[mattduke]

The Schwarzenegger administration today ordered State Controller John Chiang to reduce state worker pay for July to the federal minimum allowed by law -- $7.25 an hour for most state workers.

The instructions from the Department of Personnel Administration exclude roughly 37,000 state workers in six bargaining units that recently came to tentative labor agreements with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It's a start I guess, but the unions will strangle the life out of the remaining taxpayers.
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/07/01/286414 ... nimum.html

[Tyler_JC]

The workers in question are the thousands of in-home assistants that the state Medicaid program hires to care for the old and the disabled.

These basically impoverished social workers are going to get screwed over so that the prison guard union members can continue to retire in their early 50s with 6 figure pensions for life.

California is the greatest tragedy of the 20th Century. It has gone from the land of sunshine and opportunity to a kleptocracy ruled by corrupt public employee unions and idiotic state legislators.

There's a reason that hundreds of thousands of Americans vote with their feet every year and head for greener pastures.

California's population would be cratering right now if not for mass illegal immigration.

[Kristen]

Welcome to reality. The middle class evaporated, the hopes and dreams shattered. It's terrible if you ask me.

[Cloud9]

We gave it to Wall Street whose idea of the future only extends to the next quarter. Everything we manufactured could be made from components made more cheaply elsewhere. In time it became more feasible to have even the label made in America manufactured in China.

[Sixstrings]

Wow. A government somewhere does something good, for once:

L.A. to boost minimum wage to $15

Los Angeles lawmakers Tuesday voted to boost the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020, the largest city to try to help its lowest-paid workers.

The action will gradually increase the guaranteed hourly wage from $9 in the country's second largest city. Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle have enacted similar measures. The council's 14-1 vote directs the city attorney to draft an ordinance that will require final approval later this year.

The first increase, to $10.50 an hour, will come July 1, 2016, followed by annual steps until July 2020, when the minimum wage will stand at $15 an hour. Two years later, increases will be pegged to the Consumer Price Index.

For non-profit organizations with 25 or fewer employees, the scheduled raises won't begin until 2017.

"Today, help is on the way for the one million Angelenos who live in poverty," Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement, adding that the minimum wage "should not be a poverty wage in Los Angeles."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/05/19/los-angeles-approves-15-dollar-minimum-wage/27604949/

That's a good ordinance they passed. Going from $9 minimum to $15. Stepping up a bit over a dollar a year until 2020, and thereafter pegged to the CPI so that solves the problem forever, and nobody has to bother with this crap ever again.

LA joins Seattle and San Francisco and Chicago, on $15 minimum wage hikes.

[Sixstrings]

The minimum wage movement gets its biggest victory yet

L.A.’s size alone — it has a population of almost 4 million, four and a half times as large as San Francisco and almost six times as large as Seattle — makes this the most significant development in the growing movement for an increase in the minimum wage.

...

What’s remarkable is how dynamic this issue is, as the range of options we debate keeps changing and politicians try to catch up to what grassroots activists are pushing for. Not long ago, when fast-food and other low-wage workers began demanding a $15 minimum wage, it seemed like an unrealistic request, at a time when people were talking about raising the federal minimum of $7.25 to something like eight or nine dollars an hour.

But the ground keeps shifting.

We see it happening again and again: Politicians endorse a modest increase. Activists pressure them to go further. The politicians realize that the public is in favor of a more significant increase and that the debate has changed. And they follow along.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/05/20/the-minimum-wage-movement-gets-its-biggest-victory-yet/

[Sixstrings]

Berkley's in the news, proposing $19 an hour min wage. San Francisco already passed $15 min wage.

I was just watching Rick Santorum in the debate, and he gave an impassioned defense of workers and working class and said the problem with Republicans is they are all about business owners and they forget that most people do not own a business but rather, work for a business.

So I found that impressive, for a Republican to be saying to be saying all that , but then Santorum just says to raise the min wage by 50 cents over a period of years. All that drama, over 50 cents -- economists are right, if it had kept up with productivity gains then it actually should be be $19:

This city just proposed the highest minimum wage in America

The Berkeley Labor Commission justified going beyond $15 per hour by citing its interest in making the city’s minimum wage a living wage. The wage schedule it recommended would bring Berkeley’s minimum wage to parity with the local cost of living in 2020, while “promoting and protecting the rights and the individual self-reliance of working people in Berkeley,” the proposal says.

The suggestion of $19 per hour will no doubt face fierce opposition from business leaders, but some economists may argue that in terms of what low wage workers deserve, that rate is is spot-on. Last week, David Cooper with the Economic Policy Institute told Fortune that if the federal minimum wage had kept up with American workers’ productivity, it would land in the $18 or $19 per hour territory.
http://fortune.com/2015/09/15/nations-highest-minimum-wage-berkley/

If the basic rate had kept up with inflation, it should be $15.

It's $15 in Australia, and as a result, all other aussie wages are boosted by that wage floor and Australia overall has far less poverty than the USA does.

