GA Resolution: Repeal "Living Wage Act"

There should be a resolution up soon, posting this one to begin with

Do you feel that guaranteeing a living wage to all people is a fundamental human right? If you do, then you should note that the resolution up for repeal only requires employers to pay their employees enough to support a two person household. You should also note that adding just one other person (i.e. a single child in a two-parent household, or two children in a one-parent household) throws off the calculus: in many places including the real-life, present-day United States, 125% of the poverty line for two people is just enough to allow three people to live in poverty. When you add in the fact that the poorest families tend to have the most children, the Living Wage Act just doesn't do enough to help out the people it was meant to help.

In short, the Living Wage Act is a godsend for single parents with exactly one child, and also for couples living together who don't have any children. For other households, it fails to provide them with even a living wage.

Unfortunately, this repeal seems to ignore this and focuses instead on the struggles of those poor, poor corporations who will have to settle for making money hand over fist instead of making frankly obscene amounts of money. I'll probably end up voting Delegate's Prerogative or something, because I would like to repeal this resolution but don't want to do so in a way that pretty much gives the finger to the poor.

The path out of poverty starts with getting a job. Higher entry level wages yields fewer small business start-ups and fewer jobs. I would suggest a different bench-mark: the bigger your business, the higher your entry -level wages must be (think Walmart vs your local mom and pop). Let's start rebalancing the books back toward the little guy - that's you and me.

looks like it might not make the quota

Ok, I’m with you on that. I’m not from the US, but it is my belief that there are a lot of subsidies and incentives offered to small businesses to help get them established. The major problem in the US is that a lot of the major corporations can afford armies of lobbyists and lawyers that bend laws and avoid paying their full share of the taxes. But I agree with you on principle, that a progressive tax system for businesses is a possibility.

One other thing is that we should remember not to get this too intertwined with real-life issues. It is my belief (and I could be wrong) that the WA is an internal body, and the only things that really concern it are the happenings inside the NS world.

Glad to see you getting involved Wauntalot

Frankly I want this resolution repealed and I'm willing to support it being destroyed by any mechanism.

The fact is I fundamentally believe an employer has the right to offer someone a wage to do a job,
and an individual has the right to refuse that pay.

If Joe has a burger joint and can only afford to employ three burger flippers at below the so called poverty line, the WA ordering him to increase the pay for all three will leave Joe with the option of laying a burger flipper off, or going bankrupt.

What's better? 4 people employed or 3? No people perhaps?

I hate the 125% thing. I hate big brother deciding what corporations can pay, and I hate people driveling on about what poverty means.

Yes, I'm being hateful today.

There is no poverty worse than 0 income. Something people need to think about when they make this kind of resolution. If there is no incentive to run a business, the business will not be run.

But sometimes a person has no choice or is swindled. I generally have a great distrust of corporations and this extends to the idea of wages.



The 'poverty line' is far below what people need to be payed to survive and prosper in modern life. None of those burger flippers are getting much benefit for pay below the poverty line, so he may as well lay one off so they don't have to work any more and pay the other two decent because before none of them were really getting much benefit.



I would rather 3 people be payed a living wage and one person get to enjoy time with family, etc. that four people be payed substandard wages and work all-day.



Well. Corporations are the big thing here. Joe's Burger Joint is probably living off of every single burger sale but Wall Street companies have the Wells Fargo guy in the bank who gets payed probably around 9$ an hour and the CEO who gets payed massive amounts of money and will collect multi-million dollar bonuses. Maybe the CEO can give up some of his multi-million dollar bonus and increase Joe the Wells Fargo Banker who you see at the bank down the street's pay to 9.25$ an hour, might not sound like much but it is a lot if someone works 30 hours a week (as outlined in this resolution) 52 weeks a year (390$, you could pay your mortgage for a month or two with that) and with only 9$ an hour we get 14,040 $ per year. Even if we increase it to 40 hours (I do disagree with the 30 hour clause) you get 18,720 $. As to about what poverty means in our heads we all have a standard of what poverty is: no food or shelter, no joy, etc. but you can't just have an idea like that in a law, hence we have to have a device like the poverty line.



Yes, you are.



Ah, yes. But we have a small solution for that called when you honestly work for a job you get a little something called Unemployment Benefits, or at least in most modern countries.



