The Fair Wage and Community Revitalization Act (reintroduced)

[Gabu]

At the request of Nym90, I hereby reintroduce the following legislation:

The Fair Wage and Community Revitalization Act

Clause 1.

The federal minimum wage of Atlasia shall be increased by 50 cents per hour each year for the next 4 years, until it reaches the level of $7.15/hour.

Clause 2.

The federal government shall have the authority to establish Renaissance Zones in areas that are determined to be "economically distressed". For the purposes of this act, the definition of "economically distressed" shall be as follows:

Either,

a. all counties or cities in which the Renaissance Zone will be established have an unemployment rate more than 50% higher than the national average, on average over the last 5 years;

or,

b. all counties or cities in which the Renaissance Zone will be established have a poverty rate more than 50% higher than the national average, on average over the last 5 years.

A Renaissance Zone, once established, shall entitle any newly established business within its area to have to pay no federal income tax for the first 5 years of operation.

Clause 3.

The creation of any Renaissance Zone shall be done in consult with a committee duly appointed by the Regional Government in which the Zone shall be created. The primary purpose of this committee will be to analyze the totality of costs and benefits, both quantitatively and qualitatively, of the creation of the Zone, and establish the borders of the Zone. The committee will report its findings to the public before the creation of any such Zone.

I hereby open debate on this bill.

[Gabu]

I will naturally oppose this because of Clause #1.

I see no problems with clause #2 and #3.

If an amendment were brought to strike Clause #1 from the bill, I would be in support of this.

Of course, that probably goes against the Senator's original aims.

Nonetheless, I will propose it anyway.

Okay, I open voting on the proposed amendment to strike Clause 1.

All senators in favor, vote "aye"; all opposed, vote "nay".

[Gabu]

Not a dodge at all, Jake. I just explained that 2 and 3 will do enough good for business to offset any negative effects of part 1, and part 1 will provide immediate benefit to many workers (the vast majority of those below $8/hour are not teens); so the bill overall will be beneficial to both businesses and workers.

Er, well, I looked it up, and according to this article, only 14% of those earning minimum wage depend on it to live; the others have some other wage-earner in the house.

[Gabu]

Ack! We have a vote already? I've got some questions, actually.

No, we have a vote on Sam Spade's proposed amendment to strike Section 1.

[Gabu]

Ack! We have a vote already? I've got some questions, actually.

No, we have a vote on Sam Spade's proposed amendment to strike Section 1.

Which, as it seriously impacts the overall bill, is just as important.

Well, yes.

[Gabu]

I'm sorta teetering back and forth, but based on the large number of conflicting accounts that I've heard regarding the minimum wage, and given that I like the rest of this bill, I vote yea on the amendment.

[Gabu]

Whoops, sorry, I didn't see SamSpade's vote on the second page; I thought we still needed one more "Aye" for the amendment to pass.

Anyways...

The amendment to strike Section 1 has passed.

I now call a vote on Sen. MAS117's amendment to replace that section with the following:

"The federal minimum wage of Atlasia shall be increased by 80 cents per hour each year for the next 2 years, until it reaches the level of $6.75/hour."

All senators in favor, vote "aye"; all senators against, vote "nay".

[Gabu]

Nay, for much the same reasons as before.

I'll give the senators, say, two hours to make any last minute change of decisions before declaring the second amendment to have failed.

[Gabu]

Nay, for much the same reasons as before.

I'll give the senators, say, two hours to make any last minute change of decisions before declaring the second amendment to have failed.

Gabu, I proposed my own ammendment eight posts back.

I know; I was waiting for voting on the current amendment to cease before continuing with yours.

With no senators opting to change their votes, I hereby declare that, with six opposed to one in favor (two if you count Nym's vote, but it doesn't matter), Sen. MAS117's amendment has hereby failed.

I now open voting on the following amendment introduced by Sen. Supersoulty:

Clause 1 shall be replaced by the following text:

"The federal minimum wage of Atlasia shall be increased by $0.50 per hour over the next two years, until it reaches the level of $6.15/hour."

