You are paying for it

[dellinger63]

Welfare Spending increase from 1974-2013

1,246 percent or four times the increase of Median Household Income

Take another bow America!!

[Rudeboyelvis]

yeah but Dell you didn't get the memo that paying people a ridiculously high minimum wage is going to fix 'Merica cuz a biased study subsidized by organized labor said so.
Oh, and the federal tax subsidies will automatically stop too because if they pay out more money then they won't need to raise prices or won't need as many tax breaks which in turn will be voluntarily given back to the tax payers ...or something.....Wait... maybe it was that they would need to raise prices and spur hyper-inflation AND need more tax subsidies because they have less dollars coming in....but that's all ok, because then the minimum wage workers would get a few dollars less back on their 1040EZ which makes us all winners...or something.

I'm sorry...Removing common sense gets confusing. My apologies.

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by Rudeboyelvis

yeah but Dell you didn't get the memo that paying people a ridiculously high minimum wage is going to fix 'Merica cuz a biased study subsidized by organized labor said so.
Oh, and the federal tax subsidies will automatically stop too because if they pay out more money then they won't need to raise prices or won't need as many tax breaks which in turn will be voluntarily given back to the tax payers ...or something.....Wait... maybe it was that they would need to raise prices and spur hyper-inflation AND need more tax subsidies because they have less dollars coming in....but that's all ok, because then the minimum wage workers would get a few dollars less back on their 1040EZ which makes us all winners...or something.

I'm sorry...Removing common sense gets confusing. My apologies.

Sucks when numbers and facts get in the way of a perfectly good movement.

[jms62]

Hyper inflation ? Pretty funny stuff. Raise your prices and see how many people line up to buy what you are selling. I am going to see you raising your prices and not raise mine and crush you. The Hyper Inflation scare tactic against raising the minimum wage is quite tired. You need to seriously worry about DEFLATION like during the Great Depression. We have wealth concentraion that is approaching the level it was prior to the start of the great depression. All we need now is a triggering event for the middle class to shut down spending on everything but the bare necessities of life.

Having said this I am in the camp of raising the minimum wage similiar to what Dell suggested not some absurd doubling.

[dylbert]

This has been an interesting early morning read. Thread begins with 'study' that most academics would consider suspect, if not outright invalid. Extrapolating findings from median values is folly.

35 years ago I was graduate student in economics at a well-known US university. My graduate assistant stipend, $175 per month, was mostly funded by two 'studies'. One study measured the impact of new navigable waterway system on rural unemployment in Mississippi & Alabama. The second one trained government workers on how to run 'Comprehensive Education & Training' programs. Both studies were funded through grants from US government.

Corps of Engineers wanted study that showed that new waterway system lowered unemployment. We delivered one. Carter Administration wanted to create new training & employment programs. We delivered training on how to startup & fund programs in rural South.

My point is give an academic a grant and you will get answer you want! Give these quasi-government think tank outfits money and they too will provide answer you want. And with today's technology, most anyone can mashup 'facts' from any number of 'studies' to support any argument or cause.

So find a study, start thread, and watch the fun begin!

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by dylbert

This has been an interesting early morning read. Thread begins with 'study' that most academics would consider suspect, if not outright invalid. Extrapolating findings from median values is folly.

35 years ago I was graduate student in economics at a well-known US university. My graduate assistant stipend, $175 per month, was mostly funded by two 'studies'. One study measured the impact of new navigable waterway system on rural unemployment in Mississippi & Alabama. The second one trained government workers on how to run 'Comprehensive Education & Training' programs. Both studies were funded through grants from US government.

Corps of Engineers wanted study that showed that new waterway system lowered unemployment. We delivered one. Carter Administration wanted to create new training & employment programs. We delivered training on how to startup & fund programs in rural South.

My point is give an academic a grant and you will get answer you want! Give these quasi-government think tank outfits money and they too will provide answer you want. And with today's technology, most anyone can mashup 'facts' from any number of 'studies' to support any argument or cause.

So find a study, start thread, and watch the fun begin!

I suppose one can disregard the particular study.
However, the point remains that wages have stagnated for most, and have risen quite dramatically for a few.
Theres also the pesky fact that corporations are rolling in profit, while taxpayers subsidize their low pay to the very people doing the work that makes them all that money.

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by dylbert

My point is give an academic a grant and you will get answer you want! Give these quasi-government think tank outfits money and they too will provide answer you want. And with today's technology, most anyone can mashup 'facts' from any number of 'studies' to support any argument or cause.

So find a study, start thread, and watch the fun begin!

The only difference is a government backed grant/study will give the answers the government wants while billing the taxpayer, while these quasi-think tanks get their money from either the Koch bros. or George Soros etc. etc. leaving the taxpayer out of it.

