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California governor supports $10 minimum wage

September 12, 2013

moneyCalifornia Governor Jerry Brown announced Wednesday that he supports a bill in the legislature to raise the state’s minimum wage to $10 an hour. [Huffington Post]

“The minimum wage has not kept pace with rising costs,” Brown said in a statement. “This legislation is overdue and will help families that are struggling in this harsh economy.”

AB 10, which passed the Assembly in May, would raise the minimum wage in California from $8.00 an hour to $10.00 an hour. The Senate is expected to vote on the bill this week.

Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg has also endorsed the proposal.

Democratic Assemblyman Luis Alejo, who authored the bill, introduced similar proposals in 2011 and 2012 to raise the minimum wage, but they died due to heavy opposition. Republican legislators and business lobbyists called the proposal a “job killer.”

California has one of the highest minimum wages in the country, but it has not increased since 2008.

AB 10 would raise the minimum wage to $9 on July 1, 2014 and to $10 on January 1, 2016.

 


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One more thing….


“From 1973 to 2011, worker productivity grew 80 percent, while median hourly compensation, after inflation, grew by just one-eighth that amount, according to the Economic Policy Institute. And since 2000, productivity has risen 23 percent while real hourly pay has essentially stagnated.”


Yea Buddy! Lets make ’em work harder and longer but not pay ’em so much!!! The corporate dream is alive and well in the land of corporate dictated and defined freedom!!!!


To hell with $10.00 an hour!!! I say it’s $15.00 an hour or nothin’!!! I’d love to see this country come to a stand still if all those service based underpaid back bone of America workers called in sick for a day-or-two all at once. All of you that are against giving a realistic minimum wage increase would flip a bitch if all of a sudden like you couldn’t quite down the kid with a promise of a Happy Meal at Micky D’s


Again…. just sayin’!


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Jeff, replying to both of your last posts here.


Just read the comments on this thread, or others pertaining to wealth distribution and/or inequality and it is quite clear:

A relatively small but vocal faction are not just disdainful and dismissive to the poor or the lower strata in our society. They have an enmity filled with disgust; a revulsion embodying a cruel class hatred, and spend their time demonizing anyone or any group they consider beneath their own perceived status.

It’s a sickness, a pathological derangement…and they are obsessed by it.

The only thing I can relate to it is unvarnished racism.

On top of everything, they are far from aristocratic elites that look down on everybody ( even their own kind ).


I don’t know…maybe they just hate everything ?


Watch now, as they flame this comment.


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Slowerfaster, I’m grateful that CCN gives this dedicated, infinitesimally small but very vocal faction a venue to express their feelings & frustrations. Otherwise, there would be that many more people liable to take their frustration out on perfect (or imperfect) strangers with their cars or loaded weapons.


As a cartoonist, I appreciate the ability to “check in” on the lunatic fringe (no need to take that personal, you regular posters, as I often consider myself part of a lunatic fringe, but of a different color) to see what the frustration level is, and also to see if there is any eloquence in expression. Most often there isn’t anything to inspire me but that only parallels the wider population. But rarely there’s more than keyboard rage.


As to your comment that they “maybe just hate everything?” I feel that things are changing at a very rapid pace, towards (finally) a new paradigm, that those who have a fixed view of reality are suffering greatly—that their inborn ability to adapt has atrophied with disuse—and as a result, they react to every little thing whether it affects them personally or not; they develop a capacity and tolerance for angry expression and end up identifying with equally frustrated and angry people more than people who can adapt.


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You know, if you bumped it up to $50 an hour everyone could afford a house, right?


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Why not have a FLAT WAGE for everybody ?

Societally, the jobs of a garbageman, a policeman, a fireman, a teacher are just as vauluable as the head of a hedge fund or any run-of-the-mill CEO. Actually worth more in many cases.


Pay everyone the same, and then all income taxes would be the same.


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Most economic experts agree that only 1/3 of a wage increase is passed on to the consumer, only 1/3… 2/3’s is taken from profits of the company or corporation.


