Minimum wage rises today

[southsider2k5]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080724/D9246TG80.html

 

Federal minimum wage rises to $6.55 today

 

WASHINGTON (AP) - About 2 million Americans get a raise Thursday as the federal minimum wage rises 70 cents. The bad news: Higher gas and food prices are swallowing it up, and some small businesses will pass the cost of the wage hike to consumers.

 

The increase, from $5.85 to $6.55 per hour, is the second of three annual increases required by a 2007 law. Next year's boost will bring the federal minimum to $7.25 an hour.

 

Workers like Walter Jasper, who earns minimum wage at a car wash in Nashville, Tenn., are happy to take the raise, but will still struggle with the higher gas and food prices hammering Americans.

 

"It will help out a little," said Jasper, who with his fiancee support a family of seven, and who earns the minimum plus commissions when customers order premium car-wash services.

 

(AP) Employee Huong Nguyen serves customers at a restaurant in Alhambra, Calif., Wednesday July 23,...

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The bus fare he pays each day to get to work already went up to $4.80 this spring from $4. "I'd like to be on a job where I can at least get a car," he said.

 

Last week, the Labor Department reported the fastest inflation since 1991 - 5 percent for June compared with a year earlier. Energy costs soared nearly 25 percent. The price of food rose more than 5 percent.

 

So the minimum wage hike is "a drop in the bucket compared to the increases in costs, declining labor market, and declining household wealth that consumers have experienced in the past year," Lehman Brothers economist Zach Pandl said.

 

The new minimum is less than the inflation-adjusted 1997 level of $7.02, and far below the inflation-adjusted level of $10.06 from 40 years ago, according to a Labor Department inflation calculator.

 

Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have laws making the minimum wage higher than the new federal requirement, a group covering 60 percent of U.S. workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank.

 

(AP) CORRECTS figure for high school graduates without college degrees; CLARIFIES Hispanics are of any...

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"You get desperate, because you can't really pay for everything," said Gladys Lopez, 51, a garment worker from Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, who makes military uniforms and has earned the federal minimum for 18 years.

 

She says she would need to make at least $50 more a week to pay all her bills and take care of her 84-year-old mother, whom she supports.

 

When the minimum rises again next year, catching up with more states, more than 5 million workers will get a raise, said Lisa Lynch, dean of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.

 

Some small businesses are already making plans to raise prices to offset the higher wages they have to pay their workers.

 

David Heath, owner of Tiki Tan in College Station, Texas, said the increase will force him to raise prices for his monthly tanning services by about 12 percent. Tiki Tan had been paying its employees $6 per hour.

 

(AP) Chart shows number of U.S. workers at or below minimum wage and selected demographics; 1c x 4 3/8...

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"There just isn't any room for profit, and so this is why prices will have to go up," he said, citing the wage increase and higher fuel costs. "I have to recoup those costs."

 

The increase in the minimum wage could push food prices even higher by rising the pay for agricultural workers, said Brian Bethune, chief U.S. economist at consulting firm Global Insight.

 

But he said he did not expect the change to have a major impact on the economy because recent increases in productivity, which enables companies to produce more with fewer workers, are keeping labor costs in check.

 

That makes it unlikely the minimum wage increase will trigger a "wage-price spiral," in which workers facing higher costs demand more pay, which in turn causes companies to raise prices higher, sending inflation coursing through the economy.

 

And most businesses, even restaurants and other service sector companies, already pay above the minimum wage anyway. Dan Whitaker, general manager at Anis Bistro in Atlanta, a casual French restaurant, said employees earn at least $8 an hour.

 

"You can't get a dishwasher for minimum wage," he said.

 

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AP Business Writers Ellen Simon and Anne D'Innocenzio in New York contributed to this report.

[Soxy]

New York state minimum wage = 7.15. Woot.

[NorthSideSox72]

And of course, its not pegged for inflation, so they have to revisit this again later.

 

Pet peeve of mine: enacting laws with specific amounts like this, and not putting in an automatic increase based on a market basket.

 

[southsider2k5]

And of course, its not pegged for inflation, so they have to revisit this again later.

 

Pet peeve of mine: enacting laws with specific amounts like this, and not putting in an automatic increase based on a market basket.

 

If we are going to have a minimum wage, it needs to be indexed to inflation somehow.

[Balta1701]

And of course, its not pegged for inflation, so they have to revisit this again later.

 

Pet peeve of mine: enacting laws with specific amounts like this, and not putting in an automatic increase based on a market basket.

If the minimum wage had been pegged to inflation when it was first created it'd be over $10 an hour now.

[kapkomet]

If the minimum wage had been pegged to inflation when it was first created it'd be over $10 an hour now.

It would be way more then that, depending on when you started the index.

[southsider2k5]

Besides the obvious inflation and labor pool implications, it would be interesting to see the affect that had on the black market employment, specifically illegal aliens. I wonder if anyone has done a study?

[lostfan]

Besides the obvious inflation and labor pool implications, it would be interesting to see the affect that had on the black market employment, specifically illegal aliens. I wonder if anyone has done a study?

Can you re-word this question because I am retarded?

[southsider2k5]

Can you re-word this question because I am retarded?

