Origin of the BSL idea

roseandheather wrote:Which is why a minimum wage is completely different than the BLS. One is predicated upon the idea that if someone is working full-time, they should be earning a living wage. The other is predicated upon the idea that everyone should be paid the same, whether they're working or not.

It's funny that those clamoring to Raise The Minimum Wage don't have a thing to say about increasing the VALUE of unskilled labor, only the COST, and it is not within the government's power to force employers to PAY some arbitrary Minimum Wage, only to punish them for paying less. This has a number of consequences that they either don't think about or won't acknowledge.

The first one is that when unskilled labor costs two or three times what it's worth, businesses stop hiring. The entry-level jobs disappear, and with them goes any opportunity for an 18 year old just out of high school. If they are required to pay more, they will hire people who are worth more. This cuts the bottom rungs off the career ladder.

Then, because there is no choice but to hire some employees, business costs increase and so they must raise prices. Sooner than you would believe possible, this comes full circle and the new Minimum Wage's actual purchasing power is diluted until it's about equal to the old minimum wage. At which point, they start clamoring for yet another increase. It becomes the Red Queen's Race - it takes all the running you can do to go nowhere.

In addition, those skilled and experienced workers who were making what is now minimum wage believe, with good reason, that they are worth more. More costs, more price increases.

Finally they propose the ultimate stupidity: index the Minimum Wage to inflation. Since all costs are ultimately labor costs, this sets up a positive feedback loop which causes the subject variable to increase uncontrollably until it hits some sort of limit. What is the limit of inflation? As far as we know, there is no limit. See the Weimar Republic about that.

My first job was stacking boxes in a warehouse for $2.45 an hour. Let me tell you, $2.45 was NOT a "living wage" even then. I rented one room, drove a $200 beater and went to night school. Gas was 60 cents a gallon and I was careful not to use too much. I never expected to buy a house and raise a family on that job. After a year and a half, I got a job in a factory for $6.75 an hour. Woohoo!

If there had been a "minimum wage" of $15.00 an hour, that warehouse job would not have been available to me. With no experience and no documented skills, I was not worth 15 bucks an hour. Without that work experience I could not have gotten the factory job. I would have been one of the Unemployed Youth. It took me over 10 years to work my way up to $15.00 an hour.

Today, I are a 'Lectronics Engineer with over 20 years experience, and making substantially more than $6.75, but without that "menial" $2.45 warehouse job it would have been a lot tougher getting here.

So I say to all those protesters, if you want more money, get up off your dead asses and make yourselves worth more. Go to night school, go to the library, get an apprenticeship. Don't demand that politicians pander to you and prohibit employers from paying you what you're actually worth - you WON'T like the results.
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At my house, the "things that go bump in the night" are cats.

FLHerne wrote:In the UK, we have unemployment benefit payments, for an unlimited period, that are sufficient to live on and are paid if you're of working age and not employed or in education.

Unlike (I believe) the system in the US, there are no time limits. The bit that prevents Haven-style problems is that to recieve them you must to prove to the DWP that you're making a genuine attempt to find work - i.e. show application letters, go to interviews, and they may outright tell you "apply for [this position] if you want to keep your benefits".

Here in the U.S.A. the unemployment department keeps track of your work history. While you are working, you accumulate umemployment credits, and if you lose your job, you can collect money based on how much credit you have and how much you were paid for the last 2 quarters. It's calculated to last 26 weeks if you've worked long enough to reach the maximum. From time to time the government approves an additional 12 to 26 weeks of "extended unemployment", usually right before an election.
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Why do so many idiots believe that the way to fix our problems is to keep voting for the same shitheads that caused them?

Funny thing I read today (This is going to be a long detour, bear with me).

So you know how we're making really good progress in making self-driving cars? To the point where self-driving vehicles have logged over a million kilometers, and the only accidents (of which there were very few) were caused by humans?

And did you know that self-driving trucks are an even easier problem, one that is pretty much solved?

And did you know that truck driver or delivery driver is a really good job for people with minimal qualifications? One that pays well enough that the 3.5 million truck drivers need a direct service industry that employs a further 5 million people, and that these 8 million people, and the various needs they have, allow an untold number of other people to have jobs?

