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My first job paid $4.35/ hr. I was a “detailer” for Avis Rental Cars. That’s a fancy word for Window Washer.

That’s what I did all day.

After 18 months of that I decided to go back to College and get a degree.Which I did.

Then after college, got my first job in a Call Center. At 5.35/hr. But then I started moving up.

You don’t move up from a Window Washer. And at least one guy I worked with at that job wasn’t looking to move up from it.

It was slow. It was hard. It wasn’t glamorous or profitable. But eventually I made enough to buy this house. But it was hardly overnight. And I’m hardly set for life. I still have to perform or else.

You wanna know what the punch line to this is?

Adjusted for inflation that $4.35/hr would now be $8.82 because of inflation caused by the government and other entities.

So Obama wants to raise the minimum wage to be effectively the same as that was all those years ago.

So it’s about the politics of “caring” not about the actual problem – inflation. Especially inflation from devaluing the currency because of all the spending and borrowing.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The unemployment rate for teens is at 23%, and the rate for unskilled workers is at 12%. Why does President Obama propose raising the minimum wage to $9 per hour and indexing it for inflation, as he stated in his State of the Union Address?

Obama and his advisors seem to believe that if the minimum wage were raised and then indexed, all workers would retain their jobs. But this is not the case.

Between 2007 and 2009, the federal hourly minimum wage rose to $7.25 in three steps from the $5.15 rate that had prevailed for a decade. If the wage were raised to $9 and then indexed for inflation, it would rise every year.

It sounds compassionate to alleviate poverty by mandating that employers raise wages, but employers often replace low-skill workers with machines. Think self-checkout machines in supermarkets, or computerized call centers.

Or, try a thought experiment — would you have your job if the minimum wage were $50 an hour? Probably not.

At its current level, the minimum wage disproportionately affects teens and low-skill workers, many of whom qualify only for entry-level slots.

University of California (Irvine) economists David Neumark and J.M. Ian Salas, together with Federal Reserve Board economist William Wascher, have written extensively on the effects of the minimum wage on employment. In a National Bureau of Economic Research paper published in January, they conclude that “minimum wages pose a tradeoff of higher wages for some against job losses for others.”

They specifically mention that a higher minimum wage results in more unemployment for teens and low-skill workers.

Why is it that some studies, such as those by Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers chairman Alan Krueger, have found that increases in the minimum wage do not affect employment in the restaurant industry?

Two reasons, according to Neumark and his coauthors. First, many restaurant workers are paid above minimum wage. Second, a higher minimum wage can encourage employers to substitute more-skilled employees for less-skilled employees, so that total unemployment in that industry does not decline substantially.

Minimum wage workers are overwhelmingly young and work part-time. See the Labor Department’s Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers.

Two-thirds of minimum wage earners worked part-time in 2011, the latest year available. Only 3% of hourly wage earners earn minimum wage or less.

Workers under the age of 25 made up about half of the 3.8 million workers who earned at or below the minimum wage in 2011. Employed teenagers are seven times more likely to be among the minimum wage earners than workers older than 25.

Another 11 million workers earned between $7.26 and $8.99. Some will be in danger of losing their jobs if the minimum wage is increased.

In his State of the Union Address, Obama said that a full-time minimum-wage worker makes $14,500 a year. That’s 1.3 million workers, in a labor force of 156 million, about eight-tenths of 1%. But this understates actual income, because it does not include transfer payments.

As Michael Saltsman of the Employment Policies Institute has shown, the Earned Income Tax Credit adds to the minimum wage. Read Michael Saltsman.

Then you also add in your Obama Phone, Your Obama Internet….

In addition to the EITC, the value of the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, formerly food stamps, has risen over the past 20 years, increasing the resources of low-income workers. (See chart.)

In 1992, the hourly minimum wage was $4.25. For a family with one parent and two children, the value of the earned income tax credit was 69 cents, and the value of food stamps was just over a dollar, for total income of $5.96 an hour. (Other possible benefits include housing and Medicaid, depending on the state.)

Fast forward to 2012. The minimum wage was $7.25 an hour. For the same family, the EITC rose to $2.62, and the food stamps program added $1.67, for a total of $11.54. Assuming 2,000 hours of work annually, and including the EITC, the family makes not $14,500, but $19,736. This family also qualified for food stamps, bringing the total family income to $23,072.

Unlike increases in the minimum wage, these government transfers do not discourage employers from hiring.

The minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, plus the mandatory employer’s share of social security, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation taxes, brings the hourly employer cost to $8, even without benefits. Raising the hourly minimum wage to $9 will bring the cost to employers to about $10.

And in 2014, employers with more than 49 workers who do not offer the right kind of health insurance will have to pay a penalty of $2,000 per worker per year, further increasing costs and discouraging hiring. Many are already cutting back or reducing workers’ hours, because no penalty is owed on those working less than 30 hours weekly.

