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Snorri
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
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Location: hiding the decline.
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 Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 4:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Agamemnon wrote: |
In any case, I would never want to make a person have to work their entire lives as janitors or maids. |
You might not want it, but it will happen.
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Agamemnon
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 907
Location: Studying somewhere. Or at least that's where I should be.
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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And being for the philosophy of working towards creating opportunity to allow people to not have to do this for theior entire lives is not a good thing?
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-Agamemnon.....but you can call me Jake.
P: They don't know we know they know we know. And Joey, you can't say anything!
J: Couldn't if I wanted to. |
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Snorri
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 10704
Location: hiding the decline.
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Agamemnon wrote: | | And being for the philosophy of working towards creating opportunity to allow people to not have to do this for theior entire lives is not a good thing? |
It is a good thing. But just because you want people to move on from their low-wage jobs to better paying ones doesn't mean there is room for those people. And do you really think there are enough people to fill up the jobs they leave behind?
You seem to be all in favour of educating people further. But how would we go about that?
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Agamemnon
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
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Location: Studying somewhere. Or at least that's where I should be.
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 4:27 pm Post subject: |
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I think that there are more possibilities in educating people to move on to beter jobs and filling those empty low paying jobs with entry level people and those looking for supplimentary pay than there is in forcing all jobs to be livable wage jobs.
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-Agamemnon.....but you can call me Jake.
P: They don't know we know they know we know. And Joey, you can't say anything!
J: Couldn't if I wanted to. |
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Major Tom
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 7562
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 8:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Agamemnon wrote: |
I'm looking at the problem from the perspective of costs. The customers (those in need of home health care aides) will only be able to pay a certain amount for aides. If the wages of those aides are artificially raised by a significant amount, who is going to pay for that rise? I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume that the business that employs the aides will be able to absorb all of those costs without passing them on to the customer. |
i think it's presumptuous to suggest that healthcare agencies are exercizing such a strong restraint on customer pricing that their operating budgets would require a reflexive cost increase in order to maintain operations.
you can argue that they wouldn't willingly absorb increased salary requirements. you'd be hard-pressed to argue convincingly that they couldn't. |
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Major Tom
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 7562
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 8:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Agamemnon wrote: |
I think the training costs will be far less than the costs involved in raising these wages to a livable level; especially given the low skill jobs involved.
I just prefer the approach of teaching people the skills necessary to move beyond low skill jobs. |
since they are not earning a liveable wage in 40hrs. on the job, are you going to pay them a liveable-wage stipend while they are being trained?
they will obviously not be able to work more to earn enough to live on if they need to set aside time for training. |
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Bart
Joined: 22 Jul 2006
Posts: 1562
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Look Ags, I know the situation is a lot different in the USA, but I think that many countries in Europe show that it is not impossible to have liveable minimum wages. |
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Agamemnon
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 907
Location: Studying somewhere. Or at least that's where I should be.
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 8:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Major Tom wrote: | | Agamemnon wrote: |
I'm looking at the problem from the perspective of costs. The customers (those in need of home health care aides) will only be able to pay a certain amount for aides. If the wages of those aides are artificially raised by a significant amount, who is going to pay for that rise? I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume that the business that employs the aides will be able to absorb all of those costs without passing them on to the customer. |
i think it's presumptuous to suggest that healthcare agencies are exercizing such a strong restraint on customer pricing that their operating budgets would require a reflexive cost increase in order to maintain operations.
you can argue that they wouldn't willingly absorb increased salary requirements. you'd be hard-pressed to argue convincingly that they couldn't. |
I think that the size of the wage increases proposed make the argument more plausible that company that employs the aides would not be able to absorb the entire cost. (To my knowledge, I thik we are talking about increases in the $2-4 range.) If we talk strictly about minimum wage ($5.15) to livable, we're talking about something close to $4 (i'm using Snorri's numbers here, so I do not know about the validity of those numbers.) That's a 78% increase in wages. In my opinion, I don't think many companies out there can absorb that kind of increase without passing on costs to customers.
| Major Tom wrote: | since they are not earning a liveable wage in 40hrs. on the job, are you going to pay them a liveable-wage stipend while they are being trained?
they will obviously not be able to work more to earn enough to live on if they need to set aside time for training. |
Could be a working definition for workfare, eh?
| Bart wrote: | | Look Ags, I know the situation is a lot different in the USA, but I think that many countries in Europe show that it is not impossible to have liveable minimum wages. |
It's a bit of an apples and oranges comparison. We're talking about much smaller economic systems with varying differences in how the systems work.
