On the "living wage" debate:
One thing that all of the candidates seem to be completely missing, or maybe just dismissing, is that the root cause of the "living wage" issue is the lack of manufacturing in the United States. How many of us over 40 can remember when jobs like fast food and delivering newspapers were almost exclusively done by teenagers just looking for beer money? How many of you have teenaged paperboys? I bet not many, because adults have been forced into those jobs now. Those jobs were never intended to provide a living wage. They were traditionally used to give teenagers a chance to put a little money in their pocket, while teaching them some of the basics about work ethic. So now the politicians answer to the problem is to artificially value those jobs, instead of bringing back the jobs that actually were meant to provide support for families and be done by heads of families. I'm sympathetic to someone trying to earn a living at McDonalds, but at the same time......... that's not what a fast food job is supposed to be.
I love most of this post. But follow that thinking through. Weren't the manufacturing jobs of that "provide(d) support for families" decades also artificially valued via unions?
There was a time when a guy with a high school diploma could walk down the street and get a job at the country's largest employer, General Motors, and get a job at 18 that paid for his home, food, car, wife, wife's car, kids, kids' college, etc. Automation, offshoring, and hostility towards unions has basically destroyed that model.
Bring back the jobs that produce durable goods, and pay a living wage, and let these other jobs revert back to teenagers who can benefit from them.
Those jobs aren't ever coming back though. That's the point of capitalism, to use expensive technology to lower the cost of production--and ultimately replace the human.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/business/us-textile-factories-return.html?_r=0
"Take Parkdale: The mill here produces 2.5 million pounds of yarn a week with about 140 workers. In 1980, that production level would have required more than 2,000 people."
More robots coming to U.S. factories
"BCG says manufacturers tend to ratchet up their robotics investment when they realize at least a 15% cost savings compared with employing a worker. In electronics manufacturing, it already costs just $4 an hour to use a robot for a routine assembly task vs. $24 for an average worker.
Within two years, the number of advanced industrial robots in the U.S. will begin to grow by 10% a year, up from current annual growth of 2% to 3%, the study says."
There is some optimism though, that it's better for the US to have a factory of robots and smaller number of employers than a no factory at all.
I think largely the living wage argument is just attempting to find a solution for the 21st century workforce, one where automation and the destruction of unions means that too many adults can't get jobs that pay the bills.
