$26/hour

[Jolly]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/labor-day-minimum-wage-economy-productivity/

[George K]

https://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/items/1974-united-states-minimum-wage

Adjusted for inflation, it would be about $11.25.

[LuFins Dad]

“ Even as workers have been more industrious — helping drive corporate profits, the stock market and CEO compensation to record heights ”

Please explain and justify this statement. How have workers been more industrious? My bet is that if you broke it down per worker you would find the opposite at the minimum wage end of the scale.

"That may sound pretty crazy, but that's roughly what the minimum wage would be today if it had kept pace with productivity growth since its value peaked in 1968," wrote Dean Baker, “

"Having the minimum wage track productivity growth **is not a crazy idea," **Baker said.

Mr. Baker seems very concerned with explaining that he is not crazy and neither are his ideas… Beyond that, it seems to me to be very possible that Minimum Wage in 1968 may have been inflated too highly and we have just seen a correction. Beyond that, almost all of the productivity growth in the US has been in technology, industries that are driven by highly educated and compensated individuals. It’s not really been driven by minimum wage workers, so why should compensation be tied to those numbers?

[Jolly]

Something I've been reading in several places...

Many restaurants are now hiring kids as young as 16. Not as busboys, but as waiters, waitresses and kitchen help.

So far, many establishments are delighted. Some of the comments are that the kids work harder, are more reliable and are generally satisfied with the wages paid, which seem to be in the $12-$15 range with some places sharing tips, some not.

[jon-nyc]

It’s a fallacy to attribute productivity growth to workers being more industrious.

Stylized example:

A widget factory employs 100 guys to build widget. Then the owner buys a widget making machine which only needs 10 guys to operate it.

Worker productivity increased 10x. Did the workers do it? No, the machine did.

[Mik]

Precisely what I was going to say. Increases in productivity have a lot more to do with capital expenditure than work ethic.

[Aqua Letifer]

@jolly said in $26/hour:

Something I've been reading in several places...
Many restaurants are now hiring kids as young as 16. Not as busboys, but as waiters, waitresses and kitchen help.

I was 15 when I started working in restaurants. I worked at 3 before I found one I kept coming back to. Every single one of them employed kids, doing whatever. Most started with menial jobs because they sucked and had to learn. (I was absolutely in that category). Not all of them, though. Some of them could handle tables immediately.

[Copper]

All the productivity gains are due to people like me build computer systems.

Of course in most cases every laid-off worker is replaced by 2 high-priced computer programmers.