117th Congress: DEMS IN DISARRAY!!!111!!

[Handyman]

Follow up...I worked in the city when the raises started so I dont need to read a study. Hell my second job was one of the ones people were worried would suffer because of the raise in wages and none of us got less work because of it. Nor did any of my friends at other businesses whether restaurant or otherwise. It was all recycled arguments from the smoking ban which had a similar nothingburger of an effect unless in very specific situations like the Mall of America.

I also lived in Seattle when they started floating the $15 minimum wage (first at the airport as a pilot program I believe) and heard all the same crap and none of it happened. It never does, because it isn't like you wake up and one day you double your hourly pay it is a steps process that allows the business to prepare. The ones who don't are the ones who suffered. If they started cutting hours they weren't doing it because of the wage increase they were doing it because they planned to do it anyways.

[Handyman]

Conservatives live in a cramped mental world where anything that helps people is immediately suspect. Hovey is the same as my co-worker who, when I gave a homeless guy a twenty at a red light, said "I wonder how many of those guys are just conning you?"

Because that was really the first thing he thought of: the alpha error of somebody not in need of money getting it. He gave no thought at all to the infinitely more numerous cases of people in desperate need and the beta error of them being denied help for fear of fraud. And this guy is a preacher's son and views himself as an ardent Christian.

That's the small-minded, tight-fisted mindset Milton Friedman unleashed upon the nation in 1980 via Saint Ronnie and his voodoo economics, and the barely concealed racial bigotry that fueled it. The Plutes have used it to ride rube conservatives to our neo-feudal hellscape, and still these poor dopes repeat the same idiotic tropes they have been force fed.

Hovey and his ilk aren't sociopaths. They are suckers. Their fears are exploited by much smarter rich people to continue the upwards massive wealth distribution of Reagan and Bush and even Clinton economics. Their brains are beyond washed -- they are sandblasted.

They all cling to that one anecdote of the guy going to get his welfare check in a limo and pretend that is more than an outlier. Just like every person on the street is going to use every penny to buy booze or drugs. You can always tell the people who never lived in low economic areas ever because they say racist/elitist crap like that.

Then they start in on "they should better themselves" while also saying they should not get paid a living wage. Then they never quite get why those two arguments contradict.

[rufus]

I am still waiting for the $5 a gallon gas those same people said was coming when Obama won. The thread on here about that was a classic.

If your business can't afford a gradual minimum wage increase to give people a living wage then your business sucks and you should be Darwined out.

The day after Biden took office, my Q acquaintance told me gas had already gone up 60 cents/gallon.

[rufus]

If you actually follow up on it, check on the studies that are done years later, what you see is this. The effect on levels of employment, overall, is not real significant in one direction or the other. But you also see that it's a mixed bag. In some industries, like service industries, employment is actually hit quite hard, including things like child care (not sure why that is).

So, you can choose to ignore it. I really don't care. But obviously many politicians don't.

Funny, cause every child care place I've ever heard about charges far more than $15 an hour to look after people's kids.

Oh, you mean these "business owners" want to charge that money, and then pay someone else cheap wages to actually do the 'child caring' part. Do tell.

[BCeagle]

For those who still don't understand why there's such a push for a higher min. wage:

I've been in and out of retail for over 10 years. And while I will tell you the physical aspect isn't that hard (not for me, anyway), I will tell you getting berated by some middle age WASP for something that's way outside your pay grade is emotionally taxing. I get called "sir" by customers all day. That sucks. I've had friends who get called fat and are insulted for even daring to take a lunch or get a light snack while at work. One day, I pulled a dirty diaper out of a cart.

Then there's managers who criticize you for daring to use the bathroom. Who tell you you need to keep up, without jumping into the fray themselves. Who will downgrade you or decide to terminate you because every customer you asked that day declined to apply for the store credit card or sign up for the advanced membership. So on.
And to get up every day, put on your Customer Service Personality, the one who went to Harvard, does 3 hours of yoga daily, drinks green smoothies with 27 exotic ingredients, and pretends nothing is ever wrong for 8 to 10 hours a day before going home... that's a skill. And while I've been in retail, I've witnessed several of my peers fall into heavy drinking or smoking or various addictions to cope.

This is why I have no issues with retail/service employees being paid a higher minimum wage. A lot of my peers are simply asking if they have to put on the Customer Service Personality, to make it worth their time and efforts.

Time to ignore the top 1% and help the real needy workers trying to pay their rent, food bills, etc. There's no way Biden should accept 1/3 of what the Democrats proposed after months and months of obstruction by the GOP enablers.

[MinnesotaNorthStar]

Tuberville using excuses for losing football games for not knowing anything about MTG...

https://mobile.twitter.com/kylegriff...92020048707589

[Handyman]

Tuberville using excuses for losing football games for not knowing anything about MTG...

https://mobile.twitter.com/kylegriff...92020048707589

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

Bahahaha McCarthy let his domain lapse

https://www.kevinmccarthy2022.com/

[Handyman]

I swear someone else had that happen to the other day...

[LynahFan]

Funny, cause every child care place I've ever heard about charges far more than $15 an hour to look after people's kids.

Oh, you mean these "business owners" want to charge that money, and then pay someone else cheap wages to actually do the 'child caring' part. Do tell.

So people who don’t work that hard want to share in the output of other people’s labor? Sounds like socialism to me....

[rufus]

So people who don’t work that hard want to share in the output of other people’s labor? Sounds like socialism to me....

No, its pure capitalism. You take in the lion's share of the profits, while exploiting the laborers who actually do the work, by paying them subsistence wages.

Unfortunately, you can't offshore childcare, or they'd be doing that too. But they do the next best thing, and hire illegals and pay them less than the minimum wage.

Because, free markets!!!!

[Kepler]

So people who don’t work that hard want to share in the output of other people’s labor? Sounds like socialism to me....

If compensation were based on effort our income structure would be exactly inverted.

[SJHovey]

Oh horse hockey. What you see are "studies" paid for by industries who use the minimum wage as an excuse for job cutting they were already going to do anyway to try to prevent further wage increases in the future.

Well, I think that the CBO did an analysis of the issue back during Obama's second term, as they were talking about a minimum wage increase. Was that the kind of paid industry study you were thinking about, or was it another one?

Everyone always assumes that if they just give businesses time, if they bring it in over 3-4 years, employment won't be affected. What no one realizes is that all you are doing over those 3-4 years is giving businesses time to figure out how to be more efficient, to do without the same number of employees that it had before.

You can't say that it affects all businesses the same way, because it doesn't. For some businesses, labor is a huge cost of doing business. For others, not as much. In some businesses, even a tiny increase in costs (labor or otherwise) makes a huge difference because they are in an industry that is very price sensitive, other businesses, not so much.

But it's the businesses that are going to be most affected by the increase that people like Manchin are going to hear from, and that's why it was a misstep, at this point in the nation's economy, to make that move, imho.

[psych]

Well, not to be condescending, but it sounds like it’s possible you voted for the wrong President. Like you said yourself, when you’re in power, pass everything you can, in any way you can. F-ck the supposed consequences of raising the minimum wage. I’m sure Biden’s team has looked more thoroughly into those outcomes than either you or I have, including across different sectors of the economy. Now is the best time, if you’re a Democrat, to push through reforms, since we’re in, um, control of everything. That’s not to say the minimum wage will be in the final bill, but from the looks of it, I’m more willing to make deals with the GOP than Biden...and that gets me a little excited.

[ScoobyDoo]

Lindsey Graham is cock blocking Dick Durbin from becoming Judiciary Committee chair.