President Obama proposes raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour

[-:Undertaker:-]

President Obama proposes raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour

In the State of the Union address last week, President Obama proposed raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour. Now, good some might think - it'll help people, right? well wrong, as the video below explains in a light fashion.



She does quite a few videos on different topics, and just thought some may find them interesting as to why certain do-gooder ideas are actually bad when you analyse them and the results. Anywho, if you're interested/want your opinion challenged then its worth a watch.

[Chippiewill]

Raising the minimum wage would be an issue if the only people on minimum wage are teenagers. Minimum wage jobs are intended as stepping stones to jobs with a wage required for living on.

Unfortunately far too many people who are financially independent (aka not getting money from parents) are stuck on minimum wage jobs which is far BELOW that required to meet various payments and to generally survive on with any kind of reasonable hours worked per day.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Raising the minimum wage would be an issue if the only people on minimum wage are teenagers. Minimum wage jobs are intended as stepping stones to jobs with a wage required for living on.

Unfortunately far too many people who are financially independent (aka not getting money from parents) are stuck on minimum wage jobs which is far BELOW that required to meet various payments and to generally survive on with any kind of reasonable hours worked per day.

Because the government takes it away from them in taxes. It's a self-defeating cycle.

It's also the case that there's such a number of older people on low wages because it took them so long to move from job to job when younger purely because of the restrictions imposed by the minimum wage. For example, rather than a teenager training on $1.50 and learning valuable skills at age 16, he's say on social security until he's 20 when he finally finds a job... that's 4 years worth of experience wasted because of the barrier created via the minimum wage. Again, the self-defeating cycle.

[Chippiewill]

Because the government takes it away from them in taxes. It's a self-defeating cycle.

Well Obama would like to raise taxes on the rich and lower them for the poor..

---------- Post added 20-02-2013 at 08:57 PM ----------

that's 4 years worth of experience wasted because of the barrier created via the minimum wage. Again, the self-defeating cycle.

They can still take an unpaid intern-ship.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Well Obama would like to raise taxes on the rich and lower them for the poor..

Would he? I have seen no evidence of that other than his cheap rhetoric. And besides, even if you did do that - it still would still hurt the poor as hurting the rich consquently hurts the poor. The type of people who support 'Robin Hood' or Obama type taxes are the kind of people who have the illusion that wealthy people stuff their pillows full of cash and sit on it - they don't, it goes into banking/investments which in turn create possibilites for the poorest and middle classes.

Without wealthy people you don't have an economy.

They can still take an unpaid intern-ship.

I'd rather they have a job and learn skills rather than the state subsidising big business with the unemployed working for no cost to the business - other than to the taxpayer that is.

[Chippiewill]

it still would still hurt the poor as hurting the rich consquently hurts the poor. The type of people who support 'Robin Hood' or Obama type taxes are the kind of people who have the illusion that wealthy people stuff their pillows full of cash and sit on it - they don't, it goes into banking/investments which in turn create possibilites for the poorest and middle classes.

Without wealthy people you don't have an economy.

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/ed-asner...ted-fairy-tale

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/ed-asner...ted-fairy-tale

Flawed cartoon video based on broad generalisations, I can't even begin to debunk it. If your political philosophy is based on a cartoon video with those basic flaws, then that's alright by me. But I favour theories based in history and fact, such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria...s_cycle_theory. I will just pick up on a few points though and the one with the[*] next to it I really do advise a watch as it's one of those 'aha' moments,

- The video states that rich people 'suddenly bought up the newspapers' .. er, wealthy people have always owned and operated newspapers from day one. The investment required makes that a fact of life. When did this sudden buy up of newspapers take place? what year?

* The video then goes on about the myth of eventually ending up rich. Actually, it's true that most people do end up in the higher end income brackets at some point or other, as explained by Thomas Sowell here (here he tackles the classic income gap/equality argument).

- The point on the teachers and public sector 'blame' - well, although the banking bailout debt did add on to the debt, it's a false argument as public sector debt overwhelmingly comes from state overspending on bad education/healthcare etc. Check for example, UK, Greek or US debt before the 2008 crisis.

- I would agree with the video though where it talks of the government bailing out the banks and the '1%' - that of course relates back to the Austrian Business Cycle. And guess who is one of the worst culprits of bailing out banks and printing money? the Obama administration, the same administration that bailed out GM and the corrupt banking sector.

[JerseySafety]

Wow, only just realised that the minimum wage is below $9USD? Thats crazy, I thought our minimum wage was low ($13.50NZD) which is like $11.20USD.

Anyways, minimum wage jobs aren't really intended for you to stay at your whole life, they are for you to get started with a career. Really don't see any point in raising the minimum wage.

[peteyt]

It's a tricky thing that has problems both ways. You don't want to put the minimum wage too high and stop people getting employed but if you don't have a minimum wage employers could abuse staff.

[The Don]