RangerDave wrote:
Most studies suggest that his job isn't really very threatened, since the employment effects of a modest hike in the minimum wage aren't that large, but the extra $3/hr he currently makes is definitely at risk.
A raise from the present minimum to $15, and really even the $12 Hillary was suggesting until it became convenient to want $15 are not "modest." An equivalent raise for someone like me would take me from a little over $60,000 a year (base pay) to around $130,000 a year. Even the equivalent of the $12 would put me into 6 figures. A raise like that would be a phenomenal increase in income - to the tune of "complete career change equivalent".
So while I'd love to have that, if EVERYONE got such an increase I'd be paying $10 a gallon for gas and eggs would probably cost $9 a dozen or some **** which would get me nowhere.
Furthermore, to the average $18 an hour maker that difference is something likely to be mostly moot. His perception is that he's vulnerable to job loss, and even if he's not getting bumped down to $15 is a huge hit for him, exacerbated by the effects of bringing so many other people up to the level his wages have been lowered to.
The excuse that "well, he should be better-informed" doesn't fly either. The people making $15 an hour are fed and expected to believe a constant stream of nonsense about people with more money - who are not necessarily "rich" either; they might be making as little as $50,000 a year and still be viewed as well off by comparison -hating them, resenting the loss of "privilege", etc. Moreover, those same people are generally presented as being resentful white males who are losing some sort of entitlement that they unfairly have, and no one demands that people buying into identity politics educate themselves. Losing 1/6 of your income when you're making around $36,000 a year isn't "fearing the loss of their privilege"; it's fearing the loss of the ability to pay rent. Yet those people are presented as if they're in the category making 5 or 10 times that amount
simply because they aren't at the minimum.
Quote:
Wage compression is one of the reasons the employment effects aren't bigger. Companies don't higher fewer people, they just reduce the wages of people who used to make more than the new minimum wage. And yeah, like you said, he'll also probably pay more for things at WalMart and McDonalds, as price increases seem to be another way the wage pressure gets released. Of course, there's also the positive effect of higher productivity via reduced employee turnover rates. In short, there's no free lunch here, but increases in unemployment, for whatever reason, don't seem to be the main trade-off.
There might be some increase in productivity, but we're talking about the perspective of the $18 an hour guy - so increased productivity for the company is coming at a cost to him, under the guise of a policy aimed at helping a largely-fictitious group of primary wage earners who make minimum wage.
More importantly, the point you're responding to was discussing Taly's (accurate) assertion that even people on the right sometimes fall into the "you didn't earn that" mentality when aimed at sports, entertainment and media figures.
Taly was right that poorer people who are on the right are susceptible to the same thinking, but that doesn't explain why. An examination of the behavior of the major media figures in question, though provides clues - their behavior towards poor people on the right is almost universally appalling; a mix of condescension, hypocrisy, and pretension to awareness of issues that they pretty clearly don't have.
If you're a family where, say both parents make $36,000 a year, you can, on the aggregate $72,000 live decently. However, when college rolls around and your kid can't get a grant or a scholarship because he or she isn't member of the right victim groups, but some arbitrary government calculation tells you your "expected family contribution" of however-many-thousand a year is something you can afford just fine along with loans you'll have to pay back with interest.. yes, when Whoopi Goldberg gets on The View and starts talking (or hinting) about free college for people making what is really only marginally less than you do, and pretty clearly thinks that your opposition to this is based on skin color rather than financial reality...
Yes, you're going to wonder why Whoopi Goldberg's imbecilic opinions matter as much as they do or why she gets paid so much to air her nonsense on television all morning.
Whoopi Goldberg is just an example, and I'm not referring to any particular past statements by her. She is, however, representative of a fairly typical mediocre acting talent who gets an outsized reputation based on a very few real successes and is viewed as some sort of social luminary for no reason based on actual merit. She is a perfect example of a person who has mistaken the fawning of the press and the public, and her combination of wealth and minority status for being "informed".
Or, to put it another way, the President gets paid $400,000 a year (plus, to be fair, some pretty sweet side benefits) for a job, the basic qualification for which is whether or not you are the sort of person we trust to make a decision
to end the **** world. He is also informed to the point that simply processing all the information and expert advice he has access to is probably an overwhelming chore.
People may, therefore, question why someone getting paid 10x that much for the tremendous responsibility of making 3-point shots feels it's within his purview to lecture them on social issues without serious challenge while the President gets questioned on everything by everybody. They may be forgiven for taking great exception to someone making $4 million a year to shoot baskets lecturing them on the "privilege" they have for making double the minimum wage.
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