Put the two together, what do you get?

That's right. Give it another 15 to 20 years, allow self-driving trucks and cars to penetrate the market, and a whole bunch of these people will no longer be employable. Shipping companies already have a problem finding new hires today; the prospect of cutting out drivers and their various needs is very attractive to them.

This, of course, has knock-on effects. Those 5 million people who directly support the truck drivers? Most of them are gonna be out of a job too. All the service infrastructure for truckers and other long-distance drivers? That's going to get downsized rather drastically too.

Which means that you guys in the US, with your incredibly stupid fetish for pulling yourself up by the bootstraps without outside (or, god forbid, government) assistance, are heading straight into an even worse situation than the one you are in today.

You can rail against concepts like minimum wage, or even this Basic Living Stipend idea all you want. But do make sure that you have a plan for when you're no longer able to get a real job with actual prospects through no fault of your own.

Now, think about how many jobs there are that cannot be automated in some way.

Well, what if thats becuase theres no need to increase the value of unskilled labour, due to that already happening at persentage points per year, so the argunment is: you get more work out of us, why shouldnt we get more money from the boss? OECD figures show an increase in gdp per hour worked increasing from 90 dollars in 2001 to 111 dollars in 2013 for US workers,, or an increase of productivity levels by 22%, with the numbers indexed to constant value dollar, at the value of the USD's worth in 2005. Yet, their pay has been decreasing in real terms, with minimum pay increases for those at or near the minimum wage only slowing the amount of income thye lose to inflation ( http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth484/minwage.html. In 1970, porductivity per person was 54 dollars per hour, so to match the inflation adjusted wage to keep pay per productivity constant, the min wage would have to be 16 dollars. Even if you ignore the increase in productivity, to reach the same amount of real wages for a worker would still require a pay rise to $8, at minimum, to meet the same purchasing power for their income as they had when their work produced half as much as today.

Imaginos1892 wrote:It's funny that those clamoring to Raise The Minimum Wage don't have a thing to say about increasing the VALUE of unskilled labor, only the COST, and it is not within the government's power to force employers to PAY some arbitrary Minimum Wage, only to punish them for paying less. This has a number of consequences that they either don't think about or won't acknowledge.

The first one is that when unskilled labor costs two or three times what it's worth, businesses stop hiring. The entry-level jobs disappear, and with them goes any opportunity for an 18 year old just out of high school. If they are required to pay more, they will hire people who are worth more. This cuts the bottom rungs off the career ladder.

Then, because there is no choice but to hire some employees, business costs increase and so they must raise prices. Sooner than you would believe possible, this comes full circle and the new Minimum Wage's actual purchasing power is diluted until it's about equal to the old minimum wage. At which point, they start clamoring for yet another increase. It becomes the Red Queen's Race - it takes all the running you can do to go nowhere.

In addition, those skilled and experienced workers who were making what is now minimum wage believe, with good reason, that they are worth more. More costs, more price increases.

Finally they propose the ultimate stupidity: index the Minimum Wage to inflation. Since all costs are ultimately labor costs, this sets up a positive feedback loop which causes the subject variable to increase uncontrollably until it hits some sort of limit. What is the limit of inflation? As far as we know, there is no limit. See the Weimar Republic about that.

My first job was stacking boxes in a warehouse for $2.45 an hour. Let me tell you, $2.45 was NOT a "living wage" even then. I rented one room, drove a $200 beater and went to night school. Gas was 60 cents a gallon and I was careful not to use too much. I never expected to buy a house and raise a family on that job. After a year and a half, I got a job in a factory for $6.75 an hour. Woohoo!

If there had been a "minimum wage" of $15.00 an hour, that warehouse job would not have been available to me. With no experience and no documented skills, I was not worth 15 bucks an hour. Without that work experience I could not have gotten the factory job. I would have been one of the Unemployed Youth. It took me over 10 years to work my way up to $15.00 an hour.

