Beginning Sunday, Jan.1, the City of San Jose minimum wage will be $17 per hour, up from the current $16.20 per hour.
City voters in 2012 approved a minimum wage ordinance that set an hourly rate of pay that employers must pay their workers for work performed within the city. In 2016, that hourly rate was $10.30 per hour.
Across the state, the mandatory minimum wage for all employers, regardless of the number of employees, will be $15.50 per hour.
In the City of Santa Clara, any employer that is subject to the city business license tax or that operates a facility in Santa Clara must pay each employee who performs at least two hours of work per week at least $17.20 per hour.
higher rents, higher sales tax revenue…same wage-rent slave life
no one gonna fix your life but you, certainly San Jose won’t
The Kulak is on to something. Even died-in-the-wool libertarian social Darwinists can see that workers can only rely on themselves–as a collective–to liberate themselves from wage slavery. As a group, working people have nothing to lose and everything to gain by organizing themselves into labor unions that can and will fight employers tooth and nail for living and dignified wages and working conditions, real workers’ unions that can build solidarity between the organized and the larger local community of unorganized working people.
Just an Observation,
Yes lets make the minimum wage to be the same as the formula Yearly income= median rent times 3.33. Then you can divide that by 2000 hours. Since the median rent in Santa Clara County is $3,300 the yearly income must be $132,000 a year. Divide that by 2000 hours and you have a minimum wage of $66.00 an hour. There now you solved the housing crisis and the affordability crisis.
Unless you guys want to drop prices on housing, you are going to wind up with hyperinflation that cannot end. Because of labor shortages.
The state has no choice in this matter too, it can either spend its own money to pay for an unlivable earnings, of just make it so the PRIVATE market has to deal with it. It is far easier just to raise the minimum wage so that people can sustain themselves, without spending tax dollars except for enforcement of labor laws.
This doesn’t even need a labor union, since the workers vastly outnumber the wealthy in CA. They can just put a ballot measure on the vote to create a stronger economic regulation that cuts costs for the state because the state will no longer need to pay subsidies to private companies.
If a formula is used the entire state can adjust annually automatically. Too bad that a janitor might get paid the same income as a tech worker. but without the janitor the office would be unusable. Same deal for dry cleaners, hair stylists, and even erotic dancers.
Of course Kulak would argue that if you make it so everyone gets an equal share of the pie, it is unfair. Because Kulak is a term defined as:
Kulak (/ˈkuːlæk/; Russian: кула́к; plural: кулаки́, kulakí, ‘fist’ or ‘tight-fisted’), also kurkul (Ukrainian: куркуль) or golchomag (Azerbaijani: qolçomaq, plural: qolçomaqlar), was the term which was used to describe peasants who owned over 8 acres (3.2 hectares) of land towards the end of the Russian Empire. In the early Soviet Union, particularly in Soviet Russia and Azerbaijan, kulak became a vague reference to property ownership among peasants who were considered hesitant allies of the Bolshevik Revolution. In Ukraine during 1930–1931, there also existed a term of pidkurkulnyk (almost wealthy peasant); these were considered “sub-kulaks”.
Kulak originally referred to former peasants in the Russian Empire who became wealthier during the Stolypin reform of 1906 to 1914, which aimed to reduce radicalism amongst the peasantry and produce profit-minded, politically conservative farmers. During the Russian Revolution, kulak was used to chastise peasants who withheld grain from the Bolsheviks. According to Marxist–Leninist political theories of the early 20th century, the kulaks were considered class enemies of the poorer peasants. Vladimir Lenin described them as “bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who fatten themselves during famines”, declaring revolution against them to liberate poor peasants, farm laborers, and proletariat (the much smaller class of urban and industrial workers).
Soviet terminology divided the Russian peasants into three broad categories:
Bednyak, or poor peasants.
Serednyak, or mid-income peasants.
Kulak, the higher-income farmers who had larger farms.
In addition, they had a category of batrak, landless seasonal agricultural workers for hire.
