Elizabeth Warren: Why isn't minimum wage $22 an hour like it used to be?

[MannyGoldstein]

Last edited Sun Mar 17, 2013, 12:05 PM - Edit history (1)

Our FDR Democrat points out that if the 99% got their share of the productivity gains since 1960, minimum wage would now be $22 per hour.

$22 per hour.

Are you starting to get an inkling as to why things are so fucked up today?

Are you ready for Democrats who fight for the 99%?

Warren 2016!

Please send this video to a few friends and family, they'll thank you when their lives are restored through honest government.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. good question. excellent question. DU Rec.

[ErikJ]

69. It would actually be great for the corporate monopolists

Because it would drive most "Mom and Pops" out of business. Some are barely making it and can barely afford a single min wage worker now.
I knew an older couple with a food store and they had to be there themselves for 16 hours a day with no employees. They couldnt take it anymore so they closed the store.
The monopolists would love this because it would get rid of all those pesky independents.

[tiny elvis]

70. freedom is slavery

if they cannot afford a minimum wage worker, then something is wrong beyond wages

your comment reads as though corps are required to pay low wages

[ErikJ]

71. Could be but not enough sales is often prob

They say 90% of startups fail because of lack of sales or whatever. I would go for a $22 min wage perhaps if it only appplied to bigger businesses of maybe over 50 employees. But mom and pops hole in the wall local bisinesses barely making it should be perhaps even as low as $5 an hour min wage.

[valerief]

2. As long as young people are willing to sacrifice their lives to keep the ruling class in power,

things will never change. That's where the education is needed. Deglamourizing war.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

3. K & R & bookmarked. EW is a treasure! n/t

[Plucketeer]

77. Treasure???

Enemey of the State! is more like it. The CORPORATE State, that is.

We need to GET THIS WOMAN TO THE OVAL OFFICE - and SOON!

[rhett o rick]

4. I hope other Democrats take a lesson. nm

[Live and Learn]

5. Everyone should see this video.

There is no excuse for keeping minimum wage so low.

[Cleita]

6. That would actually be a living wage.

Minimum wage was supposed to reflect the COLA, but like all other things that change when Republicans are in charge, this did too. I love that Elizabeth Warren frames these issues so clearly and understandably. Also, I entered the work force in the early sixties, I know what she says is true.

[MannyGoldstein]

7. And now there's a bipartisan effort to even reduce curerent COLA calculations

through the "chained CPI". They want every last fucking penny from us. Every last cent.

[Cleita]

8. Yes, and they want it from poor people and old people. When

did we start going back to the Middle Ages? We used to call it serfdom. At least back then the serfs were given a place to live by their Lord.

[awoke_in_2003]

45. Nixon's trip to China...

it has all gone downhill since. Name one piece of legislation that has helped the working class since then. Only FMLA comes to my mind.

on edit: some may say Lilly Ledbetter, but women's pay will not be brought up to the level of mens, men's will just be kept stagnate a few more years. The rich fuckers come out ahead every time.

[Coyotl]

9. Let's talk about the powerful economic stimulus of raising minimum wages.

The benefits are great for local economies, grocers, clothing, basic needs, .....

[antiquie]

11. How do Mom & Pop shops get over the initial shock?

The minimum wage should be at least $11 and probably higher in NY and CA. But how do Mom & Pop raise their worker's wages when they are probably barely making a profit while they work unreasonable hours themselves?

[Coyotl]

13. Mom and Pop shops are run by Mom and Pop, that's what a Mom and pop is.

Probably ???? Get real. Business owners make more than enough money to pay employees a sub-living wage.

[antiquie]

16. I've been there.

I am talking small retail, as in used furniture or small gift or market. The owners often have a helper paid on the books. I don't think we are discussing the same family size business or you would not have told me to "get real".

[Cleita]

14. We need laws to help them. Mom and pop get no help from government or

suppliers. For starters, they should be able to purchase wholesale at the same costs as the big box stores. That would give them a competitive edge to start with and the big box stores need to have their tax loopholes closed, loopholes mom and pop don't get.

[antiquie]

18. Supplier discounts would help a lot.

Often the big chains can sell items for less money than what the little guys pay for them.