[Gabu]

Supersoulty's amount is out of the "iffy" zone and into the "that sounds good" zone for me, so

Aye.

on that amendment.

[Gabu]

By the way, this amendment will enact the largest minimum wage increase in the history of Atlasia.

http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/chart.htm

Maybe, but it's not exactly that huge.  Look at the following increases:

Jan 1, 1981 - $3.35 for all covered, nonexempt workers
Apr 1, 1990 - $3.80 for all covered, nonexempt workers
Apr 1, 1991 - $4.25 for all covered, nonexempt workers

In two years the minimum wage was raised by 90 cents, and I don't recall there being a gigantic economic downturn as a result.

In 1996 and 1997 an increase of equal magnitude was put into place, as well.

I personally think that those who argue for a total abolition of the minimum wage aren't examining the situation closely enough.  I'll show you what I mean.

Labor can be considered as a market in which the suppliers are those who want to work and the consumers are those who want to hire the suppliers.  Then we can draw the supply and demand curves like this:



where P is price, Q is quantity, and P_M and Q_M are the price and quantity at market equilibrium.

Now, a minimum wage can be seen as a price floor of sorts, because employers must pay a certain amount for laborers' skills, so a minimum wage looks like this:



where P_floor is the minimum wage, Q_S is the quantity supplied, and Q_D is the quantity demanded.  Q_D < Q_S, so we have a surplus of labor: in other words, unemployment.  It's at this point that most people stop and conclude that a minimum wage causes unemployment and is therefore undesirable.

However, consider the market in which the employers run their business.  It is likely that those who would benefit from the minimum wage increase are in this market, so it's certainly possible that the average income of consumers in this market could increase, resulting in an increase in demand:



Because total revenue is equal to P times Q, and both P and Q have gone up, total revenue for the company has gone up as a result of the minimum wage in this example, and profit has likely gone up accordingly (although this depends on other factors).  Because a company can now afford to expand and will consequently want to hire more workers, there is a distinct possibility that the following will happen:



In other words, both the consumer and the producer did, in fact, benefit from the minimum wage in this example.  Employment was increased, wages were increased, and the company is making more money.  Because the labor market is a special one - it dictates, in part, the demand in every other market - market failure, the inability of the free market to achieve the most optimal outcome, can occur in the labor market.  If the increase in income dwarfs the decrease due to unemployment, and if the increase in profit enables the company to overcome the unemployment created, then the minimum wage has actually solved market failure.

Of course, reckless increase of the minimum wage is not advisable.  If minimum wage is too high, the unemployment created will dwarf everything else and the minimum wage will have solved nothing.  However, I don't feel that $6.15/hour is an unreasonable amount.  If it turns out to be as such, we can always scale it back.

[Gabu]

Sorry, I have these things called "classes" that I need to attend and this other thing called "sleep" than I need to do every now and then.  Kinda puts a crimp on my ability to be here 24 hours a day.

With five votes in favor to three against, I hereby declare Supersoulty's amendment to have passed.

I now open the voting on SamSpade's amendment to amend Supersoulty's amendment to read as follows:

"The federal minimum wage of Atlasia shall be increased by $0.30 per hour over the next two years, until it reaches the level of $5.75/hour."

I'll count Supersoulty's vote; no need to vote again.

[Gabu]

Uh, guys, we still need at least one more vote on the first amendment by Sam Spade.  Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

[Gabu]

With five votes against to two in favor, I hereby declare Sam Spade's first amendment to be failed.

I now open voting on his second amendment, to add the following section to the bill:

Clause 4
If at any time within the next 3 years, either one of these two things occur...

1. Two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, as reported by the Commerce Department.

2. Unemployment numbers grow above 7% for two consecutive quarters, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The minimum wage increase proposed in Clause 1 will become null and void and the minimum wage will return to its present level of $5.15/hr.

[Gabu]

Aye.  If the minimum wage increase honestly does not work, then I see no reason why it would be a bad idea to have a provision for it to be repealed immediately.

