Honestly: the minimum wage does need to go up

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

This post got me thinking.

I am firmly in favor of:

A) A higher minimum wage in the whole US, and my home state of NY
B) Honesty in politics

While the OP I linked to is not exactly dishonest, it's not exactly honest either.
And this is not to put flak upon the poster there, but it's an example of political rhetoric that is used to leverage one side of a conversation, ignoring nuance.

the graphic in the linked to OP:

1) Doesn't seem to take into account state laws that raise min wage over fed laws
2) Doesn't take into account the vast difference in housing throughout a state

My objection is more with 2 than 1. 1 is easy to take care of, but 2 is not easy.

New York City is WAYYYY more expensive than Rochester or Buffalo, NY; or a large number of other places within the state I could name. Yet, this graphic gives us a number, presumably an average. But that average is way skewed. But how else should they do it? Give us on graphic for NYC and another for the rest of NY State? That wouldn't work either, because then you'd need to break it down for other cities and so on. So what do we do?

We must talk about things in the big picture without getting bogged down in details, otherwise we will have to talk for eons before we can understand what needs to be done. So while I agree that the min wage needs to go up, across the US, I have a problem with the info-graphics created to support that argument. They lack nuance, and as such, are deceiving. Even if they don't mean to be, and are honestly doing the best they can to compile and sort the data, the inevitability of misleading data is going to doom us all.

That said.
Happy saint patty's day.
Was I drunk when I wrote this? You decide.

Comments

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Nonsense. That is an argument against technology and increased productivity. Thats not what I'm about here.

But, for a while productivity and pay kept pace. Then productivity skyrocketed and wages remained stagnant (essentially dropped as inflation occurred)

This is distinct from the min wage issue.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

But if we pay people for work that we don't need them for, we'll do better, right?

The minimum wage is just another aspect of the demand for inefficiency.

There's a very obvious reason why "richer" areas have a higher minimum wage and are always clamoring for a higher one still.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

No.
This isn't about havnig ditch-diggers.

This is about those jobs that are going to remain that need to be compensated.
I mean, how much does McDonalds make in profit each year? Yet how essential jobs do they have in their stores that are at minimum wage?
Yet those min wage workers are earning McDonalds billions each year.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'Yet how essential jobs do they have in their stores that are at minimum wage?'

All the stores around here have workers above minimum wage. 8-9$ was starting pay.

Got another invalid talking point?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

all of them start people above min wage?
well then, we don't even NEED to worry about the min wage, employers are already starting people above it!

or did you mean SOME stores start SOME people above min wage?

cause then we still need to worry bout the other workers

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

You brought up McDonald's as a company that makes a profit in spite of minimum wage. That's not true.

If anything it proves we don't need minimum wage laws.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

what do you mean, that's not true?
clearly mcdonalds makes a profit. and are you telling me mcdonalds doesnt pay anyone minimum wage?