[MannyGoldstein]

20. Have you noticed that there are fewer mom and pop stores than before?

Even as the effective minimum wage has plummeted?

As workers get more, they can afford more, and will spend more. And mom and pop stores will flourish again.

It can't happen overnight, that *would* be too much of a shock. Put if it goes up, say $1 a year for the next 20 years, we should be fine, I suspect.

[antiquie]

26. Unfortunately, there are a lot less Mom & Pop stores now.

A stepped increase in the minimum wage could ease us toward more equitable wages.

[snappyturtle]

30. I think we can agree the Mom and Pop shops don't have large payrolls.

I often wonder why they would oppose a small increase added to the prices of the services/products. Consumers are used to seeing prices go up. As for wages paid out, aren't they considered a cost of doing business and tax deductible? I would think also that instituting some small efficiencies in their business would more than make up the added wages paid out to their few workers. imho

[antiquie]

31. The margins are infinitesimally small, in my experience.

We are also speaking of low-income areas, or at least I am. I do agree that wages can be raised, especially if we were able to do something about the volume discounts that aid bigbox and destroy Mom and Pop.

[Bay Boy]

54. "As for wages paid out, aren't they considered a cost of doing business and tax deductible?"

I hear that a lot. Yes wages are deducted from the gross but if you increase expenses that increase comes directly out of the owner's bottom line. Possibly being the difference between staying in business or closing the doors.

[cstanleytech]

25. I have said it before though and I say it again, I dislike minimum wage rules.

Or I should say I dislike that we have to have a law that requires employers to pay a minimum wage because so many of them lack the common decency to do it on their own like they should be doing

Now something I would love to see to resolve the issue with the gap in pay for employees and the higher ups is closing all tax loopholes for the employers and making it so the higher the gap in pay (which include any future bonuses management might receive such as stock options so they cant weasel around it via paying the management 1 dollar in cash as a wage and then 1 million in stock options) for the majority of their workers vs management the higher the % the employer pays in taxes out of the profits.

[SunSeeker]

44. Excellent idea. Let's do that AND raise the minimum wage. nt

[Mnpaul]

74. Jesse Ventura had the plan

You take the lowest workers pay, multiply it by 25 and then tax the crap out of executive pay that exceeds that amount. That way workers would share in the company's success. If the executive wants to raise his pay he has to raise the worker's pay as well.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

10. Did the guy HAVE to hold the pen at one point like it was a cigar?

[Cleita]

12. Maybe. I notice that a lot of ex-smokers do when they are stressed.

Or maybe he's still a smoker and does that when he can't.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

17. I'm waiting for the Italian Anti-Defamation League to pipe up too.

[alc]

15. are all jobs worth $22/hour to the employer?

How much are you willing to pay the person bagging your groceries if you paid them directly rather than as a portion what you pay for each product?

I'd guess my grocery store would stop hiring baggers and many other positions. They'd start hiring only CPAs, repairmen, vendor/supplier managers, inventory managers, etc. Then teach those people to stock shelves, be cashiers & baggers, etc. Everyone would have their "main job", and go out on the floor when there are customers to take care of.

I can see big chains splitting up their corporate offices around stores or to offices in the same strip mall as their store and have everyone work 5-10 hours a week for the store and 30-35 doing their corporate function (IT, marketing, purchasing, etc.) They'd be making over $22/hour, but people without the corporate skills would not be able to get a job.

There'd likely be a lot of other changes too. A lot more self-checkout. A lot more delivery men/women stocking shelves rather than unloading to the storeroom in the back (that happens with bread everywhere I know and with lots of products at wal-mart). And Amazon will start selling even more since they can fill orders with fully-automated warehouses that don't have people who's wages will go up.

Maybe I'm wrong and stores would just eat the cost or raise prices. But I'd bet there will be A LOT fewer unskilled jobs available.

[Cleita]

19. They wouldn't be hurting.

Large supermarket chains have been paying union wages and benefits for a long time. The Big Box stores could do the same.

[NYC_SKP]

22. Are ANY "jobs" worth several million$/year plus bonuses and stock options? It's pretty simple:

A little less "free market" and the what is being stolen by the top 1% will easily cover the decent living minimum wage.

...

