2016 USA Presidential election thread II: And. Here. We. Go!

[zoobernut]

Why Did Planned Parenthood Supporters Vote Trump?



You know, just when I think I'm over just how fucking shitty the DNC and this campaign was run, I am told of new, clever ways in which the campaign was fucking shitty.

This is a very similar scenario to the article I posted where a Trump voter whose husband also voted Trump talked about how they never thought that Trump would actually dismantle the ACA and her husband is only alive because of the ACA due to liver failure.

[Aerin]

I've always been curious to this $15 min wage. I'll let it be known that I'm indifferent on the wage increase, but I completely understand why so many would be in favor. Would this go on a state to state basis, or just a blanket increase across the country? For states that have a much higher standard living cost, it would make a lot of sense. Here in Indiana, not as much.

This would depend on who is trying to enact it. IIRC Hillary wanted a $12 min wage (before shifting to $15) but it wasn't a blanket thing for all states, the exact number varied from state to state depending on the cost of living. Bernie on the other hand was only talking about a blanket $15 min wage.

If it were to be enacted, how would folks with higher wages be affected? As an example, I make somewhere in the mid $20s/h, would my wages be increased by a % comparable to everyone else's, or would I remain where I currently am?

Those already being paid more than the new min would not get an increase of any kind, unless your employer decided to give you one of course.

Also, would the increase of wages to $15 not drive inflation to the point where the effectiveness of the wage increase would almost be nullified by further hikes in living costs, and/or automation replacing workers due to companies not willing to shell out great deal more in wages?

This would be the main argument against. We recently increased the min wage to $15 here in Seattle and it hasn't had too much of an effect so far. But this goes to archi's point that any such increase is to be phased in over time. This election, Washington State voted for a minimum wage increase to $13.50 to be phased in over several years. Our current min wage is $9.47.

The measure would require employers to pay employees age 18 or older at least $11 an hour starting next year, $11.50 in 2018, $12 in 2019 and $13.50 in 2020, with subsequent annual adjustments for inflation.

[arus2001]

Yeah, some inflation is a given, but cue that silly milk meme some people buy into where everything would just double or whatever. Other resistance tends to come from the people at 15 or higher now who have convinced themselves everyone else doesn't deserve it because they don't have a degree (or the right one) in a field that isn't hurting. If the minimum wage had actually kept up with inflation since the 70's, it should be a little over $20 these days. Unfortunately, it has not, and we're now stuck with the reality of people having to work multiple jobs over 40 hours a week where a significant amount of their pay goes into housing/rent alone.

Nonetheless, yeah, you can't really go "BOOM!" overnight with the jump. A few cents every year just doesn't seem to be cutting the mustard, though, and enacting the cap I posted about initially seems to run counter to the pro-capitalism rhetoric of the GOP, both in the restriction itself and hand-waving the possiblity that supply/demand would work itself out. Otherwise, I'm pretty much with Bernie and the like who believe a 40 hour week should allow comfortable living in a small apartment/house. Cost of living may actually allow people in non-urban areas to better save up over time, as well, either specifically for retirement or other splurges like vacations or new cars. Being in a more bumpkin area where we're years behind pretty much everything, such feels like the only potential benefit.

Unfortunately, probably the bigger issue is to get all the big chains to buy into the idea. M&P stores could get tax breaks/subsidies to at least allow alternatives/local competition. Threat of automation is also real, as we already see grocery stores trying to get away with self-checkout only (by conveniently having no employees in the manual lanes) and the beginnings of auto-food service with kiosk ordering and some phases of prep. For now, things just feel like they're going to get worse before they're better, and that expansion jab about needing $20/hr by the time we get $15 isn't far off the mark.

[Thunder]

So to answer that question as a non-economist, theoretically all wages should shift since consumer buying power would go up, necessitating better labor or providing higher profits and allowing for increased wages across the board.

