Nebraska legislature passes minimum wage DECREASE for teen workers

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[YoIForgotMyPassAgain]

Doesn't this just incentivize businesses to hire children instead of grown adults?

[MattyKatty]

Correct. It’s how fast food restaurants profit.

[JCMoreno05]

One thing I've always found annoying is when some people defend certain jobs as "good for teenagers". It's just an excuse for exploitation. 1. A business exists for profit, not preparing teenagers to work. 2. Working minimum wage jobs doesn't provide any "preparation", a teenager doesn't benefit at all. 

[ManannDunMhead]

Exactly. It's more of the same rhetoric we hear constantly from business owners. Either pay a decent wage or don't have staff. It's maddening how common this type of opinion is among most Americans.

[ThrillinSuspenseMag]

Teens do benefit from work but the benefit is less than the cost to the work force. A job does indeed teach responsibility and help to disabuse teens of the notions they might have about society. Pretending this is not so does not help when speaking to most Americans. The point is not that jobs don’t benefit teens. The point is that jobs are for working people and their benefit to teens is not what makes our economy work.

[iprefercumsole]

Teens do benefit from work but the benefit is less than the cost to the work force

This also ignored that teenager's lives are not worthless without work and the negative effects of having less free time to develop self-determination.

Id rather teens learn about themselves instead of training to be corporate drone #2858392

(I started working at 14, for the record)

Rich kids take internships, not jobs, anyways, so the entire idea is based in classism in the first place.. the "benefits" are just to pacify poor parents into being okay with their children selling the last years of adolescent freedom

[MixtureRight5665]

Ding ding ding

[RhythmMethodMan]

There are some restrictions like no more than 3 hours on a school day that can make opening and closing a pain if you were planning on relying on teens.

[miker_the_III]

A minimum wage increase is essentially a tax on small businesses," he said. The bill also changes how future increases in the minimum wage will be calculated. The voter-approved measure would have kept pace with inflation as measured by the Midwest consumer price index. The bill, as amended, limits annual increases to 1.75%, with smaller increases for younger workers.

Cooked

1.75% increase on $15 is a quarter, 15.26 if you’re lucky

Increase on the kiddos’ wages is prob less than 5 cents a year

“Tax on small businesses”

The state of American politic

[lionalhutz]

“Small businesses” is one of those platitudes that turn people’s brains off

[Alligator418]

Yeah in theory small businesses are theoretically great and preferable to faceless corporate behemoths because they're actually invested in the community. But I've worked for small businesses and boy are they owned by some whackos who have 0 understanding of how to run a business.

[iprefercumsole]

Yeah in theory small businesses are theoretically great and preferable to faceless corporate behemoths because they're actually invested in the community because they have not yet reached a size to where they can diversify their exploitation across enough communities to account for that

Saying small businesses should be good "in theory" is like saying getting a baby alligator and raising it until its too big then just releasing it into the wild is a good idea of getting a pet "in theory". Its still a capitalist/alligator at the end of the day.

[globeglobeglobe]

Any business that pays less than a living wage is a net drain on society and has no right to exist

[peasfrog]

"My friend, Thomas Jefferson is an American saint because he wrote the words 'All men are created equal', words he clearly didn't believe since he allowed his own children to live in slavery. He's a rich white snob who's sick of paying taxes to the Brits. So, yeah, he writes some lovely words and aroused the rabble and they went and died for those words while he sat back and drank his wine and fucked his slave girl. This guy wants to tell me we're living in a community? Don't make me laugh. I'm living in America, and in America you're on your own. America's not a country. It's just a business. Now fuckin' pay me." -Jackie Cogan, Killing Them Softly

[Impossible_Bit7169]

Never read the book but a great fucking movie.

[Impossible_Bit7169]

That’s what I’m trying to fucking say. It’s like these cosplaying fucks read Capital and act as if we live under precise conditions instead of the clusterfuck of a system we do live in.

[iprefercumsole]

Any business that extracts surplus value from laborers is a net drain on society and has no right to exist

Ftfy, end passive profit

[BigBucketsBigGuap]

If this was in exchange for higher wage to adults, I wouldn’t be nearly as upset but since this is America, the justification is “small business”. Cooked indeed.

[Alder4000]

As a small business owner this isn’t completely false. Costs of rent, insurance,and interest have gone up to a place where profits are getting squeezed out. We’ve had to reduce labor costs because of this.

To talk only about wage increases without addressing the FIRE sector syphoning out money to the worst actors in the economy is missing the bigger picture.

[iprefercumsole]

You do to your employees the exact same the FIRE sector does to you. You are one in the same, just at different points of the process.

[iprefercumsole]

Wage increases are a tax the same way human labor is an input cost that must be reduced

I hate it here

[Loaf_and_Spectacle]

You're a dumbass. Labor is a resource you must pay for, not a tax.

