UAW Strikes

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thrash;187711 wrote:
I'm not sure what you wanted me to address. The first part -- that having a minimum wage increases talent -- seems dubious to me. People who are already more employable will retain their jobs or people who aren't as productive/valuable will be rotated out and replaced with more producive people. This doesn't increase talent. One of the points in those links is that minimum wage increases tend to leave less money available for employers to pay for training for their employees, leading to talent stratification.

But the item you quoted stated that the jobs were replaced by more qualified people...your words, not mine.

led to an estimated 500,000 blacks losing their jobs via replacement by higher skilled and more educated white laborers.

Regarding the second part -- I don't especially like the idea of getting paid less either, but your claim that you'll start getting paid less if the minimum wage lowers is unsubstantiated. If the minium wage lowers, certain services will now become available to your company for less money. Since you're already worth more to them than the minimum wage, your own compensation may infact go up. You may no longer be asked to do things that additional, lower cost labor can now begin doing.

Doubtful...Very doubtful. My bosses boss may make more, but I'm sure I'd make less...as would everyone lower on the totem pole than myself. Management never takes paycuts, but everyone below them does in one way or another. (In my personal case)

A fiercly competitive economy requires easy transactions and maximum price flexibility. Specialization and differentiation DO make everyone wealthier (and reduce costs of real goods). If your company can offload some of the menial shit your stuck doing now to someone making $4/hr, think of all the extra value you could add at $40/hr or whatever you are making.

Again, works great in theory, but not reality. We could easily hire temps @ $7.50/hour to do my menial tasks (sending out letters more than anything) but we don't do that. We generally get stuck doing MORE menial crap for less pay. Great theory, but will never ever happen.

Wealth is not a zero sum game. If we make it easier for employers to hire more people (by dropping the minimum wage), we increase the amount of work that gets done, and we have more flexibility in how labor investment is allocated. Businesses that figure out how to manage that increased flexibility successfully will do well, and the customers of those businesses will do well, and the employees of those businesses will do well. Nobody "loses".

So basically, what you are telling me, is that everyone making $5.75/hr now would be more likely to go to work for $3/hr or even $1/ hour?

We have less than 4% unemployment in this country already (off memory, last I checked) which is about equal to zero since the reality is that 4% of the people won't go to work regardless (laid off, welfare, etc....) So apparently we are doing fairly well with the system as is.

again...my thoughts in red