I think $15 is what it should be.

Rick Santorum's acting like Moses parting the red sea for fifty cents. It's good *some* Republicans are starting to change a little bit, but still.. so many people are so poor in the US these days.. people are bad off, they need more than fifty cents.

(but one has to give Santorum credit, he actually gave a stronger more passionate defense of the min wage than I've ever seen from Obama or Clinton. 50 cents ain't enough for folks but still, Santorum goes up a notch in my book. The more Republicans that come out with a "hands off social security and don't cut it / raise the min wage" stance, is helpful overall)

[jedrider]

Ah, Berkeley, that Pinko, Communist place! I hope they succeed. Last I remember, food prices were very low there anyway.

[hvacman]

Income is one side of the living-OK-within-your-means equation. The other big factor is living expenses, especially residential real estate values and rents. I suggest a two-fer here. Berkeley city council should mandate $19/hr minimum wage AND maximum housing sale prices of $100/sf and/or rent rates of $1,000/month so a double-income min. wage (at $19/hour) household could afford to buy a typical 1,200 sf. house or rent a 2-bedroom house or apt. See how that goes over with the City of Berkeley voters.

FYI, I just did a quick scan for Berkeley home prices and rentals using zillow. Best deals I saw was a 1,000 sf house for $600,000. Studio apt for $1,200/month. Two-bed apts. 550 sf (!) going for $2,200 and up.

[Cog]

Why not make it $100/hr or even $1000/hr? Then everyone can afford housing.

[Tanada]

This may be an Okay wage for people living in Berkley, California, but in Ohio it would be insane. My house cost about 200,000.00, if I picked it up and moved it to California it would be salable for 750,000.00

That is why a national minimum wage does not work well, and Ohio isn't even considered a low cost state. In West Virginia my house would be worth about 80,000.00 and $19.00/hour would be a very well paid highly skilled job. Same house in all three cases, different cost of living by far.

[hvacman]

I followed Cog's constitutionalist approach to topics and checked the constitutionality of minimum wage laws. The federal wage law was confirmed 70 years ago by the SCOTUS in United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100 (1940), citing the interstate commerce clause. State/local min. wages laws are constitutional via the 10th amendment. With that in-mind, I'm OK with individual cities or states also establishing their own min. wage laws that exceed the Fed. level. This allows competition between regions and is fairer, in a way, than federal min. wage laws, as the players involved have more of a voice at the local/state level, and the local economics can dictate appropriate wage levels.

So have at it, Berkeley. Be a high-min-wage- guinea pig. It will be interesting to see what impacts it has on low-end employment, businesses who's economic survival depend on low-wage-level staff, and the net + or - economic change in Berkeley.

[Sixstrings]

Saw this on drudge, this is what $350k buys in San Francisco:

In America's most expensive city THIS is what $350K buys you in San Francisco



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3239257/In-America-s-expensive-city-350K-buys-San-Francisco.html

[MD]

Minimum wage increase drives inflation. That is the elephant standing. The question is: Who benefits from inflation?

[Cog]

Minimum wage increase drives inflation. That is the elephant standing. The question is: Who benefits from inflation?

Banks

[Sixstrings]

Minimum wage increase drives inflation. That is the elephant standing. The question is: Who benefits from inflation?

Well, Australia has a $15 min wage and higher wages across the board (as does Europe) yet no horrible inflation.

I don't buy the argument that the 1% must have all the money, and that if you gave a bit more to the 99% then inflation would skyrocket.

If anything, I think we've actually got a real economy deflation problem still. The Fed would actually LOVE some honest to goodness real inflation, that actually means RECOVERY and they could start raising interest rates to more normal levels.

P.S. And look how strong the dollar is.. it's actually TOO strong.. strong currency is really an indicator of deflation.. the 08 financial crisis was a big massive (near great depression) deflationary event, and that's why interest rates are still so low, there was never recovery.

We need some inflation. Look at that dollar and how strong that is.

Put some money back onto main street, it would be healthier, get us out of deflation for good.

[SeaGypsy]

The 1% please not the 1% aaaarrghhhh! Aaarrrrhghh! The 1% AAArrggghhhh.....

[Sixstrings]

The 1% please not the 1% aaaarrghhhh! Aaarrrrhghh! The 1% AAArrggghhhh.....

Do Australians, with a $15 an hour min wage and generally $20 an hour wages and up, still complain about "the 1%" and that's why you're sick of hearing about it?

Try to remember SG, a lot of people have it harder in the UK and US.

Australia has a $15 min wage. We've got some people in the US trying to live on seven bucks an hour, and don't even get 40 hours at that.

If I'm not mistaken, min wage in the UK is equivalent to $10.41 and people can't live on that either. And then they've got free universal healthcare over there, and the council housing and all that, that working class Americans do not have.

P.S. And how's your inflation? Does everything cost a fortune in Australia?

You've given prices for things sometimes, and I notice it's often less than what we pay for things. Like sugar. Or $30 for a cell phone plan.