DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - The coming Minimum-wage increase

**Peterli** · 11-01-2007, 09:41 PM

First of all it doesn't answer my question. I really want to know what job is so unprofitable that it can't afford to pay more. The argument I usually get is that it would hurt small business because they can't afford it. I really want to know. I'm not fishing for anything.

I'm not sure what you mean by a job being "profitable". Do you mean what job doesn't deserve at least $5.15?

If that's the question, my honest answer is that it is completely dependent on the company. When hiring, there is a "yes/no" decision and a "how much" decision that occur in sequence. Now, a lot of companies might say "yes, but not for more than $6 per hour" which might ultimately be a "no". So, the "hurt" comes not from underpaying, but from simply doing without the labor, which effectively removes a job from the market.

Of course, if you already have employees that are earning a set wage, you might not fire them, but you also might not hire more as quickly as you would have. With a certain amount of employees working for you, you always have the option of getting more "productivity" out of your current employees as opposed to hiring new ones.

11-01-2007, 09:41 PM	#23
Peterli Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 458 Senior Member	First of all it doesn't answer my question. I really want to know what job is so unprofitable that it can't afford to pay more. The argument I usually get is that it would hurt small business because they can't afford it. I really want to know. I'm not fishing for anything. I'm not sure what you mean by a job being "profitable". Do you mean what job doesn't deserve at least $5.15? If that's the question, my honest answer is that it is completely dependent on the company. When hiring, there is a "yes/no" decision and a "how much" decision that occur in sequence. Now, a lot of companies might say "yes, but not for more than $6 per hour" which might ultimately be a "no". So, the "hurt" comes not from underpaying, but from simply doing without the labor, which effectively removes a job from the market. Of course, if you already have employees that are earning a set wage, you might not fire them, but you also might not hire more as quickly as you would have. With a certain amount of employees working for you, you always have the option of getting more "productivity" out of your current employees as opposed to hiring new ones.
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