The Wall Street Journal reports, “The nation’s battle over raising the minimum wage is set to shift largely to cities like Los Angeles and New York over the coming year, pitting business groups against local governments weighing measures to address sluggish wage growth for the lowest-paid workers.”
With the Republican control now in Congress, cities, reportedly encouraged by the Obama administration “are gearing up for new debates after Seattle, Chicago and Louisville, Ky., all approved city-specific pay floors last year. More than a dozen large cities and counties now have their own standards, and the new wave of initiatives could widen the patchwork of minimum-wage laws that already has many states and cities above the national minimum of $7.25 an hour.”
Los Angeles and New York are likely to be on the forefront as they move “to support workers in low-paying service jobs in areas of the country where the cost of living is elevated.”
Davis, with its large college population and its previously unsuccessful effort the raise the minimum wage, figures to be a centerpoint for the new battle.
Outgoing executive secretary of the Sacramento Central Labor Council Bill Camp told the Sacramento Business Journal two weeks 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.
In 2015, 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.”
Small business owners on the Vanguard are concerned that they would not be able to afford $15 rates for unskilled workers – this would either mean not hiring help, hiring fewer employees, or in some cases worse consequences.
Meanwhile, the politics of minimum wage increase could threaten to splinter governing coalitions. For example, a few weeks ago, Next City reported, “From a victory for L.A.’s hotel workers to Seattle’s groundbreaking increase to $15 an hour, municipalities are making headway in the effort to bring workers out of poverty and reduce income inequality.”
The efforts in Illinois to raise the minimum wage “have taken a divisive turn, as business interests have pitted workers in Chicago against those in Illinois’ smaller towns and suburbs.”
In mid-November, “after 64 percent of voters agreed that the baseline should be lifted in an election day referendum — state Democrats advanced legislation that would raise the hourly minimum wage in the state from $8.25 to $11 by 2017.”
Meanwhile, in Chicago, “Mayor Rahm Emanuel swayed the City Council in early December to raise the city’s minimum wage to $13 an hour by 2019.”
The state legislature, backed by business interests like the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, is pushing back against the city, “threatening to take away their home-rule authority on the issue. They claim that the city’s proposed wage increase could put Chicago at a competitive disadvantage and drive businesses out of state.”
“There’s no problem raising the state to $10 or $11 and then Chicago raising its own to $13 or $15, as we had originally pushed for,” says Aileen Kelleher of the coalition Raise Illinois. “There’s really no conflict at all, but it was a manufactured conflict by legislators when City Council and the Mayor passed the $13 ordinance. [House] Speaker Madigan got upset and refused to hold a vote on the minimum wage at all. As of right now, 64 percent of Illinois voters want a minimum wage [increase] but legislators are woefully preventing that from happening based on a tight dispute between the city and the state.”
The Vanguard has presented this issue more than once, to date, but has not really weighed in with our own view. On the one hand, wages have stagnated in recent years. Living wage, according to one calculation in Yolo County is $10.42 – that is more than the current minimum wage. That number increases to $15 per hour for two adults and $18 to $20 per hour when there is a child involved.
On the other hand, businesses are operating on low margins as it is, and pushing up the minimum wage too much, too fast, will likely lead to layoffs and perhaps threaten businesses with existence.
From that perspective, it seems like we should push to get minimum wage up to about $10.50 or $11 per hour within the next year or two. We could then seek to have an inflation inflator which would push up wages by between 2 and 3 percent each year.
Starting at $11 per hour in 2016 and then increasing it by 2% per year would push the rate up to $13.15 per hour by 2026. That would give businesses an incremental increase generally around 20 cents per year but avoid what has happened in the past – which is earnings depleted by inflation and then a quick spike of $1 or more that jolts businesses.