I think most small business owners have incentives like community and lifestyle. And as to corporations they have so many lobbies and pay people poorly enough that the still have the resources to make enough money to have massive cash reserves and give out millions in bonuses. I don't think many of them are actually broke.

The only problem with that theory is that if Corporations stopped being so D*** selfish then they could pay people more and every one of their employees could live a happy life on their paycheck and their CEO would only earn a little more than a burger flipper.

You can always change your vote.

I understand the counter argument, but it's no less valid than the one I made. The fact is that Wal*mart is a publically traded company and it has to provide an RoI for it's shareholders. If it had a downturn in revenue then it would be a less appealing stock buy and people would invest elsewhere.

Wal*mart's sins are bigger than low wages, given that they hold a near monopoly and can control the prices of their vendors. The vendors then have to cut their overhead which means lower wages or bankruptcy. This corporation is precisely the type that I use for an example of the winners in a forced wage hike.

You think the mom and pop grocery will be able to compete with Wal*mart once they are forced to hire at 15 bucks an hour? They can barely make it by as is. They will go under and it's yet another nail in the coffin of the American dream.

My next question is, does the Australian actually have more spending money or is their cost of living the same? All the data I can find seems to indicate that the poverty level in Aus runs at greater than 12%, with the US at around 14%. Given that Aus doesn't suffer from illegal immigration in the same way as the US, this seems pretty comparible.

It also seems that the rich poor divide is growing in Aus, which should be reversed if there was any benefit in forcing corporations to pay higher wages.

Also The Human Poverty Index makes for some interesting reading and it doesn't really indicate to me that Aus is much better off than any other developed country.

If the US pushed all of it's illegal immigrants back over the border to Mexico then the poverty level would be impacted in a massive way. That's estimated at over 11 million people, perhaps as high as 20 million people. Most of those individuals are classified in the poverty level.

Give Aus a continual flood of immigrants at that level and see how long they can sustain that income. Aus now has one of the stricter immigration policies for a really good reason.

I’ll address each of your points/questions separately. I understand that Walmart is publically traded, so has a responsibility to its shareholders. I think the business model of trying to generate maximum profits at the expense of everything is fundamentally flawed. I’m sure you disagree with this, so I shall not go further. And yes, Walmart’s ‘sins’ are bigger than low wages. In my opinion, large chain stores, particularly Walmart in the US can, and usually does, have a strong negative effect on local communities.

The issue with Walmart’s domination in these communities is nothing to do with the minimum wage. Referring to my link that I provided above, and [also here], Walmart workers earn 20% less than their small-business equivalent, and the opening of a Walmart to a small community decreases the average wage of these small-business employees. Further, commonly Walmart employees have worse healthcare plans, and benefits. For instance, [this paper (.pdf)] finds that unionized workers in groceries earned $18.25 taking into consideration benefits, while the equivalent grocery workers in Walmart earned $9.63. They conclude that Walmart is indeed devastating on small businesses.

Anyway, this is not about Walmart, although the effects of Walmart are far further reaching than this. This is about the minimum wage. The fact is that Walmart is here, and they have a virtual monopoly over communities, with their ability to crush competitors. Who’s fault is this? Minimum wages? No! It’s the opposite. Walmart would not be so strong if they had to pay their workers a decent wage, while the small businesses in the area would largely not be affected, as their wages are generally higher. Further, Walmart should be, or should have been, regulated to prevent this monopolisation they hold. Yes, it is true that sometimes businesses cannot four workers rather than three. It is a sad fact of business that some fail, and some succeed. The failure rate is only exacerbated with the presence of a Walmart. Small businesses did better before Walmart, and they were able to provide their staff a decent wage.

My point is that minimum wage is really not about small-business, although referencing small-business is a good catch phrase for the Tea-Party types, as it is emotive, the vast majority of the blame must be put on Walmart, and other chain stores, from fast-food to retail. The fact is that these are the businesses that push down wages for everybody, and they can afford to pay their staff the most. It’s sad that we live in a society that can’t pay 46 cents per visit to Walmart, and probably less to McDonalds just to ensure those serving them can live in relative comfort.

Next! Australia’s cost of living is comparable to that in the US. Having lived in both countries, and travelled a bit through both, I would think that the range of cost of living was greater in the US, but the average was about the same.