Today, I are a 'Lectronics Engineer with over 20 years experience, and making substantially more than $6.75, but without that "menial" $2.45 warehouse job it would have been a lot tougher getting here.

So I say to all those protesters, if you want more money, get up off your dead asses and make yourselves worth more. Go to night school, go to the library, get an apprenticeship. Don't demand that politicians pander to you and prohibit employers from paying you what you're actually worth - you WON'T like the results.
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At my house, the "things that go bump in the night" are cats.

The E wrote:...snip...

Which means that you guys in the US, with your incredibly stupid fetish for pulling yourself up by the bootstraps without outside (or, god forbid, government) assistance, are heading straight into an even worse situation than the one you are in today.

You can rail against concepts like minimum wage, or even this Basic Living Stipend idea all you want. But do make sure that you have a plan for when you're no longer able to get a real job with actual prospects through no fault of your own.

Now, think about how many jobs there are that cannot be automated in some way.

Funny thing about the government and federal unemployment rate.

In ~Dec 2012 according to http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/12 ... udget-deal 1.3 million were going to lose the benefit. An additional 3.6 Million by the end of 2014.

Somehow according to http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?id=UNEMPLOY ~4 million jobs appeared out of thin air. Since January 2013.

The number of unemployed show a change in trends before and after the fed stopped supporting a "emergency" measure (which started in 2008 under President Bush and an all democratic congress). Which seems to support BLS encouraging people to not work.

And now the US unemployment rate is 5.4 percent.

So how does this compare to New Zealand 5.8%.

Australia 6.2%

Germany 6.8%

Lots of other things go into whether it is worth while to be employed and is contained in the stats--very important one is participation rate but then with an aging population and social security it gets real murky.

Just thought as when we were not doing so well many were happy to point out how their unemployment rates were better.

As far as jobs disappearing I think Mr. Weber has it better than most. Jobs disappear and appear. Remarkably few seem to work on farms where automation really got its start. Unless of course the computer age cubicle farm is included.

I of course am a another prime example 20 years of so called work and I am done because, the US foolishly in a lot of ways, pays me to keep breathing.

For Spacekiwi (made sure I go this right this time ) are people living better now on the money they make than they did then.

Darn tooting! Simple example number of households that now have Air Conditioning. Which I still don't but then I am cheap.

Also not sure how to factor the various taxes into it. For example our Social Security tax 1/2 of which is paid by the employer. 6.4% that isn't in there and was dramatically less in 1970. Does the OECD include that number. Or how much other cost to business is involved in the various government regulations and requirements, Affordable Care Act. Or if the employer is paying medical insurance in either time. If they are making the equivalent of a few thousand dollars in unpaid benefits that makes a difference.

According to what I understand from Daryl's explanation worker gets paid and the government then taxes it away. Which in a lot of ways seems like a good deal in Australia as the rate seems nominal for what they get. Would it ever work in the US? I am really skeptical.

Love to make this a simple thing. Is the average person's life better now than 1970. Is as simple as it gets to me. Could it be better yet, absolutely. How to get there is a question.

Have fun all,
T2M

Other then the minor detail that there are more people not working than ever before, in both constant numbers and as a percentage of the eligible population, things are looking up in the US for employment.

Go here if you want to play with numbers, but in 1999 67% of the eligible US population had a job. Today it's under 63% and still seems to be dropping long-term.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united- ... ation-rate

kzt wrote:Other then the minor detail that there are more people not working than ever before, in both constant numbers and as a percentage of the eligible population, things are looking up in the US for employment.

[img=600x300]http://www.tradingeconomics.com/embed/?s=unitedstalabforparra&d1=19990101&d2=20151231&h=300&w=600&ref=/united-states/labor-force-participation-rate[/img]

Quibble. Not ever before. The chart you linked only goes back to 2001. Which is sort of cherry picked point.

Go to: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/gr ... NU01300000

Since the 1970's. And much less before that. Good thing bad thing good question too many factors involved.

Have fun,
T2M

PS. If it doesn't come up [edit]go to: https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/g ... data-tools [end edit] just click add a data series and enter "Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate" select seasonal adjusted for smoothed lines.