Would either side accept such a compromise? It remains to be seen.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
David
I appreciate your taking the time to revisit this issue. Another aspect of a “living wage” that I have not heard discussed is how much time should an individual have to spend working per week in order to support themselves. For as long as I have been in the workforce, so at least for the past 45 years, the work week has been generally held to be 40 hours. But with real inflation and stagnancy in the minimum wage, as Don Shor has repeatedly and correctly pointed out, raising the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour does not provide even a minimally adequate wage to support more than one person. Thus anyone who has dependents has a real dilemma. If you are a minimum wage worker with dependents you have very limited choices:
1. If you are very lucky, you can depend on relatives for child care while working more hours. This has the obvious disadvantage of being separated from your child but at least you have the peace of mind knowing your child is safe.
2. If you are not so lucky as to have family support you have even fewer choices. You can work the long hours and depend on the state to help with subsistence needs. You can work the long hours and subject your children to latchkey situations once they are above the age where CPS would be notified. You can work the 40 hours and put in additional time in the informal economy assuming that you have a talent or skill set which will bring in additional money. This again means time away from your child. At what breaking point of time, does the time necessary to provide subsistence for your child amount to “child neglect”?
3. You can try to obtain more than one job at minimum wage. However, this is frequently also a losing proposition because of the need to try to juggle schedules while still maintaining enough hours at one for the perhaps minimal benefits offered to full time workers knowing that loss of one job or being assigned too few hours will destroy the delicate balance that you have achieved.
When discussing the minimum wage, we tend to speak only in terms of the money. For many low wage workers the issue is not just the money. It is both the money, and the time necessary to acquire it.
My prediction – Raise the minimum wage, and the result will be: 1) fewer minimum wage jobs available because businesses will have to cut back on the number of employees to keep their doors open; 2) a demand for an increases in salary by those who are making more than the minimum wage, since it would not be appropriate for those making minimum wage to make as much as those directly above them, and it would not be right for those directly above minimum wage to make as much as those above those directly above them, and so on; 2) loss of businesses that could not afford to pay their workers any more and still stay in business; 3) the cost of paying employees more will be passed on to the customer, increasing the cost of living, thereby gaining nothing for those making the minimum wage who will now have to deal with the increase in the cost of living. As the old adage goes, “Be careful what you wish for.”
What do businesses do when their cost of doing business increases? Like, the cost of flour and pepperoni in a pizza business? The cost of electricity and gas? The cost the stuff they sell retail? They raise their prices. If the cost of labor goes up, the cost of the stuff they sell or their service goes up. This happens all the time. So maybe some people will use the gas to drive to Woodland for a pizza is the cost of pizza in Davis goes up a dollar but I don’t see that happening a lot. Places like Target won’t be hurt. They are quite profitable. This is capitalism folks. This is how it works–pass the cost on to the consumer.
That’s how capitalism works to an extent. Yes the free market determines prices and the costs of goods to bring the product to market enters into its final selling price. But what you have here is government intrusion into the free market by a local entity which could possibly be determining wages if the $15 minimum wage gets enacted. Wages should be determined by supply and demand, not government intrusion. Forcing Davis employers to raise wages will only hurt local businesses and cost local jobs as local employers cut back.
The cost of automation continues to fall. The cost of labor continues to rise as idiots continue to push for massive minimum wage hikes in their misguided attempts to engineer equality from top-down policy void of economic relevancy.
Force-increase wages and you increase business costs. Increase business costs and you reduce profit. Reduce profit and you reduce returns on capital. Reduce returns on capital and less capital will be invested in business.
It is really simple to understand. I call those continuing to push a $15 minimum wage “idiots” because apparently they cannot understand it.
According to Chris Benner, a Professor at UCD well versed in macro-economics and with credentials far loftier than the posters here, in real dollar terms the minimum wage is less than it has been at any time since since 1956. And if minimum wage had kept pace with productivity gains in the US over the last half century, it would now be $25 an hour. I’d be glad to supply a chart with this data if someone can tell me how to post a jpg image here
Dr, Benner further states that if the minimum wage were increased to $15/hr it would cost the average family in America about $0.40 per day while giving 56,000,000 workers a raise (of which over 90% are over the age of 21 and over half are the primary wage earner in their family).
As one of those “idiots” who happen to believe people should get a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work, I also understand that increasing the minimum wage would be a giant boost for local economies as a number of credible studies have shown. This is because poor people spend all of their money on necessities and food which keeps most of those dollars local instead of flowing into Wall Street corporate profit coffers benefiting comparatively wealthy individual shareholders, hedge funds, and pensions.