[Spitfire of ATJ]

23. Quick answer: They used to be....

As I have said in the past, back in the 70s a typical factory worker could afford a house, a car, life insurance, a stay at home wife and a boat to take the family water skiing on the weekends. Now that same job barely pays for food, a cheap apartment and gas to get to work.

[October]

29. My grocery bill was over $300 last week

And I wait in line, and bag myself.

These stores offer the minimum in "service." They hire handicapped workers, so as to pay them less for the same work. Then, they ask me for a buck when I check out so that they can look charitable.

Two weeks in a row with a bill of over $340 - please! I'm not buying gourmet, per-prepared anything!!! It's become insane. Oh, and that was with the 5% off coupon I "earned"!

[SheilaT]

39. How many people are you feeding?

I'm curious, because I live alone and spend no more than $60.00 most weeks on my groceries, which includes things like toilet paper and tissues.

It's my observation that in recent years the check-out people do most of the grocery bagging themselves, and the store will have one or two roaming baggers to pitch in. Many years ago bagging groceries was one of those entry-level jobs mostly taken by teens as a start to being in the workforce. The way pumping gas used to be an entry-level job.

[October]

55. Family of four

1 teenage boy

It's gotten crazy.

[SheilaT]

62. Thank you.

As you well know, exactly who (or what in the case of teens) makes a huge difference in the food consumption.

[Le Taz Hot]

85. 1 teenage boy

would have been answer enough. I'll never forget the first time my husband's teenage boys (from a previous marriage) came to visit. I fixed a HUGE roast with all the fixins plus salad, homemade bread & desert. They ate everything and were still hungry. I had to make a SECOND dinner of spaghetti and whatever else I could find. An hour later they were making smoothies in the blender. I've never seen anything like it.

[October]

86. True! My boy eats nonstop. He's an athlete, too (dance) so he's thin as a rail but his metabolism!!!

I have no words. He just hit 6' -- and his appetite/metabolism is machine-like.

Plus, 3 out of 4 of us are Celiacs, so the gluten-free stuff is always pricier for us.

[Bay Boy]

53. Who is asking for the buck...

...and why?

[October]

57. The store - at checkout

They have different causes every month, it seems.

Good causes.

But we're asked for the dollar - and that's all I know. The store collects all these dollars and then probably writes a check (write off) to the charity.

Unbelievably, last week, they had one if their handicapped workers stationed in the Forrest as you entered asking us if we wanted to give a dollar to help feed the hungry. She had to wear a coat because it's March and weather is still cold here. But... it seemed so manipulative and exploitative or something.

[Bay Boy]

59. Probably goes to the...

... Joe Storemanager retirement fund.

[Sherman A1]

48. I believe you may have missed the point

While $22.00 per hour for minimum wage sounds high, it really isn't when you consider the erosion of buying power that the working class has suffered while productivity has risen over these last 30 to 40 years. It is a matter of had the benefits of that productivity been shared more fairly rather than having been diverted to the top couple of percent. Had the money been shared more evenly $22.00 per hour would seem very reasonable. The matter that it does not, is testament to the propaganda that we have all suffered over these decades. How is a $22.00 per hour minimum wage not fair, but the CEO making hundreds of times the wages of the average worker somehow accepted as okay?

Your example of the grocery employee with multiple responsibilities already exists in many retailer outlets as the work force is moved from one department to another to stock various loads as they arrive. In the past you would have employees assigned to specific departments, but now they move from the dairy to frozen, to grocery to whatever and in the midst of that they are called to check out customers and bag their groceries or bring in carts when the front end is busy. Those employees are also being replaced by a form of outsourcing that moves the building of displays from the store level to supplier whole ship in prebuilt pallet size product assortments in order that the store might reduce the number of "touches". When these displays are empty or nearly empty they are simply rolled off the sales floor and replaced with the next one.

[Lordquinton]

60. This

What the person you are responding to doesn't seem to see is that his proposal is what is already happening, and they still don't make a living wage.

[Sherman A1]

65. Precisely

and here is a post, pointing out just how absurd things are getting in the "must wear multiple hats" department.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11172298

[grahamhgreen]

82. You are wrong. Profits would be shaved, that is all.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

21. kicking with all my heart!

Thinking of lives that have been ruined by REPUKES...

