Minimum Wage Increase Idea.... by 6IXSTRINGJACK

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Minimum Wage Increase Idea....

POSTED BY: 6IXSTRINGJACK
UPDATED: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 15:18
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VIEWED: 1144
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Saturday, May 18, 2013 3:30 AM

... For Small Businesses.

[scroll past this to get to the idea if you don't care to read my preface]

First, I'd like to say that increasing the minimum wage is simply putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. I didn't like it happening when I was making 24 dollars an hour because I was essentially making that much less per hour when I didn't get a bump to my own salary. Now that I'm making minimum wage, I still don't like it because I have enough foresight to see that prices of everything we buy will simply rise because the businesses selling products and/or services will have to pay their employees more and will simply pass those costs onto the consumer.

That being said, I can't in good conscience argue against a pretty significant minimum wage increase today because in the 17 years I've been in the work force I've seen the price of Gas increase 400%, the price of food more than double, average ticket prices for the movies increased by 175%, and the cost of a domestic beer at a bar increase 300%. (Please, don't even get me started again on the INSANE increase in medical costs over the last 25 years).

When I started working at 16, minimum wage was $5.00/hr. Today, minimum wage is only $7.25 (or an increase of only 69%).

To put that in perspective, let's just compare that to something we spend money on almost everyday. Gas for our cars. Back in 1997, when I made $5/hr, I was able to buy over 4 gallons of gas per hour worked after taxes. Today, I make $7.25 an hour, and I barely buy 1.25 gallons of gas after taxes for the same amount of labor.

I'm really SPLIT on that issue, because there are plenty of good points to be made on both sides.

[/scroll]

I was talking about an idea that would shield small business owners from the impossible task of raising the minimum wage though...

My idea is simply this....

What if every single small business that employed under 50 people were able to pay their employees the same amount of money per hour as they do today, but the employees got the increased pay at the same time?

It sounds crazy, I'm sure, but anyone who is at least familiar enough with tax laws that they do their own taxes could see how this could be done.

For simplicities sake, let's keep numbers by powers of 10, and not consider any sub-contractors paid with 1099 forms and only W2 wage workers. We'll also not consider the 6.5% that the employer has to pay in Social Security/Medicare either.

Say that "Business A" had 20 employees who all worked 40 hours a week at minimum wage. Today, the yearly payroll expenditure at the Federal minimum wage would be $301,600. If the federal minimum wage were increased to $9/hr, the yearly payroll expenditure would be $374,400! That's a whopping difference of nearly 75 thousand dollars!!!!

I'm sure a big corporation like WalMart can weather that storm, but most small businesses are already being taxed to death, particularly in bankrupt states like Illinois. $75,000 doesn't really sound like shit today when the powerball is going to be $550 million tonight, but I know it will be the straw that broke the camel's back to my parent's business which they've basically had to sell everything they owned to keep afloat since the recession started.

My idea is simply this... Two words....

TAX CREDITS

In the example above, there were 41,600 hours worked by employees. The proposed increase would cost the business $1.75 per hour, or $72,800.

Why not give Business A a tax credit of $72,800 to offset the minimum wage hike?

The way I figure it, it's a win/win for everybody.....

A) The business will not fold because of the increase in minimum wage and will continue to pay taxes, it will continue to pay rent and your local strip malls won't turn into something resembling Detroit, it will continue to add a local "flavor" to your municipality that big-box stores could never deliver.

B) 20 minimum wage workers won't be out on their asses. That means that your tax dollars won't be just completely wasted paying for food stamps, unemployment benefits and possibly cash benefits for 20 able-bodied people who are more than willing to work.

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Saturday, May 18, 2013 5:30 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

When I started working at 16, minimum wage was $5.00/hr. Today, minimum wage is only $7.25 (or an increase of only 69%)

Boy, you kids had it soft. I got my first minimum wage job in 1969, at the age of 18. $1.68 an hour. I pumped gas priced as 22 cents a gallon. I sold cigarettes for 35 cents a pack. Paid rent at $90.00 a month and thought that was a lot.

( and I won't even tell ya about walking 20 miles to work in the snow, barefoot, uphill both ways :<) )

Seriously, up until about 10 years ago, I never made more than $ 16.00 an hour. My daughter and son in law are both fairly new in the workforce, make about $12.00 an hour EACH, have a 2 year old baby and another on the way, and still live in the same apartment building I live in.
I've lived next door to Mexican households, possibly illegal, that had 3 or 4 Families living in one house, one bedroom per family, all the men working at one minimum wage job and all of the women either working or doing something like selling home-made tamales door-to-door.

I don't know what to do about working class poverty. I know we need to do SOMETHING, before it reaches the "Let them eat cake," stage.

Some extremist, science fiction type solutions:

Reinstitute slavery. You do what your master says. He has to feed, clothe, and house you, and can't SELL you or rape your wife. But you have not many other rights, and NO voice, no say whatever, in what the country does.

