First off, the notifications on this site have become horrible. Useless. I checked in and was reading new posts to realize I was 9 pages back!
Oh well. I am sure what I had to say would have been life changing for everyone involved...haha.
Quick question: for those who don't believe in the govt mandating things, what about things like the minimum wage?
For example, in the US a Mcdonalds employee makes like $9 an hour?
In NZ the minimum wage is $18.75. So all Mcdonalds employees will earn at least that.
If you believe that companies self regulate; they don't. They will pay staff the minimum required to maximize turnover. Why do people assume companies will self regulate wages?
Minimum wage, with minimal understanding of economics, can be seen to hurt employees and help corporations. There is NO situation that people think it is good for sellers of a product (in this case, employees selling labor) to have a known, agreed upon price.
Sure, this is supposed to be a minimum price, but it doesn't work that way. McDonald's and Burgerking don't have to compete for labor - they know what the other is paying and if someone wants more they know they can replace them with another worker and that that person cannot go elsewhere and get more. Minimum wage tips the leverage in the favor of the employee. It is insidious and abuses poor people.
No, it doesnt lol. That's the argument that corporations use to avoid paying their staff more money. Guess what actually happens?
People make more money, so they spend more money. Funny how that works.
But we could probably argue this around in circles
You are applying macro economic theory to microeconomics situations here. If you have to pay employees $20/hour and they can make 2 products in that hour, and the other costs of making those 2 products is $30 - you really cannot be selling that product for $25 each no matter how much more your employees are buying from you. And if you want or have to pay them $21 an hour, you will go out of business not raising prices. If you don't and you double your sales, you will just go under faster.
If you want to take a macro look, then you realize employee wages are THE factor to watch for in regard to inflation. THIS is why the fed controls interest rates.
If we have a literal 100% employment, theoretically, and an employee demands a wage increase - you have no choice but to give it to him/her because you have no one to replace them with. Everyone else has jobs. Soon everyone realizes this and demands more and more and prices have to go up and up to compensate. This is how you get runaway inflation and the feds manipulate the interest rate to increase the cost of debt, and ultimately unemploy some people to keep a pool available. Employee costs are well known to drive inflation.
Wages should be whatever is agreed upon by employer and employee. Keep the govt out of it. Everyone’s time is worth something else to themselves.
Really? But, but, but then big corporations will take advantage and pay people less....
oh, wait...what, we have an example if what you said? How did that work out?
See below...
*(obvious sarcastic post)
That's fair, I think Denmark does it this way and a McDs employee earns $21 per hour
A real world example of the economic theory I laid out above in play. Funny that without a minimum wage, the employees are making more, huh?