Of course they are used to validate views correct or not that the gullible digest without question gaining allies/voters to that particular view.

And it's amazing how they work on some people. Take for instance Michael Bloomberg's recent pledge of $50 million for the gun control movement. You'd think America is under siege, murder victims galore however when you consider in 1974 with a US population of 211.39 million we had 20,710 murders or 1/10,207 and in 2012 with a population 313.91 million we had 14,827 murders or 1/21,110 you realize it isn't so. And to the contrary the murder rate has been more than halved. Yet the Danzig's of the world use Slate, Huffington or FOX and Infowars as their bible never questioning their 'teachings'.

(US Murder Rates By Year) http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by dylbert

This has been an interesting early morning read. Thread begins with 'study' that most academics would consider suspect, if not outright invalid. Extrapolating findings from median values is folly.

35 years ago I was graduate student in economics at a well-known US university. My graduate assistant stipend, $175 per month, was mostly funded by two 'studies'. One study measured the impact of new navigable waterway system on rural unemployment in Mississippi & Alabama. The second one trained government workers on how to run 'Comprehensive Education & Training' programs. Both studies were funded through grants from US government.

Corps of Engineers wanted study that showed that new waterway system lowered unemployment. We delivered one. Carter Administration wanted to create new training & employment programs. We delivered training on how to startup & fund programs in rural South.

My point is give an academic a grant and you will get answer you want! Give these quasi-government think tank outfits money and they too will provide answer you want. And with today's technology, most anyone can mashup 'facts' from any number of 'studies' to support any argument or cause.

So find a study, start thread, and watch the fun begin!

Also....what am i to take away from the 2011 cbo study that shows that since 1979, growth for the top 1% wage wise is over 275%, but for the next 60 % is about 40%? What about the finding that not only has income inequality risen in most developed coutnries, the change is greatest here?
and what am i to discern from the statistic that only 42% of americans believe that this inequality actually exists, regardless of all the findings?
In 2012, the wage gap was the largest since the 1920s...with the top 1% seeing a 20% gain, the other 99% saw a 1% increase.

What are we to do about the opportunities that once were here, and aren't any more? People say reward hard work, thats not happening. People discuss the good old days, but our economic landscape and job market isnt the same. We actually have more skilled workers.....and less jobs demanding skills.

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by Danzig

Also....what am i to take away from the 2011 cbo study that shows that since 1979, growth for the top 1% wage wise is over 275%, but for the next 60 % is about 40%? What about the finding that not only has income inequality risen in most developed coutnries, the change is greatest here?
and what am i to discern from the statistic that only 42% of americans believe that this inequality actually exists, regardless of all the findings?
In 2012, the wage gap was the largest since the 1920s...with the top 1% seeing a 20% gain, the other 99% saw a 1% increase..

Celebrate the fact the study you quote is dated, conveniently ending with 2007 stats, though published in 2011 and per the same CBO curiously from 2007-2009 the trend was quite different. Then again we must ask who initiated the 2011 study that stopped with 2007 stats?

Average before-tax income fell between 2007 and 2009 for households in all income quintiles, but the amount of that decline varied by quintile. The declines in before-tax income were 5 percent or less for households in each of the four lowest income quintiles and 18 percent for households in the top quintile. For households in the top one percent, income fell by 36 percent, reducing their share of before-tax income from 18.7 percent to 13.4 percent.

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43373

[jms62]

The new American Dream

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101597957
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...#ixzz2zXcacB4r

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Rudeboyelvis

yeah but Dell you didn't get the memo that paying people a ridiculously high minimum wage is going to fix 'Merica cuz a biased study subsidized by organized labor said so.
Oh, and the federal tax subsidies will automatically stop too because if they pay out more money then they won't need to raise prices or won't need as many tax breaks which in turn will be voluntarily given back to the tax payers ...or something.....Wait... maybe it was that they would need to raise prices and spur hyper-inflation AND need more tax subsidies because they have less dollars coming in....but that's all ok, because then the minimum wage workers would get a few dollars less back on their 1040EZ which makes us all winners...or something.

I'm sorry...Removing common sense gets confusing. My apologies.

Define ridiculously high.

As has been shown, repeatedly, had minimum wage continued to track as it used to, it would be 10.50/hour right now. The same time that the minimum wage started lagging behid is when all other wages started to falter. It also coincides with pay to the top earners growing like crazy. The money the corporations are paying out started skewing. Its common sense to accept the gap between employee and exec pay? It is common sense to say they cannot afford to pay their employees when you see the amazing increases to the tip execs? I could accept that wagez had a good reason to be lower, were it not for the fact they are not lower for everyone.
The money is there, the prioritizing is not.