My experience comes from working with two fortune 500 companies in mid-level management positions. A position that was just high enough to see the “working mind set” of those corporate officers I was directly answerable to and not so high as not to be able to see just how ridiculous their idea towards what an hourly, and most salaried, employees were worth vs work expected. Couple that with the general overall attitude that it’s your obligation to make the corporation money FIRST, over-and-above your own needs, I can only understand those who see the current minimum wage as an insult at best and how an increase to $10.00 an hour isn’t quite enough.


A minimum wage should be a starting point but most often it turns out to be sticking point. In my experience there was an initial performance review given after the first ninety days of employment (if you got by the first 30 day probationary period) where a raise was considered. A minimal raise of about .10 to .15 an hour was given, after that, one more quarterly review was given and then it was strictly an annual event from that point forward. Also, raises were a performance based percentile increase of your hourly wage, or salary, after your initial review rather then a set dollar amount, typically it was 3% to top performers and incrementally downward from there for those who did not perform to standards.


So lets take the current minimum wage (federal) of $7.25 an hour (which most corporations will defer to where state minimums aren’t higher), add the first raise of .15 cents after ninety days, making it $7.40 an hour, then at the first qaurterly they are given the 3% raise given to top performers, so now they’re at $7.66 an hour, then at the first annual (given on their hiring anniversary date) they get another 3% top performer raise… $7.89 an hour after a year of being a top performer!!! Then we tell them it won’t be for another year to be insulted by another raise, if you’re still a top performer after being insulted not once but three times, of .24 cents!!! In my industry I earned my “retention” portion of my bonus if my hourly employee turnover rate was held to or less than 159%. I very seldom earned that portion of my bonus. Pretty tough to hold onto people when you can’t pay them a life sustaining wage and they see all around them that even top performers aren’t doing much better.


One of the corporations I worked for actually bragged about the fact that their corporate officers were only given the same 3% raise if they performed to expectations… Really?! Lets see; 3% of $7.89 an hour equals a .24 cent raise while 3% of $2.2 million dollars (CEO ) equals a raise of $66,000.00! Damn! Shame on those who want to make a livable, sustainable, hope for living the American Dream wage! You might interrupt the greed at the top, damn fools!


There are studies out there that say a Big Mac will increase in price by about $1.67 if the federal minimum wage increases to $10.00, those same studies show that it will not hurt McDonald’s one bit! McDonald’s is so ingrained into the mindset of this country, and those countries that have embraced it elsewhere, (mostly because of the power that children have in that market) that it will not even put a small damper on sales.


As for small businesses? How can it hurt them anymore then allowing a WalMart, Target, Kmart or any other large box store into a community? How?! It can’t! Their low prices are firstly generated off the backs of their low wages, then backed up by over seas purchasing and manufacturing and then by their overt attempt to close up every mom-and-pop in a infinite mile radius. They are some of the biggest takers of corporate welfare while encouraging those who work for them to subsidize their low wage by getting on welfare… Double Dippers Supreme!!!


Stop bitchin’ about a realistic minimum wage and start raisin’ hell about corporate greed that has taken over and threatens all we have… Just Sayin’!!!


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Okay, maybe I’m a little crazy here, but who’s going to pay for this pay increase? We are (consumers). So, this is just another form of social welfare in a way. I would even go so far as to say that the people that will pay the biggest share of this increase are the very people who get paid minimum wage (because they shop at Walmart, eat at McDonalds, etc, etc).


If the market set the price for labor, it would work itself out. If a store (walmart for example) didn’t pay enough, no one would work there. They would seek employment elsewhere. The store would then have to raise wages in order to be competitive. If they wanted the best and brightest employees, they would have to pay more than their competitors.


With that said, why not raise the minimum wage to $40 an hour?


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” If a store (walmart for example) didn’t pay enough, no one would work there. They would seek employment elsewhere. The store would then have to raise wages in order to be competitive. If they wanted the best and brightest employees, they would have to pay more than their competitors “.


That’s a good one ! The ‘best and the brightest’ working at WalMart ?


You’re really Lewis Black lurking and posting here in disguise, aren’t you ?


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OK, a different thought or two.


