There is a need for better sales all over the
country. A higher minimum wage brings
better sales. Looking at my own self and the many like me, that go broke in the first
or second week after payday. So I and many hold their breath for the rest of the month.
~~~~Walmart Could Actually Benefit From Minimum-Wage Hike
"Walmart caters to workers on a budget and they can expect that if those workers
get an increase, they will spend the money in their stores," Catherine Ruetschlin,
a policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning public policy organization, told
The Huffington Post. "These low-wage workers are the real job creators in the economy;
they’re the people that go out and spend.”
Walmart and other big chain stores that serve lower-income shoppers are hurting.
Their customers don't have much cash right now -- stagnant wages, higher taxes and
rising gas prices have left many living close to the edge.
"The consumer doesn't quite have the discretionary income, or they're hesitant to
spend what they do have," Charles Holly, Walmart's chief financial officer, told
reporters on a call last month, after the company announced an unexpected quarterly
drop in sales in U.S. stores.
Walmart hasn't taken a formal stance on Obama's proposal to raise the minimum wage from
$7.25 per hour to $9 per hour. But the company has been a vocal opponent of a growing
worker movement demanding retailers and fast food chains pay a living wage -- generally
around $12 per hour. Walmart recently iced plans for three new stores in Washington, D.C.,
after the city council passed an ordinance targeted at big-box retailers demanding they start
their wages at $12.50 per hour.
Walmart says raising worker pay won't affect the economy's real problem of the lack of
middle class jobs. Bill Simon, the company's CEO, wrote in a recent HuffPost blog post:
This approach is not the way to strengthen our middle class. Not only is it based on a
fundamental misunderstanding of labor markets, it doesn't address the real issue
the lack of good jobs in the middle. And it fails to understand the role of entry-level jobs,
including those in restaurants, hospitality and retail, as a starting point a chance to
build skills and begin taking on bigger jobs.
Some conservative economists and other employers who have resisted paying their workers
more say the laws of supply and demand dictate that higher wages will lead to less hiring
and more firing, worsening the plight of low-wage workers. Better a low-paying job than
no job at all, this view holds.
But the economics of the minimum wage may be more complicated than a simple
supply-demand curve. David Cooper, an economic analyst with the left-leaning
Economic Policy Institute, agrees with Demos's Ruetschlin that the sluggish economic
recovery means a boost in the minimum wage could push low-income workers to
spend more, and in many cases they’d spend that money at low-priced
outlets like Walmart.
“If suddenly all these low-wage workers have more income, they are likely to spend
that money right away,” Cooper said. “If these retailers want strong, stable sustainable
growth in the U.S. economy, then they should also want strong, stable increases in
wages to their employees.”
And because Walmart is the largest private-sector employer in the country, a move to
raise wages there could lead other employers to follow suit, in turn giving those workers
more money to spend. (While the retailer is unlikely to raise wages on its own,
a government-mandated increase in the minimum wage could have a similar effect.)
“By raising the minimum wage, it puts more businesses on an even playing field,”
Cooper said. “If an employee at McDonald’s or Pizza Hut suddenly has additional income,
they could spend it at Walmart.”
The data linking an increase in wages to a rise in consumer spending -- particularly at a
specific retail outlet -- is a bit thin, but there’s “very strong anecdotal evidence in support
of that claim,” said Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Center on Budget
and Policy Priorities and a former economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.
Retail analysts that cover stores like Walmart often argue that whenever customers see an
influx of cash say, on payday -- low-priced retailers see a corresponding uptick in sales,
Bernstein noted.
Even if higher wages for its workers didn't lead to an immediate boost in profits for
Walmart, it likely wouldn't lead to a drop. Evidence shows that companies forced
to raise wages generally come away unscathed, according to Stephanie Luce,
an associate professor of Labor Studies at the City University of New York
who has researched Walmart and the minimum wage.
A review of recent research from the Center for Economic and Policy Research
found that when state and local lawmakers raised the minimum wage in their areas,
the move resulted in limited or no job loss. That’s because raising the minimum wage
reduces employee turnover, increases efficiency and sometimes results in an earnings
drop for high-wage employees all of which are enough to offset the increased
labor costs for companies.
“We have examples of employers that have had to raise their wages they’ve
always cried that they can’t afford it, but we’ve never found that after the
fact they’ve gone out of business," Luce said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/04/minimum-wage-raise-walmart_n_3831752.html
The wages does need to go up to cover inflation. Other towns are more likely doing better
than many small towns, like mine. So in those other towns the people are living,
buying things that drives up the cost because they have to make more of those things
people are buying. Labor, materials etc to make more of those things.
So the cost of those things go up as your small town keeps the pay low ending,
in many people like me that would not buy those things because of the cost!
Also is the same principle of raising the cost to cover the cost of higher wages.
That also is when many poor will not buy those things.
They will buy cheaper with their better pay still making better sales!
In fact higher wages for the working poor saves money in lower food stamp usage.
Better sales can bring down sales tax because of the money flowing.
More money made is more taxed going to the State then to their budgets, schools,
police etc. Also more over is more into Federal taxes, paying the
the national debt faster! More money going into Social Security!
