US sees largest protests calling for $15 minimum wage

cool_gi said:
$15 per hour is quite high!!
$15 *R 14 = R210 an hour

if that person works just one day of 8 hours = 8 *210 =R1680
to me thats alot
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Direct conversions like that doesn't really work.
 
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konfab said:
Robots don't call in sick, steal, be rude to customers, or go on strike. The only reason why they haven't taken over is because people are curently cheaper. Making people more expensive has just made the capital expenditure worth while.
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Yeah automation will happen regardless of minimum wage. We are at a crossroads where the economy needs to redevelop itself.
 
Drunkard #1 said:
I'm trying to see things from your point of view.
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No, there aren't many Mexican immigrants to Canada because Mexico doesn't border Canada so they have to go through the US to get there and mostly they end up sticking around in the US. There are plenty of US citizens looking to get into Canada right now though; wonder if they'll end up dragging wages down as well.
 
cerebus said:
No, there aren't many Mexican immigrants to Canada because Mexico doesn't border Canada so they have to go through the US to get there and mostly they end up sticking around in the US. There are plenty of US citizens looking to get into Canada right now though; wonder if they'll end up dragging wages down as well.
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I guess there isn't much difference between a libtard arts graduate and a Mexican. Both aspire to flip burgers for a living. Comes down to the numbers then. How many libtards will actually run to Canada vs how many Mexicans do run to the US.
 
Drunkard #1 said:
How many Mexicans is Canada letting in per year? How many do they currently have?
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You can safely ignore Cerebus....

Canada the US and just about all the developed nations run on a different yardstick than SA (or any other third world country for that matter). Did you knew that in South Africa, less than 1/3 of all black youth has a job! Enforcing a minimum wage, under such circumstances, will change that figure to 1/4 (or even less). If you travel in a country with 10% (or less) unemployment, between 9AM and 5PM you'll see less people roaming the streets. In SA there is hardly a difference :( Enough said.
 
cr@zydude said:
Then the US tax system is broken. Under a progressive tax system, a higher wage won't see you take home less money. You are only taxed at the higher rate on the money above the level for the lower tax rate.
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i should have elaborated with addtional details. milk and other basics would go up in price to so the stores would could afford the $15 minimum wage. so you won't be taking home less, you would just be paying a butt load more for milk.
 
cerebus said:
Of course they're worried about it, everyone worries. There's obviously a wage elasticity issue and there's only so far you can stretch the bottom end of wages without impacting the economy. The question is, does that mean $8 or $15? I can tell you from experience that $15,000 isn't enough to get by on in the US, that's when you have to make choices between food and petrol money; and nobody really knows where the minimum wage equilibrium is in the US because it hasn't changed since I was a teenager.



Employers will pay their workers exactly as little as they can get away with doing, and that is historically consistent. If they can keep wages at $8/hour eternally, they will simply do that, regardless of the value that workers believe they bring to the company.
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let's say if you have 5 people jockeying for a gardener position at your house. you state the minimum wage is R200 a day. you can only select one person though and you chose person 1. Person 2 comes to you and says he will work for R180 a day....what do you do?
 
i should have elaborated with addtional details. milk and other basics would go up in price to so the stores would could afford the $15 minimum wage. so you won't be taking home less, you would just be paying a butt load more for milk.
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Do you have proof that a higher minimum wage will result in a higher cost of goods? Or rather, that the resultant cost of goods will swallow up any benefit from the wage increase? Or is this just more speculation and thumbsucking?

crackersa said:
let's say if you have 5 people jockeying for a gardener position at your house. you state the minimum wage is R200 a day. you can only select one person though and you chose person 1. Person 2 comes to you and says he will work for R180 a day....what do you do?
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Nothing, because you'll be breaking the law!! Isn't it great?

Actually i do pay my domestic worker quite a bit above what her other employers are paying her. I do it because I value her and I understand what a living wage is in SA. And generally the women who will work for less will also drop you at a moment notice if someone offers them R20 more for a day.
 
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ɹǝuuᴉM said:
You can safely ignore Cerebus....
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Ah screw you.

Canada the US and just about all the developed nations run on a different yardstick than SA (or any other third world country for that matter). Did you knew that in South Africa, less than 1/3 of all black youth has a job! Enforcing a minimum wage, under such circumstances, will change that figure to 1/4 (or even less). If you travel in a country with 10% (or less) unemployment, between 9AM and 5PM you'll see less people roaming the streets. In SA there is hardly a difference :( Enough said.
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Of course SA has a different minimum wage than the US; the minimum wage can only be as high as the economy can tolerate. The US however is the richest nation that the earth has ever seen but its minimum wage trails other comparably sized economies.
 
cerebus said:
Do you have proof that a higher minimum wage will result in a higher cost of goods? Or rather, that the resultant cost of goods will swallow up any benefit from the wage increase? Or is this just more speculation and thumbsucking?