I’ll pay more for my tomatoes and more for my burger at the fast food place. Just make sure that the illegals are deported and that the worker at the counter can speak English. Abolish welfare and start from scratch. Hell, let’s start with the barter system again…


Life is a loophole, corporations will find more ways to develop piecework, commissions, gift card paying, etc. to skirt the mainstream rules and regulations. I’m OK with that, smart people is why we are the best nation in the world!


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want a little xenophobia with that cup of racisim today sir?


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Tell me where the “racisim” comes into play? I’m a son of an immigrant who came here 48 years ago, was drafted into the US Army and fought in Vietnam. He still, to this day, does not have his citizenship and suffers from PTSD. He is just a hard worker who provided for his family and that of others along the way. I am also a bilingual individual who enrolled two kids into “Spanish Immersion” schooling and work hard everyday to make the world a better place and make sure that they do as well. I started at minimum wage and received two raises ($3.35 to $4.25 to $5.00) when the minimum wage was raised. Yes, I was young but I knew that I wanted more so I tried. I have no doubt that my kids will be successful. We live in the land of opportunity and i’m just sick of seeing people take advantage of others.


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Zaphod you obviously never get away from your computer and into the REAL world. As usual when people have nothing left they play the racism card. Have you talked to any Hispanics that have come here to this country? I have. I know three gentleman I use to work around years ago. They did come here illegally but got a card shortly after to get their status in line. They started at the bottom digging ditches but worked their way up. They worked sunup to sundown six days a week. Then they went to English classes in the evenings to learn the language. After about ten years or so here they then went to class to get their citizenship.


If you talk to them they are die hard conservatives now and have ZERO patience of coddling poor ol immigrants. Their attitude is I did it right why can’t others??? And you know, they are RIGHT!!! Oh and FYI one of them runs a crew today and makes $25 an hour. He didn’t expect minimum wage and it was HARDER for him coming to a county that he didn’t speak the language at first.


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Oh and PS he also has bought himself a home. He is LIVING the American dream that can be done with HARD WORK!!!!


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Have you talked to any Hispanics that have come here to this country

DUDE! the hispanics were here first!

do you want me to go on?


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No you would most likely be wrong……….again. If that is the sum of your argument then, I would go with Native Americans.


Or should we go back 10,000 years? They found human remains in North Carolina (or South) dating that far back, so maybe cave man was here (CA) then?


Sorry but whoowhoo like myself is talking about since the founding of our state. Your point is pointless.


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You also may be a flat earth professor and not realize it BTDT, tell me, what is the sum of a triangle where you live,


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oops I meant, should I leave a little room for racism in your cup of xenophobia this morning?


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American industrialists and big box retailers should wake up. Who has the highest wage? Costco with an average employee wage of $20/hour! They also have the lowest turnover, most productive workforce and tremendous growth record. And, the employees have voted repeatedly to reject unionizing.


Henry Ford revolutionized the American working class when he double the average wage. Again, this reduced turnover dramatically and increased car sales, because his line workers were now able to buy a Ford!


The beancounters of today, constantly squeezing employees, are just plain fools.


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I am in Costco all the time and those guys work, work, work. I have never seen them standing around and conversing, holding a broom, or off in the corner on a phone. They are on the move, fast, efficient and courteous. Just look around at that store, never anything on the floor, everything always stocked and responsive at all times. Great run corporation!


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Trader Joe’s also


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If you want your employees to reject a union, just hire intelligent employees. Simple.


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Then how come the MOST learned professions or those that require sophisticated training and knowledge DO have unions or professional associations ?

The AMA, ABA, ALPA, USCUSA are but some well known examples of highly intelligent professionals that belong to a collective.

Many of these highly skilled professions cannot be practiced legally WITHOUT belonging to the umbrella organization.


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One of the most common errors in the minimum wage debate is that it is not a livable wage. Since when was a MINIMUM wage supposed to be livable? (answer: since Obama’s team got a hold of the economy – ZING)


In all seriousness, minimum wage was established as a STARTING POINT. It was never intended to subside on. So whenever anyone says, “HEY, that’s under some magical, always shifting poverty line” I just cringe.