I find it amusing that many of the old retired posters on this blog raging against minimum raise increases are living quite comfortably on pensions subsidized by profits made by underpaying the younger generation. So I think those folks can also afford to pay the extra $146/year their family might end up paying in increased costs each year to help raise 56,000,000 Americans out of poverty while ending corporate welfare to the most notorious and userious employers like WalMart and Target and fast food giants.
From the Center For Poverty Research about Chris Benner
http://poverty.ucdavis.edu/profile/chris-benner
If we bring manufacturing back from china, we could pay our workers a living wage using the principal espoused by Henry Ford. You want to pay your workers enough so they can buy the product you are selling. The other car manufacturers were outraged that he paid his workers twice the going rate.
We are paying chinese/asian workers very low wages with poor working conditions so we can buy mountains of cheap s**t. As long as we meekly accept globalism and allow our country to be hollowed out, we won’t have good jobs and we won’t have quality products. Does anyone think we NEED all this stuff that is currently available for purchase in at ridiculously low prices?
Raise minimum wages, I bet the sky won’t fall but as discussed previously, we are conditioned to be afraid to stand up and do the right thing because it is the right thing. We are going to let Wall Street resume selling derivatives again–why aren’t we afraid they will do just what they did before and make the economy collapse? Now there is a fear I can get behind.
Tia wrote:
> raising the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour does not provide
> even a minimally adequate wage to support more than one person
Tia forgets that a “family” with one person making $15/hour also gets:
Free Breakfast for the kids at school
Free tutoring for the kids at school
Free lunch for the kids at school
An EBT card to buy food
WIC benefits (to buy even more food)
Health care for the kids
Almost free Section 8 Housing
Free Obama phone
Free internet service
Discounted PG&E
And many many more programs that give even more free stuff…
“the single mom is better off earnings gross income of $29,000 ($13.95/hr) with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 ($33.17/hr) with net income and benefits of $57,045.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-27/when-work-punished-tragedy-americas-welfare-state
SOD
And what you seem to be missing is that she would not need any of those services that we pay for if she were payed a living wage. For some reason, you seem to find it preferable that we provide all that care, than that we devise a system in which each is able to earn what they need.
Tia wrote:
> And what you seem to be missing is that she would not need any of those
> services that we pay for if she were payed a living wage.
Do you think the “minimum wage” should be close to $30/hour (where it would need to be to cut government payments to a typical “working poor single mom”)?
And what you seem to be missing is that while “some” people will benefit from the higher minimum wage we will “all” end up paying more for most things and a the government will be spending even more (asking us “all” to pay more in taxes) taking care of the newly unemployed as it starts to make sense for even small business like Don’s to fire people and get a “self checkout” machine and more fast food restaurants start to let people order and pay on their smartphones like Taco Bell has started to do (see link below)
http://www.tacobell.com/static_files/TacoBell/StaticAssets/documents/mobileapp/mobileapp.html
P.S. If raising the minimum wage reduces the need for government help wouldn’t every city or state that increased the minimum wage have a year over year drop in welfare spending after the minimum wage was increased? (I have looked and did not find a single one)…
South of Davis
I have stated on a number of occasions that a minimum wage is not my preferred solution to ending poverty. My preferred solution would be a living compensation payed to every man, woman, and child who is fulfilling any role which contributes to the functioning our society. I do not believe that we should be compensated by some arbitrarily based standard that allows some to rake in millions while others doing equally, or more necessary work ( I consider the work of a garbage collector more essential than that of a movie or TV celebrity), make less than a living wage for full time work.
I firmly believe that we should all be compensated with means adequate to support us for a full time contribution of our time in whatever capacity we are able to contribute. This is not the same as a “minimum wage” it is equal support for equal contribution of the only thing that we all have equally, our time.
Who in their right mind is hiring employees now anyway? No one is getting jobs for 40 hours a week, to avoid ACA. Oh that’s right, the “affordable” benefits, people who work less than 30 hours so the employers don’t have to pay anything for ACA, and some like me have to pay another 15% for SSI. $15 is a living wage? Do the math: $15 an hour, max 30 hours or less, $450 a week max. Buy a house? Sure, it’s a living wage right?