Nothing, because you'll be breaking the law!! Isn't it great?

Actually i do pay my domestic worker quite a bit above what her other employers are paying her. I do it because I value her and I understand what a living wage is in SA. And generally the women who will work for less will also drop you at a moment notice if someone offers them R20 more for a day.
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Basic economics? If salaries have to go up.....how do you think the employer will cover it? Reduce their profit margin?
 
cerebus said:
Nothing, because you'll be breaking the law!! Isn't it great?
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Mmm no. Perhaps this is how it works on paper, but reality is far different. In the US you can see this exact scenario play out. There is a set minimum wage, albeit quite low and yet there are countless thousands of mexicans that work for much less than this.

Conservative estimates put 3 million Zimbabweans in South Africa. That is excluding the Congolese, Malawains, Somalis and the countless other Africans that are here illegally and are willing to work for far less than a local person.

A minimum wage will have zero impact, and if anything, encourage people to rather hire a foreigner to work as a domestic or gardener and not have to deal with the red tape of employment regulations or draconian minimum wage laws.
 
KillerX said:
Mmm no. Perhaps this is how it works on paper, but reality is far different. In the US you can see this exact scenario play out. There is a set minimum wage, albeit quite low and yet there are countless thousands of mexicans that work for much less than this.

Conservative estimates put 3 million Zimbabweans in South Africa. That is excluding the Congolese, Malawains, Somalis and the countless other Africans that are here illegally and are willing to work for far less than a local person.
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As a legislator you can't altogether prevent people from breaking the laws you set, but you can tighten regulations on companies to ensure compliance. If countless thousands of Mexicans are working under the counter, it's up to law enforcement to prohibit that; they shouldn't be working in the first place if they're illegals.


A minimum wage will have zero impact, and if anything, encourage people to rather hire a foreigner to work as a domestic or gardener and not have to deal with the red tape of employment regulations or draconian minimum wage laws.
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Laws without enforcement are meaningless. The laws are meant to protect civilians from exploitation, and low wages are certainly a form of exploitation; threatening to replace them with undocumented workers is another form. Keeping undocumented workers earning rates that are below subsistence is another form.
 
crackersa said:
so you can't counter that statement. here's a good read....

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timwors...eattles-15-an-hour-minimum-wage/#5af62e04715a
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And here's some early results of the increase:

http://www.washington.edu/news/2016...prices-minimal-one-year-after-implementation/

Most Seattle employers surveyed in a University of Washington-led study said in 2015 that they expected to raise prices on goods and services to compensate for the city’s move to a $15 per hour minimum wage.

But a year after the law’s April 2015 implementation, the study indicates such increases don’t seem to be happening.

The interdisciplinary Seattle Minimum Wage Study team, centered in the Evans School for Public Policy & Governance surveyed employers and workers and scanned area commodity and service prices. The team’s report found “little or no evidence” of price increases in Seattle relative to other areas, its report states.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/post...at-its-supposed-to-do/?utm_term=.092d3056b435

The study to which I’m referring examines the impact of the first stage of the minimum-wage increase in Seattle. In April 2015, the city raised its minimum wage from around $9.50 to $11, on the way to $15 an hour by 2017 (for employers with 500 or more employees and certain other employers; the minimum wage for most Seattle businesses rose to $10 in April 2015, and $15 will not go into effect for all Seattle businesses until 2021). The pay of affected workers went up almost 12 percent, compared to a 5 percent increase for workers in nearby, similar places that weren’t bound by the increase. The study’s authors concluded that the increase raised the pay of affected workers by seven percentage points more than might otherwise have occurred.

The study also found that, relative to historical trends, the rate at which low-wage workers affected by the increase stayed employed rose by about three percentage points. For workers in the control group, it was up four points. Thus, absent the minimum-wage increase, there’d arguably be one percentage point more affected workers employed in Seattle.
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Note I'm not saying that prices won't increase at all, I guess there is bound to be some impact; just look at the cost of goods in places like Denmark. But overall, putting more money in the pockets of low earners who will spend the majority of their income back into the economy, will be positive because inequalities will be smoothed out and there will be more money flowing in the economy. And the increase in cost of goods is easily outweighed by the increase in overall income.
 
cerebus said:
Do you have proof that a higher minimum wage will result in a higher cost of goods? Or rather, that the resultant cost of goods will swallow up any benefit from the wage increase? Or is this just more speculation and thumbsucking?
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There's plenty of proof, the socialists just choose to ignore it, the minimum wage topic comes up very often on MyBB so I'll just link a prior post for proof:
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/831648-Why-national-minimum-wage-is-good-for-SA-economy?p=18047482&viewfull=1#post18047482
 
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