It is true that Australia is not without its problems. Having visited Darwin I was surprised, and saddened that such a rich country could treat their aboriginal people as they do. Support for these people is terrible. I remember going into central Darwin (before the partial alcohol ban), and seeing people just living on mattresses, whole families, just drunk off their face in the early afternoon. The Australian immigration policies, particularly to illegal immigrants, and yes, it is quite common, have drawn international attention, not least several cases successfully taken to the UN Human Rights Committee.

Finally, I think your point about illegal immigration really supports my point. Imagine if these illegal immigrants could afford the cost of the immigration process, and as someone who has experienced this first hand, including plane tickets cost over $4000 USD, and six months of lost wages, due to the period between arriving, and receiving your work visa (before you get your permanent residency). The entire process took nearly two years, even though I was getting married to an American citizen. Both of these factors are quite simply out of reach for most immigrants. So, imagine it was easier for these people to get at least a work visa. They could get a proper job, get a proper pay, could pay taxes, could buy products, could afford to go to university, could become doctors, firemen, Walmart cashiers, or anything. These people are not all destined to a life of poverty, as some think. They are normal functioning people, like you or I. The only thing that holds back a population is if the country cannot physically provide for them. The US is far from this level. There is room for more doctors, as there will be more patients. There is room for firemen, as there will be more fires, there will be room for more Walmart cashiers, as there will be more people wanting the latest goodness-knows-what. It’s a mistake, and kind of irrelevant to the topic, to think that this is an issue about illegal immigration.

In summary, it affects big businesses considerably more that small businesses to have a higher minimum wage, and in fact it is big businesses that supress wages throughout communities. Australia is not that different from the US, in any measure discussed, except the minimum wage and the fact that their economy is continually growing. It has nothing to do with illegal immigration.

Excuse me if I come across as offensive in the immigration part. It is something that I have experienced first-hand, and am very passionate about; it was an expensive, and truly degrading experience. It was not intended to be a personal attack on anybody’s beliefs.

Rant over! Phew!

I went through the same process. Which is interesting as our views are so fundamentally opposite. I had to save the money while my wife was paid at poverty level wages working for DirecTV trying to support 2 kids and myself.

I know about poverty having lived in poverty until I was able to get a decent paying job with a small company. The small company I work for continually struggles to stay afloat because we directly compete with offshore businesses.

Our health insurance costs are so high (1400 a month for an employee) that giving them a wage and being able to turn a profit is impossible. If there was a mandatory hike to $15 per hour I can tell you precisely what will happen.

My entire staff, myself included, will be out of a job. It's that simple.

You can't expect me to support something which seems great but ends up making 60 people unemployed. As it is everyone works and can just about cover their bills, more or less. Perhaps they can't have luxuries but they can certainly survive.


Do I like how Wal*mart operates? Of course not. I think they are a megalomaniac corporation that screws everyone in any way they can.

I suspect the data you quote varies from US State to US State, much as the information I referenced. All I can tell you is that trolling the job market here shows me that there is massive demand for sub $15ph jobs and I have to believe that there will be less of them if employers are mandated to hire at $15.

And as for Immigration having no relevance? If there are 46 million people below the poverty line, and 10 million of them are illegal immigrants, it has huge relevance to the discussion.

No state has a responsibility to educate, fund, feed, and employe illegal immigrants. If it costs 4K to get in and they haven't got it? Hard cheese.

My next door neighbour is an immigrant from Cuba. His dad spent 2 years in a concentration camp and had to pay the Castro Regime 4K US to leave Cuba with his family. They then spent 3 years in Spain working and saving the money for all of them to immigrate to the US. They managed it even though they had to go through hell, and they did it legally.

This bill is targetted at the Wal*marts, but it affects everyone.

I see nothing but rampant unemployment as a result as small businesses go under and big companies offshore their business to avoid the labor costs. I'll even admit that's short sighted of the corporations because then their retail market has less revenue and can't afford their products, but this is what happens nonetheless.

Um... Again, or the CEO could take a pay cut.

The point: Corporate America is corrupt and if we can't force Corporations to accept Unions, pay living wages, and to not plead for money when handing it out to those who don't need it we should resort to Socialism. The Free Market has no need to be trusted and as far as I am concerned an elected government ought to run the Corporations. You can call me a Communist and black-list me but that is my god's honest (forgive that expression from an Athiest) opinion.