Re-establish the company town, company store economy. Similar deal. The guy you work for has to provide food, lodging, clothes.( E-T-A Missed this: he has to pay you, those are part of your wages.) But you're free to change jobs if you can find another one, have a political voice in some matters, have some criminal and civil rights.

Count up the number of jobs that can't be automated, that actually have to be done by a human. Add in a percentage of surplus. Exterminate the rest of the working class population. All the rest of those folks are just a drag on the economy. Keep the doctors, engineers, lawyers, stock brokers, executives, everybody above the salary level that ____s keep emphasizing as important to the economy. (Forgive me. I almost made a partisan comment there.)

Draft everybody who can't find a job and wants to go. Put 'em ALL to work in government service, either military or Depression era infrastructure jobs. Re establish the REA, the CCC, the WPA, all those alphabet soup agencies. Put all those bodies to work, not too hard, on labor intensive, national scale improvement jobs. Build those hi-speed railways. Repair all those roads and streets with potholes. Rebuild those crumbling bridges. Build new housing. Throw the labor needed into massive recycling and green earth operations, even if they're not cost effective. Reclaim parks, swamps, wilderness areas. Fight forest fires. Same wages and benefits as the draft- feed 'em, house 'em, clothe 'em, give 'em a ration of free beer or weed, pay them a few bucks so they have a little spending money.

As Dr. Swift once suggested: "Fatten up Irish babies. Serve them up on English dining tables. " As he was being satirical, so am I.

There are other ideas, some less extreme. Saw a quote from Star Trek TNG somewhere the other day, where J L Picard said something about money no longer being important, no longer necessary.

It's an idea I like, but I don't see how to get there.

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Saturday, May 18, 2013 5:48 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
( and I won't even tell ya about walking 20 miles to work in the snow, barefoot, uphill both ways :<) )

Haha, uphill both ways. Reminds me of this:

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Saturday, May 18, 2013 5:50 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Increase the minimum wage. An increased minimum wage gets the economy going better than shoveling trillions of dollars at the banksters. I'm not going to cry if the top 1% see a drop in their increasing share of the pie. They can suck on it, as far as I'm concerned.

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Saturday, May 18, 2013 7:45 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Increase the minimum wage. An increased minimum wage gets the economy going better than shoveling trillions of dollars at the banksters. I'm not going to cry if the top 1% see a drop in their increasing share of the pie. They can suck on it, as far as I'm concerned.

As a serious, right now answer, of course. I agree. It's been, what, 17 YEARS since the last one. (It's somewhere up the thread there, I'll go back and check in a minute.)

But the R's will argue that if the minimum wage goes up, the cost of living and the prices of everything, will go up just as much, employers' costs will rise, and the low end will wind up just as bad off except that there will be more of them because employers will have to lay workers off or close their businesses.

That's their argument why they've stonewalled on increasing it all this time. Except that the cost of living HAS gone up without an increase as well. And there's been inflation. And the price of stuff that isn't counted as "the cost of living" but that everybody needs, has kept on going up. Which means that the workers are worse off than they were.

But executive pay keeps increasing, the gap between rich and poor keeps increasing. The middle class is vanishing.

You already know all this stuff. You've posted it. I disagree with the R's. I'm just venting.

E-T-A: Oops, missed commenting on those last 2 sentences. You won't cry about the 1% seeing a decrease, but they will. And since, from the other thread, they're running it all anyway, and any differences are purely internal, who'll get listened to? You know the answer to that one as well.

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Saturday, May 18, 2013 7:47 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Quote:
( and I won't even tell ya about walking 20 miles to work in the snow, barefoot, uphill both ways :<) )

Haha, uphill both ways. Reminds me of this:

It's not personal. It's just war.

It's an old joke, of course. I left out the part about 8 days every week.

I've never seen that 4 Yorkshiremen sketch before, but it's funny. Love it.

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Monday, May 20, 2013 3:45 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Increase the minimum wage. An increased minimum wage gets the economy going better than shoveling trillions of dollars at the banksters. I'm not going to cry if the top 1% see a drop in their increasing share of the pie. They can suck on it, as far as I'm concerned.

You kind of missed my point Signy....

YES... the minimum wage is so low compared to the cost of goods now that it hardly matters.

YES... shoveling trillions to the banks is asenine.

YES... I'm not concerned about the top 1% either.

Unfortunately, raising the minimum wage will also have the negative effect of raising the costs of goods everywhere you shop. The stores certainly aren't going to eat that cost. As I mentioned above in the example of only 20 minimum wage full time employees, the costs for the company goes up $75,000 in a year. Imagine how costly a $9 minimum wage would be for a company like WalMart? I'm sure that this increase would be the nail in the coffin of the "Mart" I work for.

Again... I'm talking about small business here with under 50 people.

What do you think about the government subsidizing small businesses by paying for these minimum wage hikes via tax credits at the end of the year?

