After all companies like walmart and mcdonalds have little to no real incentive to raise peoples pay over the years and raising the minimum wage is imo a losing proposition as long as congress are the ones with the power to raise it because as we have seen getting to to actually take action to help the average person is next to impossible though they will move heaven and earth to help large corporations.

It's passive-aggressive theft. They don't actually put a gun to your head, but for the average working person, the results are the same.

I have yet to see any chart showing a decline in employment after a hike in the minimum wage. One would think if such an effect existed, that the repubbies would haul it out over and over again.

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Mean, greedy people.

"...Between the 2008 and 2012 campaigns, Madden was hired as a Managing Director with The Glover Park Group, a public affairs firm in Washington D.C.,[5] before joining Charleston, South Carolina public affairs firm JDA Frontline in March 2010 to launch and direct their Washington, DC operations. Following the 2012 elections, Madden resumed daily responsibilities as JDA's 'Executive Vice President of Public Affairs'.[12]..."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Madden

I looked up minimum wage rates since 1955.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

The highest that minimum wage has been after adjusting for inflation was in 1968 when it reached what would have been the equivalent of 7.21 dollars per hour in 1996. If we further adjust for inflation between 1996 and 2013, that 1968 minimum wage would be 11 dollars even today.

It would have been nice if Congress would have attached minimum wage to inflation at that point. The problem with legislating something like that today is that we would be stuck at our current low minimum wage, but it would certainly be better than minimum wage not increasing at all.

That a few of the 1% might be taken down by a tiny fraction of a rung from the top of the ladder. And that, as we all know, would be absolutely disastrous for them .

The Walton Family has $80,000,000,000 between them; more than many countries.
But they apparently can't afford to pay their Walmart workers a living wage and therefore make the taxpayers pick up the difference. Oh, and they pay a tiny proportion of their income in taxes compared to what the rest of us, who really earn our money, pay.

I hear similar complaints from many friends around the world. The rich are strangling the rest of us. It will not be pretty when the dam breaks.

...cohort of folks who camp for black friday shopping!

I don't believe that St Ronnie's handlers ever really thought the wealth would trickle down. It was just a way of selling it to the rest of us.

thanks EarlG

How I wish this country would move on from his failed policies.

Thanks for the thread, EarlG.

who would strongly disagree with Kevin Madden - he's trying to raise California's minimum wage to $12 because he hates corporate welfare even more than government mandated minimum wages.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/us/conservative-leads-effort-to-raise-minimum-wage-in-california.html?_r=0

not for the 1%.

And fuck Mitt and his asshole advisor.

Assholes.

Why compare minimum wage to the poverty wage for a person with a child, as opposed to for a person without a child? Most people who earn minimum wage have no children. These kinds of statistics that over-state what doesn't need to be over-stated (because it's bad enough as it is) weaken the position, IMO.

minimum wage?

He'd like to take away the economic ladder entirely because he prefers that people volunteer for work.

And the number one GOP toadie is Charlie Rose (after the whole crowd at GOP-tv: Fox). He grovels before the GOPers with such enthusiasm!

THE INFORMATION IN Top SHOULD BE REPEATED ON OTHER SITES WHERE IT NEEDS TO BE SEEN!!!

RECOMMENDED.

He tried to steal thunder once but got struck by lightning.

In the city that never sleeps, he's in bed before 9:00.

He's never tried hot sauce.

He drives his car at the speed limit, and always stays in the right lane.

He always orders extra mayonnaise.

He is Mitt Romney, THE LEAST INTERESTING MAN IN THE WORLD!!!

"I tried beer as a teenager once but didn't like it. If I had one again it would probably be a Dos Equis."

Stay boring my friends.

when they said trickle down.

Just enough precipitation for the rest of us to dry up.

Filthy scumbags.

The 1 percent ship family supporting jobs to low-wage countries where the people are so desperate for work that they will work for low pay.

This creates a situation where there are a large number of unemployed or underemployed Americans who are competing for a much smaller number of jobs.

What he claims about opportunity for improved wages would be true IF there were a large number of jobs available AND only a small number of workers applying for them. That is, there were a big demand for workers and a small supply of people looking for work.

A large demand for workers and a small number of workers to fill those jobs would force employers to offer higher wages to attract workers to work for their company.

However, this is not the reality. The reality is there are few jobs to be had because the jobs have been shipped to other countries, leaving an oversupply of workers competing for few jobs. Lots of desperate workers looking for few jobs means that workers will take just about any pay. It also means that employers will not raise salaries because they do not have to.

