US income inequality at record high

[Indiana Mike]

But didn't you read what happens in the story? If wages rise at the same level as inflation, it will KILL THE ENTIRE ECONOMY!!!!

and if wages continue to stagnate or even decline further the cost of living will decline as well.

Right

 

[Tony Flow MMMM]

(I have intimate knowledge of this subject so don't even try.)
:

Uh oh. As for the rest of your post I don't even care to address others have clearly pointed out the flaws in your theory.

 

[Tony Flow MMMM]

So, let's stop talking about government mandated "redistribution" for a moment, since that seems to be the biggest point of contention, even when rebuking someone who had nothing to say about it. Does anyone disagree with the premise that the average US worker (not professional or executive) today gets paid less (adjusted for inflation) for doing the same job as a worker would have 25 years ago?

If he doesn't get paid less in raw (inflation adjusted) dollars for doing the same job, is his salary a lower percentage of a given company's total profit than it was 25 years ago?

I don't have sources to provide answers to these questions. What does TB think? I think that's the real gripe of many folks: they don't get paid as much as their parents did for doing the same job because the fellas at the top are letting less trickle down to the workers than they used to. That's apolitical as far as I'm concerned because it has nothing to do with minumum wage, govt. mandates or any other loaded buzzwords thrown around to divert the conversation. Is there merit to the fundamental assumption that equally hard workers are getting a crappier cut in 2013?

Yes it's lower I don't think there's any denying that

 

[Tony Flow MMMM]

My starting wage at my current job was higher than what my father earned in his union job, which he spent his whole life at, when he retired ten years ago. My dad retired earning about 40k. My first year at this job is coming to a close and I will end up somewhere around 60. By this time next year I will earn approximately $8/hr more than I do now. So no, I think I definitely earn more money than my father did. Even adjusted for inflation.

I take it, it's the EXACT same job?

 

[Dale D Dilly]

Sooooooo I guess we do that by only taking away a certain percentage from the wealthy....... mean people? And we leave the good wealthy people alone? Or are you saying that by building fewer prisons and bombs that actually frees up enough money to just pay anyone not making a living wage the difference in their income and that living wage? I don't follow. What ARE you suggesting we do?

You don't seem to agree with my fake plan. What is your fake plan?

I think he means that if you reappropriate the money already spent on symbolic but quantifiably worthless things like drug incarcerations and about half of our military arsenal, you could better educate the entire population, thus creating a more efficient and productive workforce, thus creating greater gross profits across most US industries, thus creating more wealth for everyone.

I don't know how much I agree, but I thought that was pretty easy to grasp from his short post.

My starting wage at my current job was higher than what my father earned in his union job, which he spent his whole life at, when he retired ten years ago. My dad retired earning about 40k. My first year at this job is coming to a close and I will end up somewhere around 60. By this time next year I will earn approximately $8/hr more than I do now. So no, I think I definitely earn more money than my father did. Even adjusted for inflation.

I didn't ask about you. I asked how you thought the average US worker was doing. I don't mean that in a confrontational way; those are just two very different things.

 

[Floyd Eye]

I take it, it's the EXACT same job?

I don't recall that being your criteria. Still, they are not completely dissimilar. Both union, skilled labor jobs. The fact is the unions long ago sold my father's profession down the river.

 

[bolophonic]

So, let's stop talking about government mandated "redistribution" for a moment, since that seems to be the biggest point of contention, even when rebuking someone who had nothing to say about it. Does anyone disagree with the premise that the average US worker (not professional or executive) today gets paid less (adjusted for inflation) for doing the same job as a worker would have 25 years ago?

If he doesn't get paid less in raw (inflation adjusted) dollars for doing the same job, is his salary a lower percentage of a given company's total profit than it was 25 years ago?

I don't have sources to provide answers to these questions. What does TB think? I think that's the real gripe of many folks: they don't get paid as much as their parents did for doing the same job because the fellas at the top are letting less trickle down to the workers than they used to. That's apolitical as far as I'm concerned because it has nothing to do with minumum wage, govt. mandates or any other loaded buzzwords thrown around to divert the conversation. Is there merit to the fundamental assumption that equally hard workers are getting a crappier cut in 2013?

I suspect that anyone who disagrees with your query is going to back up their argument with anecdotal stories about the spending habits of the poor, completely made-up rants about how a living wage would collapse the economy, and paranoid delusions about how the government is attempting to force us to return to the economic model of the 1950's, when the United States was a communist nation.

 

[two fingers]

Hard to say, BwanaRik may use the difference on purely American made products. I doubt even a Rickenbacker is 100% USA content. Squires help keep American music stores open.