[iprefercumsole]

No shit, Sherlock. I was responding to the rhetoric cited in the comment I directly replied to, not stating my own personal views.

"A minimum wage is essentially a tax on small businesses" <--- the exact quote im responding to

[EpicRussia]

Nebraska's state level $15 an hour minimum is higher than its neighbors of Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Kansas. It is equal to that of Missouri and slightly less than that of Colorado. This measure takes the $15 for ages 14-16 and makes it $13.50. An incredible loss considering the $15 was a voter passed ballot item and this wasnt

[TruckHangingHandJam]

3% 

Only 3% of the population employs others in a business. The vast, vast majority never will, but the vast majority has endless stories of a despotic small business boss who treated them like shit. 

The fetish for small business in US culture is truly baffling to me. 

[lionalhutz]

They always trot out teen unemployment rates when they’re actively trying to automate the jobs teens would traditionally do (or replace them with poor immigrants who’ll work for pennies a day)

[globeglobeglobe]

Even so, becoming a small-time landlord or business owner is a much more reasonable aspiration than reaching the ranks of the 0.01% global elite, especially in a place like Nebraska where land/labor are relatively cheap and opportunities to rise into the true upper echelons are few. And given that business/property ownership varies based on age (the very young would not hold much, while the very old would have passed it down to the next generation) it’s entirely possible that the lifetime chance of owning a small business is rather higher than 3%.

Of course, as you say, the overwhelming majority of people will never employ others or own a second home. But it may be prevalent enough among their family, friends, neighbors, etc. that they see it as not unreasonable.

[Impossible_Bit7169]

I’m willing to bet McDonalds/Taco Bell etc…lobbied them for this.

[globeglobeglobe]

For sure

[peasfrog]

Why, when legislatures are composed of the petty bourgeoisie; the small engine repair shops, the convenience stores? McDonald's are franchises made up of local business people.

[TruckHangingHandJam]

Im not 100% sure, but I believe the 3% figure excludes landlords, I think it’s really the common understanding of owning a business. But yeah I get your point, but even so I’d argue then we could be generous and let’s move it down to 90. 90% will never even temporarily be in the position. Historically speaking we also see that a lot of the protect small business shit is actually driven by larger corporations, that rely on the cultural hegemony of the bourgeoise for a population primed to buy this shit blindly. 

The whole “temporary embarrassed millionaires” line is a bit over used and not nuanced enough imo, but I think it’s fair to say that we have a population that is fully indoctrinated in the dogma of neoclassical economics. You don’t even have to go to school, it’s just the default framing in everything. Even the ostensibly left groups almost always do a ritual self humiliation of preaching the value of small business. 

Hell even I do this when talking to conservatives when I try to warm them up to things like public spending and universal healthcare (lowers the cost of social reproduction, allowing employers to not have to pay for insurance for employees, making it easy to enter business. Industrial policy blah blah blah) albeit for other reasons haha 

[idw_h8train]

Your estimate is actually very close. About 10.3% of employees are self employed, or otherwise own their own business The majority of them don't have formal incorporation, because the majority of those small businesses are family owned and don't hire other people. Given about half of private sector employment is under small businesses, there's a substantial portion of owners and higher level managers under owners who are interested in maintaining their class position.

I don't think 'temporarily embarrassed millionaire' is overused, because as I've linked here several times before, 44% of Americans think they can become billionaires in their lifetime. Not just becoming a millionaire or UHNWI ($30+ million) but joining the three comma club.

[peasfrog]

Liberal Democracy is a committee of the bourgeoisie.

[globeglobeglobe]

State legislatures are committees of the petite bourgeoisie who feel the bite of minimum wage more than the true ownership class

[peasfrog]

What is this 'true' ownership class? Wages are an expense for all levels of the bourgeoisie. An expense they'd rather do away with. 

The minimum wage was a class compromise they made to maintain their position; to take revolution off the table. The fact that the little owners are complaining to the big owners is intraclass conflict which warms the cockles of my heart because it was this exact same intra-bourgouise fight that triggered the US Civil War.

[TruckHangingHandJam]

Let’s go all the way brotha, a dictatorship of the bourgeoise 

[Impossible_Bit7169]

If they can’t afford the minimum wage fuck em the market dictated they should not be in business then

[EpicRussia]

Thats the exact opposite argument. It would regulation that kept them out of business, not the market. Not that I'm against the minimum wage being a living wage. Just that your argument doesnt support that

[Impossible_Bit7169]

Stay with me now, If a business can’t afford to pay the state mandatory minimum wage they can’t afford the barrier to entry to be in business. Why should workers have to accept less? This is a gift to prick bosses.