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Monday, May 20, 2013 3:51 PM

JONGSSTRAW

Ray Manzarek died today. Thought you might not have heard. R.I.P Ray.

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Monday, May 20, 2013 4:48 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
Ray Manzarek died today. Thought you might not have heard. R.I.P Ray.

I did. He'll be missed.

The Doors live at the Hollywood Bowl. There has rarely been a set so perfect, or so perfectly captured. They were really grooving that night, and they knew it. So stripped down, so simple, so basic, and yet, so surreal and amazing.

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero

"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012

Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"

Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."

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Monday, May 20, 2013 5:18 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Gorram it guys... I already have more than one post about music in here!!!!!

RIP Ray Manzarek....

Here's me "virtually" pouring an Ice-House into my sink for you. Here's also hoping that your family doesn't pull a "Kurt Cobain's Wife" move and sell your rights to Doors music to the major corporations to fund their own drug addictions, and also that I NEVER hear a classic Doors song on a Chevy commercial.

The fact that he's dead doesn't make me feel old. The fact that he died at 74 makes me feel old.

Here's the most Classic example of Mr. Manzarek's work...

Sure, it's one of The Doors most popular songs, and Val Kilmer was more than convincing, but in the end, the keyboard/guitar without the voice was more than 60% of this song.

Ken owned it.

R.I.P., Unsung Rock Legend!

Now..... let's get back on point you two.....

Please read the thread title....

If you're still hung up on music, I'm ecstatic to talk about it.

Please post that here...
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=54483

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Tuesday, May 21, 2013 5:15 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Again... I'm talking about small business here with under 50 people.

I'd argue with your definition of a small business, even tho' I know that's the legal definition. I have here before, with others. I've worked in some pretty large scale plants, that made a lot of money, that posed significant risks to the local environment, and dangers to their neighbors, that employed less than 50 people.

A small business is Uncle Phil's Plumbing, : Phil, 3 trucks, 3 plumbers, 3 helpers. Or Charlie Brown's Dad's Barber Shop, 2 chairs no waiting. Or maybe the grocery store next door, 4 clerks and 4 guys in the meat market. 'Course, they're a small local chain, with maybe 7 or 8 stores. That's why they're maybe. ON the other hand, the local Ace Hardware store is about the same size, is part of a chain. But it's owned and run by the guy whose name is on the door.

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Wednesday, May 22, 2013 3:18 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Again... I'm talking about small business here with under 50 people.

I'd argue with your definition of a small business, even tho' I know that's the legal definition. I have here before, with others. I've worked in some pretty large scale plants, that made a lot of money, that posed significant risks to the local environment, and dangers to their neighbors, that employed less than 50 people.

A small business is Uncle Phil's Plumbing, : Phil, 3 trucks, 3 plumbers, 3 helpers. Or Charlie Brown's Dad's Barber Shop, 2 chairs no waiting. Or maybe the grocery store next door, 4 clerks and 4 guys in the meat market. 'Course, they're a small local chain, with maybe 7 or 8 stores. That's why they're maybe. ON the other hand, the local Ace Hardware store is about the same size, is part of a chain. But it's owned and run by the guy whose name is on the door.

Yeah, that's the legal definition. I agree with you though. Most small businesses and business owners I know are either on their own or work with a very small crew. At the most my parents had 5 employees, including themselves working at a given time. 90% of the time or more it's just them and maybe one other person part time.

Given their situation, I think it's a hundred times easier to sell what I suggested. Their payroll increase might only be 2-5k a year max... but when you're already underwater in a down economy when only the truly "haves" still give you enough business to pay some of the bills... well... thousands of dollars is more than enough to break you.

I can certainly think of a few people, present speaker not excluded, who get benefits that aren't as worthy.

Franchisee owners, as you mentioned about the ACE Hardware stores, should also be protected somewhat. Though they bear the name "ACE" because they paid for the rights, they're just your local Joe Schmo who had enough capital to purchase the license and have enough capital to follow the corporate rules.

He/She might not have had the brains/will to start a new business from scratch, but they did take a risk and pony up a significant amount of cash to make this particular dream come true.

Should they be included on the short list of Ma' 'n Pa' stores shielded entirely from the increase? Likely no....

I think at that point it's simply some math to figure out how successful that franchisee has been. Obviously, even in a general down economy, some franchisee owners will still see more than enough activity to remain successful without struggle. These people shouldn't be showered with taxpayer dollars. I'm sure plenty of them are hurting though. An ACE that was only 6 blocks from the house I grew up in closed a few years ago. It's just an empty brick building now, and has been for as long. The insane tax rates in Illinois on everything is what's keeping new business from starting there.

More of what I'm already saying though. Had that store owner been given some relief of taxes, that store would still be open. There would be 30-50 employees making money every week there, and that many less people claiming benefits while they fight each other for the next job opening.

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