It seems to me that we need to lower minimum wage. For some reason over the years we have made it higher and higher. So now it cost 5 times as much to higher a US worker than to higher a Foreign worker. Its cheaper to send the job over seas, have the product shipped to the states and then distriputed than to have it made here in the first place. If we lowered the wage, we would place our jobs in a more competitive place and more jobs would stay here and maybe some would even come back. If the minimum wage is raised, like some want, its seems that it would only hurt us in the long run. What do you all think? Am I missing something? I'm a business major, so help me out, I'm supposed to know this stuff.

 

That would be a great idea if you could in turn lower the cost of living and reverse the effects of inflation, to bring them commensurate to the lower pay rate.
I don't know about you, but I can't think of anybody who can stand on their own two feet in this country and make $5.25 an hour. Do the math, that's $840/mo gross, roughly $600 after taxes. You can't find a 1 bedroom apartment in the Denver area for less than $500/mo, and then what? Imagine trying to live in L.A. or San Francisco on $600 a month. You'd be the team captain of the welfare line, man!
It's unfortunate that it's so much cheaper to produce products overseas, but you would have to lower the pay rate to under $2.00/hr to make it worth producing those products here. At that rate of pay, you're looking at $320/mo. That's not realistic; even a college student has to spend more money than that a month.
It's kind of a vicious circle anymore. Every time a company has to give a percentage cost-of-living increase, it raises the price of its goods, thus raising the overall cost of living. Pretty soon apples are going to cost $10 a piece and we'll be paying it because that's just how much they cost.
So no don't lower the minimum wage, it won't help.
BDV

 

BDV, you're missing the point. Minimum wage is what you get paid at an entry-level job. A burger-flipper at Mickey Dee's ain't gonna get paid $40K. These jobs are primarily for people entering into the work force--teenagers. If they want to make more, then they have to work their way up the ladder. Next stop, crew chief, then shift manager, then assistant manager, then general mangler.

Biggest problem in the job market is 17 year olds that think they can just waltz in and run the place, and want the big bosses salary to do very little. I gotta agree, shyguy is on to something. If minimum wage were lowered, I think that people would become more ambitious, and strive to work their way into higher-paying positions, instead of staying at the bottom of the heap. Face it, at some point, you have to quit downloading **** and move out of your parent's basement!

 

I sure hope I get a substantial raise when that happens because I can see the dole getting longer and longer.
What do you think YOUR pay rate is based upon? If the person at the very bottom of the pecking order is making less, your value is going to decline as well. So you'll have the kid working his butt off to get the assistant manager job, which now pays $4.75/hr instead of $8.00. Then he'll move on to bigger and brighter things, like General Manager, where he'll top out at $12.75/hr after 5 years.
In your case, assuming you make a decent salary, what would likely happen is that the high-climber who started out at a very low wage, and who is now gunning for your position, would be willing to do it for $15,000 less a year, and guess where you would end up? Filing for unemployment, of which you would no doubt receive less. Then you would find yourself in the market for a job and you would find yourself taking a gigantic pay cut because again, you're competing with Johnny Graduate, and Johnny will do the job for much less than you, because to him, the difference between $6.00/hr and $10.00 an hour is just as big as the difference between $15.00 and $11.00/hr is to you. Guess who gets the job.
Corporations would LOVE that. But don't think for a second that they would pass the savings on to you and me, it would go right into the profit reports for the shareholders.
I wouldn't be a good thing.
BDV

 

Minimum wage was never intended to be a wage to provide a decent living; there is a big misunderstanding on this one. The vast majority of those on min wage are young and either in college or high school (go research govt statistics). Everytime min wage goes up, it's inflationary. Those of us on salary do not get a raise to compensate for this crap. But there is recourse.............just reduce your tips at the resturant/haircutter/etc in a percentage equal to the min wage hike in order to offset the problematic inflation.

I live in WA state. Min wage is about $7.16 per hour and is either the highest or next to the highest in the country. WA state is also the THIRD most HOSTILE state in the country in which to run a business. Gee, can anyone else besides myself see a possible connection? Go figure.

 

Where I live it takes both wage earners in a family to make it. After 20 years of raising kids my wife decides to go to work. Raisinf kids isn't exactly a marketable skill. She spent over 3 months just pounding the beat looking for a job. She did pass on a couple that would have had her working odd hours that would just rob all her family time and she would have had to drive 40 miles each wat for a couple dollars over minimum. Finally she was forced to take a minimum wage job which is around 5.65 I think. And I will guarantee you there are plenty of familys trying to make it working those jobs. Raises a small and few. Don't kid yourself that it is just a bunch of college or high school kids. If you live in a college town it might be.

