The national minimum wage just got raised to an astronomical $5.85/hour.

The minimum wage in the state of Kansas? $2.65/hour, or about $6,000/year, and efforts to raise it have been stonewalled by the legislature. God, I didn't even earn that low a wage when I worked in radio.

From: [identity profile] ravenskye8.livejournal.com


I'm just shocked that there are a significant number of jobs that somehow manage to be exempt from the federal minimum wage? wow...

From: [identity profile] dvandom.livejournal.com


The business has to pretty much stay entirely inside the state. Federal commerce laws are pretty much only enforced via the interstate commerce clause, after all...so a restaurant or lawn care business might get away with counting only as a state business.

That said, 19,000 people in Kansas work in jobs that slip through the cracks and are covered by this wage, but very few places actually pay less than federal minimum wage, simply because (at the moment) there's sufficient competition for workers.

From: [identity profile] autobotsrollout.livejournal.com


Well, obviously the proof that a low minimum wage creates jobs is evident in the job boom in Kansas! A low minimum wage boosts the free market and then everybody becomes rich because demand for labor becomes intense!

Or not.

From: [identity profile] dvandom.livejournal.com


Well, to be honest, a low state minimum wage can't attract out of state business investment, since by definition an inter-state business has to pay federal minimum.

But yeah, the news programs always manage to find some loon who doesn't really understand the effect of market forces on actual people to parrot the claim that the market should set wages.

From: [identity profile] dvandom.livejournal.com


Yes, it does make a difference. Any business that only works within the state (and meets some other criteria) can ignore the Federal minimum wage. As I pointed out above, that's 19,000 people in Kansas employed at places that could pay them under three bucks an hour (although most don't go that cheap).
.

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