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The same arguments wer emade against child labor laws and the 40 hour workweek.

Pardon me if I don't base economic, monetary and moral policy on the economic understanding of the manager of a drug store.

The fact is, he will still be hiring the bottom of the wage pool. There won;t magically be a new set of workers who weren't willing to stock shelves for $5.15 an hour but will happily do it for $6.00.

Come on, Doug, this is simple. The federal minimum wage has not increased since 1997. Real wages are lower than they were in 1970. We have been hearing about the great economy, but those at the low end of the economic scale have not benefitted from that economy.

Since the imposition of the minimum wage, we have heard those on the right decrying it as socialist and/or doomsday for the capitalist economy. Teenagers would lose their summer jobs. Low education workers will be forced out of the market. Small business will suffer.

No. No. A thousand times no. It did not happen.

What did happen is that people are better able to feed their families.

But in amoral society governed only by profit, I guess that doesn't count for much.

Similar principles apply here. Unskilled workers need jobs, which not only provide some earnings but offer opportunities to gain skills and move up to better positions. But employers aren't in business to overpay workers. They want value for the wages they pay. An unintended effect of raising the minimum wage could be a shifting of jobs from one set of workers to another, so that some of those who need the most help will actually end up worse off.* Doug

A simple 101 econ answer! In 1997! Was the kid who cut your grass the local high school teen trying to save a few bucks up for a car or is your present grass cutting service made up by the neigborhood teens?

If you were the owner of a 24/7 service center and had 10 employees. What would you do with the present hourly scale for the employees?

Using simple government enforce math!
10 employees increase per hour = 24 bucks per shift increase X 3 = 73 bucks per day X 7 days per week = 503 bucks increase per week x 4 weeks = 2000 bucks per month increase.

If your net profit is 4 % after all overhead and costs before the increase labor costs!

1. Do you let go 4 employees and make the other 6 work twice as hard or do you go to your local banker and try to borrow more money? After your banker turns you down for the loan. Do you raise the price at the pumps and blame it on the Republicans for the increase labor costs?

2. Or do you blame it on the Democrats for not providing the proper educational training for better employees who will work harder?

DFL, if it's so simple why doesn't the government raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour? Then everyone can join the middle class.

I'm surprised you think it's an indication of an amoral society to follow a profit motive. Don't you work in the business world? I believe even law firms operate with the goal of making a profit. If they fail to do so, I imagine they'll lay off employees. What would happen if some outside authority suddenly forced your firm to raise its labor costs by 20 percent? Just pass the cost on to clients and business as usual? Or would there be perhaps some negative consequence?

No matter how much you might wish that simply raising the minimum wage will help everyone and hurt no one, real life isn't always so neat and clean. While overall employment levels may not fall significantly as a result of a higher minimum wage, there is evidence of churning, of more qualified workers displacing those who are less qualified. Yes, that nasty urge to make a profit is a driving force in economics. Employers really do want commensurate productivity for what they pay for labor. If they pay more, they want more. The only question is: How are they going to get it?

"Today's story by Eric Townsend gives a hint of that. It quotes the manager of the Family Dollar store on East Market Street, Mark Clark, as applauding because the higher wage will attract better employees."

Doug, what I fail to understand about Mr. Townsend's comment is why he needs to rely on an increase of the minimum wage to pay a higher wage to workers. If his store could benefit by attracting a better class of employee by paying a higher wage, then he is certainly free to do so. The government doesn't mandate that a business "must" pay the minimum wage. There's something that I am not understanding here. Your better businesses don't pay minimum wage anyway because they realize that better wages attract more skilled employees which enables their business to perform at a higher level. Doh!

Good question. My guess would be that the local manager quoted doesn't set the wages paid, that corporate HQ somewhere does.

And therein lies the crux of the issue. Many private businesses, given the opportunity, will pay the least amount they can get away with. It blows my mind that while the regulations that created the middle class in America are being gutted, people have the audacity to speak of something like the Minimum Wage as if it were a harmful thing.

Compared to NAFTA and CAFTA it is very harmless. Compared to the so-called Free-Market philosophy, it is very harmless. The minimum wage, Doug, is about keeping the scoundrels at bay. If the Market can bear to pay more, as the Drug store manager indicates, then why aren't they paying more? I can make an educated guess: Because they don't HAVE to.

It irks me to see this pervasive lack of principle in our society- and it is a LACK of principle. If I did only what I HAD to do, then my volunteerism would be nothing, my charity donations would be nothing, my sense of community would be nothing. Instead, I believe that we all have a stake in raising up the community- and if that means helping folks out of poverty who work for scoundrels, then so be it.

That's quite evil of employers to pay the least they can get away with -- unless they want greater productivity and are willing to pay more for better employees.

We evil consumers are part of the problem, too, because, all else being equal, we try to buy food, clothing, shelter, transportation and so on for the lowest price we can get away with.

Should the government set higher prices for goods on the theory that the economy will be stronger if more money is spent?

Should the government set higher prices for goods on the theory that the economy will be stronger if more money is spent?*Doug

Nixon try that one day and everybody went huh? A Republican setting wage and price controls?

Ah, good one Doug. A perfectly executed Republican straw man argument. Holding an untenable position??? Quick, accuse your opponent of hating capitalism!

I never said that the profit motive was equal to amorality. I said that looking ONLY to profit was amoral.

You should understand that more than most, since the industry you are employed in is currently jettisoning nearly every standard of professional competence in the chase for advertising dollars.

Does "short form stories" mean anything to you? Watch CNN lately?

