Suppose they set the minimum wage to $50/hr?

Question

Would that generate a "working wage" for all Americans, or generate a huge unemployment rate? If you are under the impression that it is the former, why do not your champions of the minimum wage stop horsing around with $5 or $6 something and just make it $50? Do they sincerely think they are helping people, or are they demagoguing the issue?

Read between the lines. There should be no government mandated minimum wage. The free market should decide it. I was not talking about a slippery slope. It is obvious to anyone with the slightest knowledge of economics that once the minimum wage goes up, people at the bottom will lose jobs. There is a difference between $6 and $50 only in the magnitude of its effects. But the effect is the same.

Wow. You can use a calculator, but can you figure out what happens to your single mother when her employer now has to choose between loosing money or firing one of his/her employees? Lets say he/she keeps all their employees at the new wage. Whatever product or service they sell must now have a price increase.
Multiply this decision by millions of businesses and you have the reason why unemployment goes up, prices go up, and after a few years people whine about another minimum wage hike because of the inflation which was, in part, caused by artificial government meddling in the free enterprise system.
If you want to guarantee a particular standard of living for all citizens go read up on some socialist countries and ask yourself whether people are happy there and whether everyone else wants to go live in those countries.

KB:
There is a better system. It's called "Free Enterprise". What we have now is a messed up version of socialism.
What you are calling for is total socialism; to guarantee everyone a "working wage". Sure, guarantees sound good on paper, but what I am trying to get across is it doesnt work in practice.
You cant stop economic consequences from taking place. When you raise the minimum wage, prices everywhere will go up to compensate for increase in payroll expenditures.

That loaf of bread? Some field worker planted and harvested the wheat. Someone loaded it onto the truck. Someone unloaded it and dumped it into the processing vat. Someone packed it into a bag and loaded it onto a truck. Someone unloaded it and dumped the flour into a vat. Someone loaded the bread onto a truck and unloaded it at the distribution center. Someone loaded it onto another truck and unloaded it at the grocery store. Someone stocked the shelves.

See how many steps you can come up with in this sequence that I missed.

Someone is pumping the gas for the trucks. Someone is maintaining the machinery in the bakery. A whole other industry is making the bags for the bread, and the little plastic bag clips, and the ink for printing on the bags. Etc, etc, etc.

Just to get a loaf of bread on a shelf for you to buy, there are scores of people involved in many ways. How many of them are minimum waged? How many of them can keep their jobs before the price for that loaf of bread has to go up to compensate?

The very people the minimum wage is purported to help are the same ones who are hurt the most by it. Follow the logic of the (euphemistically put) “immigrant worker”. People say that since they work for lower wages (illegal because of minimum wage laws), that we have cheaper lettuce and strawberries. Those people are right. Illegal immigrant labor *does* keep prices down. Why? Because they are circumventing the minimum wage law. This demonstrates that minimum wage laws drive prices higher.

Once that loaf of bread goes up, wont I need to make more money to buy it and a thousand other things I need throughout the year? Wont your landlord need more money too? Now your rent goes up. And you need even more money.

Start whining for a higher minimum wage.
Get it. The cycle continues.

Yes, there should be a better way.

Answer 1

WOW...Really.....There is no in between?
$5.75hr & $50.00hr.
The ridiculousness of your answer equals the ridiculousness of the current minimum wage.
Let's break down the numbers.......
$5.75 x 40hrs week = $230.00week
$230.00wk x 52wks/yr = $11,960.00yr
That's not even $1,000.00mo.
Seriously????
Do you have any idea how many single mothers are trying to support families on MINIMUM wage??

How about a "working wage" above poverty level!!!

So then what is your answer to just starve out the poor?
I'm all for free enterprise but why does it have to come to whatever profit you can squeeze out of the ones who utilize whatever your service is.
Is free enterprise really acceptable when it isolates as many Americans as it satisfies or enables?
So the gap between Upper class and poverty continues to widen.
Are you trying to weed out the poor??
The equality of being an American citizen is all a bunch of words.
If you are a poor American you don't count!
The gap between the rise of inflation and no raise in minimum wage is creating a sub culture in America.
Interestingly the people who receive the lowest pay usually have the disgusting or labor intensive jobs the average American wouldn't do.
As long as free enterprise prospers the disenfranchised should just be grateful for any place in the pecking order??
Is America really an Elitist country? Is that what our founding fathers fought for?
Who's going to buy your product? Certainly not your employee who can't afford it. So they exist to benefit you and the fortunate Americans who inappropriately get a wage that is out of proportion for their skill or ability?
Surely there must be a better system.