I guess our economy has become so beat up and battered in the last decade or so that we’re supposed to expect that minimum wage is IT. Sounds like the groundwork for socialism, really. We all should establish a livable wage, then live with it. Yeah, very socialist-sounding.


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Minimum wage should be called “Starting wage”!


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A minimum wage under the Federal Poverty guidelines should be called a Slavery Wage.


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“One of the most common errors in the minimum wage debate is that it is not a livable wage. Since when was a MINIMUM wage supposed to be livable?”


Actually, from the very beginning.


Australia was the first nation to create a ‘wages board’ to establish minimum compensation through th Factories Act in certain industries in 1897. By 1907, the Harvester decision called for Australia to establish ” a living wage, for a man, his wife, and two children to live in ‘frugal comfort’ “.

Minimum wages were first introduced nationally in the United States in 1938, following the precedent set by Australia.


So, your snarky answer is not only wrong…your entire premise is dead wrong.

Just go blame those socialist Aussies now.


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Why don’t you move to Australia than. The truth the world would be a much different place if Capitalist America wasn’t around to protect the world from Nazism, communism, totalitarianism, etc, etc. Its been our great wealth and prosperity that kept much of the world free. Being free is not the norm, most of human existence has been under some sort of tyranny/slavery. Recent events prove we are on the decline and as our capitalistic systems are replaced by socialist ideals we are not going to be the power we once were and totalitarian regimes are re-awakening. China and possibly a re-emerging Russia will lead the world soon. The middle east will return to radical islam. People will all make a government controlled wage, unless you are part of the ruling class. Go to China and lose the minders and see how the masses live. Is that how you want to live.


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“Why don’t you move to Australia than.”


Ah, Iknew that was coming !


How about England then?

In 1906, Winston Churchill ( no liberal ), who was president of the British Board of Trade said this; ” It is a national evil that any class of Her Majesty’s subjects should receive less than a LIVING WAGE in return for their utmost exertions. Where you have what we call sweated trades, you have no organisation, no parity of bargaining, the good employer is undercut by the bad, and the bad by the worst. The worker, whose livelihood depends upon the industry is undersold by the worker who only takes up a trade as a second string. Where these conditions prevail you have not a condition of progress, but a condition of progressive degeneration “.


Churchill had a fair amount of influence with FDR in America.


There used to be conservatives that had honor. Now, they not only have no honor, they have no shame.


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Nazism has entrenched itself fully into Capitalism. That’s the reason Capitalism is failing. It’s being controlled by the Fourth Reich.


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for the record

http://spitfirelist.com/

full service anti fascist research


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Nazism entrenched into Capitalism? But I thought the Jews ran and controlled everything. I’m so confused.


Then what about the Muslim Brotherhood’s Nazi roots? Or Iran’s? Or al Qaeda’s? Hmmm…. guess that commie-double agent in MI6 really screwed things up back after WWII, eh? Too much, too soon?


Here, let me DuckDuckGo that for you…


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Just because you re-frame my argument to illustrate an erroneous point does not make my entire premise “dead wrong” – you often like to pick and choose, then re-frame, then support the erroneous re-framed position. Why?


My “entire dead wrong premise” was that the minimum wage was not intended as a livable wage. Do I need to mention I am talking about OUR system? I mean, we are discussing CALIFORNIA (in case you already forgot, see the original article and everyone else’s comments). So was CALIFORNIA’s minimum wage EVER intended to be a LIVABLE wage? (See? I re-framed it BACK to the original position, just in case you got lost yet again).


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No…YOU stated an absolute in the back-formation as a question. It is classic illogic.


The California model derived or was mandated by the national system.

The national system was based on Australia’s, New Zealand’s, and England’s; where ‘minimum wage’ was understood to mean ‘living wage’.


Completely, historically, and factually linear.


I didn’t reframe anything…just admit you’re wrong.