What straw man? We're talking about economics. And maybe morality, which you seem to define as how much someone else should pay to achieve your social objectives. How much profit is moral, anyway, and how much is immoral? If it's moral to raise the minimum wage by a buck, wouldn't it be twice as moral to dictate a $2 hike? Is there no one in the General Assembly with that degree of morality? Or is there a general recognition that a $2 increase might cause some painful repercussions negating whatever gain some workers might achieve? If so, isn't there the possibility of some similar consequences with even a lesser wage increase? The economic science really is not very precise on these points. The real world, unfortunately, doesn't always work the way moralists would have it. This debate is not as simple as you make it out: Good guys want poor people to have more money; bad guys don't. "Bad guys" are asking where this money is coming from and suggesting at least some of it might come from the very people "good guys" think they're helping.

THe straw man was your accusation that I was equating the profit motive with amorality - which is an easily demolished point, had I actually tried to make it, which I didn't.

You are correct in stating that the level of an increase is a complicated thing. It is very similar to setting the proper level of income taxation. Let's take your normal argument to the extreme - wouldn;t we spur untold economic growth by ridding ourselves of all taxation?

While the level is indeed a complex question, the question of whether or not a minimum wage is in fact needed is a simple one, and one which was settled decades ago. The fact that it has been allowed to stay stable, for the longest time since its inception, while everything from gas prices to the salaries of Republican members of Congress have increased substantially, is a telling indicator of the priorities of those in power.

The "bad guys" you so generopusly paraphrase have been making the same argument since they argued against child labor laws and the Sherman Antitrust Act. Teddy Roosevelt didn't believe them, and neither do I.

The minimum wage has remained stable but actual wages have not. They adjust to market conditions. (You can argue that they haven't kept up with inflation; that's due to globalization and the impact of massive illegal immigration.) We'd do a whole lot better to improve the educational level of our work force. A high school diploma alone is worth a lot more than a $1 an hour increase in the minimum wage.

By the way, is it a straw man to drag child labor into this debate? As if those who argue that a minimum wage hike isn't really going to help workers on the bottom rung also would approve of 8-year-olds working in the coal mines?

Doug,

Thank you for returning this argument to the root. Education is the issue, not minimum wage. If all of our citizens would take getting a real education seriously, then they wouldn't be in a position of having to take a minimum wage job because they are unskilled and uneducated. Forget the phony high school certificates issued when the person is functionally illerate and can't do basic math.

Education and skills are the issue. Employers pay employees for performing the responsibilities of a job and/or achieving results in support of the company. People without education and skills are limited in what contributions they can make to a company, thus, a company isn't interested in overpaying them. Like it or not, our country still operates on the basis of a capitalistic society. People are paid a wage for performing a job. Setting a minimum wage is inherently a socialistic principle. Our country has it's inclinations toward socialism, but it's capitalism that has made it great and will continue to do so.

We should spend a great deal more time working on getting an educated populace than worrying about mandating a minimum wage. Let's face it, who wants to work for minimum wage anyway? Making people more valuable through education and acquisition of skills puts them in the positon of commanding a greater wage. This should be our national goal and concern, not minimally raising a minimum wage.

If a company is populated with minimum wage employees, then it is a company not likely to survive long-term, as it's products and/or service will clearly be inferior to its competitors that employ skilled and more highly-educated employees.

Exactly right. Thanks.

No, mentioning child labor is not a straw man, because I did not state that you approved of child labor and then proceed to destroy the argument for child labor as a proxy for addressing your argument. Merely pointing out the commonalities and the common history between arguments against the minimum wage and arguments against child labor is not setting up a straw man argument.

I could not agree more that the solution to low wages is higher education. That's why I look forward to your next article supporting education expenditures, and Stormy, I am sure you'll approve of the next bond referendum. Right?

Yes, I've always been a strong proponent of education and have demonstrated that through personal involvement in a lot of ways. Not that "more money" always provides a magic solution, because if it did we'd already have the best schools in the world.

DrFrankLives,

Please expand on your thoughts that higher education is not the solution to low wages. I would be very interested in your spin on that. I don't see how arbitrarily increasing wages benefits of society. Improving education helps everyone. Just increasing wages without any corresponding worker productivity translates into income distribution, which is inherently a socialistic proposition. Of course, that may be your political philosophy, but it isn't the one that will advance our country's economic position in the world. Are you aware that our school graduates rank about 20th in developed countries in the world? This is a terrible result.

More money for the public schools? More bonds? As Doug stated, more money is not the answer to better schools. Here is a quote from the Macinac Center for Public Policy:

"The fact that measures of educational results have been stagnant or even slightly declining over the past several decades ought to alert Michigan citizens that simply hiking school spending – as we’ve already been doing for decades – will do nothing by itself to improve learning for Michigan’s children. In fact, increased spending distracts us from addressing the lack of incentives for public schools to fulfill their most vital mission: the quality instruction of students."

If you want to read the full article, go here:

http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=7761

No, I would not currently support another bond referendum as long as we have the current school board leadership. They have proven that they are unable or unwilling to be good stewards of the public funds and trust. Their waste of taxpayer funds is criminal, as shown by the fact that it costs twice as much in this county to build a school as it does in neighboring Forsyth County. 1,200 seat Northern High = $41+ million, and still uncompleted. 1,200 seat Reagan and Atkins = $47 million total, completed and in use for one year.

More money does not equal a better education. We spend more than $ 1/2 billion per year in Guilford and have the worst school system in the state. We could have that honor and spend a lot less.

"Please expand on your thoughts that higher education is not the solution to low wages..."

HUH? I said the opposite.

"I could not agree more that the solution to low wages is higher education."

Oh, sorry, I didn't read it in the affirmative as written.