Agreed. And how many music stores would stay open if we suddenly were only allowed to buy instruments made in countries that paid what many here see as a living wage? Even most American companies probably wouldn't qualify as paying the "moral" wage.

(Answer: about a dozen high-end shops. And CraigsList servers would catch on fire from the sheer amount of traffic. There would be the high-end market, the used market, and the black market. Nothing else.)

 

[two fingers]

My starting wage at my current job was higher than what my father earned in his union job, which he spent his whole life at, when he retired ten years ago. My dad retired earning about 40k. My first year at this job is coming to a close and I will end up somewhere around 60. By this time next year I will earn approximately $8/hr more than I do now. So no, I think I definitely earn more money than my father did. Even adjusted for inflation.

My father retired about 5 years ago as a maintenance man at a paper mill making $37 an hour. My cousin just started on day one in the same job at the same mill making (actually as an apprentice) $45. And he doesn't know the difference between a screwdriver and a piece of conduit. So, I guess things aren't always as they seem.

(Sorry. That wasn't actual fact. It was just an anecdote and can not actually be considered as any indication of anything that could possibly be a reality on the ground. Surely if it is only that one case it can't be happening anywhere else. That fact that it is true is irrelevant. Sorry I brought it up. Carry on.)

 

[Tony Flow MMMM]

I don't recall that being your criteria. Still, they are not completely dissimilar. Both union, skilled labor jobs. The fact is the unions long ago sold my father's profession down the river.

Cool I work construction... My dad has workers working residential making about 15-20$ an hour. I work industrial at 30$ an hour..

WHAT THERE BOTH CONSTRUCTION RIGHT?

Wrong

 

[two fingers]

I suspect that anyone who disagrees with your query is going to back up their argument with anecdotal stories about the spending habits of the poor, completely made-up rants about how a living wage would collapse the economy, and paranoid delusions about how the government is attempting to force us to return to the economic model of the 1950's, when the United States was a communist nation.

Yes, that is exactly what I have been saying.

 

[bolophonic]

I think he means that if you reappropriate the money already spent on symbolic but quantifiably worthless things like drug incarcerations and about half of our military arsenal, you could better educate the entire population, thus creating a more efficient and productive workforce, thus creating greater gross profits across most US industries, thus creating more wealth for everyone.

I don't know how much I agree, but I thought that was pretty easy to grasp from his short post.

Thank you. I didn't think my point could have been so hard to understand.

 

[Unrepresented]

You mean countries that don't reward horrible, even abusive, teachers with tenure? I am shocked.

While I am not an expert on labor practices in education in Western Europe, as a general rule, they're much more union friendly than our domestic industries.

So, let's talk about that then. I totally agree with you on this. The average Chinese worker is getting screwed. But let's take things to their natural conclusion.

Some here have suggested we need single payer healthcare.

Some have suggested we need free education through college.

Some have suggested we need a living wage. I'm am going to make my own guess as to a range of what that is because each and every person that I talk to, and on this forum, has a different definition of what that is. I'll just throw out $12-$15 an hour full-time. (Of course, nobody is working much full time these days now are they? Suddenly 29 hours is about as much as many can get.)

Some have suggested that we can pay for a lot of this by ending the war on drugs.

Publicly fund mental health treatment.

Oh, and while we're at it, let's keep throwing a metric crapload of money at green energies that nobody (in business OR the private sector) seems to want. But let's NOT take economic advantage of our own natural resources and the employment and tax revenue it would bring.

And now we must not only quit exploiting our own workers, but Chinese ones as well.

This all sounds FANTASTIC! I like it! Let's start tomorrow! Get it going!

I really shouldn't bother going down this path of explaining how it would be impossible to carry out even HALF of this without trying to build a utopian society where suddenly Apple executives make $45 grand a year and are supposed to like it because it's for the good of the country. (Good luck with that. I imagine some very big-hearted wealthy people who go to political rallies and fuss about wealth redistribution would suddenly be not so political. Just sayin'.) But (sigh) I'm going to do it anyway.

