum wage the same thing will happen. That is how the “mythical free market” works. Economists know this.
I can put it into medical terms if that helps. A human body is going to work a certain way, but not all people are exactly the same. A patient that is 450 lbs., smokes 3 packs a day and drinks 12 beers a day is not going to live as long as a normal healthy person. This is how the “mythical body” works. Doctors know this.
They’re not my numbers.
Or the single father. But anybody who has a child needs a second wage-earner in the household in order to lift that child out of poverty. It doesn’t matter who or what the second wage-earner is: spouse, roommate, relative, friend. You can’t raise a child at entry-level wages, even if you artificially raise those wages to $15/hour. And forcing local businesses to pay more will cause many of them to reduce payrolls. Small businesses provide entry-level work that requires no experience or training. We provide job skills that allow those workers to move up into better-paying jobs.
You will be harming people who are trying to re-enter the workforce after criminal convictions.
You will be harming high school kids who get their first work experience at entry-level wages.
You will be harming the college-age kids who have moved out on their own and want to be self-sufficient.
And the reality is that the overwhelming majority of those working at these jobs are not single mothers or fathers. In over three decades as an employer I have had only three employees who were the primary support for a child. What they gained from me was work experience and a specific set of skills that allowed them to move on, after a couple of years, to better-paying jobs in related fields.
The overwhelming majority of my employees have been young adults 18 – 25 who were supporting only themselves, or who lived in two-income households.
“They’re not my numbers.”
Ok, Don. The numbers that you provided.
One point that you may be missing here is that it is not only small business owners such as yourself that are providing these “entry level only” jobs. There are many large corporations that could easily pay more and choose not to do so in order to maximize already very healthy profits.
You do not acknowledge that perhaps the reason that all of your workers have been individuals that are not attempting to support a family is that these folks are not applying for your positions. If the only applicants for your positions are local young folks, of course it will appear to you that these are the only folks being affected. I would have no problem with exceptions made for the mom and pop type businesses that truly cannot afford to pay higher wages. But I have a great deal of problems with the Wal-Marts of the country hiding behind the interests of businesses such as you operate in order to build their wealth further and employ many more people at sub poverty level wages.
Evidence please.
Frankly wrote:
> Evidence please.
Every company that made a profit last year “could” have paid their workers more (just like everyone that put even a $1 in savings last year “could” have given more to the homeless)…
She says “very healthy profits”, so I was looking for concrete examples.
For example, she might have included oil companies last year, but then looky looky this year.
I don’t think Tia really knows what “healthy profits” means. Liberals tend to just make this claim that corporations are raking it in at the expense of workers. Just like the workers of Hostess Corporation learned, their insatiable demand to be paid more for doing less leads to company failure and ultimately to them being paid nothing for doing nothing.
The margins of most business having a significant percentage of minimum wage workers are razor thin. They cannot absorb the cost of the increased labor without risking business failure, so they have to adjust. And the adjustment will be… fewer employees with greater work responsibilities to justify the higher wage… and/or higher prices of products and services… many that are consumed by people making low wages.
Sam
“People know and it has been done”
I should have been more clear in my comment. It has never been done on a societal level. Of course I agree that this is not a change that can be enacted by one company in our current system. My assertion is that as a very prosperous society, we have the ability to support all of our citizens if we were willing to let go of our stratification of worth by how much wealth one is able to accrue, and were to change instead to an appreciation that it takes contributions of all to make the society function.
Just as the body needs both the brain and the heart equally, we would very rapidly appreciate the contribution of our garbage collectors, or farm laborers if they all stopped doing the job. Their contribution would be missed far more, and much more rapidly than that of our sports stars, actors, lawyers or doctors all of whom are much more highly compensated. And yet, we are willing to allow many of these folks to live on the edge of or below the poverty line despite full time work because we do not choose to value their extremely valuable contribution to our society.
So one company, or actually it was a whole industry is bad, but one city is ok? (FYI-GM employed in the 80’s 10x+ the number of people that live in Davis now)
And even knowing that the number of low skilled jobs is going to decrease and prices are going to rise making the singe mother currently making $10 unemployed you want to “give this a try” because it might help and make them feel “respected”?
Medical Terms: A 21 year old patient likes to eat pizza and drink beer and they are depressed. Since doing that makes them happy why not force them to only eat pizza and only drink beer for the rest of their lives. Nobody has ever done that, “give it a try”. Maybe they will live to 100 and be happy. I’m not saying that your shouldn’t help this patient or that depression isn’t a real issue. I’m saying that your solution is going to hurt them, not help.
Sam wrote:
> I’m saying that your solution is going to hurt
> them, not help.
The goal is to make the social justice warriors “feel” better not actually “help” the poor…
Tia wrote:
> if we were willing to let go of our stratification of worth by
> how much wealth one is able to accrue
I wonder what percent of the people in Davis have been able to accrue three homes worth over a million like Tia?
Don wrote
> And forcing local businesses to pay more will cause many
> of them to reduce payrolls.
The ultimate goal of this is to put Don, Doby and other small business out of business (not just reduce payrolls).
in the short term the mega garden marts and hardware depots (who pay protection money called legal campaign contributions) will pay a little more but once the competition is gone they can cut back to one person manning 10 self checkouts and one person (who knows more about reality TV than plants and hardware) working the sales floor…
Tia: “You make this statement because you are assuming that I support the $15 minimum wage. That is not what I support. As I have stated many times, what I would support is paying everyone who makes a positive contribution to the society the same “living wage” as the baseline. This would by definition provide everyone, whether student, or janitor, or teacher, or doctor, or executive or homemaker enough to live on. If someone wanted to make more they could by working more hours. No one would live below the poverty line. Everyone’s work would be respected.”
Excuse me, how does someone like a janitor work more hours if they are already putting in a 40+ hour week? People are most likely already putting in as many hours as they can and remain healthy mentally and physically. I don’t feel you are thinking through what you espouse. If you want real “equality” as you profess, why not just have everyone make the same wage no matter the type of job? Or do you feel somehow doctors are more equal than janitors?
Those who advocate raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour do not seem to understand basic economics. The unfortunate truth is that people with the lowest job skills will find it difficult or impossible to find work if the minimum wage is increased.
The people who will be hurt the most include people with minor disabilities, people with poor work habits, people with former criminal records, and people with poor language skills. Do we really want to say that these people should not be able to find work because they are priced out of the market?
How should people with low job skills survive if they can’t find work? They can try to get odd jobs in the underground economy such as babysitting, gardening, and day labor. They can take up panhandling. They can take up burglary or robbery or dealing drugs. If they are women they can take up prostitution. If they can qualify, they can try to get on disability or welfare and food stamps.
Is this really what we want for our most disadvantaged citizens?