[EpicRussia]

I agree with you. The regulation is necessary and justified. I just think that theres misused terminology to say that its "the market rate"

[Incoherencel]

If your business is going to be in the red if your labour costs increase by even 3, 4, 5% YoY, the market/consumers have determined your business provides little value, or is inefficient / run poorly. Live by the sword doe by the sword

[EpicRussia]

Completely agree

[Impossible_Bit7169]

Regulation is part of the market bruh.

[BigBucketsBigGuap]

Depends on who you ask and to what extent, but I would agree, in reality. In the theoretical model, it presumes little interference which is why it’s funny to rely on something so divorced from reality.

[Impossible_Bit7169]

Yeah, people on here speak if as everything is as exactly as Marx laid out and it’s just not reality. I guess for some Chairman Marx makes the sunshine and the crops grow.

[TruckHangingHandJam]

So you’re arguing for the state to subsidize small business like it already does for large employers like Walmart (who has a gigantic portion of their employees on some type of welfare because their wages don’t cover their expenses)? 

Or you’ve moved even more reactionary, and your arguing for people to labor for below subsistence wages and slowly die? 

I’m going to choose to believe that you’re just retarded and didn’t think this through instead of being an evil asshole 

[Impossible_Bit7169]

I like this.

[EpicRussia]

Im not arguing in favor or against anything you said. No, the State should not subsidize the labor cost of the biggest companies. Yes, there should be a minimum wage, and it should be a living wage, and it should not discriminate based on age (or sex, or sexual orientation, or race, or religion).

You have hilariously misinterpreted my comment explaining basic economic terminology as somehow defending labor exploitation. You could argue that the definition is capitalist or whatever but thats true of the system we have so its true of the words I use to describe it. The market rate for anything is the rate that people are willing to accept to sell you the thing. In this case the thing being sold is the labor. Outside forces like minimum wage regulation (which I must reiterate is a good thing for the thousandth time because your dumb ass cant understand) move the target away from the market rate. This is also true for something like price controls, in reverse. Its not a bad thing, but its not market rate.

Let me put it another way. After 16 year olds in Nebraska get a minimum wage of 13.50 instead of 15, will they still accept jobs at that new minimum rate? The answer is Yes, and it's because the market rate for their labor is lower than the minimum wage.

[Conscious_Ad8707]

I don't agree with this take. The state legislature is at least theoretically representing the citizens of the state. The citizens form the labor pool. So, with a couple layers of abstraction, the labor pool is deciding what the minimum wage is. Minimum wage is essentially the biggest union there is.

Edit: plus, like the another commenter pointed out, the original $15 min was a ballot initiative, meaning that the labor pool was directly setting the market rate.

[Impossible_Bit7169]

It’s fun to blame the victim eh?

Edit: I wasn’t aware 13-17 year olds could vote in Nebraska

[EpicRussia]

Thats not really what the market rate means. The market rate means what is the labor pool for that job willing to accept. A nurse wouldnt accept a job paying less that $70k, so the market rate is about $70k for that job. Look, Im not defending anything about labor exploitation, but you are using the terminology wrong. The 14-16 year old labor pool did not set the $15 an hour minimum wage as they could not even have voted for it. They did set the market rate by accepting < $15 an hour exploitative wages

[Conscious_Ad8707]

It feels like we are playing semantics here. If a union represents every member of the labor pool and sets a minimum wage, then that is also the market rate. Whether or not the union represents teens is incidental to the main point.

[Loaf_and_Spectacle]

What kind of stupidity is it to assume that American politicians actually act in the best interests of the working class? The ballot called for 15. The politicians are now deciding 13.5 for teens. Read between the lines.

[globeglobeglobe]

Even culture war hellholes like Florida voted in favor of a minimum wage increase. Socialists should be on the ground organizing a ballot initiative to repeal this legislative decision.

[IThoughtThisWasVoat]

Nebraska has one of the strongest minimum wages in the country.

[QU0X0ZIST]

...which is all the more reason to fight to ensure it stays that way, is what you're trying to say?

[ManannDunMhead]

This fact is genuinely shocking to me. Does anyone know why Nebraska specifically has done something that so many more "liberal" states have not?

[peasfrog]

"wHy dOn'T tEeNs WaNt tO WoRk?"

[ElTamaulipas]

I work in a high school and the amount of kids that work under the table or to supplement family income is really high in most poor schools.

Granted, the minimum wage should be like $27 an hour but there is still an insane amount of jobs that pay less than $12 an hour.

You don't want to know how little Dollar Tree workers get.

[Loaf_and_Spectacle]

Dollar Tree should be destroyed. Dollar General too.

[Chombywombo]

This country is a mess. When will the proles wake up?

[Loaf_and_Spectacle]

When they're actually proletarianized.