Can you imagine? Can you actually wrap your head around what an average, ordinary, mundane, simple little item that we all take for granted would cost? Let's just say that we all agree that wages should go up a lot, AND we should no longer allow American corporations to supply us goods that are manufactured under the slave conditions the Chinese have going. So, suddenly, not only are the wages HERE going to cut way into profits, but bringing all those jobs making trinkets and plastic vomit (and about 60% or more of the other things we use every day) over in China back here to work for those new "fair living wages" as well. Everybody will be employed and there will be tons of money to go around, right? Are you silly? Lat's just say a company that currently has 20% of its production here in the US, and 80% in China has a total of 12,000 employees. Currently, the ones in China (9,600 of them) make about $3 an hour (and I really don't have any idea what they make). And the ones here in the US (2,400 of them) make an average of $15 an hour. That rounds out to about $64,800 an hour being payed out (not including whatever benefits packages the ones here get). Just under $2.6 million a week. Just over $135.7 million a year in wages alone. Suddenly, we decide to quit exploiting Chinese workers and do out own manufacturing..... with a living wage, of course. So, let's get everybody to $20 an hour. (Is that a living wage? I honestly have no idea.) Let's just say it is for fun. Now, we just jumped to barely under $500 million a year in JUST WAGES (and, again, we haven't talked any about retirement and other benefits). So, set over there on the corner of your mind's desk the fact that we suddenly expect US corporations to spend almost SEVENTY THREE PERCENT MORE on labor.

Let's take the economics of this one step further. You ALSO want the people working for distribution and retail to make a "living wage" too. So, every truck driver, fork lift operator at a warehouse, guy who stocks the shelves, guy who runs a cash register, guy who bakes the cakes, guy who waxes the floors, guy who greets you at the door, guy who answers your questions in electronics, guy who gathers the shopping carts and guy who sprays water on the veggies at Wal-Mart, Food Lion, K-Mart, and the guy who drives the truck, flips the burgers, hoses down the parking lot, cleans the bathroom, takes orders, and makes drinks at McDonald's, Burger King, BoJangles etc. to go from making under $8 an hour to making $12 an hour as well.

So, you honestly think that suddenly US corporations can start paying out billions of dollars PER HOUR more in wages and the prices of every single thing you buy are going to go up by a NICKEL? Seriously? You HONESTLY believe that? You. Are. Deranged. You need some of that new free mental health stuff.

...... and speaking of THAT!

Not only are we going to ask US corporations to billions of dollar per hour more in WAGES, but we also have to pay for the FREE STUFF!

Healthcare. Can't go down this road without being political. Let me just tie a couple together though. Ending the war on drugs, and then expecting me to pay for the healthcare later in life of someone who did drugs his whole life is a JOKE. That being said, I think the rest of the country should be able to opt out of providing your healthcare if you sat your fat butt on a couch your whole life and ate burgers and fries until you weigh 300 lbs. Or if you drank so much you now have a liver the size of basketball. Or if you smoked so much that your lungs look like the stuff I just cleaned out of my grill. (But, then again, I guess rich fat cats "create the conditions" that somehow FORCED you into bad health as well...... oy.) We'll just all have to agree that it will be expensive.

"Free" college". Couple questions. Who gets to go to Duke or Harvard, and who gets to go to Stinky Finklestein's School for Hair Design? Who gets a PHD and who has to stop at a two year technical school? And who pays for it?

Free mental health care. So, these billionaires you piss and moan about should get free mental health care? Or is it just for the working class and the poor? Oh, and who pays for it?

I'll tell you who pays for it. Corporations. The corporate tax rate would have to skyrocket. Why? There wouldn't be much capital gains to speak of. You can jack that rate up all you want because with lower profits there won;t be as much GAIN to tax. And, people will leave the stock market in droves because of the lack of returns anyway, but the increased capital gains taxes would make the exodus even faster. (If I am not making any money on my investment, AND you are going to tax the crap out of what I DO make, why would I leave it there? Answer: I wouldn't.) So, yep. The corporate tax rate would have to go through the roof.

Where were we. OH YEAH! So, now we have corporations paying out upwards of %73 more labor on the FRONT end of production, and an incalculable amount on the back end at retail, and lest we forget distribution because they will most certainly have their collective hands out as well. NOW we're going to ask those SAME people who just got SMACKED by outrageously high labor cost increases to pay for the OTHER FREE STUFF we want as well!

Soooooooooo let me see if I have this all straight. Here in utopia, everybody makes a living wage, everybody has healthcare for "free", everybody has free mental healthcare, everybody has free college, and the guys who were making billions suddenly volunteer to make a million or two a year and keep working for the good of the country (after decreased profits and higher corporate and income taxes)? The guys who were making millions suddenly make $75K a year and they keep working because its the right thing to do? The average cash or insurance visit to the doctor pays around 4 or 5 times what a government paid visit does and doctors are going to keep working for 20% of what they were making, and going to school for an extra 5 or 6 years because its good for the neighborhood? And the prices of everything we buy aren't going to go through the roof in an attempt to make up for the gagillions of dollars in lost profits? Maybe just a nickel or so?

