Wages In The US

http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/371175/federal-minimum-wage-too-high-long-term-unemployed-reihan-salam

Wealthy suggest a training wage under minimum wage to "stimulate" hiring and training of long term unemployed...



The real issue on bottom line profits are that consumer spending is flat-lined. This leads to business growing profits on the backs of employees with lower wages, less or no benefits, and only offering part time work. If a business is suffering from a lack of business caused by a lack of consumer spending, lowering the wage to $4 (training wage) an hour won't create any more jobs because business still isn't experience any increase in consumer spending. Where is the money coming from to hire new workers ? Instead business would just exploit this, replacing good paying existing jobs with lower paying jobs to streamline their profit margin. On the flip side, if the basic cost of living is $14 an hour for a single person working a full-time job as it is in most states, raising the minimum wage to anything less than this basic cost of living will also result in only negative consequences, ie. jobs cuts, reducing of hours, higher consumer prices, because still there is no increase in consumer spending for business to afford that. It is only after wage is higher than the basic cost of living that there would be an increase in business through consumer spending which could offset such a raise in wage. To be clear .... if it costs $14 an hour working a full-time job just for the basics in cost of living, they can raise the wage to $13 an hour and the only business that will benefit from that wage increase are landlords, banks, utility companies, transportation, and the tax man. The rest of the businesses out there are SOL because consumers still won't have one penny to spend stimulating the economy. This issue at hand is not an issue of class inequality, ie. rich vs. poor, it is an issue of inequality in wage vs. cost of living. Minimum wage is as counter-productive as the cost of living and they have no problem with the cost of living rising every year. They have allowed this problem to occur and have let it get out of hand. You can't fix this with education so everyone has a college degree because the payoff on that after a person pays off the debt of that education and is actually contributing to economy growth won't have results for decades. You also can't fix this problem with subsidies and bailouts, the ONLY solution is for wage to be higher than the cost of living so the result is massive consumer spending and real economic growth.



http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2013USpn_13ps2n_400010



Reason for using "~" is these figures (%) change quarterly and this is for general ideal.



The US government spends (Not including Medical, since my personal belief is everyone should have medical care) ~2.6% of the ~$16 Trillion (2.1% GDP impoverish family medical welfare, to make a point) ~416 Billion/yr (2.6%) & 336 Billion/yr. (2.1%). Also which is not listed under welfare spending but rather "Agriculture" spending are the food stamp programs which amount to ~80 billion/yr. totaling ~832 Billion/yr.



http://cnsnews.com/news/article/federal-food-stamp-program-spent-record-804b-fy-2012



http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/13poverty.cfm



The poverty guidelines in the US. are roughly $12k/yr. Single +4k/yr. per additional household member. This is the equivalent to having a part time job(32 hours a week) with no benefits at minimum wage. Consider ~15% of the US lives in poverty, with a population of 314 Million, nearly 47 million people live in poverty which in turn creates the need and dependency of social welfare. 22% of these citizens are children who have no recourse for their situation. Leaving ~36.5 million working age Americans in the pits - dependency.The government spends nearly $17-18k/yr. per individual person in poverty. This does not include tax subsidies for programs like EIC which pays out about 1.2 Billion a year to low income families with dependent children. This is small dent in the big picture. Link for reading.



http://www.pewstates.org/projects/stateline/headlines/a-renewed-push-for-earned-income-tax-credit-in-states-85899539729



Getting to the point, if we where to take the over 22k/yr. spent in welfare services and divert them into a living wage subsidy supporting a higher base minimum wage of nearly 2x ($14.5) the current minimum wage for persons who are working age (18+) [maybe keep lower minimum wage($7.25) for ages 15-17 who are restricted to part time and often live as a dependent]. we would in turn begin to nullify the need for such large social welfare. as this wage would create independent earning as well as stimulate economic growth via increased purchasing power.



Why should this be a government subsidy? Look, the government is already paying this money out. We know we can not trust corporate America to care for the well being of their country and those who work for them. A subsidy would both benefit employees and lesson the bottom-line of the employer.



I truly feel the original intent of social welfare has long been lost to the stepping stone it was meant to be. It has become a crutch for generational poverty and a means to create social apathy and dependency in the impoverished and working class of America.



If we can start to take the right steps now on matters like this as well as clean up some other issues in our country and government we may be able to set forth a bright and lucrative future for our children.