Unemployment rates for teens and low-skill workers rose faster than others in the recession. The adult unemployment rate stood at 7.3% in January 2012. That’s over 3 percentage points higher than the 3.8% rate in December 2007, five years earlier, at the start of the recession. But the January 2012 unemployment rate for teens was about 6 percentage points higher than December 2007, at 23%.

Employers now only employ workers who can produce $8 an hour or more of goods or services. Under Obama’s proposal, they would employ only those who could produce $10 an hour, an amount that would rise every year. The government can mandate steadily rising minimum wages, but not steadily rising teen skills and productivity.

As minimum wages rise, employers change technologies or hire more skilled workers.

Forbidding employment of those whose skills aren’t worth $10 an hour prevents workers getting their foot on the bottom of the career ladder. Obama is essentially proposing to take away the right to work for low-skill workers.

Most American employers have to pay more than minimum wage just to attract and hold the workers they need. Almost 140 million workers now earn above minimum wage, not because of federal or state law, but because that is the only way that firms can attract and keep employees with skills.

Instead of more money for youth employment, why not expand the federal minimum wage exception for teens? Under federal law, employers are allowed to pay teens $4.25 an hour for 90 consecutive calendar days, or until their 20th birthday, at which point the wage has to revert to $7.25 an hour.

The law is not simple. Employers have to show that teen workers don’t displace others. If the state minimum laws don’t specifically include the teen exception, then teens have to be paid the regular minimum — and the large states, such as California and New York, don’t mention teens. Ninety calendar days might cover a summer job, but if teens want to continue the job during the school year, employers have to pay them the standard wage.

Youth unemployment is a serious social problem in some European countries, such as France (27%), Spain (55%), and Italy (37%). These governments have taken every possible step to discourage the young from working short of criminalizing work: wages are regulated to be high, and it is costly to hire a new worker and even more costly to let one go. In these countries, young people have a much harder time getting started up the career ladder than their American counterparts.

America does not want to go down this road. Working at an early age teaches useful skills, transferable to future jobs, such as getting to work on time, staying the whole day, and putting up with unpleasant colleagues.

Increasing the hourly minimum wage to $9 and indexing it for inflation is bad news for teens and low-skill workers who deserve a better opportunity, and it is bad news for America where we cannot afford to further cripple our economy. (Market Watch)

But because he “cares” he will make your boss fire you because he can’t afford you any longer and that is your Boss’s fault because he’s just a greedy capitalist pig.

But at least now you have 2 years+ of unemployment, Food Stamps, you could move back in with your parents, Your Obama Phone and Internet so Life is good… 🙂

Uncle Sam Getting Fat

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter. And those who matter don’t mind. ~Dr. Seuss

Government’s role in the economy has reached an unprecedented scale by at least one measure.

A record 30 cents of every dollar in personal income comes directly from government, Commerce Department data show.

And since government produces nothing and gets it money from you and me (the private sector) and there is now 47% of the people who don’t pay taxes at all and One in six Americans receives some form of government aid because of effects of the recession that started in 2007, a review of data indicates.

More than 50 million people are on Medicaid, a program principally designed to help the poor, and nearly 10 million Americans receive unemployment benefits, USA Today said Monday in a report based on data from state officials.

“Virtually every Medicaid director in the country would say that their current enrollment is the highest on record,” said Vernon Smith of Health Management Associates, a company that compiles data for the Kaiser Family Foundation.

More than 40 million people now receive food stamps, a jump of nearly 50 percent since the recession began, the report said. The unemployment rate in the United States remains above 9 percent.

You have more people dependent on less people for more money! 😦

But don’t worry, this was the “Summer of Recovery” and everything is fine. It just needs more time , according to our Harvard Educated Academic Elites — aka the Obama boys and girls.

And they just need to explain it better and suddenly you’ll have an epiphany and see how wonderful they are! 🙂
Including transfer payments (income support and health insurance benefits) and compensation to public employees, government paid out $3.8 trillion of $12.5 trillion in total personal income in July on an annualized basis.

And remember their “urgent” August bailout of state workers for  $26 billion was supposed to be partially paid by cuts in Food Stamps in 2014 (when the Health Care Mandate is set to kick in).

So if they just explain better how their Wimpy “I’ll bailout you today for a payment in 4 years” economics work for you, you’ll suddenly fall madly in love with them and bask in their greatness. 🙂

That 30.3% share of personal income compares to 25.5% before the recession and 23.5% in 2000. The level topped 27% in the wake of the 1991 recession and hit a prior peak of 28% in 1975.

So government workers personal income has risen 7.5 % SINCE the recession started (and Congress was taken over by Democrats in 2007). And you’re on the hook for it. Doesn’t that make you happy?

The government’s record share reflects the dismal state of private wages and the ramping of federal transfer payments from a historically high base.

“The private economy has been put through the wringer and thus policymakers have been working hard to fill the hole,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.