Thinking of someone I loved who was destroyed by them and still swallowed the repuke conservative pro-military propaganda....politics are personal and it helped to kill a relationship that mattered to me.

(well, in the name of honest ful disclosure, the alcoholism

[JDPriestly]

24. Elizabeth Warren proves that women are quite capable of doing the math.

Proves how wrong Lawrence Summers is or was about women in math (among other things). Summers should have known better since Elizabeth Warren was on the Harvard faculty the whole time.

President Obama should be paying more attention to Elizabeth Warren and less to the rest of his economic advisers. She knows the score. The others do not.

[brewens]

27. Where I live, something like $12 or 13 bucks an hour would be more like it. In the 70's,

you could at least afford your own apartment, a modest car payment and phone on minimum wage. I'd say $13 an hour would get you there.

There is also the question of what you do with guys like me. I'm an experienced commercial drive and my current job also required some fairly extensive training for the blood center work I do. I'm not exactly willing to see some kid at his first job immediately making as much as I do. As a kid working at a grocery store, I didn't expect to make what the checkers or full time stock clerks made.

You need to assure guys like me that we also get a bump out of the deal.

[Bay Boy]

58. If minimum wage goes up

generally everyone's wage goes up. At least those towards the bottom go up.

Along the order of a high tide floats all boats.

[Bay Boy]

61. I started out in the early 70s

getting from $1.75 to $2.00 an hour. I could afford a car payment (i think it was about $75/month for a new Pinto) but I wouldn't have been able to afford an apartment. And I lived in an area with a low cost of living.

[antiquie]

28. In 1976, in California,

we had a significant raise and I believe it lifted everyone in the bottom half.

[smallcat88]

32. The rich always get richer

by standing on the backs of the poor. It's a time-honored recipe that goes back to the creation of money and economics. If our society went Star Trek and got rid of money most of the rich would have nothing to contribute, no real skills except how to make money.

[Smarmie Doofus]

37. " no real skills except how to make money."

Exactly.

Welcome to DU.

[SunSeeker]

72. The real skill CEOs have is being able to bury their conscience.

That is how they make money, screwing other people.

[hedgehog]

33. Wow!

[pangaia]

34. Stunning! Absolutely stunning.

Last edited Mon Mar 18, 2013, 07:23 PM - Edit history (1)

She knows all, has done her homework and is loaded for bear.

And that little half smile on her face right at the end says it all.

Gotcha, you smart ass little drone.. (not to Dube, but the other guy, Dube is her set up guy)

I LOVE her !!!

[Bozvotros]

35. The age old battle of capital and labor goes on.

And it is one of the main reason the immigration issue is never resolved. Capitalists need cheap labor. Since we outlawed out and out slavery here in the good old USA, business capital has always stressed paying workers the least they can. It was natural they eventually turned whole hog to foreign workers in places where there were no protections for workers. In other words, where slavery was still possible.

The belief constantly trumpeted by the Repukes is that those "job creators" with enough capital to own a business deserve the maximum return on that investment. This return comes mostly from keeping salary and benefits at minimum. High unemployment and desperation keep wages down. They will fight hard to keep it that way. Good thing we have someone like Elizabeth, calling out their bullshit on why they "can't" raise the minimum wage.

[Smarmie Doofus]

36. No, no, no. She's all mixed up. People are poor today because their schools suck.

Last edited Sun Mar 17, 2013, 12:21 PM - Edit history (1)

And their schools suck because their teachers are overpaid and unionized.

We need a market economy approach to education. Because this has worked so well in the economy at large.

See OP.

[MannyGoldstein]

38. Oh, and our schools don't suck, either

We're in the top 20% or so internationally, based on international testing. More on that in another post, sometime.

(I know you were just being sarcastic, but the lies are incredible!)

[soldierant]

68. Gotta use that

"sarcasm font."

[SheilaT]

40. Along with a higher minimum wage,

and I agree that about $13.00 right now would be good, there needs to be a maximum wage. Everything above say $5M a year is taxed at a 90% rate. So they do get to keep some of it, but not very much.