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In 1912, Massachusetts organized a commission to recommend non-compulsory minimum wages for women and children. Within eight years, at least thirteen U.S. states and the District of Columbia would pass minimum wage laws.[60] The Lochner era United States Supreme Court consistently invalidated compulsory minimum wage laws. Such laws, said the court, were unconstitutional for interfering with the ability of employers to freely negotiate appropriate wage contracts with employees.[61]


Minimum wage levels in developed economies as a share of median full-time wage. The relative minimum wage ratio in the U.S. is shown in red.[62]


The first attempt at establishing a national minimum wage came in 1933, when a $0.25 per hour standard was set as part of the National Industrial Recovery Act. However, in the 1935 court case Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (295 U.S. 495), the United States Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional, and the minimum wage was abolished.


The minimum wage was re-established in the United States in 1938 (pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act), once again at $0.25 per hour ($4.10 in 2012 dollars[63]). In United States v. Darby Lumber Co. (1941), the Supreme Court upheld the Fair Labor Standards Act, holding that Congress had the power under the Commerce Clause to regulate employment conditions.


Nothing about Australia… before claiming someone is wrong, how about providing some facts?


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Oh, i get it…You’re an American exceptionalist/nationalist that thinks that the only worthwhile things and ideas just HAD to originate in the United States.

I bet you think that the abolishment of slavery and humane treatment of animals originated in the US.


BTW, 1906 and 1907 came before 1912 and 1938, or any of your subsequent dates.


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For those squawking that they won’t cut jobs…….you think so huh? McDonald’s announced recently that they have been working on an automated call center. How it works is that you go now and someone takes your order and you pay someone else. The call center would be centrally located in Kansas and all ordering would route through there. People at the drive thru would have no idea that someone across the country is taking their order.


Then it would go straight back to the computer screens in the kitchen at what ever establishment. Better is there is no down time. While it is afternoon in one time zone and slow, another time zone may be dinner. So they could staff with x amount of employees.


McDonalds says that with all the talk of higher wages, they will expedite this if needed. If they do, I bet every other fast food joint in this country will be watching.


Yea jobs won’t disappear? Think again. Force a company with no other choices, what do you think they are going to do? Bend over and take it because you said so??


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Thank you Been there…well said.


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Mc Donalds has already begun paying employees with gift cards,


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I just read how kiosks are going to be more popular than ever. They are developing them for retail, fast food, health centers, check in at medical offices, hospitals, auto centers, etc. They did it to the banking industry (ATM) they can do it for anyone will to pay for it. It is becoming cheaper to replace the worker and have no more grief. You won’t pay health care, no social security, no worker’s compensation, etc. and best of all, no more complaining by the workers. I personally love it!


Me, I prefer to check myself out at stores that offer person check out service. Quick in and out!


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Bingo Slobird. We have been told for YEARS that the world is going to get more competitive.


When I graduated in ’82 a person could get by with a High School Diploma but today, you better have a degree or trade school of some sort. I have been on my kids (in High School now) since they started school to do well, as the working world they are entering will be VERY competitive.


WHY is it that we use to excel to be the best and now you have people arguing for mediocrity?


Why do we go, auh poor person can’t do this or that. Why don’t we say……..Hey why don’t you try and excel at a trade or something? No we argue for them to be stuck in a miserable no nothing entry level job. This isn’t the country I grew up in.


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“We have been told for YEARS that the world is going to get more competitive.”


“WHY is it that we use to excel to be the best and now you have people arguing for mediocrity?”


This is what happens when a nation buys into a ‘race to the bottom’ mentality, when profits accruing to the few at the top are valued above people, and when people are viewed as just another disposable commodity.

It also happens when a ‘culture of hustling’ is imbued in the way that we do things…everything.


You do somewhat address these vexing concerns on a certain level, and I can understand your frustration. Your comments express to an extent the attitudes that Walter Lippmann applied to the general populace as being a ‘bewildered herd’. I don’t mean this as an insult. It is a condition that perplexes many.


You might want to read C. Wright Mills’ “The Power Elite” for some better understanding.


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Pretty simple if you are a business owner, costs are figured to the current norm and passed along to the customers.

