Wage collusion has been going on in Sioux Falls and the State for quite awhile. Would a change in State Law or even city ordinance that requires all employers (big and small) to show either the hourly wage or salary in an employment ad that is posted within the state or city help matters? Would it hurt?
How could it not help? It would create a needed wage inflation. Now some will say that rent will just go up correspondingly as well. But if it does, we will just have to call out the landlords for their greed too, and legislate accordingly.
Government is suppose to represent the needs of the people, but it has been hijacked since the age of Reagan by the pro-business/economic development crowd, who use government as a tool or instrument to merely promote their special interests, which offer merely trickle-down promises to the many, however.
Economist have noticed over the last 15 years that there is an increasingly growing group of able body individuals who have taken themselves out of the employment picture, or the participatory employment process. And I surmise that the major reason that this is happening, is because increasingly wages are becoming stagnant and too many workers, especially “Baby Boomers,” know better than to accept some of the present wages for many areas of work, and are, thus, just not looking for work any more….
Plus, the continue collapse of wage value makes most jobs to be of little advantage over a dependency upon the social welfare safety net. And given this fact, we either have a choice to rid ourselves of the safety net, which will mean more poverty and further suppressed wages and less opportunity, or we can encourage wage inflation to put a further distance between work and welfare, and in so doing, offer many more advantageous opportunities, and for many others as well, a renewed interest in the participatory employment process.
Our current employment situation in Sioux Falls and increasingly our current employment situation nationally is creating a political divide between those who do not work and are dependent upon welfare and those who do work, but work with suppressed wages as a part of the working poor or working class. And this division is due to a resentment by those who work, but whose household incomes are not much more than those who do not work. And the genius of this reality, is that it has become a divide and conquer success for the wealth class as they are able to harvest many of the working poor and working class into their political realm by dividing the WP and WC against the welfare class, when really their lives (WP, WC, and the welfare class) are not much different. And this division allows for the economic policies of the wealth class with their trickle-down promises to continue. And one way to end this, is to encourage wage inflation with laws like requiring employees to mention their wage scales in their employment ads. Because only when we empower the worker with greater wages, will we have a greater population that does not resent the welfare class, which should be smaller any how with greater wages, and it will afford an opportunity politically for the many to direct their concerns not towards the “Welfare Queen,” but rather the predatory and self-interested economic policies of the wealth class in our society…. Because the problem is not the welfare class, the problem is the wealth class….. And with increased wages, workers will not only be freed of their resentment, but also empowered with greater opportunity and the idealism to right what is wrong with the trickle-down mentality of the wealth class….
The market has started to define itself. There’s a ways to go. What’s more troubling is benefits. Often, there’s none. Inflation and healthcare costs rise faster than wages. There’s no catching up.
Lately, there’s been car hijacks and street robbery. The take allows for a brief party then jail (3 meals and a cot). Not such a bad plan but rob from the rich, not the poor.
The wages shown in your illustration were the prevailing entry level wages in SF in 60’s/70’s. Real wages have been crumbling ever since business embraced saint ronald and trickle down in 1981.
Posting publicly would encourage the small business to pay the same as all others. It might be more and it might be less. 2 edge sword.
LJL, there will always be people out there that will have no choice but to work for lower than market rate wages due to felonies, workplace injuries, etc. It wouldn’t hurt those businesses that pay less at all.