When I first entered the work force the minimum wage was $1.25/hour. I could live on that, just barely. Within the year it went to $1.65/hour and I had a little room to breathe. Right now I live in Santa Fe, where the local minimum, intended as a living wage, is $10.29/hour. People here complain that it's too expensive to live here, and I can't figure out why they think that. Perhaps it's that they only compare apartment rents in this city to those in Albuquerque, which do tend to be less. But I moved here several years ago from Overland Park, KS, considered to be a low cost of living place, and I wound up paying in rent exactly what I would have expected to pay back in Kansas.

The real problem is that there is no maximum wage, and those at the top are determined to squeeze out every possible penny for themselves, without any thought at all for those at the bottom. I want to say that no one who is making minimum wage should need other kinds of assistance, although in reality some percentage of those will need extra help. The single mom with two or three kids. I don't especially care why she wound up being the sole support of those kids, but I do want to point out that not a single one of them would have come about without the assistance of some man. Or a person has expensive health needs of some kind. No one should have to forego taking necessary medication for lack of money. And so on.

[cantbeserious]

41. Excellent All Around

eom

[Major Nikon]

42. Trinkled on rather than trinkle down

Who knew?

[WillyT]

43. K & R !!!

[SunSeeker]

46. Yes, we should ALL be asking where the $14.75 went. nt

[colsohlibgal]

47. Love This Woman!!

We desperately need more democrats like this, truly liberal and not wimpy/beholden, she'll ask tough questions and follow up on them as long as it takes. Rock on Sis.

[AzDar]

49. K & R

[abelenkpe]

50. K&R

Warren 2016!!!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

51. The government should give incentives to small business

so that they can pay workers $22 an hour.

However, since we squandered taxpayers' money in Iraq and Afghanistan (who get new bridges etc.) there probably isn't any money left in the pot. Oh yes the sequester/cut.

[Bay Boy]

52. It looks like 1968 was the year that

the minimum wage had it's highest value in 1968. It was worth $7.21 in 1996 dollars versus our current min.wage valued at $4.97. Today's isn't the lowest it's been that was 1955 when it was $4.39

I googled 'minimum wage through the years' and got a link to an infoplease.com page

[Bay Boy]

56. I'm not sure where the $22 hour comes from...

...based on this chart:
Federal Minimum Wage Rates, 1955–2012
(go to link to read more clearly)
Year mw 1996
1955 $.75$4.39 1983 3.35 5.28 2011 7.25 5.06
1956 1.00 5.77 1984 3.35 5.06 2012 7.25 4.97
1957 1.00 5.58 1985 3.35 4.88
1958 1.00 5.43 1986 3.35 4.80
1959 1.00 5.39 1987 3.35 4.63
1960 1.00 5.30 1988 3.35 4.44
1961 1.15 6.03 1989 3.35 4.24
1962 1.15 5.97 1990 3.80 4.56
1963 1.25 6.41 1991 4.25 4.90
1964 1.25 6.33 1992 4.25 4.75
1965 1.25 6.23 1993 4.25 4.61
1966 1.25 6.05 1994 4.25 4.50
1967 1.40 6.58 1995 4.25 4.38
1968 1.60 7.21 1996 4.75 4.75
1969 1.60 6.84 1997 5.15 5.03
1970 1.60 6.47 1998 5.15 4.96
1971 1.60 6.20 1999 5.15 4.85
1972 1.60 6.01 2000 5.15 4.69
1973 1.60 5.65 2001 5.15 4.56
1974 2.00 6.37 2002 5.15 4.49
1975 2.10 6.12 2003 5.15 4.39
1976 2.30 6.34 2004 5.15 4.28
1977 2.30 5.95 2005 5.15 4.14
1978 2.65 6.38 2006 5.15 4.04
1979 2.90 6.27 2007 5.85 4.41
1980 3.10 5.90 2008 6.55 4.77
1981 3.35 5.78 2009 7.25 5.30
1982 3.35 5.78 2010 7.25 5.22


Read more: Federal Minimum Wage Rates, 1955–2012 | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html#ixzz2NpfnFkUV

[MannyGoldstein]

64. $22 adjusts for productivity gains

You may already know this, but just in case... as companies learn to produce more stuff with the same number of workers, the company makes more money. As time goes on, that's what our economy does - we make more stuff per worker; it's called productivity growth.