Did I mention I am available for work? I can’t take one of those warehouse jobs for $12 and hour, but I can run one. This 50% stuff is almost not worth it. And that is 20 hours a week. I just hate sitting at home. You gonna require the employer to hire them for 40 hours?
Hey SOD, no kids, no benefits as you describe..
There should be no raise in the minimum wage. The minimum wage should be abolished.
The minimum wage will instead be raised, and the law of unintended consequences will be controlled by the laws of economics and politics.
Welcome to America 2015.
Miwok
“No one is getting jobs for 40 hours a week, to avoid ACA.”
This totally ignores the facts that the recession with its loss of jobs occurred well before the ACA went into effect.
This totally ignores the fact that employers know they can dodge ACA by keeping their employees part time. We have some people on here that defend the president no matter whether his policies are working or not.
BP
“We have some people on here that defend the president no matter whether his policies are working or not.”
This is not about the president. It is about the plan which whether you would like to admit it or not, has worked spectacularly for me. It saved my daughter’s life. And whether you wish to attribute this to the president, or if you wish to go back further and attribute it to Mitt Romney who was the first to put something similar into effect, being a huge proponent of the concept, at least until it became politically inconvenient, makes no difference.
To anyone who had a child whose life threatening illness was not diagnosed until they after they had graduated from university thus losing their student health benefits but were over the age of 22, the extension of parental health care coverage to age 26 was literally life saving. So whether or not the ACA,” works” is totally dependent on your point of view.
“This totally ignores the fact that employers know they can dodge ACA by keeping their employees part time”
And this I blame not on the ACA, but rather on those who unethically choose to dodge the ACA at significant material harm to their employees. This is not the fault of the president or the ACA, but rather those who wish to extract as much as they can from the system without regard to the well being of others. No one is making anyone choose to “dodge” any law. This is solely the responsibility of the individual. Interesting once again, to see those who tend to trumpet individual responsibility the most when it suites them , tend to abandon it most readily when they do not like the actions of our duly elected representatives.
Tia wrote:
> It (the ACA) saved my daughter’s life.
Are you saying that you and your daughter would not have paid for any health insurance after she graduated from college? If she had a job and paid for health insurance after graduation (like millions of Americans have done for decades) her health insurance (not the ACA) would have “saved her life”…
So you talk about personal responsibility, where’s the personal responsibility of anyone who lets their health insurance lapse? I have three children and with two of them I made it my personal responsibility that their health coverage stayed in effect until they were able to get their own coverage.
Unethically? Is it unethical that they’re following the law? Was the law crafted in such a way that it left loopholes? Miss Will, I’m sure you take the mortgage interest deduction on your houses and take other tax write-offs when they apply to you, are you being unethical? Maybe the employers need to keep some employees under 29 hours a week to stay in business. Are they being unethical if they keep their businesses alive and still supply jobs?
You are aware that may people could not get insurance due to pre-existing conditions, or were only offered policies that would not cover those conditions?
Don wrote:
> You are aware that may people could not get insurance
> due to pre-existing conditions,
Yes I am, but Tia specifically said that her daughter “was not diagnosed” until AFTER she graduated (her word not mine).
So unless Tia publicly states that she does not care enough about her daughter to make sure she had health insurance (or that she thinks paying for health insurance is a bad idea) I think we know she was exaggerating/lying about the ACA saving her daughters life…
David – You stated in your article,
Do you have any hard evidence of this? Studies analyzing past minimum wage increases in San Jose and San Francisco have shown the general economy prospered after their MW increases.
Alan Pryor, would you care to give links to these studies? I’ve seen one study where the employers in San Jose say the minimum raise hike would cost jobs. It would be interesting to see the studies you cite and who is behind them.
There’s a professor on campus who espouses this idea that with a higher wage, the more prosperous the economy. I’ll bet that professor has never run a business in his life.
Alan wrote:
> I’ll bet that professor has never run a business in his life.