If you think because you are paying $5.00 for a burger with drink and fries at inandout and it is going to stay the same with new mandate, you are very wrong…


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Don’t the public unions have their salaries tied to the minimum wage and any increase it that requires their salaries to increase? Is this just another payoff to them from Mr. Brown?


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Public employee unions have individually negotiated salary schedules with management.


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Yes, management that has no ties to the money itself (as opposed to a private entity); ergo, public sector unions and their “negotiations” are a farce, and their sordid history is a prime example of why they never should have been. Keep unions in the PRIVATE sector where they are actually needed (sometimes).


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I understand public unions have agreements already in place, but I was told they also have language in them that requires a re-negotiation when the minimum wage changes, or even just a blanket increase at the same rate as the change.


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Yes they do, attached is the Wall Street Journal article. Just Google

“union contracts tied to minimum wage”.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324048904578318541000422454


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A person working at minimum wage of $8/hr…40 hours a week ( full time ) and 52 weeks amounts to $16,640 a year. This is before taxes.

The 2013 Federal Poverty Guidelines lists that for those in the 48 contiguous states and DC with a Household Size of one…100% of the poverty rate is $11,490 a year, 133% is $15,282. For a Household of 2, 100% of poverty rate is $15,510.

Any Households with more would all be under the guidelines, i.e. in poverty.


To increase the minimum wage to $10/hr and the same 40/52 math, the total becomes $20,800 before taxes.

This would put a family of two just slightly ahead of 133% of poverty …$20,628. A family of three at 100% of poverty would only fare a little better, with $19,530 being the demarcation.

Again, all others of greater Household size would all fall under the poverty line.


For the generally accepted “family of four” to subsist at 133% poverty level ( $31,322 ), a FT 40/52 job would have to pay $15.06/hr.


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So Slowerfaster believes $15.06 should be the new min wage? why not $20 or $25? If the min wage is raised to $10 per hour will we see the end of Spanish speaking employees at McDonald’s? What happens to all the people that will lose their jobs under a higher min wage? Anyone care about them? What about all of the full time employees that will be moved to part time exempting them from a min wage rule. Anyone care about them? What about all of the High School and college students that don’t have a family of four to provide for but still need to work and can’t find a job? Anyone care about them? What about all of the retired but young at heart folks that would like to supplement their ridiculously low social security benefits? Anyone care about them? Or do we just care about the few people in California stupid enough to try and support a family of four on a min wage salary. Don’t just think…think things through.


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What I wrote above, and what you replied to; are facts and statistics free of opinion, editorialising, or conjecture.


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With a straight face, Rambunctious asked “What about all of the full time employees that will be moved to part time exempting them from a min wage rule.”


W T F, did you fall for that line, Ramy? How much less than min wage are you making? You know, you can file a wage claim with the Labor Commissioner to get back the difference.


BTW, I don’t know who you’ve talked with, but students, seniors and even stupid people would rather earn $10 per hour than $8.


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Okay…relax and slow down take a breath and try again…I know there is a point there somewhere. Straight face? can you see me? lol


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First off there is no exemption to minimum wage because of being part time… Think things through? Practice what you preach Rambo’ old son! The only way anyone would lose a job with a higher minimum wage is when employers use the same old excuse of “We can’t afford to pay a higher minimum wage”… all the while seeing their profits soar.


McDonald’s Corp. saw profits soar by 135% between 2007 and 2011 while the rest of us saw our “profits” go south, quickly!!!


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Businesses are not bottomless pits of cash…eventually you reach a limit as to what people will pay for your goods or services. When business slows your income drops and your ability to employ the people you would like to employ diminishes. It sounds as if some of you think that business owners are evil villains that don’t want to pay you for what you do. That’s not true. I’ve had to let go of two employees that have been with me for years. The work just isn’t there anymore. Numbers don’t lie and they can’t be fudged. The bottom line is people will lose their jobs if you require employers to increase their employees wages. You all will go on feeling real good about yourselves and believing you have and do support the right thing…ie people getting paid more. You will not see the damage your wishes will cause. So you can be smug and call me Rambo but I and other employers know better…any increase in the minimum wage will hurt people not help them.