Until the 1970s, that new money effectively created by productivity growth went to the 99% and the 1%. Since the 1970s, it's all gone to the 1%. Nothing for the 99%. If the productivity growth had continued to go equally to people of all incomes at the same percentage of their 1960 incomes, then a job paying minimum wage in 1960 would now pay $22 an hour.

Sorry if that's convoluted!

[October]

66. Thanks for the explanation

What happened in the 70's to change the distribution?

Forgive my ignorance, please. Just wondering if we know.

[MannyGoldstein]

75. America moved right & workers lost bargaining power

Here's my take, although I'm definitely not an expert.

The 99% only have a chance if we stick together. If the 1% can separate us, then they will take all of the goodies.

Nixon had a strategy to grab Southern Democrats and pull them into the Republican Party over social issues (equal rights for minorities, etc). That started pulling a chunk of the 99% into the Democratic Party, and it wasn't long before they drank the Republican kool-aid on economic stuff - unions and workers rights in general. So those rights got trampled in the South, and Southern Democrats had to be economically right-wing in order to peel 99%ers back from the Republicans.

I love Jimmy Carter. But he was the first "serious responsible adult making tough decisions" Democratic President since FDR, and he was no friend of unions and pushed for business deregulation. In fact, the Teamsters backed Republican Ford over Carter! Reagan hated unions and didn't care about little people, Bush I was an arch-foe of working Americans, Clinton would do anything for the 1%, anything at all, Bush II was... well we all know about that, and Obama is enthralled by bankers and wants to hurt the 99% at least a little so he can show he's above partisanship.

So for 30 years we've had unrelenting war on the rights of workers, and that's meant that we've had to sit quietly while we're being pooped on. And minimum wage is now $14.75 an hour less than it should be.

[Skittles]

63. because THAT is how the thieving 1% gets their riches

[TrollBuster9090]

67. What happened to the other $14.75? (Hint: corporate profits)

Fair enough, but it would have stimulated the economy a lot more if it had gone to wages instead of profits. Corporate profits generally to to the investor class, whereas wages go to local consumers. While both wages and profits are important, from an economics and job growth perspective, wages stimulate economic growth more than corporate profits.

[hay rick]

73. K&R

[aaaaaa5a]

76. Please tell me.... What do I have to do to make this woman President? nt

[MannyGoldstein]

79. Send these videos to appropriate friends and families? Nt

[Beartracks]

78. Niiiice. I'm glad Sen. Warren is asking these questions. n/t

[Autumn]

80. Finally got to sit and watch this.

Oh yeah, I'm way past ready for a Democrat who will fight for the 99%, and not play around the bush.

[midnight]

81. K&R

[Laelth]

83. k&r for Elizabeth Warren. n/t

-Laelth

[Flatulo]

84. Nearly everybody needs a raise.

My wife works as a legal secretary and makes $22/hr. She has a college degree and 35 years of experience. She does the same exact work as lawyers who make 10X her wage do.

She is constantly stressed out by her job - by unreasonable deadlines, mandatory unpaid overtime (every single day), understaffing, un-ergonomic furniture that is destroying her body, ancient computers etc. She has been lucky to get .5% raises for the last 5 years, because they tell her she's at the top of her pay scale. With her family insurance plan going up $100 per month every year, year-after-year, her take home pay is on a trajectory towards exactly nothing. If she works until 67, her take home pay will be approximately zero.

I *wish* she could get a $14 raise. Everybody making less than $75K or so could use that raise.

I don't see it happening.

As long as some dude in China or some starving immigrant can do your job, and they can do just about every job there is, the American worker has no leverage. There are 1500 people who would kill to get my wife's job, and she knows it and her employer knows it. At her age, she'd be lucky to find work as a cleaning woman.

There is a new crop of assholes running her firm, all forty-somethings who have this attitude that every nickel that the firm generates is their money and no one else's. The older generation who've been dying off or retiring actually cared about the employees, and took good care of them. They had profit sharing (gone), six weeks vacation (gone), unlimited sick time (gone), and personal development like tuition reimbursement (gone).

The new management team is typical of the culture running American business these days. Selfish, unimaginative, entitled, short-sighted, etc. The worst generation of leaders we've ever had.

There are a bunch of factors, all conspiring together to make things look bleaker for the American middle-class and lower-class worker than ever.

I'm glad we have people like Senator Warren fighting the good fight, but it's too late for us.