 

Basically the idea would be that the higher the minimum wage goes, the more people there are out there who would be willing to either take jobs for cash (an amount falling under what it would cost to employ someone, thus saving the company money) under the table, and/or hire illegal aliens to work for less than the minimum wage.

[lostfan]

Basically the idea would be that the higher the minimum wage goes, the more people there are out there who would be willing to either take jobs for cash (an amount falling under what it would cost to employ someone, thus saving the company money) under the table, and/or hire illegal aliens to work for less than the minimum wage.

Oh, I was gonna comment that I thought hiring illegal immigrants was essentially modern-day slavery. I wanted to make sure you were saying what I thought you were saying before I said that though or it would've looked like a non-sequitor.

[southsider2k5]

Oh, I was gonna comment that I thought hiring illegal immigrants was essentially modern-day slavery. I wanted to make sure you were saying what I thought you were saying before I said that though or it would've looked like a non-sequitor.

 

I wouldn't disagree with you.

[Rex Kickass]

Minimum Wage History as it relates to Gasoline.

Because I had free time on my hands.

 

1938 - 1 gallon of gas equals 24 minutes of work

1939 - 1 gallon of gas equals 20 minutes of work

1945 - 1 gallon of gas equals 22.5 minutes of work

1950 - 1 gallon of gas equals 14 minutes of work

1956 - 1 gallon of gas equals 13 minutes of work

1960 - 1 gallon of gas equals 15 minutes of work

1965 - 1 gallon of gas equals 15 minutes of work

1970 - 1 gallon of gas equals 14 minutes of work

1975 - 1 gallon of gas equals 13 minutes of work

1979 - 1 gallon of gas equals 18 minutes of work

1980 - 1 gallon of gas equals 23 minutes of work

1985 - 1 gallon of gas equals 20 minutes of work

1990 - 1 gallon of gas equals 21 minutes of work

1995 - 1 gallon of gas equals 14 minutes of work

2000 - 1 gallon of gas equals 15 minutes of work

2005 - 1 gallon of gas equals 25 minutes of work

2008 - 1 gallon of gas equals 40 minutes of work

 

[mr_genius]

And of course, its not pegged for inflation, so they have to revisit this again later.

 

Pet peeve of mine: enacting laws with specific amounts like this, and not putting in an automatic increase based on a market basket.

 

yea it really should

[kapkomet]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080724/D9246TG80.html

I heard a little bit ago that this family of seven fellow has government benefits up the ying yang and makes out better by being on minimum wage and doesn't want to take anything better. THAT right there is what's wrong with our country.

[southsider2k5]

I heard a little bit ago that this family of seven fellow has government benefits up the ying yang and makes out better by being on minimum wage and doesn't want to take anything better. THAT right there is what's wrong with our country.

 

The wife's sister who doesn't work at all and has a newborn now has better benefits than the two of us do working full time.

[kapkomet]

The wife's sister who doesn't work at all and has a newborn now has better benefits than the two of us do working full time.

I'm not picking on her at all (for once ), but what is her incentive to do anything different? Absolutely nothing.

[Texsox]

Yes, that is part of the problem. Child care benefits is one area I am most familiar with. Shameful that a family has to give up those benefits when they earn more. The decrease in benefits swallows up more then the raise, yet child care is one of the single biggest hurdles that poor people face. Basically, if you were a parent and your child was currently in a safe day care and "moving up" meant placing your child in an unlicensed, unregulated, daycare which usually is over crowded and does not offer the same meals, etc. What would you do? And the jumble of agencies that are in place is daunting even for an educated person. I sat through a presentation and lost track of the number of agencies where someone can turn to for help. And the companies that try and untangle it for their employees, are routinely criticized for those efforts.

 

We need to fix the system where a family doing the right thing is not penalized as they move up and those that stay the same or decline lose out. The problem is always punishing the adults and not their children. We have little stomach for starving kids in poor environments.

 

We could just eliminate programs for the working poor, or work out the incentives for staying in place.

[kapkomet]

There needs to be a way to build people up and out of the situations.

[lostfan]

There needs to be a way to build people up and out of the situations.

This argument will always come back to the need to strengthen our education system, especially in poorer areas.

[NorthSideSox72]

This argument will always come back to the need to strengthen our education system, especially in poorer areas.

That.

 

The three biggest reasons for crime are poverty, lousy parenting, and lack of decent education. Drill down further, and the main reasons for poverty are lack of education, lousy parenting, and people being born into poverty.

 

We can't changed parenting, unfortunately. But we can certainly change the way we educate our youth.

 

[lostfan]

Lousy parenting (or high out-of-wedlock birth rates) is also an eventual by-product of lack of education.

[NorthSideSox72]

Lousy parenting (or high out-of-wedlock birth rates) is also an eventual by-product of lack of education.

In part, yes. They are all inter-related of course.

 

[Texsox]

We can start with school funding. Pegging it to property taxes assures the haves have and the have nots, have not. In a small border community here, the Social Studies text book still showed the Soviet Union. They were teaching Social Studies with 20 year old text books. Up near where Kap lives, Highland Park Texas, the minimum requirement to be a Science teacher is a PhD.

 

Money ain't everything in education. Hidalgo, TX is a poor community but the school works like hell to get opportunities for their kids. But money certainly evens up the playing field. And that is where preferential admittance standards at college fails. To move the pre college finish line is wrong. We have to move the starting line.