I'll let someone who actually knows way more about how that works than I do answer you, but I imagine that is the idea.

the 15/hr that some consumers would get would be literally out of the pockets of other consumers, though. Productivity isn't being increased by min. wages so it wouldn't have as large wealth creating effects across the economy as simply adding $7.75/hr to everyone's wages from thin air would. It's just a redistribution of wealth

simply redistributing the wealth with increases in min. wage could not provide such a serious increase in the economy's output (by virtue of one of its inputs, the poor(er) consumers, being increased) that everyone's wages would rise, much less rise proportionately. Some money is coming out of thin air in that scenario

though, could argue that X dollars in Y hands of the poor(er) would have a larger effect than X dollars in <Y hands of the rich (<Y since we're to assume the money earned from a few 'rich' in businesses would be redistributed to many of the 'poor' to accommodate +wage) because seemingly the spending of rich people doesn't affect poor as much as the spending of poor people affects the poor. I'd disagree but idk if it's necessary to write any more



But if the point is to get more people to benefit from america's increased productivity over the years, and especially those whose skills aren't prized in the market, then there are better ways than to mess with market forces so directly. Buffett's written about it in his letter to shareholders last year, anyone can read what he wrote in it - google 2015 letter to shareholders and it's under the header Productivity and Prosperity. This is a quote from some interview he did on it after the letter by which point he must have settled on expanding&reforming earned income taxes being the most logical means

“Payments to eligible workers diminish as their earnings increase," he explained. "But there is no disincentive effect: A gain in wages always produces a gain in overall income. The process is simple: You file a tax return, and the government sends you a check."

That kind of solution also makes it easier to accommodate increases in cost of living in the future. And the holy grail of having the government just providing base-line livable income to everyone could just be under that sort of system when we inevitably increase productivity in all sectors such that the majority of human productivity is not needed elsewhere - by which point it'll be obvious that sort of thing is required

[archibaldcrane]

Check out Thunder coming out for Universal Basic Income!

[Thunder]

I don't think I said what you think I said

lol

[Quicklet]

There are two ways we arrive at Universal Basic Income. Either the government (and large corporations + the rich) realizes that it's a necessary step forward toward the post-labor-scarcity economy, or we see the collapse of the middle-class and we get there the hard way.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2016...n-two-decades/

Either way, that whole unfettered capitalism thing isn't going to work when computers are a better replacement for labor across a large number of fields.

[Clash Perez]

I don't know what the big deal is. Maintaining high employment numbers is simple.

[Gredival]

The thing to remember re:automation as a response to wage increases is that companies have forgotten that just because you CAN do something more cheaply doesn't mean you should. Companies want to slash workers in response to rising costs instead of considering that maybe they should consider tolerating a higher operating expense at the cost of profit margins like they used to 30-40 years ago.

Of course we can't go all comrade and make it so inhospitable that they just leave, but at the same time the balancing over the last couple of decades has consistently favored stacking the deck for those who control the means of production.

And honestly it wouldn't be all that bad for them either. Costco and In-N-Out pay above minimum and that is correlated with better productivity among their workers and higher customer satisfaction compared to Wal-Mart and other fast food restaurants. It's a shock, but it turns out that treating workers at the absolute minimum state-mandated standard tells employees that you don't care about them... which in turn makes it hard for them to care about giving you anything more than the minimum. That ultimately affects your bottom line, just in another way.

I mean it's been a hundred years since Ford cut the work week to 5 days and argued that paying his factory workers more money and giving them more time off was smart policy.

[Thunder]

Do you mean to say that the rise in worker productivity from an increase in wages would result in higher earnings for the company?

[Niiro]

Pay a minimum wage get a minimum effort.

[NynJa]

Theoretically

As Gred said though, companies will do whatever they can to uphold their profit margins. Either:
A- your 15/hr will take you as far as your 10/hr was before as everyone raised their costs of goods and services.
B-your hours are getting cut so youll be making 15/hr but will only be working 25hrs/wk instead of 40.
C-you will be working short staffed as another cost cutting measure, expect to do extra work for that extra pay.

[Thunder]

well, yeah, we're talking about unskilled workers. Their jobs are minimum effort jobs by definition

Raising minimum wage, to me, is such a hassle and stands to screw with much of what makes a free(er) market so great. Gov. forcing every company that relies on unskilled labor to take on the brunt of keeping all unskilled laborers 'comfortable' financially is potentially ruinous to all the sectors that rely on unskilled labor. Undoubtedly the cost of their products/services will go up, and guess who stands to suffer the most out of that. Oh, the guys who we just increased wages for

It's pretty simple that the gov. should just take on the responsibility through whatever means (earned income tax credits as warren suggests are nice - and of course eventually just some baseline pay for everyone, eliminating most (all) other social nets) and let business do what business is incentivized to do. That way, the entire economy of the US is supporting the unskilled laborers instead of select businesses getting the chore of doing it - and let's not pretend like it's some easy task to do well.

