Specter:
I can’t believe you justified stealing for people who make less than $9.00/ hour. Read your first paragraph again. You wrote paying people more money “keeps more people out of the street it also helps to keep crime down”
You miss some very important points and you have limited knowledge about business, economics and basic human nature.
As a business owner, I can tell you anyone who is making less than $9.00/hour and doesn’t earn themselves an increase of some sort during the year is probably over paid. I have never hired anyone for less than $9.00/hour, but you have to have a skill. A good employee is hard to find and contrary to what you think, employers will pay more when the employee proves themselves to earn it. I’ve had employees who within five months of hire were making nearly double what they started at. You have so many excuses about what holds people back you can’t see it’s themselves. I have never met a hard worker that didn’t succeed.
Your plan to give wage earners who make less than $9/hour an automatic 3% increase is a divisive, disincentive, socialistic, and a basic Union ploy.
There’s a reason these employees are making the least amount of money in the company is they are the least valuable. They may not be as; productive, they may lack skills or experience and they have not prepared themselves for the job market.
Under your plan what incentive do they have to do better or improve themselves when an automatic, government imposed, raise will be coming without effort?
Under your plan, a company’s budget for raises, that should go to the employees who have; contributed more to the company’s success, learned more new skills, have more experience, and have been more productive, now goes to someone who has not earned it. This causes divisiveness, resentment and does not create an incentive to do better, especially in tough economic times when money is tight on both sides. I already know your answer to this. You’ll say; “what about the lower paid worker’s resentment (envy) that his fellow employee makes more than him?” I say if his fellow employee can do it, what’s his excuse? Learn a skill, be more productive.
For years unions have used your plan. You may not have recognized it. The tactic is to fight to increase the minimum wage. The union pushes these increases under the guise of help for the minimum wage earners. Truth is the Union doesn’t “care” about the minimum wage earner. When the minimum wage goes up, by government mandate, it makes it easier for the union to negotiate increases for their members, because they can claim a gap change decrease in pay. In fact some contracts have this clause in them. It’s a boondoggle. The Union touts they got their members a raise when, in fact, it merely equalized the effect of the cost of goods and services going up and minimum wage going. The net result: a zero sum gain for everyone.
I can’t believe you can’t comprehend this simple economic circle.
Minimum wage goes up, cost of goods and services go up, other wages go up, cost of goods and services go up, everyone making more, but everything cost more, Repeat.
Your plan would also lead to layoffs. Contrary to what you might think, there is only a limited budget a company has for wages, including raises, If the least productive, most inexperienced employees automatically get all the available money for raises, by fiat, there’s only one way to give the employees, who actually earned it, a raise. Cut cost. The fastest way to cut cost is to layoff worker, and (non-union) companies don’t layoff their best or most productive workers.
Your Statement: “If you have 100 employees and 10 get a 3% cost of living wage that’s not a 3% increase on your bottom line.” In order to operate a company that compensates its workers fairly, based on the contributions the worker gives to the company, sooner of later those other 90 employees are going to have to a raise. Since under your plan every business is faced with the same pay raise requirements, every business will either raise their prices, layoff or both to give these employees a raise they deserve and your plan denies.
The result is a zero sum gain.
There’s a saying “give a man a fish and he eats for a day, Teach him to fish and he’ll eat for a life time.”
Your plan gives him a fish, when he needs learn to fish. Learning to fish requires an effort, of more than holding a hand out, on the part of the fisherman.