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Boilerplate ultra-conservative rhetoric.


Henry Ford ( not a ‘liberal’ by any definition ) understood that increasing the purchasing power of the people that worked in his factories made it possible for those people to actually be customers for the product they made: automobiles.

It also made them better employees.

Ford increased the daily wage of the average auto worker from $1.35 to $5.00 …basically tripling the compensation workers received at Ford’s competitors.

Ford sales skyrocketed.


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you’re really reaching now…Henry Ford? You describe a robust sales environment. You really don’t want to suggest we are experiencing anything like that now do you?


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You provided one very small example…a microcosm…your own personal one that was not about compensation, but of downsizing due to lack of business.

I provided a slightly larger model of a business that grew by increasing wages.


Who’s reaching ?


Similar arguments were employed before the Civil War claiming that all of the cotton plantations would go under if slavery were abolished.

Coal miners demanding fair wages and the right to collective bargaining…the owners saying they would be forced to shut down if the workers won some rights and better pay.

Sweat shops employing children, teenagers, and women with few rights and choices in horrid conditions; with the owners saying they had to use these abhorrent practices or shut down.

Numerous other examples of the corporate elite almost always crying poormouth.


That brings up a bigger point: Any ‘business’ that claims to not be able to afford a decent, livable wage for their employees simply should not exist.


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That’s an awful lot of “straw men” in one little post!


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You see a lot of arguments like those stated by Rambunctious whenever minimum wage issues come up. The implication is that only teenagers and those who do not need “adult” wages work for minimum wage. The facts are that in 2011, 80% of minimum wage workers were age 20 or above.


Secondly, Rambunctious throws out some figures….$20, $25, $10.


I’m not sure what the right number for a minimum wage is but to have an intelligent conversation about the issue, it’s helpful to have some context.


In terms of “real value” (purchasing power), the minimum wage was at it’s strongest in 1968, where it stood at $1.60. In order to have the same purchasing power today (accounting for inflation, etc.), the minimum wage would have to be a little over $10.50.


So, with that context, maybe the $10 level is correct, maybe it’s not. But in REAL DOLLARS, even the $10 proposal is lower than it was 45 years ago.


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Ever wonder why a $1.60 would have to be over $10.50? Where does this “inflation” come from, exactly?


Just things you may want to ponder.


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You think about it, too, r0y.


In 1968, the California minimum wage was $1.65. In 1968, I paid $0.299 for a gallon of regular gas. You could buy 5.5 gallons of gas for 1 hour of work. Now the minimum wage is $8.00, but gas costs about $4 a gallon. You can only buy 2 gallons of gas for 1 hour of work. That’s over 1233% inflation.


In 1968, a first class stamp costs $.06, now it’s $.46. That’s 667% inflation.


In 1968, I paid $0 for a class at a community college. Today, a typical 3 unit class costs $138. That’s infinite inflation.


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And lets not forget all the taxes to pay for the Gov programs that has been added. Hence why you pay a lot of taxes on gas, community college went up and the post office and pensions and pay? Should I go on?


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The minimum wage was re-established in the United States in 1938 (pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act), once again at $0.25 per hour ($4.10 in 2012 dollars) FYI, a gallon of gas cost $0.10 in 1938, so one could buy just 2.5 gallons then.


Just illustrating when the minimum wage was NOT at it’s highest (as you did) to make a different point.


Gas, pre-Obama, seems so cheap (even though the media excoriated Bush daily for it); one could easily get 2-2.5 gallons for an hour of minimum wage under back then, too.


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In 1968, one could still find plenty of pre-1965 silver coins in circulation.

16 silver dimes would entitle the bearer to purchase $1.60 worth of goods, services, or anything of value.

Today, those same 16 silver dimes have an intrinsic value of over $20.


What inflation ?


One could just as easily observe that the price of labor has suffered from DEflation over the same period.


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“few” people “stupid” enough”?

deav brain moron typing.


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The reason I said they would be stupid is because the state and federal assistance and benefits for a family of four is greater than a minimum wage salary. For that matter it would be better than a $10 per hour job. See what I mean when I say think things through?


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