Like the old saying says:
Those who can “do” those who can’t “teach”…
P.S. I know that some “do” AND “teach”, but most who “teach” have never “done”…
Many professors are also left leaning advocates for social change, does this guy fit the bill?
The first thing that worries most people when we talk about our minimum wage proposal is that it will hurt small businesses. Studies show the opposite – growth among small businesses improves from state to state when comparing those with higher minimum wages in multiple studies – 29% faster, on average, in states with higher minimum wages than the federal minimum between 1998 and 2003.(http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/FPISmallBusinessMinWage.pdf).
In the year following the implementation of the first San Francisco MW ordinance (2003-4), in a study of affected and unaffected Bay Area restaurants, both full-time employment growth and total hours of work were significantly stronger than in areas unaffected by the ordinance. This period, immediately following implementation, is most critical because it is the time which conventional wisdom holds that price shocks will have deleterious effects on the economy. (Arindrajit Dube, Suresh Naidu, Michael Reich. “The Economic Impacts of a Citywide Minimum Wage.” Working Paper Series, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, UC Berkeley).
Data taken from the 2010 census shows that income inequality declined over the past ten years in San Francisco (seven following the passage of the minimum wage law), while it had increased in the United States as a whole, and had increased in San Francisco in the previous three censuses, 1979,
1989, and 1999. (Michael Reich, Ken Jacobs, and Miranda Dietz. When Mandates Work: Raising Labor Standards At The Local Level. Berkeley: University of California Press, 17).
Another claim is that businesses will move out of state to lower wage states if MW are increased. A 2010 study reviewing sixteen years of varying minimum wage policies in counties in different states but with contiguous borders showed that the effects are remarkably consistent at a more local level: “for cross-state and contiguous counties, we find strong earnings effects and no employment effects of minimum wage increases.” (Arindrajit Dube, T. William Lester, and Michael Reich. “Minimum Wage Effects Across State Borders: Estimates Using Contiguous Counties.” The Review of Economics and Statistics. November 2010. Vol. 92, No. 4, page 961).
Alan wrote:
> The first thing that worries most people when we talk about our
> minimum wage proposal is that it will hurt small businesses.
It WILL hurt small business. Are ANY Davis small business that employ a fair amount of minimum wage workers supporting the $15 wage?
> Data taken from the 2010 census shows that income inequality
> declined over the past ten years in San Francisco
Ate you seriously saying that “the most expensive city in America” (with an average two bedroom apartment rent of $3,859/month almost triple the Davis average) has had a drop of “income inequality”?
An article in the SF Chronicle last year said:
“Income inequality on par with developing nations” San Francisco likes to think of itself politically, socially and culturally as akin to European countries. But when it comes to income equality – or lack thereof – we’re far less Sweden and Denmark and far more Central America and sub-Saharan Africa.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Income-inequality-on-par-with-developing-nations-5486434.php
P.S. I read the SF Bay Guardian (a pro increase in the minimum wage left leaning paper) every week when I lived in SF in the early 2000’s and on line about once a month after I moved to Davis. I can remember multiple articles complaining about the INCREASE in income inequality and can’t remember a SINGLE one that even hinted things were getting better…
If a living wage in Yolo County is $10.42/hr, and a reasonable wage for a teenager is probably $9 – 10/hr, why are you advocating for $15/hour?
And, just for the record, this is what your website says in answer to that question: http://www.raisethewagedavis.com/why-15/
These cherry-picked anecdotal and unsubstantiated observations from a very conservative web site by an author with no academic credentials (other than he graduated from Cornell) hardly qualify as “real-world proof” as the title of the referenced article implies.
Just as all of your articles and studies are also cherry picked for the justification for a higher minimum wage.
all of your articles and studies . . .
Did you even read Pryor’s response? Has any of what he’s written sunk in?
You mean Pryor’s cherry-picked articles and studies?
This brings up the point that there are total pay and benefits in excess of wages, and they are not counted in these so called non-partisan economic “studies”.
So is the Sacramento Labor Council going to be running this campaign? Bernie Goldsmith seems to have disappeared from the whole endeavor.