~~~~The Great American Rip-off: The High Cost of Low Taxes
The High Cost of Low Taxes:
Delinking taxes
from the services they pay for has arguably been the modern
conservative
movement’s greatest success. No politician has ever been booed off
a
stage for promising to cut taxes. But decades of public opinion polling
shows that,
with a few exceptions, Americans are actually quite fond of
the goods and services
the public sector provides. They may be wary of
the idea of “big government”
in the abstract, but they like
well-maintained infrastructure, safe food and clean water,
efficient
firefighting and policing, Medicare and Social Security and virtually
every other
government-provided service you can name.
This paradox
is well known to politicians and policymakers, and has caused a good
deal of hand-wringing among those who favor a progressive tax system
that raises enough
funds to cover the services Americans expect. But
there’s another consequence of
anti-tax demagoguery: low, low taxes come
with a steep cost. In fact, a lower tax bill
especially for federal
taxes actually works
against the economic interests of most Americans.
http://billmoyers.com/2013/10/29/the-great-american-ripoff-the-high-cost-of-low-taxes
Low taxes also comes from less money made! I am sure you have seen or heard
of how many poor family's turn in their car to kill they payment, insurance, gas cost,
to get more money for rent or food, because of a food stamp cut.
There are many of them still in my town. I thought about doing it way back, being
it would of saved me close to $400 a month in cost. I was willing to walk!
The point of that those people that are unsupported enough to do that bring down
the town with them. It scares away the "Rich People" from coming to town to spend
money! But yes they now have $400 in their pocket, but that is to cover rent and food etc,
it goes fast!
Also is the job losses from low pay. Way back when we had ALEC pushing places
to keep the pay low. And many workers did not get a raise in years.
http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed
NO SALES, as many just stopped shopping. Added the housing market pushes
toward the poor that could not afford a house. I worked at Walmart at that time,
I have seen a pamphlet in the break room for the workers to get a mortgage.
At the time it was funner than shit being we made $6.80+ after taxes,
but it was a bad thing in the end!
The flat wages stopped any growth, more noted in small towns.
~~~~Research Shows Minimum Wage Increases Do Not Cause Job Loss
Extensive research refutes the claim that
increasing the minimum wage causes
increased unemployment and business
closures.
The buying power of the minimum wage reached its
peak in 1968 at $10.74,
adjusting for inflation in 2013 dollars. The
unemployment rate went from 3.8%
in 1967 to 3.6% in 1968 to 3.5% in
1969. The next time the unemployment rate came
close to those levels was
after the minimum wage raises of 1996 and 1997.
Business Week observed in 2001, “Many economists have backed away from
the argument that minimum wage [laws] lead to fewer jobs.”
Numerous states raised their minimum wages higher
than the federal level during
the 1997-2007 period the federal minimum
wage remained stuck at $5.15.
Research by the Fiscal Policy Institute
and others showed that states that raised their
minimum wages above the
federal level experienced better employment and small business
trends
than states that did not.
A series of rigorous studies by the Institute for
Research on Labor and Employment
at the University of California,
Berkeley, significantly advances the research on
minimum wage employment
effects. Minimum Wage Effects Across State Borders
compared
all neighboring counties in the U.S. located on different sides of a
state border
with different minimum wage levels between 1990 and 2006
and found no adverse
employment effects from higher minimum wages.
The Institute for Research on Labor and Employment’s Spacial Heterogeneity
and Minimum Wages: Employment Estimates for Teens Using Cross-State
Commuting Zones found “no discernable disemployment effect, even when
minimum wage increases lead to relatively large wage changes.”
Do Minimum Wages Really Reduce Teen Employment?
analyzed the 1990-2009 period (an earlier version analyzed 1990-2007).
Carefully controlling for more factors than previous minimum wage
studies, the
researchers found the answer is no.
In a 2013 report, Why Does the Minimum Wage Have No Discernible Effect on
Employment?, the
Center for Economic and Policy Research spotlights two recent
meta
studies analyzing the extensive research conducted since the early
1990s; they conclude
that "the minimum wage has little or no discernible
effect on the employment prospects
of low-wage workers. The most likely
reason for this outcome is that the cost shock
of the minimum wage is
small relative to most firms' overall costs and only modest relative
to
the wages paid to low-wage workers." The Center report explores varied
means of
adjustment by employers such as increased worker productivity
and diminished wage gap
between lower and higher paid employees, noting,
"But, probably the most important
channel of adjustment is through
reductions in labor turnover, which yield significant
cost savings to employers."
http://www.businessforsharedprosperity.org
Really in the end the wages need to go up. And to the fact of the Corporate welfare
many places put on! It's very clear when you follow the money of those businesses.
Knowing the cost of higher wages takes a load off many people, it makes more sales!
There will be some "Fox News, morons" that will cut jobs, but they will come back
as many in your town will stand in line at the Dollar General etc, wanting to spend their
better paycheck there with only one cashier, DUR!
Walmart for one likes to hide that fact. You just have to look at the studies.
"This study uses the most recent data available to update the 2007 report
on the
impact to workers and shoppers if Walmart increased its
minimum wage. It finds that a
$12 per hour minimum wage would provide
substantial benefits to
Walmart workers in low-income families, while
the costs would be dispersed
in small amounts among many consumers
across the income spectrum."
http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/research/walmart.shtml
As for me a good way of thinking and a good way of life is:
In Praise of Idleness
By Bertrand Russell
http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
