$15 Minimum Wage increases are expected to hit our nation, coast to coast, in the near future. I am concerned that my financial sacrifices & years of educational investments to become a nurse will be highly devalued once minimum wages are doubled around the country.
I am predicting that the higher $15 minimum wages will cause costs of everything else to increase (food, rent, services). Salary earners (RNs) making above minimum wage, will not get raises, yet our cost of living will dramatically increase (eventually by double in most cases, in order to offset the higher cost of minimum wage employees). This all will be fine for minimum wage workers, but I fear that because I make above minimum wage, I will see my budget cost of living budget increase by 1/3 or more and will no longer be able to afford to pay back my student loans once all this happens.
Then comes the bad credit debt & never owning a home & never being able to retire & this snowballs into my college career has been self-destructive, God help us all ...
I would like to hear other nurses input and opinion on the matter, if nothing else but to help me from catastrophizing this ~ Thank You
Not every state pays good like California, here in the south starting for nurses are bottom $20s. I even heard few years ago below 20 for no experience
Don't you know? California is the only place which matters in the world! /s
I just don't understand why no one bats an eye about CEOs who are receiving record-breaking compensation at least in part because of rising prices of their products. All the while, their employees are receiving the bare minimum to keep them at the company.
And yet, people are jumping up and down when hard-working people, who do their jobs very well are asking for a fair wage are scolded and told they don't have a strong work ethic or smarts.
I know a lot of minimum wage folks who would like to get more education and training. But they also need to provide for themselves and family, and may be cautious about taking on a tremendous debt load.
Very well stated. I worry about a hike like this because it essentially decreases my purchase power by about 40%, and it's not like insurance companies are going to pay hospitals more, or hospitals pay nurses more, just because of it. It will probably take decades to get close to equalizing, and we already make crap in a lot of places. In AR, new hire RNs WITH experience starting at 19.50/hr when I was hired there. 4.50 above the expected minimum wage is just terrible. People in big cities in CA and NY for example are just ignorant of the way that wages work for other parts of the country where wages are lower. Sure, an RN in CA could make $55/hr, but that's really really high vs the southern states, for example.
Another peeve I have: if CA hospitals can afford to pay nurses $55/hr, and stay in business......where the hell does a southern hospital in AR get off paying $19? Don't the insurance companies pay them equally?
No, they don't and payments from both federal (Medicare and Medicaid) along with private insurance vary due to several factors.
There would be an instant "nursing shortage" in New York if RNs were paid $19/hr. which works out to just under 40k per year. Nursing assistants in some places make between $17 to $20 per hour but even then you are hard pressed to live in this city on that kind of money, especially if you are alone.
Can well recall back in the 1980's or so when places in NYC paid $18k to $25k (excluding shift differential for nights, evenings and weekends which really wasn't that big of a difference), and you had an almost perennial nursing shortage. Secretaries, administrative assistants, typists, Gal Fridays and host of other jobs in offices and elsewhere paid the same or even slightly more, and you had better working conditions including not having to work weekends and holidays.
MW laws were put into place on federal and or state levels to protect workers by putting a floor under wages. This in theory would end exploitation and the other abuses commonly found. However make no mistake, MW laws either by design and or nature offer the most protection to low and unskilled workers who have little bargaining power with employers.
Historically people who took MW jobs were of two sorts; those that couldn't do any better and those who soon moved up and out onto other and better paying positions. Some where along the line for a host of reasons that have been discussed here and elsewhere are "stuck" in low wage/low skilled employment. While it may never occur to most of us to make a career including raising a family on a Starbuck's barista salary, but that is what many people are doing.
The decline of union membership in this country coupled with the vast changes brought about by technology have meant basically employers have and will continue to have the upper hand. Every place has "gone lean" or "Sigma Six" or whatever the latest craze is totally demolishing entire classes of workers. If you have a college and or post graduate degree, or a trade/skill that cannot be outsourced or automated then you likely face a pretty good employment/wage future. OTOH those that do not, will not. It just is that simple.
This battle over raising the MW is merely pushing employers to pay skilled/educated wages to low skill/unskilled. Problem is (and those pushing for MW increases know this), large numbers of jobs held by such workers are highly elastic. Any task that can be digitized is subject to being done by computers or machines. Fast food restaurants in other parts of the world long began moving towards atomization, and it is now beginning to arrive on US shores. You can run a fast food place pretty easily with just a few persons to prepare and package the orders and leaving the actual order placement and payment to technology.
As it relates to this group/discussion at least here in NYC places are coping with declining reimbursements and higher labor costs by eliminating UAP staff. Nursing assistants, ward clerks, etc... are either being reduced or the job descriptions are being expanded to include multi-functions.
I think, is the minimum wage is increased, then it will generally cause inflation, otherwise people won't bother getting educated for a better job. If $15 is your entry level, then as people advance, they'll get more.
My son told me that they have this in Australia already. I'm not sure the overall effect, but they have a prosperous country.
If goods and services become more expensive, there is usually less demand so it may increase unemployment and hurt some business.
Specializes in Huntingtons, LTC, Ortho, Acute Care.
TBH if you want to buy a 3Bd/2b home in a safe neighborhood, afford a horse, help your kids through college, etc., you cannot do that on a nurse's income alone in California. I could do some of those things if I was married to someone who made equal or more as me, but I definitely could not do that on my own. I don't even know how I can afford to survive on my own without taking roommates. After taxes, I get like $1500 biweekly, or approx. $3000 a month. When rent for a studio costs like $1600 a month and for a 2-bedroom apartment over $2000 a month, I would barely be getting by if I had a family and just getting by if I lived by myself. And I make a good income.