Bernie is no longer affiliated with Davis Citizens for a Living Wage which is an FPPC registered campaign committee. All of the officers of the campaign committee are Davis residents and we are running our own campaign. Having said that, we welcome the encouragement and support of labor unions.
Who are the officers of Davis Citizens for a Living Wage?
I wonder what the advocates of a minimum wage increase think about work that is done at a very low or zero wage. I am referring to volunteer jobs and internships where the person doing the work gets no money for their work but does gain enjoyment or work experience for the time they put in.
It would seem that those who advocate making for making it illegal to pay less than some specified minimum wage would certainly want to make volunteer work and internships illegal too.
Topcat wrote:
> It would seem that those who advocate making for making it illegal to pay
> less than some specified minimum wage would certainly want to make
> volunteer work and internships illegal too.
They already have made most unpaid internships (where you actually do anything) illegal:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/13/are-unpaid-internships-illegal/
And are slowly working to make ALL volunteer work illegal, my nephew’s boy scout troop had to “pay” the unions to get “permission” to do some volunteer work (that they needed to do to earn a merit badge) and it is now “illegal” to feed the poor in many parts of the US.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/11/90-year-old-florida-veteran-arrested-feeding-homeless-bans
Topcat and South of Davis
I have a somewhat different perspective on the role of internships ( free or very low pay or stipends for real work). The justification of this is that the intern learns the skills that will allow them to progress along a career track to eventually make a living wage and sometimes a very well paid position.While this may seem to be a good deal, it does not consider the downsides.
1. The assumption being made is that the internship will invariably lead to a higher paying job. This is true only if the economy is such that those jobs are being continuously generated. This is obviously not the case during an economic downturn.
2. I would like to use the medical model as how the concept of internship has not met the changing needs of the times. The commonly used term “house officer” for interns and residents is a hold over from the days when these physicians were expected to be on the job 24/7. This arrangement worked only because these physicians lived in the hospital where they were provided with 100% of their room and board and a very small stipend for incidentals. Thus they had no need for a real salary. Moving forward in time, hospitals stopped providing room and board but still demanded of these physicians working hours far beyond the traditional 40 hour work week. When I was a resident, the standard work week was ninety hours, but there was no formal limitation so if one of the three of us in my class was ill or on vacation, the others were expected to cover. I did many “back to back” call shifts. The rules have changed to the slightly more humane 80 hour work week that interns and residents are now limited to. However, what has not changed is that hours over 40/week are not counted as overtime, nor are they accounted for at all since physicians in training are not paid by the hour but receive a set salary. When I started 30 years ago, that salary was $30,000 yearly for a quite literally unlimited number of hours. At one point during my training, due to a lack of phlebotomists, I spent a several month interval with the first two hours of my day doing nothing but drawing and labeling blood samples, a task at which I had become proficient in medical school. No learning, no additional pay, no reduction in other duties and no compensatory time off. And this was because the hospital at which I was working at the time had chosen not to hire enough phlebotomists.
Again, what is not being considered is the value of the time that the individual is dedicating to their “learning” during those intervals in which the work that they are doing is vital to the enterprise, but not compensated.
3. When the actual work is being done by an intern, they are frequently not “learning” but providing services to their “employer” which allows the employer not to have to pay someone else to do that job. That is one less payed job available to someone who has completed their internship. Nice arrangement for the “employer”, not so nice for the person who cannot get a paying job nor for the “intern” whose “learning hours” are frequently sharply decreased by the amount of time they spending doing tasks that they have already mastered.
I am not the least bit saddened to see that this particular form of indentured servitude is going by the way side. A full days work should provide a living wage. If the small employer truly cannot afford to pay, there could be some form of exemption by company size, or profit or number of employees or the choice to hire only teens for the positions that do not provide a living wage. Some kind of arrangement could be worked out. However, to pretend that we still live in a time where people are not relying on minimum wage jobs as their sole livelihood, would be no different than pretending that “house officers” still lived in the hospital with full room and board and therefore do not need money to live on.
Tia wrote:
> The assumption being made is that the internship
> will invariably lead to a higher paying job.
