Most working people would probably say “NO”, but they would have trouble defining what their worth really is. A good definition of what is the right pay for a worker is: “You don't get paid for the time you work, you get paid for the value you bring to the time you work”. In other words, is your production worth it to the employer, company, or organization to pay you the amount they pay you?
Many people today feel that they should be paid for the job classification, regardless of what they contribute to it. Equal pay for equal work, has been the rallying cry for years by the “militant feminists” when they petition for getting more pay for women. They never mention that an “Equal Pay Act” was passed in 1963 which was intended to not have wage discrimination between males and females. Equal pay determination is easy if two people are doing the same work or similar work, but the objectivity blurs when you try to compare dissimilar jobs. How do you compare a teacher with a truck driver, or a sales clerk with a carpenter etc., etc., as other factors also enter into the determination of what a person should be paid?
Due to physical differences in men and women, there will always be some disparagement in how men and women are compensated. Men, overall, are physically stronger than women, so therefore they are more prone to be attracted to jobs that many women shy away from such as, firemen, combat military, manual labor etc. That's also true with women, who tend to be attracted to certain jobs that men mostly won't do such as, nurses, elementary school teachers, checkout clerks etc. That's not to say men and women don't crossover to work at the jobs mostly held by the opposite sex, but in the main, stereotypical job selection by men and women hold up as stated.
The “political football” of raising the minimum wage, as seems to be a big push in “progressive” quarters today, is an area where the government gets involved when it really shouldn't. To have the government set an arbitrary base minimum wage for hourly workers with little, if any, consideration as to how that wage can be compared to production, as needed by the employer, generally brings “unintended consequences”. It generally means, mostly in the unskilled teenage group and seniors supplementing their retirement income, that there will be fewer jobs available, thereby causing higher unemployment for those on the lower rung of the pay and skill ladder. By raising the minimum wage, you will also cause a demand for an upward adjustment by other workers immediately above the newly set minimum wage plateau. Think of all the entry level positions that might be lost around the country, if we price these workers out of the market by artificially raising employees wages without any thought of the economic hardship placed on the employer? That increase might seem beneficial for the worker, but if his employer has difficulty meeting that increase, that entry level, low-skilled worker might be laid off or have his work week cut back. That's an example of the “unintended consequences” of trying to be generous and magnanimous to workers without regard to the value that the worker brings to the job. Is it better for the worker to be employed at $8.00 per hour or unemployed at $15 per hour? It's as simple as that.
Some people use Europe as an example of putting into place higher minimum wages, but when you see that the unemployment rate, in most European countries is greater than that of ours, it should give some pause for thought that artificially determining what someone should receive as pay determined by some government bureaucrats, might not be in the best interests of the worker or for the country's economy.
The demagogues, of course, will vilify all those who oppose a spike up in the minimum wage, but pure simple economic logic, will win out in a serious debate as to its merit, but emotion seems to always trump logic, most of the time, so the pressure on the feckless politicians to raise the minimum wage will be forever present.
In conclusion, politicians should let the”free market” determine the pay of the workers (except in instances of coercion, fraud, or exploitation) because the “unintended consequences” of arbitrarily setting pay scales, is more detrimental to the worker than letting the productivity of the worker determine his worth in the marketplace.
Remember, you don't get paid for the hour you work, you get paid for the value you bring to the hour you work
Conservative commentary by Chuck Lehmamm
3 comments:
Do the people realize that on Hillary's campaign staff, the women workers make less than the men? That was the same arrangement when Hillary was a Senator. I'd like to ask Hillary if we should raise the minimum wage to $225,000 per hour like the rate she charged the financial companies for her dynamic, fact filled, economic speeches that these business titans were sitting the edge of their chairs waiting to hear every word that she said? Do you realize that Hillary made over $21 million in speech fees from financial institutions since she left as Secretary of State? Was she selling influence or her knowledge of the stock market?
If the socialists want to do something for the American worker, they can get rid of the illegal foreign labor that is holding wages down by causing a surplus of workers. Yet the socialists just want more spending until we are broke.
The minimum wage increase has consequences. An individual I know is a chef. He wanted to relocate from CA to WA and applied to a number of restaurants in the Seattle area. He was told that they were no longer hiring additional chefs or kitchen help and, in fact, were cutting back on the number of folks working there. He was told that supervisory personnel were picking up the slack and that they could no longer expand. The reason: they couldn't afford to pay those high wages to waiters and waitresses. In addition, he was told that the restaurants were cutting back on the hours they were open and would only be open for peak hours to cut back on the payroll.
As can be seen, there are economic consequences.
This is nothing new. When I worked for retail stores wages was one of the few controllable expenses, i.e., an expense the company can control. They can't control taxes, utility expenses, insurance etc. The figure they always looked at was the cost of wages per $100 of sales. When that figure increased they would cut back on the hours of the employees and/or only hire part-time workers to fill in peak periods.
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