Answer 2

American currency has a massive trade deficit, which is among the reasons we went off the gold standard in '71. Now we can just print up (or produce by computer) as much as our government can spend (and we all know how amazingly they do that).

When we used gold to back our wealth, a certain number of dollars resembled a certain number of slices cut into a pie. Each slice was a particular amount of "something."

But nowadays we have fiat currency, which means there's no physical backing to it. Every dollar bill is an IOU from the IRS. They're debt vouchers. So long as everybody trades borrowed currency, believing it to be money with value, the system basically chugs along. Tra la-la...

So if the minimum wage is $5, a loaf of bread is about $3 (I buy premium bread). So I figure, if the minimum wage were $50, within a matter of months a loaf of bread would be $30. Makes little difference, really. And when you think about it, CEO compensation has already taken such a dramatic (and some would say undeserved) turn upward. What does it matter?

Every company wants the best employees, so they'll pay what they must. They also want the best profits, so they'll charge for their goods and services what they can get. Every employee wants as much money as possible. So we just keep printing more, we just keep adding on more debts, and people feel a little richer.

The minimum wage means very little to me. I'm far more concerned about what's going to happen when our $30 loaf of bread becomes a $30,000 loaf. All paper money eventually reverts to its natural value: zero. And then the minimum wage will be the least urgent matter on people's lips. And my $5 net worth will be, well, worthless. Got gold?

Answer 3

You should be asking this question under social sciences and econmics, not politcs.

Minimum wage is in place for numerous reasons.
First is that capitalist economies always have an unemployment rate. This ensures that there is always a continuing expansion of buisness. If this pool evaporates, buisness evaporates.

Second is that capitalist ecomomies have shown (read up about the industrial revolution and worker treatment, a time when there was no minimum wage) that without regulation of wage, industries will squeeze as much profit as they can from their workers by paying them the lowest amount possible for those people to survive and to come into work the next day.

Third, it is healthy for the economy. There has never been a correlation between minimum wage and unemploment. A minimum wage takes money away from those owners of the buisnesses and puts it into the hands of those that deserve it- the workers. This increases the purchasing power of the average citizen and puts more money into the society.

Answer 4

The "slippery slope" argument does not apply here. It's blatantly obvious what would happen were minimum wages raised to ridiculous levels like $50/hr. There's no need to raise wages that high; it's just that minimum wage hasn't been keeping up with inflation and cost of living increases brought upon by increasing trade deficits. It's not a pissing contest when someone living check-to-check has to choose two of rent, food, or medication, so don't bring politics into it. Fix the damn deficits, then start pissing and moaning about the fact minimum wages are a socialist concept.

Answer 5

Pegging the minimum wage to USD50.00 is good for the workers but bad for the employers especially the small industries to be forced to close. The government must study which is better for the economy so that workers will not be affected.

Answer 6

Each time minimum wage rises, the cost of living rises. I remember when minimum wage was 4.25 per hour and tax was only 4 or 5 cents on the dollar when I went shopping.

Now minimum wage is 5.50 (i think) per hour and tax is 9 cents on the dollar.

If min. wage were to be 50 dollars per hour, then the taxes would be astounding!

The govt sure knows how to abuse us and milk us for every penny they can.

Answer 7

No there should be a minimum wage because there are pieces of crap out there who exploit good workers and the people need a standard of living. And the minimum wage today should be at least $10.00 per hour not $7.25

Answer 8

Goals of the American left...Higher unemployment, more illegal invaders working under the table and not paying legal with holding taxes, generate a health crisis as a step towards socialized medicine...
And under the guise of "helping the working class", their living grade minimum wage is a giant step towards achieving those goals and the destruction of the American Republic.

Answer 9

Minimum wage just makes the prices go higher. That's about it.
I Cr 13;8a
1-12-7

Answer 10

Everytime the minimum wage is increased someone loses their job.