In a (so called) free country shouldn’t I be the one who decides if I want to work for free?
P.S. My sister worked at an unpaid internship while a UCD senior that let to a higher than average paying job after graduation…
Even 80 hours is too much and it puts patient lives at risk.
“And are slowly working to make ALL volunteer work illegal, my nephew’s boy scout troop had to “pay” the unions to get “permission” to do some volunteer work (that they needed to do to earn a merit badge) and it is now “illegal” to feed the poor in many parts of the US.”
I would think that the folks that want to make it illegal to pay less than the minimum wage in Davis will campaign to make volunteer work illegal in Davis. I wonder how this would affect places like the Davis Food Co-op, non-profit thrift stores like R&R, and organizations like Community Meals?
Topcat wrote:
> I would think that the folks that want to make it illegal to pay
> less than the minimum wage in Davis will campaign to make
> volunteer work illegal in Davis.
I know many people offered to fix the burnt deck by the Co-Op (I could have done it in an couple hours with a helper and a truck full of wood) but the unions wanted to turn the fire in to a high dollar project (so they tore down the entire thing so it could not be “fixed”).
http://www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/central-parks-oak-tree-deck-in-limbo/
Alan Pryor: “The first thing that worries most people when we talk about our minimum wage proposal is that it will hurt small businesses. Studies show the opposite – growth among small businesses improves from state to state when comparing those with higher minimum wages in multiple studies – 29% faster, on average, in states with higher minimum wages than the federal minimum between 1998 and 2003.(http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/FPISmallBusinessMinWage.pdf).”
Alan Pryor: “These cherry-picked anecdotal and unsubstantiated observations from a very conservative web site by an author with no academic credentials (other than he graduated from Cornell) hardly qualify as “real-world proof” as the title of the referenced article implies.”
From my research, it appears Alan has cherry-picked the organization he cites for statistics, to wit:
FPI works to increase public and governmental understanding of issues related to the fairness of New York’s tax system and the stability and adequacy of state and local public services. FPI publishes an annual analysis of the state’s fiscal situation and tax system, a biennial report on the state of working New York, and special reports and articles on a variety of related subjects. In addition, FPI maintains an active program of briefings and other public education activities.
FPI is part of two consortia of state-level organizations throughout the U.S. – the State Fiscal Analysis Initiative(SFAI), coordinated by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and the Economic Analysis and Research Network(EARN), coordinated by the Economic Policy Institute. SFAI is supported by the Ford Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation and others; its goal is to enhance the timeliness, credibility, accessibility and usefulness of the analysis that is available on the state tax and budget issues affecting low-income and other vulnerable populations. EARN has the mission of improving the lives of Americans by advancing progressive policy at the state and regional level.”
Take special note of the last two sentences.
Take special note of the last two sentences.
I did, and it seems to me you’ve validated his argument.
Every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage reduces employment for low-skilled workers by 1 to 3 percent.
When President Obama was proposing an increase in the national minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour, a CBO analysts concluded 900,000 Americans would be lifted from poverty, 500,000 would lose their jobs. Other economic impact assessments pegged the number of lost jobs at 1 million.
University of California, Irvine economist David Neumark has examined more than 100 major academic studies on the minimum wage and found about 85 percent of the studies “find a negative employment effect on low-skilled workers.”
A study by economists William Even and David Macpherson looking at the last rise from $5.25 to $7.25 concluded that in the 21 states where the full 40% wage increase took effect, “the consequences of the minimum wage for black young adults without a diploma were actually “worse than the consequences of the Great Recession.”
But the rise in the minimum wage had devastated teens… especially black teens. The last increase to the current rate hit July 2009 about the time most economists agree that the Great Recession ended. At that time the jobless rate for black teens hit 40%. It is about the same today.
Most economists know all this, and also know that the minimum wage has nothing to do with poverty or unemployment. At the national level it is a political play to box in Republicans. In California it is another union reward for all the cash the unions spend on Democrat campaigns. The minimum wage polls well because Americans naturally want everyone to make more money, and they people in these wage categories are generally oblivious to the negative impact on job opportunities.