Shucks I just remembered how to post the charts.





Just in time for me to start my yearly wander next week.

Though I wouldn't have thought there were more unemployed in 1982 than now. Considering how much the population had grown.



Have fun,
T2M

thinkstoomuch wrote:Though I wouldn't have thought there were more unemployed in 1982 than now. Considering how much the population had grown.

Unemployment only counts people who are actively looking for work and who are known to the government as doing so. In 1982 people had hope of finding a new job. There are a lot of people who have abandoned hope of finding a job and exhausted benefits that require they make formal efforts, so they are not counted as unemployed.

The majority of the drop in unemployment over the past few years has been due to people stopping job searches after abandoning hope, not because they got a job.

There are an average of about 330,000 people who turn 18 every month. So for employment to catch up you need to employ them AND the people who lost their jobs during the downturn. Economists think 500,000 a month is a good number to improve things. We reached that exactly once in the last 6 years. Ok, how about 240,000? I count 16 months out of the last 6 years that we hit 240,00 jobs.

The biggest difference today from yesterday, is the number of young adults packing on the debt in the form of useless college degrees. The ubiquitness of college students pulling loans for schooling they cannot afford is staggering today compared to a couple generations ago.

This is a giant ripple effect. Effectively it severely weakens the lower middle class. How it changes the future, I do not know. Another major difference today is that people feel more than justified throwing a sizeable chunk of their monthly paycheck away on cell phones, internet, cable, before even contemplating buying a home, a car etc. They all think they must have a dog or three as well.

Just rented our home in Denver to a young couple with an IMMENSE debt even though they make GOOD money($65,000/yr each) They do not have a prayer of buying a home even in 10 years. They are not unique. Everyone walking through our renters door is the exact same. There are more "things" pulling ones monthly income away than in years past. Heck, in Generation X, it is unique to OWN your home and actually gain money in the form of equity. Oh the horror of it, you may have to fix your home. Of course you gain thousands of dollars every year. Just wait till all these Generation X folks get near retirement and are still renting. Then they will Bitch and whine that social absurdity does not cover their short sighted pampered asses. Oh wait, that is already true today with the baby boomers and they didn't start with nearly as much debt in the form of student loans and credit cards...

These are the major reasons the "minimum" wage has to be increased in their minds. To help save their pampered short sighted asses.

Who was whining that our jobs are going to the rest of the world who doesn't get a "hostess" 4 year "degree" in "Hotel management" which when they get out of "college"(AKA PARTY TIME) with their useless degree are "shocked" that it only pays minimum wage and anyone without the degree can do it just as well as them... Certain niece comes to mind. Sure hope she had fun in Italy "studying", how to use common sense regarding being a hostess.

Ye Godz, then they have the gall to ask you (me) for a handout as I have "tons of money"(I do not go on long assed vacations, cruises, do not go out to eat, I cook, I do not have cell phone bills, I scrapped and scrimped to buy my home, so my "RENT" actually pays ME, instead of a landlord for ownership, and in their eyes, I am nothing but a selfish prick for not "giving" them money, pulling them out of their own stupidity and selfishness of which they have no thought of changing, that they, might, just might have been a lazy pampered douche who MAY actually need to change how they live. Well yes, I suppose I do have money! I didn't waste 4 years of my life getting a useless degree! I didn't load myself with debt getting said degree either! I worked instead of partying!


Ask these people if they are going to change their lifestyle if I give them money and immedietely you get this mulish, hateful look of, "How Dare you judge me!" Well yes, you are asking me for MY LIFE(accumulated $$$), I only have so many hours in my life to expend, and why should I just "hand over" my life to you who have proven you have wasted yours?

Now if they asked me to help them go BACK TO SCHOOL and get a USEFUL degree, I would help them out and have done so for several foster kids I have worked with who realized they were shortsighted stupid Shits and wanted to change their life! Ah, yes, but I am the selfish one...



Yup, people. Always looking for the lazy way out. It is always someone elses' fault they are not rich and powerful. If only the "minimum" wage were higher, their life would be full of roses

It is lazyness and nothing else.