Real private wages remain 8.4% below their December 2007 level and just 1.3% above their February bottom. That low was a level first reached in March 2001.

The weakness in private wages reflects deep layoffs and shorter workweeks due to the recession, and the “not terribly robust” prior economic expansion, said Josh Feinman, chief economist at Deutsche Asset Management in the Americas.

Meanwhile, government income payments are up 17% in real terms since the start of the recession. The real mover has been transfer payments, which accounted for a record 18.4% of personal income in July. That’s up by nearly half from 12.7% in 2000 and more than a quarter from 14.4% in 2007.

The growth is a combination of the inexorable rise of spending on Social Security and health care entitlement programs, as well as a spike in unemployment compensation, food stamps and Medicaid due to weak labor markets and expanded benefits included in the Recovery Act.

Real personal income less government transfer payments remains 5.5% below its December 2007 peak, yet real disposable income is up 2.7% since the start of the recession. That’s due to increases in government income payments and lower tax payments.

Too Much To Get Out?

The government’s role in supporting the recovery is already raising questions about how the economy will fare as the crutches are removed.

“Given how significant its role has become, it does make it more difficult for the government to exit out in a graceful way,” Zandi said.
The stimulus has already begun to fade, with more than a million unemployed exhausting jobless benefits of up to 99 weeks.

Zandi says even further government stimulus would be prudent, given the current slowdown.

In addition to tax cuts and spending hikes, another option would be a government-led mortgage refinancing push to make low-rate loans available to those with insufficient equity in their homes to qualify.

“To have a meaningful recovery, the private sector has to step back up to the plate,” Feinman said.

In prior recoveries, policy stimulus and inventory building eventually allowed for a handoff to a healing private sector, he says.

That handoff “is just not happening” said Feinman. He expects “a long climb back.”

The one area of private compensation that is growing, nonsalary benefits, is not as helpful as wage growth, which puts cash in people’s pockets, Zandi notes.

Real nonsalary compensation (private and government) is up 4.1%, likely reflecting rising health care costs and perhaps some catchup pension contributions.

During the Great Depression, when fiscal stabilizers and safety nets were in their infancy, the government’s share of personal income peaked at just over 16%. Even in World War II, when the government payroll ballooned, its share only briefly neared 25%, falling back below 20% until the 1960s.

The share of personal income is an incomplete gauge of government’s economic role because it doesn’t include direct spending. A better, though imperfect, measure would be the combined federal, state and local government budgets as a share of gross domestic product.

By this score, government was far bigger during World War II, when the federal budget alone topped 43% of GDP. While state and local figures are out of date, total government spending probably will be around 40% of GDP this year. (IBD)

And Obama & Co’s solution, they want to spend more money and still raise taxes on 1/1/11.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

But that’s what happens when you’re in an ideological ditch and you can’t get out.

So bring out the talking points:

“In the month I took office, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month,” the president said. “This morning, new figures show the economy produced 67,000 private sector jobs in August, the eighth consecutive month of private job growth.  Additionally, the numbers for July were revised upward to 107,000. Now that’s positive news, and it reflects the steps we’ve already taken to break the back of this recession.”

The net job loss for August is largely because of the layoffs of 114,000 Census temporary workers.

When May’s job numbers showed a net increase of 431,000 jobs – 411,000 of which were Census jobs — the president did note that “most of these jobs this month that we’re seeing in the statistics represent workers who’ve been hired to complete the 2010 census.” But in those June 4 remarks the president didn’t detail just how many of the 431,000 jobs were Census jobs – 95% of them — and he cited the overall report, and its deceptively large number as evidence that businesses are “starting to hire again. Workers who were laid off, they’re starting to get their jobs back. Companies that were almost forced to close their doors are making plans to expand and invest in new equipment.” (ABC)

So you can have you’re cake and eat it too! So Let them Eat Cake! 🙂

…and said he would “in the weeks ahead” be detailing “further steps to create jobs and keep the economy growing, including extending tax cuts for the middle class and investing in the areas of our economy where the potential for job growth is greatest.”

And judging from past performance that means more government jobs and more bailouts for states and unions.

Yeah, that’s the ticket…:(

Asked to what degree he regrets his administration’s decision to call this Recovery Summer, the president stammered then said, “I don’t regret the notion that we are moving forward, but because of the steps that we’ve taken.  And I’m going to have a press conference next week, where, after you guys are able to hear where we’re at, we’ll be able to answer some specific questions.” (ABC)

Oh god, he’s going to EXPLAIN IT AGAIN! Just in case you were too stupid to understand it every other time he’s said it! 😦

If he just explains it repeatedly enough you’ll get it. 🙂

And it could have been so much worse. 🙂

“This is what change looks like,” Obama said on signing into law the Health Care Cram down Bill.

So in November, we have to show HIM what change looks like then we have change ourselves too because they are the pimps, and we are the ho’s.  So we have to take them out of the drug dealing business and we have to stop using them.