[Gabu]

I was just looking through the Senate Procedural Resolutions and I believe that this bill may be bordering on containing two divorced subjects which is not allowed without the consent of the Presiding Officer, as per the Senate Procedural Resolution on Multiple Issue Bills. I call on the PPT to turn this bill into two seperate bills. One dealing with the minimum wage and one dealing with the Renaissance Zones since I consider the two things divorced subjects, although you could argue that they are under the subject of helping the poor they are not related in any visible way. Now as per the Resolution this is the call of the PPT, I just believe that section 1 as compared to the rest of the bill could be said to be divorced from main feature of the legislation which is the creation of Renaissance Zones.

I think that this is a good idea; however, I'll wait until the current amendment up for voting passes or fails before splitting it up to make things easier.

[Gabu]

The connection between the two subjects of this ammendment is clear and undisputable.

Amendment?  We're talking about the full bill.

At any rate, Section 1 of this bill seems to be, by far, the major focus for debate and arguments, and the other sections seem to be completely ignored.  I don't see why it'd be a bad thing to allow those who don't like Section 1 but like the rest of the bill to vote against Section 1 while voting in favor of the rest of the of it.

[Gabu]

And, as Eric said, it is a comprehensive bill.

Well, half the people think it is and half don't.

I dunno, if the compromise of an automatic repeal passes, then it's probably fine to leave it as a large chunk.  If it doesn't, however, then I'm not so sure.  We'll see.

[Gabu]

ABSTAIN on Sam Spade's latest Amendment. It's a good idea, but it needs to be worked on a bit like Super indicated.

If you think it needs work, you could always vote for it and then propose an amendment for it.

[Gabu]

no way am I going to vote on reducing the miniomum wage, and if that amendment passes i'll vote against the bill.

Uh, where are we reducing the minimum wage?  The most that will happen with this bill is keeping the minimum wage the same it currently is.

[Gabu]

which to me, is unacceptable.

Er, if you like Section 2 and 3 (if you don't, then never mind), and the most Section 1 can do towards lowering the minimum wage is simply not increasing it (and it will only not be increased if doing so hurts the economy), I can't see the logic in voting against this bill...

[Gabu]

Er... man, this thread is getting complicated.  I'm having a hard time counting the votes on the latest amendment.  I think it's four against to three in favor with one abstention, which would mean that we still need one more senator (Naso, I think) to either tie it up and send it to Alcon or to defeat the amendment.

Given that I've seen three senators in favor of splitting this up into two bill (and one really in favor of it), and given that I personally still think it's a good idea, I'm going to do that after voting on this amendment finishes.  Then I'll start voting on Supersoulty's amendment.  No, I haven't forgotten about your amendment, Supersoulty.

[Gabu]

Er... man, this thread is getting complicated.  I'm having a hard time counting the votes on the latest amendment.  I think it's four against to three in favor with one abstention, which would mean that we still need one more senator (Naso, I think) to either tie it up and send it to Alcon or to defeat the amendment.

Given that I've seen three senators in favor of splitting this up into two bill (and one really in favor of it), and given that I personally still think it's a good idea, I'm going to do that after voting on this amendment finishes.  Then I'll start voting on Supersoulty's amendment.  No, I haven't forgotten about your amendment, Supersoulty.

Thank you Gabu. While these may be considered to be a single subject making them two seperate bills would help stop the confusion and clutter of this thread.

Yes, I fully agree with that.

Plus, it may get some actual debate on the, you know, other stuff in this bill (I practically forgot that there even was other stuff in the wake of all the minimum wage arguments...).

[Gabu]

Will the Senator who believes in "getting things done" ("Senator Naso") please vote on this amendment now?

I sent him a PM; hopefully he'll vote shortly.

[Gabu]

Okay, good, I see that Naso has voted.

With five votes against to three in favor, and with one abstention, I hereby declare Sam Spade's second amendment to have failed.

Wait one second while I split this up.  While I agree with those who oppose this measure that it could certainly be shown that the two parts of this bill are both means to the same end, it remains a fact that from the giant amount of debate over one part compared to the paltry amount of debate over the other part, the effectiveness of both means to reach that end are certainly not equal in everyone's mind.  In the interest of giving both sections equal chance to be debated and of not having one contentious section eclipse the other, I think that splitting the bill up is the best option.