Boy your taxes eat ALOT i make 23/hr in florida and after federal taxes (fl has no state taxes) and my insurance i get 1200-1300 a month so I dont make all that much less than you and you live in what is considered the "promised land" to most nurses.
Boy your taxes eat ALOT i make 23/hr in florida and after federal taxes (fl has no state taxes) and my insurance i get 1200-1300 a month so I dont make all that much less than you and you live in what is considered the "promised land" to most nurses.
You generally find high cost of living areas are often coupled with high taxes. Employers in New York , New Jersey, Connecticut and some other north eastern states have to pay higher wages because of high tax rates.
A RN in NYC easily will see about one third of her or his wages consumed by payroll taxes. So that 80k per year is down to about 53k off the bat. This is before any other deductions such as savings/401K, health insurance and so forth.
From that take home amount (roughly 50k or so) there is housing, food, and so forth. In order to rent a decent apartment a good and safe area of NYC landlords want to see a 40x wage to rent ratio.
Ultimately what somebody gets paid is the point of equilibrium between what an employer thinks the work is worth and what an employee thinks their time is worth. You cannot set an artificial level and expect an employer to meet it. If he doesn't think the work is worth the pay, he won't offer the job, no matter what the government says it's worth.
Likewise, it's not slavery. The employee is not bound to accept a job at any particular rate of pay. He will ultimately take what he is willing to take to do the work, or he will refuse it and not do the work.
Assuming the work is considered necessary, the employer will try to get it done for the least amount and the employee will try to get the most he possibly can in exchange for his time and ability to do the work. Where these points meet is what he gets paid.
Most of the time we speak in terms of huge companies like McDonald's or Walmart, since they use large numbers of unskilled workers. But let's notch this down to a more personal level. I need my garden weeded. It's hot and it's back breaking work. It takes no skills or education to perform. I'm willing to pay $10 an hour for somebody to do it. If an unskilled worker were to present himself to me and offer to do it for $15 an hour, here's what's going to happen. 1) I won't hire the $15 worker. 2) I will continue to look for someone willing to do it for $10. Either I find someone or I don't. 3) If I don't find anyone willing to do it for $10 an hour, I will have to either increase my offer, do the job myself, or allow my garden to be overgrown. But I won't be forced by the government to hire somebody at $15 an hour.
Frankly, if the money being offered to you is inadequate, you need to increase your skills/add value to your employer. Nobody is forcing you to stay unskilled. And nobody is forcing him to hire you either... at any price. He may decide to forgo the job completely, or to automate, or to increase the workload of his present employees. As nurses, you ought to be familiar with the last concept.
There really is no 'opinion' to this. Raising the min. wage will lead to inflation. My wife started out making 11 bucks an hour at her job, and after over a decade makes 15.50. Do you really think she is going to put up with new hires making 50 cents less than her? Of course not, she will demand more because her work is worth more. If she does not get more, she will go to a lower stress job like being a grill monkey.
I made 15 bucks an hour installing cable. If a new hire makes the same as me I will quit if my wages are not raised. To keep me as an employee the cable company will have to give me more, and hence your cable bill just got raised.
Anecdotal evidence such as "the price of a Big Mac has always gone up" is true, but does not state the reason for it. When I was 16 I worked for 3.33 an hour. It was min. wage at the time, and my employer (Pizza Hut) paid me what my no skilled labor was worth. When people think 'progress' is being made because now the min. wage has been raised they haven't the slightest idea what they are talking about. My 1988 money was worth more than my 2016 money.
Raising the min. wage leads to inflation, PERIOD. The only way for that not to happen is when the gov. institutes wage controls. That would be "spreading the wealth", and everyone on this board would feel it because the money you lose would go straight to the low skilled people.
If you do not have wage controls, than congrats. Once the min. wage is doubled, the number on your paycheck will double. The value of your check will not be any higher, but the number sure will be. If that type of thing impresses you I suggest going to Mexico and getting paid in Pesos.
Whatever you think of illegal immigration, stopping it is the quickest way of raising STANDARD OF LIVING. If you create a shortage of unskilled labor, unskilled labor will be in demand and employers will have to pay more for it.
If they institute wage controls people will not go into fields like nursing. Why bother doing something this hard if I will only be paid marginally higher than a guy who flips burgers? Not to mention, you are talking about communism/socialism at that point.
"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs", (rough quote) Karl Marx
Happy to see NAs mentioned-- having worked as a CNA in LTC for $12 an hour, they deserve more. I'd be happy to see a $15 minimum wage if only because it assured that nursing assistants made a living wage for stressful, physically demanding work.
Another probable outcome with the minimum wage going up is that the underground economy will continue to grow. Already, government requirements put a big demand on business owners. Just the paperwork alone is a nightmare. State and local tax collecting, FICA, quarterly reports, inspections and regulations galore!
Business owners will pay under the table when able. It's simpler. It will fuel the use of undocumented workers of course. Sure, they'll keep some people on the books, for show. But, the reality is, it's a dog eat dog world out there, and when government tries to regulate a social utopia, it usually backfires.
Raising minimum wage is bad for the country for all the reasons Ben Shapiro mentioned. It's not even a debate. If employers are forced to pay employees flipping burgers $15, where are they to recoup the cost? Increased prices for all. You increase the minimum wag and everything else will raise, hollowing out the economy. Also, if people flipping burgers make $15 an hour, how demoralizing is that to CNAs, LPNs, and paramedics? Quite.
~Shrek~
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Don't you know? California is the only place which matters in the world! /s