The brunt of the issue here is (as far as I see it) do you believe walmart paying 15 dollars an hr for some stupid ass meaningless job is their duty because that work is worth that much or is it their duty to care for their employees. If it's the latter, like I hope it is, then the government should step in instead of using the businesses themselves as a middle man. Walmart shouldn't be a dispenser of social welfare to people who do not have skills that are prized in the market

[myreality]

[archibaldcrane]

well, yeah, we're talking about unskilled workers. Their jobs are minimum effort jobs by definition

Lol. Most minimum wage workers have to put forth way more effort at work than I do at my job making, what, 9x what they do per hour. Skill isn't synonymous with effort by any stretch.

[Tyrath]

I love the people who think that unskilled workers don't deserve a decent standard of living even if they work fulltime.

Nobody is asking to make them rich. But the cost of living has gone up and the minimum wage has not gone up accordingly. That is the crux of the argument for raising it.

[Yuri-G]

well, yeah, we're talking about unskilled workers. Their jobs are minimum effort jobs by definition

Absolutely disagree with this.

[Thunder]

ok boyos, you sure got me. They have to put a lot of effort into their jobs, whatever. Let's remember this stemmed from "pay minimum wage get minimum effort" with the implication that businesses would earn more if they paid their employees more You can't really put less effort into these jobs without the jobs just not being done is what I'm getting it. And on the other side, if you increase the effort you put in w/o raising skill (responsible, empathetic, etc) then idk what you get, but it wont affect me as a customer

I love the people who think that unskilled workers don't deserve a decent standard of living even if they work fulltime.

Nobody is asking to make them rich. But the cost of living has gone up and the minimum wage has not gone up accordingly. That is the crux of the argument for raising it.

Yeah, but I'm not saying unskilled workers do not deserve a decent standard of living?

The crux of my argument is that people are wrongly saying raising the minimum wage is the best way to give these people decent standards of living because it's unfairly asking the service sector and certain other businesses to provide social welfare. The jobs these people do are not worth as much as is necessary for them to live a standard of living in-line with how prosperous of a country america is.

We're asking for social welfare for these people, not fair compensation with respect to what the market actually prizes/wants, right?

[Melena]

ok boyos, you sure got me. They have to put a lot of effort into their jobs, whatever. Let's remember this stemmed from "pay minimum wage get minimum effort" with the implication that businesses would earn more if they paid their employees more You can't really put less effort into these jobs without the jobs just not being done is what I'm getting it. And on the other side, if you increase the effort you put in w/o raising skill (responsible, empathetic, etc) then idk what you get, but it wont affect me as a customer



Yeah, but I'm not saying unskilled workers do not deserve a decent standard of living?

The crux of my argument is that people are wrongly saying raising the minimum wage is the best way to give these people decent standards of living because it's unfairly asking the service sector and certain other businesses to provide social welfare. The jobs these people do are not worth as much as is necessary for them to live a standard of living in-line with how prosperous of a country america is.

We're asking for social welfare for these people, not fair compensation with respect to what the market actually prizes/wants, right?

Yet you have companies like Walmart that love to help their workers get set up on welfare/food stamps so they can continue to slave away for minimum wage while lining the higher ups pockets. Hell the owner of Costco is constantly under fire from stock holders to cut wages/benefits to increase profits and thus inflate the value of stock

[Yuri-G]

If the jobs are not worth as much as is necessary for the employees to have a decent standard of living then by definition we have a class of jobs which a) still need to get done and b) are not worth doing. That is an untenable situation. No job that is necessary for the functioning of a corporation is worth less than the minimum that would meet the cost of living or the job itself ceases to be valuable enough for the employee to do the work.


That is, of course, unless you create a class of people who live below an acceptable standard of living, a concept I find to be morally repugnant but which can and in fact does happen on a sadly frequent basis in our economy.