Let the good times roll! Senate votes down Federal Minimum Wage hike (again)

[Arrian]

Nah, I like to eat. I couldn't possibly survive without good italian food.

-Arrian

[DRoseDARs]

Sweden then? They're communist and close to Italy.

[Odin]

the minimum wage should be increased to $8/hr and then tied to inflation.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
Sweden then? They're communist and close to Italy.

I could probably deal with that... but then I'm in close proximity to loads and loads of crazy (and evil!) Finns.

-Arrian

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Odin
the minimum wage should be increased to $8/hr and then tied to inflation.

And 8$ an hour isn't much either.

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Arrian


I could probably deal with that... but then I'm in close proximity to loads and loads of crazy (and evil!) Finns.

-Arrian

Yes.

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Spiffor

And 8$ an hour isn't much either.

But it's more than I make now and for someone with a full-time job paying that, it's a far cry from $5.25/hr.

What I'd like to see is minimum wage tied to whatever the poverty level is. Throwing out a number I heard years ago (I've no idea what the current estimate is) let's call it $16,000 and below. I'd like to see it required that any over-table job meet at least that. At 40 hrs/wk and 50 weeks plus 2 weeks unpaid vacation that comes out to $8/hr before taxes (so really, they should be paid more to stay over $16k/yr after taxes). I'd like to see the government (Federal, state, and local) then offer tax incentives to businesses surpassing that level. Let's say a business has three hourly-wage employees and pays each of them $17k/yr after taxes. If the poverty level is $16k then that's $3k extra the business is paying over the required amount. Through a combination of federal, state, and local tax code, that business should at least get $3k in tax breaks just for that. Obviously, there should be a cutoff point where a business no longer receives tax breaks equivalent to whatever pay over the poverty level it is paying its employees. I'd go with half beyond the poverty level, which would be in this scenario paying its lowest wage-earners $24k after taxes and $8k in tax breaks for the business. I would also add that this would all apply to full-time workers (+40hrs/wk). There should be seperate tax incentives (and less enticing than the earlier ones) to encourage businesses to aim for meeting or passing the poverty level in paying all its employees, which is to say the overall tax incentives for paying all employees at a business should save the business more in taxes than trying to keep them all below 40hrs/wk. Perhaps a way around that dirty trick is to require businesses to provide full medical/dental coverage for the people working less than 40hrs/wk (meaning the business pays all the costs, the employee pays none since they're already dirt poor and aren't being paid a living wage). Minimum wage employees working 40hrs/wk should be then paying a portion of the insurance premiums (maybe 1/4 but no more than 1/2). For those concerned about mom-and-pop businesses, they should be getting assistance options from the different levels of government anyway. Big corporations like Walmart should not be getting any assistance, just tax breaks as incentives for paying living wages.

If your employees aren't hourly-workers and aren't minimum wagers, then none of this applies. That's all a seperate issue.

Perhaps this is all naive, but bloody hell, I'd like the "Compassionate Conservatives" to stop talking a big game and actually put their money were their minimum wage workers' mouths are.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by GePap
Short term, perhaps. Long term, probably not. After all, the minimum wage today is higher than even, yet the unemployment rate is, historically speaking, relatively low.

Which would be due to the fact that, as you complained, the minimum wage has not increased with inflation.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Admiral
I really don't understand why the minimum wage isn't tied to the purchasing power of the dollar. If there is, say, 4% inflation over the course of a year, there should be no reason why the minimum wage shouldn't increase by 4% as well.

Indexing it to inflation is a very good idea.

[Dinner]

As America's poorest are once again denied a pay raise let us not forget that some people are making record salaries.

CEO salaries jumped 30 percent in 2004
Typical top dog's compensation package came in at $5.74 million

EW YORK - When it comes to chief executives and their compensation, a new survey makes it clear: It’s nice work if you can get it.

A typical chief executive at the biggest U.S. companies was last year awarded $5.74 million of compensation, 30.2 percent more than in 2003, according to a survey released Thursday by the Corporate Library, a corporate governance research group in Portland, Maine.

The average CEO at companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index was paid even more — $11.71 million.