Seems realistic. Sounds like a plan and I'm sure it has worked somewhere in history. I think it'll work here too. Sign me up.

Sorry for the long rant.

A) Fixing the world may very well be a multi-step process. No one is suggesting that a war on poverty on multiple fronts is the most efficient strategy.

B) You keep ignoring the posts I make including links by experts regarding where the costs will be redirected if the bottom rung gets raised up just a little higher in income level.

 

[Floyd Eye]

Cool I work construction... My dad has workers working residential making about 15-20$ an hour. I work industrial at 30$ an hour..

WHAT THERE BOTH CONSTRUCTION RIGHT?

Wrong

Well let me say this. I spent my entire adult life, other than the past 11 months, as a carpenter. I was in the union in the 80s. I have done residential and commercial.

My opinion is that you are ridiculously overpaid and if you are union, I am willing to bet that the kid who I sold my business to last year and who worked for me for 2 years prior to that, is twice the carpenter most of you guys are and I paid him $20/hr.

 

[Floyd Eye]

Speed nailing class. Yes it's real. Yes it's stupid.

 

[Dale D Dilly]

My father retired about 5 years ago as a maintenance man at a paper mill making $37 an hour. My cousin just started on day one in the same job at the same mill making (actually as an apprentice) $45. And he doesn't know the difference between a screwdriver and a piece of conduit. So, I guess things aren't always as they seem.

(Sorry. That wasn't actual fact. It was just an anecdote and can not actually be considered as any indication of anything that could possibly be a reality on the ground. Surely if it is only that one case it can't be happening anywhere else. That fact that it is true is irrelevant. Sorry I brought it up. Carry on.)

There's a lot of space between "anecdotes don't signify anything" and "anecdotes often fail to line up with larger sets of data." The story can be helpfully illustrative without indicating how things are for most people. An outlying anecdote literally shows that "things aren't always as they seem" without necessarily denying that they're usually as they seem.

Trained machinsts at manufacturing plants in my town are making upwards of $15 an hour nowadays, a few dollars less then they would have 10 years ago, but about the same (sans inflation adjustment) as folks did 20 years ago. My own little realm of experience supports the idea that people are making quite a bit less (since a loaf of bread and gallon of gas were noticeably cheaper in 1993). My field of vision is admittedly limited; that's why I said I didn't have sources to back up the general assumption of lower wages.

 

[Tony Flow MMMM]

Well let me say this. I spent my entire adult life, other than the past 11 months, as a carpenter. I was in the union in the 80s. I have done residential and commercial.

My opinion is that you are ridiculously overpaid and if you are union, I am willing to bet that the kid who I sold my business to last year and who worked for me for 2 years prior to that, is twice the carpenter most of you guys are and I paid him $20/hr.

No union and I bet he is.

I'm an electrician..


WHAT IT'S ALL CONSTRUCTION!!

 

[Floyd Eye]

No union and I bet he is.

I'm an electrician..


WHAT IT'S ALL CONSTRUCTION!!

Ah. Electricians. My favorite people. Every single time I got sent home for not having whites on or written up for picking up a piece of offal ( hence stealing work from a laborer) it was because I was ratted out by an electrician. I'm sure this applies only to union guys though. One of my best friends ( and a damn fine bassist) is a union electrician. Someone once asked him if it wasn't a dangerous job. He said, "Damn straight, I almost starved to death twice last year". Poor bastard is in Iowa right now. He'll be in New Mexico next week. God only knows where he will be next month. He's ardently pro union though.

 

[two fingers]

Trained machinsts at manufacturing plants in my town are making upwards of $15 an hour nowadays, a few dollars less then they would have 10 years ago, but about the same (sans inflation adjustment) as folks did 20 years ago.

I'm not sure where you live but it is a strange place. I have never heard of a machinist making so little. Not even twenty years ago. In many of the factories I have done work in, they are some of the highest paid tradesmen there. I have even done work in a few places where they made so much more than the average worker that they ate lunch in their shop so as to avoid the conversations about wages at the lunch table. (I used to work with a contractor that did some CAD/CNC machine installs. I don't know much about the field or the machines as I simply ran power to the install. But I did have conversations with the guys in the shops.) In fact, here in little ole' Eastern NC the average assembly line worker makes more than that. And many aren't even union plants.

Machinists making $15 an hour. Really...... They should all move. Pretty much anywhere but where you are they would have a better life. In fact, tell them to come here. I'll open my own shop and pay them that much and let them play whatever radio station they want all day.

 

[Floyd Eye]

Machinists make around $30/hr here. And I don't mean after 10 years.