Robert Reich: How to Create More Jobs By Lowering Wages

[Better Believe It]

How to Create More Jobs By Lowering Wages: Texas and America
by Robert Reich
September 14, 2011

More and more Americans are retaining their jobs by settling for lower wages and benefits, or going without cost-of-living increases. Or they’ve lost a higher-paying job and have taken one that pays less. Or they’ve joined the great army of contingent workers, self-employed “consultants,” temps, and contract workers – without healthcare benefits, without pensions, without job security, without decent wages.

It’s no great feat to create lots of lousy jobs. A few years ago Michele Bachmann remarked that if the minimum wage were repealed “we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.”

I keep on hearing conservative economists say Americans have priced themselves out of the global high-tech labor market. That’s baloney. The productivity of American workers continues to soar. The problem is fewer and fewer Americans are sharing the gains. The ratio of corporate profits to wages is the highest it’s been since before the Great Depression.

Besides, how can lower incomes possibly be an answer to America’s economic problem? Lower incomes mean less overall demand for goods and services — which translates into even fewer jobs and even lower wages.



The Perry (and Bachmann) model of job growth both condemns Americans to lower and lower living standards.

Read the full article at:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/14-7

[izquierdista]

1. Lower the wage of John Paulson

and 100,000 teachers could have jobs: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1933793

[MatthewStLouis]

2. Thanks for the link!

[kentuck]

3. If you work 40 hours per week for $10 per hour....

You would gross $400 per week. Over 52 weeks, you could make $20,800 gross. That would be before any federal taxes or FICA or Medicare or state taxes are taken out. That is not a lot of money.

When we consider that the minimum wage is 35% lower than that, we can see why we are in the hole we are in with our demand economy. There's not a lot of money to buy shit with.

[NightWatcher]

4. Cut the wages in half, then employers can double their workforce

And that'd be handy because everyone would now need two jobs just to get back to where they were yesterday?!?

[Better Believe It]

5. I think the big employers would be more inclined to double their profits!

[NightWatcher]

7. Of course. The only thing that'll save us is demand

If we want stuff and can afford it, companies will have to hire more people to provide it. Those new hires will also have money and demand more goods and services...et cetera

[xchrom]

6. Recommend

[johnnypneumatic]

8. the difference between a slaveowner and a republican economist is

slaveowners paid their slaves nothing, but still had to feed and house their slaves, while republican economists want to pay nothing and just don't care if workers don't have a place to live or food to eat.

[shraby]

9. If Bachmann got her hands out of the public trough in

all the ways she's milking the system, she would have lower wages also.