The last political consideration is the tax revenue derived from hiking the minimum wage. Not only will business face greater labor costs for the increased hourly wages they must pay, but they will pay greater payroll taxes and the employees will also pay higher payroll and income taxes, and many will also stop qualifying for other government services. The end result is more money in government coffers for politicians to reward their unions pals.
There is not doubt that inflation takes a bite out of earnings at the minimum levels. But raising wages by government mandate at the expense of so many more people being unemployed is a terrible idea. It is frankly quite heartless.
The minimum wage is a starting wage. It is not intended to support a single person living on his own… and it is certainly not intended to support a family. People stuck making a wage that is inadequate to support their needed lifestyle have other problems. Social do-gooders should focus on those things and stop putting their nose into business and economic issues that they know nothing about.
“Every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage reduces employment for low-skilled workers by 1 to 3 percent.”
How do you account for the effects of inflation?
It is irrelevant in that the cost of labor is based on market forces of supply and demand unless the government screws up the market. Why just look at minimum wage if this is your concern? Inflation reduces purchasing power for all wage earners. Why not mandate that all business increase all wages by the rate of inflation? We should have COLA for all! I think this is what they are doing in Venezuela. Makes for great populist warm and fuzzy feelings while the country spirals down into a giant economic collapse.
With advocacy for a minimum wage hike your are conveniently ignoring the lost jobs impact. If you think about it, it is basically more kicking the can down the road to our children. You are also punishing private business and private employees and rewarding public sector employers and employees. A minimum wage hike is just greater taxation since forcing business to spend more on labor, because labor cost are taxed and taxed progressively, will send more money to government to reward the public sector unions.
One way you and others having a similar worldview should look at this minimum wage cry is that you already played all your cards on Obamacare. This was another hit to the job supply only rewarding those lucky enough to have a job through a new tax on business. And you should be happy that you helped those low wage, low-skilled people get their healthcare… and stop so much wringing of hands about their wages… even though again, Obamacare was basically funded on the backs of our children.
If I were you I would start thinking about your young children. If you are lucky they will have great academic gifts and an interest in science or engineering or to push paper for the government. But the odds are that at least one of them will need a private sector job and learn skills that allow them to advance in pay based on those acquired skills. And you are basically advocating the reduction of those entry-level opportunities. You are also forcing companies to cut job training programs and other costly programs that they use to bring in young people to help them launch a career. You are advocating damage to the future prospects of everyone’s lower academically-gifted kids.
Increasing the cost of labor results in easier cost-justification for automation. It makes outsourcing more feasible. it increases the cost of products… most that are purchased by low income people (low wage workers tend to make the products purchased by low wage workers).
All these junk studies that Alan Pryor puts out there fail to include the massive increase in the numbers of discouraged and under-employed workers. The REAL unemployment rate in this country is astounding. And it is astounding to me that those that claim to be such social justice advocates would push any policy that adds to those numbers.
I have friends from Bismark ND. Few of the businesses pay minimum wage in Bismark because the economy is strong and workers are in short supply. And workers with experience are less likely to be paid starting wages for long… because their experience is marketable in a strong job market and employers are having to pay it.
If you want to increase wages the right way, advocate for things that increase the supply of jobs, reduce the supply of unskilled labor competing for the limited supply of jobs, and advocate for changes to the education system that develops skills in students that are marketable in the job market.
Yes Frankly, you are correct in pointing out that an increase in the minimum wage hits the lowest skilled and most disadvantaged people the hardest. I have pointed this out in past discussions, but they folks who advocate for a drastic increase in the minimum wage choose to conveniently ignore this point.
If we want the lowest skilled and most disadvantaged people in society to be unable to find legal, legitimate work, then a drastic raise in the minimum wage is a good way to accomplish this.
It baffles the mind and really causes me to consider one of three possibilities.
1. They are ignorant to the facts, and refusing to accept them when presented.
2. They really don’t care so much about the bottom socioeconomic population.
3. They see other ancillary (political? ideological? personal?) benefits derived from it.
In any of these cases it is not a very complementary position.
Or, they don’t trust the sources of information coming from the other side of the issue.