Beaverstate

Seattle set a minimum wage of $15 per hour regardless of age, experience or usefulness. I think it may be a tad high for someone pumping gas etc..

Also should minimum wage be expected to be a living wage, regardless of the value of the labor?, as in return on investment (wage).

steveq

We'll know the answer from the seattle experiment soon.....

Beaverstate

Well yes... but I was interested in opinions on the wisdom of so radically raising the minimum over the local or national norms.

After Sea Tac and Seattle, opening a McD's in Fife may be a sound idea.

Michael

In my opinion, $15 is too high and it probably should be in the $10-$12 range. $15 is $31,200 annually and that is not far below medium income.

In the 1980s, France cut the maximum hours to create more jobs but it had the opposite effect and reduced the number of people employed as costs rose. Then France significantly increased the minimum wage and employment dropped further as costs rose further and employers cut costs by hiring less people. Although the medium income in France is currently above the UK, the gdp per capita and medium family income are both significantly below the UK because the workforce participation rate is 53% compared to 63% in the UK. Another issue is job dissatisfaction in France is lower than the UK since a very high percentage of employees are working for minimum wage with a perception of a dead end job.

Therefore in my opinion, raising the minimum wage too much can have a severe adverse effect on the economy.

civilservant

I agree that $15 is too much - I think $10 would be reasonable.

Pulaski

Sury you mean "higher"? ..... I read that too, that to keep total payroll costs under control, employers reduced the pay for more experienced staff, so promotions for more responsibility do not give much more pay.

No matter what level the MW is set at, more effort needs to be put into training people to get them off MW jobs. Rather like unemployment pay, MW jobs should be seen as a safety net and a stepping stone to better work, not a long term career choice.

Michael

Job satisfaction has been said to be lower since about 20% of the French workforce is working at minimum wage and even if they are promoted, they still work at or near minimum wage. I suspect that is one of the reasons that Americans tend to have a more positive attitude about work since a minimum wage job is considered short term and temporary and even though they may eventually only make $15-$16 per hour, they feel they accomplished something since that wage is double the minimum wage. It's mostly a matter of perception.

A person that works at or near minimum wage for their entire lifetime may not have a feeling of self worthiness. Nobody wants to be at the bottom of the food chain during their entire life.

Pulaski

OK, agreed on all the above, .... but you said DISsatisfaction!

Michael

Oops.

rpjs

OTOH wages below living wage result in the employer being subsidised by the taxpayer as the employees get tax credits for low incomes, have to claim food stamps etc to make ends meet. Why should my taxes subsides the Waltons' failure to pay their employees properly?

Sally Redux

Agreed. $8/hr is nowhere near a living wage where I am.

civilservant

But is somewhere near approaching it in rural GA. So the question then becomes about state minimums, rather than a federal one.

scrubbedexpat099

I did read something about it.

Will not come all of a sudden, takes a long time.

Obviously it is not just the increase to $15, everything else that is an add on goes up as well.

There some things you can do operationally, much more careful with your scheduling, split shifts etc

If you are for example in the food business you can buy more in pre prepared, cut out labour intensive procedures as far as possible.

Obviously you have a good reason to increase your prices.

Presumably for say construction companies it depends where your business is located rather than the construction site? Could the same thing work for labour masters?

Sally Redux

You also always refer to 'medium' income and prices. Do you mean 'median', or is it a separate term?

AmerLisa

True. But $20 an hour wouldn't be considered a living wage where you are. I'd imagine you're not going to find too many struggling families in your neck of the woods.