The Stolypin reform created a new class of landowners by allowing peasants to acquire plots of land on credit from the large estate owners. They were to repay the credit (a kind of mortgage loan) from their farm earnings. By 1912, 16% of peasants (up from 11% in 1903) had relatively large endowments of over 8 acres (3.2 ha) per male family member (a threshold used in statistics to distinguish between middle-class and prosperous farmers, i.e. the kulaks). At that time, an average farmer’s family had 6 to 10 children. The number of such farmers amounted to 20% of the rural population, producing almost 50% of marketable grain.
Dekulakization
In July 1929, official Soviet policy continued to state that the kulaks should not be terrorized and should be enlisted into the collective farms, but Stalin disagreed: “Now we have the opportunity to carry out a resolute offensive against the kulaks, break their resistance, eliminate them as a class and replace their production with the production of kolkhozes and sovkhozes.” A decree by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on 5 January 1930 was titled “On the pace of collectivization and state assistance to collective-farm construction.” The official goal of “kulak liquidation” came without precise instructions, and encouraged local leaders to take radical action, which resulted in physical elimination. The campaign to “liquidate the kulaks as a class” constituted the main part of Stalin’s social engineering policies in the early 1930s. Andrei Suslov argues that the seizure of peasants’ property led directly to the destruction of an entire social group, that of the peasant‐owners.
On 30 January 1930, the Politburo approved the dissolving of the kulaks as a class. Three categories of kulaks were distinguished: kulaks who were supposed to be sent to the Gulags, kulaks who were supposed to be relocated to distant provinces, such as the north Urals and Kazakhstan, kulaks who were supposed to be sent to other areas within their home provinces. The peasantry were required to relinquish their farm animals to government authorities. Many chose to slaughter their livestock rather than give them up to collective farms. In the first two months of 1930, peasants killed millions of cattle, horses, pigs, sheep and goats, with the meat and hides being consumed and bartered. For instance, the Soviet Party Congress reported in 1934 that 26.6 million head of cattle and 63.4 million sheep had been lost.[23] In response to the widespread slaughter, the Sovnarkom issued decrees to prosecute “the malicious slaughtering of livestock” (хищнический убой скота).Stalin ordered severe measures to end kulak resistance. In 1930, he declared: “In order to oust the ‘kulaks’ as a class, the resistance of this class must be smashed in open battle and it must be deprived of the productive sources of its existence and development. … That is a turn towards the policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class.””
Just pointing out history, you chose your identity here.
Making Trouble –
Unions are far better than state compulsion and have historically delivered more for the working class than minimum wage. Minimum wage has a long racist history and was originally designed to limit employment for blacks and Asians. The entire “illegal to work” concept disadvantages those with limited access to educational resources or who live in single-parent homes – segments of the population dominated by blacks and latinos in progressive regions for the past half-century. Even Berkeley admits the lower rung of skilled workers gets the shaft with minimum wage. Their retort to such arguments? “We don’t want those kinds of jobs anyway.” Huhh? Those are the jobs you educated, or more accurately failed to educate, these kids to get. Last I checked the public educational hegemony was >95% progressive.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carriesheffield/2014/04/29/on-the-historically-racist-motivations-behind-minimum-wage/?sh=337dd39011bb
Minimum Wage will never be enough because it only goes into higher sales-taxable goods and services (which are artificially raised by said Minimum Wage laws) and higher rent – which are raised because the floor rent that can be charged goes up. It is not only systemic racism but only benefits the landlord and helps the city cover underfunded public sector union pensions.
Keep in mind though, unions do tend to lose perspective and run the “host” business into the ground, which leads to capital flight, so I wouldn’t bet the farm on much more than the public sector BS jobs, healthcare, and cleaning ladies. Try to shakedown a restauranter and they will just shut the doors – profit margins are paper thin in food. Try to shakedown a manufacturer and they just end their lease and move it to South Carolina or Mexico or Colombia or Indonesia or…
More so than unions, co-operatives is a more successful strategy to create stability, ensure benefits, aid in general wealth building, and access to upwardly mobile salary opportunities for low- to vocational-skill level workers. Most importantly they would have real power to block capital flight. There is no reason co-ops can’t outcompete most small to mid-sized companies – notably construction, food service, manufacturing, and other vocational services. I would without a doubt prefer to work with a co-op contractor than the “on-paper” clowns I have to chase down once the contract is signed. Larger players couldn’t be bothered to deal with a little Kulak like me.