Through all of this, I have not said that people should not have a minimum living wage. I just disagree that all jobs must provide a minimum living wage. It's a difference in approach. I want to see people given the opportunity to succeed rather than mandating a policy that is not applicable to all situations and can actually be more harmeful than good (again, see Usagi's posts. Very good stuff in this area.)
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-Agamemnon.....but you can call me Jake.
P: They don't know we know they know we know. And Joey, you can't say anything!
J: Couldn't if I wanted to. |
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Major Tom
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 7562
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 9:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Agamemnon wrote: | | Major Tom wrote: | | Agamemnon wrote: |
I'm looking at the problem from the perspective of costs. The customers (those in need of home health care aides) will only be able to pay a certain amount for aides. If the wages of those aides are artificially raised by a significant amount, who is going to pay for that rise? I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume that the business that employs the aides will be able to absorb all of those costs without passing them on to the customer. |
i think it's presumptuous to suggest that healthcare agencies are exercizing such a strong restraint on customer pricing that their operating budgets would require a reflexive cost increase in order to maintain operations.
you can argue that they wouldn't willingly absorb increased salary requirements. you'd be hard-pressed to argue convincingly that they couldn't. |
I think that the size of the wage increases proposed make the argument more plausible that company that employs the aides would not be able to absorb the entire cost. (To my knowledge, I thik we are talking about increases in the $2-4 range.) If we talk strictly about minimum wage ($5.15) to livable, we're talking about something close to $4 (i'm using Snorri's numbers here, so I do not know about the validity of those numbers.) That's a 78% increase in wages. In my opinion, I don't think many companies out there can absorb that kind of increase without passing on costs to customers. |
please, ag, don't throw percentages at me.
"That's a 78% increase in wages."
before i start this, i state that i'm working with illustrative numbers, they strike me as believable estimates and are NOT based on anything but passive osmosis-type learning. still, i believe that they will demonstrate why the number above is alarmist and misleading.
we're talking about the minimum-wage-earning portion of their workforce. let's say that amounts to about 30% of their TOTAL workforce.
that minimum-wage-earning portion, being obviously at the bottom of the wage-curve for the TOTAL workforce, probably accounts for something like (a generously stated) 25% of total salaries.
and let's say that the cost of total salaries accounts for (again, generously stated) 75% of their operating budget (note: i am not referencing gross revenue).
SO, we have an increase of 78% on 25%*75% of the operating budget, which works out to something along the lines of 15% as a line-item increase.
and that's a perspective look at the operating budget -- find out what the profit margin for these companies is and factor THAT in and the impact shrinks considerably more.
| Major Tom wrote: | | you can argue that they wouldn't willingly absorb increased salary requirements. you'd be hard-pressed to argue convincingly that they couldn't. |
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Agamemnon
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 907
Location: Studying somewhere. Or at least that's where I should be.
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 9:23 pm Post subject: |
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Who employs home health care aides? I am finding myself thinking of much smaller businesses employing them and therefore your numbers are not jiving with me.
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-Agamemnon.....but you can call me Jake.
P: They don't know we know they know we know. And Joey, you can't say anything!
J: Couldn't if I wanted to. |
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Major Tom
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 7562
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 9:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Agamemnon wrote: | | Who employs home health care aides? |
that is a very important question |
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Marik
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 1233
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 9:54 pm Post subject: societal backbone |
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| Quote: | | It's a bit of an apples and oranges comparison. We're talking about much smaller economic systems with varying differences in how the systems work. |
And what a comparison indeed. We're richer, they just manage their money and their social polity better, and they end up happier. |
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Usagi Miyamoto
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 2165
Location: wish you were here
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 10:01 pm Post subject: |
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porridge.
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Last edited by Usagi Miyamoto on Sat Jun 30, 2007 6:37 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Usagi Miyamoto
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 2165
Location: wish you were here
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:11 pm Post subject: Re: societal backbone |
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"I
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The reward for a good life is a good life.
Last edited by Usagi Miyamoto on Sat Jun 30, 2007 6:40 am; edited 1 time in total |
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mouse
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 15441
Location: under the bed
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Agamemnon wrote: | | Who employs home health care aides? I am finding myself thinking of much smaller businesses employing them and therefore your numbers are not jiving with me. |
not necessarily. some are employed by local governmental agencies, some by medical business (which can be anything from small and local to large and nationwide) - some, i would guess are self-employed. they get paid by medicare, by long-term care insurance, and out of pocket.
since there is a drive for consolidation, i would think the trend would be to large businesses, however. (lots of nursing homes are now chains, hospitals are now chains, etc., etc.)
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