A real solution would be to take the incentive out of outsourcing work to low wage countries by getting rid of NAFTA, the WTO, and all similar trade agreements. Taking the profit out of eliminating jobs in the U.S. will increase the demand for labor and automatically boost wages.

Most importantly, do NOT implement the TPP trade agreements. That will destroy an already weak labor market. How anyone who claims to understand economics can still want to implement the TPP, in light of the devastating effect already exerted on people's incomes by NAFTA and its ilk, is beyond comprehension.

It's the issue of our era, I think. Do we go on with 'plantation economics' or do we use the automation and resources that exist to provide everyone comfortable lives? We have to capability, but too many people, the 'haves', are afraid of what would happen if their double-wide trailer status is threatened.

Focusing on the minimum wage is focusing on a small piece in a large puzzle, much like the focus just on income disparity as a means of increasing income for the lowest paid of our wage earners.

For example how much is $1,000.00? Is it a lot? Is it a little? $1,000.00 (or any amount) is really not important at all. It's what you can buy for that $1,000.00 that really matters!

Take the minimum wage as an example. Since the beginning of the minimum wage corporate America has gotten very good at "adjusting" for minimum wage hikes.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

Please refer to the link, throughout the history of the minimum wage, the actual buying power of those stuck at the minimum wage level has never really increased. Dollar amount isn't as important as dollar value. Move it up to $10/hour, corporate America will adjust. Raise it to $22/hour, corporate America will adjust it again to ensure that those on the minimum wage never really gain any real, lasting increase in buying power.

The income gap is the same. The gap itself isn't what matters as much as what can the people on the low end of the gap afford to buy with what they make.

What we really need is a workers tax. A tax where the proceeds go directly to the workers. A tax that ties corporate profits to employee income. Starting at 15% Corporations need to compensate all employees, equally, 15% of their net. For example, Walmart netted $469 billion last year. Take 15% of that amount, or $70.35 Billion, and equally distribute it to all estimated $1.4 million employees. That's an additional, lump sum profit bonus to all employees of $50,250/ year. Then, if Walmart (and the rest of corporations) attempt to "adjust" they will have to do so by adjusting their own profit margins... something they won't do.

The benefit of this method, vs the minimum wage has an additional advantage. Because profit margins are the basis of the pay out, it will actually benefit corporations to increase their employee base rather than cutting them to protect their precious profit margins.

Heck, we might even be able to sell this to the cons, since this also vests the employee's interest in working harder to ensure the companies are successful (after all, they all have a real, and vested interest in the success of the company!)... THEN, for the gap to widen any further between the haves and the have nots, it would mean the have nots would also be getting a real, and proportional increase as well! One of those few cases where it could really be a win/win for all of us.

by the feckless crew at CNN.

Last edited Tue Dec 3, 2013, 12:35 PM - Edit history (1)

the economy". I wondered who in the hell they were trying to kid, and finally realized it wasn't us he meant.


okay, I googled to see if I could find the idiot (took three pages of wading through "outsourcing is GREAT for our economy) to find this (and funny how the narrative has changed, eh?):


ByDavid Hancock CBS February 13, 2004, 8: 34 PM
Bush Econ Advisor: Outsourcing OK



This campaign news analysis was written by Douglas Kiker of the CBS News Political Unit
If one thing illustrates the kind of year the Bush administration has stumbled and bumbled its way through in 2004, it was the comments earlier this week by the president's chief economic adviser, Greg Mankiw.

Mankiw wrote that the movement of U.S. jobs overseas due to cheaper labor costs – "outsourcing" he dubbed it in a remarkable display of political tone deafness – would prove "a plus for the economy in the long run," and was simply "a new way of doing international trade."
Mankiw's assertion – certainly sound economic theory and something that would play well at, say, a Harvard graduate school lecture – illustrates the political ineptitude the White House has exhibited in recent weeks that threatens its prospects for a second term unless things change course, and soon.

It did not take long for Republicans to realize Mankiw's comments were radioactive. GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert lambasted him, saying, "His theory fails a basic test of real economics."

President Bush himself – who, it should be noted, Mankiw was speaking for when he wrote what he did – did not fire him (as he has with previous economic advisers who've gone off the reservation). But he quickly distanced himself from the theory that the "outsourcing" of jobs is a good thing.

Speaking Thursday in Pennsylvania, a key swing state in 2004, the president said: "The numbers are good, but I don't worry about numbers. I worry about people. There are still some people looking for work because of the recession. There are people looking for work because jobs have gone overseas. And we need to act in this country. We need to act to make sure there are more jobs at home and people are more likely to retain a job."

. . . .

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bush-econ-advisor-outsourcing-ok/