 

I dont think rolling back the minimum wage will have a very large impact in regards to loss of jobs from overseas.you would have to lower it to the point illegal migrant workers couldnt afford to live here.the problem seems to be cheap labor,no workmans comp,no healthcare costs,no capital gains tax,just to name a few.Someone has to do something fast.A lot of jobs have been lost and i fear they may never come back.it's just cheaper to go overseas.but they cant stay here and go bankrupt.i think the minimum wage plays very small part in the larger scope of things.

 

The only time this issue ever comes up in history is right before a presidental election because it's a safe issue to debate. Give some people a $.15 raise and if they do vote they vote for they guy who threw them a bone.

This issue effects only unskilled and basically uneducated labor and kids that hold part time jobs so it doesn't really effect the big money. If we had a gripe of providing healthcare to everyone FREE that does not have insurance etc we wouldn't need to debate this level of income.

Would a lower wage stop jobs from going overseas ?? No it would just create more poeple that couldn't buy food or clothes or feed themselves in this country.

How about requiring any restaurant that pays this wage to provide the worker with two free meals a day ?? Or any garment factory to provide the worker with $500 free clothes per year ??

We should not be a country of people that NEED anything But a country that provides for our own that are born here and work here.

 

Minimum wage jobs aren't the jobs being exported. Nobody closes a plant down and moves it to China to try to improve on a $5.00 - $6.00 payroll. What they save in labor would be erased in shipping and handling. The jobs being eliminated are the hourly jobs at the top of the manufacturing food chain. People that make $15.00, $20.00, and more per hour are substituted with foreign labor making a fraction of that.

 

Good points about moving overseas. Did you ever stop to think why you save money by shopping at Wal-mart? Because they are selling goods made mostly in china where the EPA doesn't make them comply with polution standards. Where kids work for 12 hour days to earn pennys. It is our own fault to some degree. If we had refused to buy the cheesy crap to start with our industry wouldn't be fleeing the country in droves. The only hope I see is tarriffs that will be used to bolster companys who choose to remain here and tough it out. I mean it isn't like China buys anything much from us in the form of finished product. They don't even like us and they persecute more christians than anyone on the planet.

 

Some jobs will never come back.

Jobs in the manufacturing section have been going by the wayside all over the world, China included.

Technology is better and hence not as many people are needed to do what was do even a decade ago.

New job segments pop up all the time now....it's up to the people who lose jobs to qualify for said new jobs.

 

By the law of Supply and Demand, if wages are lowered then so will prices. So then comapnies cant continue to charge what they currently charge and expect anyone to buy them , so all that extra money will not exist to add to the profit margin. If wages are lowered ( if minimum wage is lowered then all would be lowered) then we would be in a more competitive position to our overseas counterparts. I really doubt that it will ever happen but I see it as the only way we will survive. I agree with Alfred, with the more technology used, the fewer jobs will be available in job markets. Largely the higher risk, higher paying jobs.


Presidential candidate Gephart is wanting minimum wage to be toward 8, 9 or 10 dollars an hour. Think of how it would effect our jobs here, no one would have a job because they would all be shipped over seas. Profit margin, out the wazzo for big business's. Now think of it the opposite and you may see my point better.

 

It would be easy to recover the loss in profit margins: simply raise the price of goods.
I don't think the minimum wage should be a whole lot higher than it is right now, but it certainly won't do anybody any good to lower it. It doesn't matter how low our minimum is here; the pay rate for the same job in China is a FRACTION of our current minimum. And the cost of shipping goods really isn't that expensive when you can produce 5 times the product at 10% of the cost and sell it for 300% of the cost to make it and distribute it.
Look at video games, for example. It costs Sony about $12.00 per game sold to design, produce, market and distribute each game title in the US, but they sell the games for $60.00 each. Remember your old school Nintendo system? Those games cost $3.00 to make, and sold for $35.00. That's unbelievable, and it was made possible by foreign labor.
Blah blah blah Velvet, go to bed.
BDV

 

And I will guarantee you there are plenty of familys trying to make it working those jobs. Raises a small and few. Don't kid yourself that it is just a bunch of college or high school kids. If you live in a college town it might be. [/B][/QUOTE]

When the folks in my parents generation started a family they worked hard, scrimped and saved until they could afford to have kids. They didn't spit out a bunch of kids and then whine that they couldn't support them.--Jack

 

Amen to that, Jack.
Hopefully my generation learned the lesson from their parents.
BDV