Launching a Co-op would require “real” organization (more than just getting a bunch of women to hold signs in front of a fawning press but finding product fit, file paperwork, navigate the bureaucracies, get financing, lease office/retail/industrial space, get licensed/bonded/insured and insurance for your co-op-ees, acquire and manage customers, acquire capital goods that multiply co-op-ee productivity – perhaps with some financing), commitment (can’t quit after a month and keep your co-op “stake”), and risk-taking (more than just opportunity cost, but real skin in the game.) Not sure how cool your comrades will be if you demand remote work due to your need for safe spaces if you are a manufacturing or restaurant co-op either. Let’s face it, making money is pretty hard.
However, when you demand the state to negotiate you a “living wage” regardless of your skills, your landlord to pay your rent, public school teachers to feed and raise your kids, and the middle class to pay your health insurance – why would you bother with anything like organization, commitment, and risk-taking?
Goldie – You’re blocked for stalking.
Please stop obsessing over me, I’m sure your therapist has already told you.
Just an Observation,
Well since Kulak can do nothing but insult others, I guess that ends any constructive conversation.
In any event, it would seem that the only cheap solution is to aggressively increase minimum wages so that the basic essentials are affordable to the people working. Either by price controls or basic levels of earnings. Which is your choice?
A Big Mac costs $3.99 and the burger flipper makes $16.20 an hour. So, if the burger flipper made JAFO’s $66.00 and hour, a Big Mac would cost at least $16.50
Just an Observation,
Boy you got the prices wrong on a Big Mac is $6.00 without add ons. on the McDonalds App, You might get lucky and get a additional Big Mac for $1.00 as a specials. But that only discounts the price on 2 of them. Like the trick you tried to pull on this forum.
Just face it INFLATION is only controllable when businesses and individuals CANNOT get credit to pay for it
So again inflation is controlled by those who demand a double digits Return on Investment. Sorry but until you reduce that demand, the inflation will continue. Thuds especially for businesses’ the cost of borrowing will kill you. And there will be a skyrocket of foreclosures and bankruptcies for many, especially the white collar workers getting slammed now.
But given that Covid is still spreading and now has new variants that are more evasive regarding vaccines and treatments, the labor shortages will just continue to get worse, all of you better realize this is going to be an impact for the next 20 years.
Too bad you didn’t watch the movie Margin Call when the boss said:
““Its just money; ITS MADE UP. Pieces Of Paper With Pictures On It so we don’t have to kill each other just to get something to eat. It’s not wrong. And it’s certainly no different today than its ever been. 1637, 1797, 1819, 37, 57, 84, 1901, 07, 29, 1937, 1974, 1987-Jesus, didn’t that (BLANK) up me up good-92, 97, 2000 and whatever we want to call this. IT’S ALL JUST THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER; WE CAN’T HELP OURSELVES. AND YOU AND I CAN’T CONTROL IT, OR STOP IT, OR EVEN SLOW IT. Or even ever-so-slightly alter it. We just react.”
But if anyone was trying to think scientifically, and plan for the long term, that would not happen. It is simply a matter of GREED. The facts are you cannot expect profits or markets to grow higher than population, UNLESS something of REAL LONG TERM VALUE is introduced, like the automobile, the telephone or something of REAL value. Social Media is NOT REAL, nor are CRYPTOCURRENCIES. Nor are Non Fungible Tokens. And worse the current real estate market STILL sells and buys SYNTHETIC properties, they are only VIRTUAL and really don’t exist.
All of the old models of economics are worthless for the next 20 years.
In any case, it would appear that the only low-cost answer is to aggressively raise the minimum wage in order to make it possible for individuals who are working to buy the most fundamental necessities. Either by government regulation of prices or basic wage standards. Which path do you want to take?
It’s good to see minimum wage increases in San Jose and Santa Clara. It’s a step towards fairer pay for workers. I hope other cities follow suit.