The median increase was more than nine times last year’s 3.3 percent rise in U.S. consumer prices, and double the 15 percent increase a year earlier. The average increase was 91 percent, a number distorted by the 27 CEOs whose compensation swelled more than 1,000 percent.

“We’re seeing the kinds of pay increases we saw in the 1990s,” said Paul Hodgson, senior research associate at the Corporate Library, in an interview.

“While we are seeing some changes, especially as more companies expense stock options, we still see many CEOs paid with restricted stock and stock options,” he continued. “This tends to reward everyone in a rising stock market, whether they outperform their peers or not.”

Surveyors examined CEO compensation at 2,000 of the largest U.S. companies, and compiled data on 1,843. The Corporate Library survey includes salary, bonus, incentive payouts, restricted stock and the realized value of options, a broader definition than some compensation experts use. The average CEO salary was $711,000, and a typical bonus was about $1.03 million.

According to the survey, the highest paid CEO in the S&P 500 was Yahoo Inc.’s Terry Semel, who was awarded $230.6 million, mostly through stock options.

Shareholders voiced their displeasure at the amount last May when they withheld nearly one-fifth of their votes for reelection of three board directors who sat on the Internet media company’s compensation committee.

Trailing Semel, if that’s the word, was UnitedHealth Group Inc.’s William McGuire, who was awarded $124.8 million, and Waters Corp.’s Douglas Berthiaume, who was awarded $109.7 million, both mostly from stock options. UnitedHealth is a health insurer, and Waters makes drug research instruments.

More money
Ranking seventh was Exxon Mobil Corp.’s Lee Raymond, whose $81.7 million compensation package included $28 million in restricted stock, the survey showed.

Exxon last year increased net profit 21 percent to $25.33 billion on $291.25 billion of revenue. Raymond became CEO in 1993, and will retire from that role at the end of this year.

“Given the amount he has earned as CEO, what possible motivation could there be from awarding him more stock?” Hodgson said.

Exxon did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

CEOs in other industries are also well paid.

Sumner Redstone, who runs media company Viacom Inc.’s , was awarded more than $56 million, while Stanley O’Neal, who runs Merrill Lynch & Co., was awarded $32 million, securities filings show.

Hodgson faulted companies who use the “market rate” for other CEOs as a basis for paying their own, whether they are worth it or not.

At the other end of the pay spectrum was Apple Computer Inc.’s Steve Jobs, who took $1 in compensation after previously receiving $74.75 million of restricted stock, the survey said.

Also near the bottom: Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Warren Buffett, who annually takes a $100,000 salary. Buffett, of course, had a recent net worth of $40 billion according to Forbes magazine.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9844475/

[Drake Tungsten]

Man, that's crazy. The average Yankee player makes more than the average CEO...

http://asp.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/salaries/mediansalaries.aspx?year=2005

[MrFun]

****

[Velociryx]

Sure is! And the crazy part is the Yankee's salaries, not the CEO's! (at least not in a head-to-head comparison...in truth, they're BOTH sky-high crazy)

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Which would be due to the fact that, as you complained, the minimum wage has not increased with inflation.

Wrong.

First, historically speaking, an unemployment rate of 6% was seen as low, and theory assumed that rates much lower than this were signs of a hot economy possibly prone to inflationary pressures (because all these new people had wages, hence jobs, hence increased demand). All throughout the late 90's rates went LOWER than this. The unemployment rate nationally in the end of 1998 was 4.3%, historically a very low rate, and yet not one that was causing any real inflationary pressures.

More importantly, unemployment DROPPED from 12/97 to 12/98. Meaning that in the 24 month period after the increase, unemployment went DOWN. Care to exmplain, Padawan?

[Imran Siddiqui]

More importantly, unemployment DROPPED from 12/97 to 12/98. Meaning that in the 24 month period after the increase, unemployment went DOWN. Care to exmplain, Padawan?

Are you saying the rest of the economic factors (aside from unemployment) remained static while only the minimum wage changed?

(After all, during a boom period, as the late 90s most definitely was, does it make any difference to raise the min wage? Hell, McDonalds in my area was hiring for a dollar higher than the min wage at the time!)

[q=Oerdin]As America's poorest are once again denied a pay raise let us not forget that some people are making record salaries.[/q]

It pays to read your own link. Most of the increase is due to the CEOs' stock options rising.