California set to raise minimum wage to $10

[King]

This is only going to affect inland areas.

Jobs in the major CA cities are already $10/hr at least out of necessity.

[King]

Some of you aren't even being realistic. $20 an hour for a minimum wage would kill our economy because of the huge surge in prices that would necessarily follow. The prices of goods would necessarily skyrocket.

We've had decades of stagnant minimum wage and prices skyrocket annually.
We've had decades of tax cuts and credits for business owners and prices skyrocket annually.  We've had decades of money supply influx and prices skyrocket annually. 
There is no correlation.

If prices are going to keep rising, might as well require the money go to someplace useful.

[King]

The federal minimum wage in 1968 was $10.74 an hour in today's dollars. Enough said.

You mean for federal employees?

He means for everyone.  The minimum wage was $1.60--$10.74 in 2013 dollars.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

The inflation adjusted minimum wage has been on a steady decline for 35 years.

[King]

The Democrats should raise the minimum wage and then index it to inflation. Of course they won't because they want a campaign issue.

It shows a lack of conviction in their own beliefs if that's the case.  You will never lose another election if your policies actually work.

[King]

The federal minimum wage in 1968 was $10.74 an hour in today's dollars. Enough said.

You mean for federal employees?

He means for everyone.  The minimum wage was $1.60--$10.74 in 2013 dollars.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

The inflation adjusted minimum wage has been on a steady decline for 35 years.

There's also considerably more downward pressure on unskilled workers' wages than in 1968; higher female labour force participation, globalization opening up competition from 3rd worlders, increased use of technology in low skill jobs etc.

No, not at all.  The labor force participation rate had already broken into the 60%s by 1968.  Globalization doesn't really matter as manufacturing was and never will be a minimum wage job. 

Minimum wage work cannot be outsourced and if it can, that's a good thing.  If raising minimum wage means technological replacement, then it should be even more embraced as low minimum wage, thus, must be slowing down our technological process as a nation.

Everything we "risk" losing in these minimum wage hike debate sounds like awful detriments to our society.

[King]

The federal minimum wage in 1968 was $10.74 an hour in today's dollars. Enough said.

You mean for federal employees?

This is also known as picking cherries. 1968 is of course a completely random and arbitrary year.

Of course, if you looked on the Department of Labor's site and looked at minimum wage by year, you'd see that their chart starts in...1968.

How amusing to cherry pick a single chart from the department of labor that is already cherry picking! I guess you have to cherry pick the single year of 1968, when, naturally, the minimum wage was greatly out of line with the remaining 74 years of the minimum wage's existence.


The prior chart linked starts at 1955. The federal minimum wage chart starts at 1938, which is incidentally when the minimum wage was first implemented. Either year, of course, would be just as valid as 1968. The current minimum wage is of course right in line with the past 30 years.

1968 was a peak, but the inflation adjusted minimum wage was higher from 1956-1985 every year than it is today. 

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

[King]

WalMart could always over $3/hour in store credit on top of the minimum wage... that would be helpful.

[King]

Walmart, stung and crippled by Democratic plans to increase the minimum wage and force expensive health care coverage, will no doubt lay off more workers and ...

... wait, what's that? Walmart just announced it was going to add 35,000 new part-time workers and convert 35,000 more part-time workers to full-time? And it's doing it because it slashed staff to the bone so badly during the recession that stores literally cannot keep shelves stocked or organized due to a lack of available labor?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-25/the-real-reason-wal-mart-hired-all-those-people.html

It's sent America into a panic. Hannity's website has the numbers of how much more it's going to cost the average family compared to what Obama misled us to believe. He misled us into a quagmire. I don't understand why the country can't agree with my proposal which is located under individual politics.

Wal-Mart panicked and hired 35,000 people?

The article is absolutely spot on of what I've said the whole time--business owners have ZERO CONTROL over how many employees they hire.  I'm sure the Walton family hates the law, but the bottom line is they need more employees to meet the demand of the true owners of their business: the CONSUMERS.

[King]

WalMart could always over $3/hour in store credit on top of the minimum wage... that would be helpful.

As a married couple close to me who work at Wal-Mart point out, they get a 10% discount at Wal-Mart, but with the wages and next to non-existant benefits they get paid, they and other employees can't afford to shop anywhere else.

Indeed.  Maybe one day people will fix it.