Serious question about raising the minimum wage.

Fat hurts wrote:

Myth: Increasing the minimum wage will cause people to lose their jobs.

A review of 64 studies on minimum wage increases found no discernable effect on employment. Additionally, more than 600 economists, seven of them Nobel Prize winners in economics, have signed onto a letter in support of raising the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016.

Too bad that social-justice warriors are demanding not $10.10 by 2016 but $15/hr RIGHT FREAKIN' NOW!!! (I paraphrase.)

As for minimal effects of $10.10: "So few people get paid so little that it just doesn’t affect the wages of anyone very much. The same research tells us that once we get to 45-50% of the median wage then we do start to see significant unemployment effects.

Looking at Seattle, where $15 an hour in Seattle is about 60% of the local median wage:

"While attending an event at a SeaTac hotel last week, I met two women who receive the $15/hour minimum wage. SeaTac has implemented the new law on Jan. 1. I met the women while they were working. One was a waitress and the other was cleaning the hallway.

“Are you happy with the $15 wage?” I asked the full-time cleaning lady.

“It sounds good, but it’s not good,” the woman said.

“Why?” I asked.

“I lost my 401k, health insurance, paid holiday, and vacation,” she responded. “No more free food,” she added.

The hotel used to feed her. Now, she has to bring her own food. Also, no overtime, she said. She used to work extra hours and received overtime pay.

What else? I asked.

“I have to pay for parking,” she said.

I then asked the part-time waitress, who was part of the catering staff.

“Yes, I’ve got $15 an hour, but all my tips are now much less,” she said. Before the new wage law was implemented, her hourly wage was $7. But her tips added to more than $15 an hour. Yes, she used to receive free food and parking. Now, she has to bring her own food and pay for parking."

I say again, recent STARTING PAY in Williston ND area:

Walmart:

Cashier: $17.40

Tire & Lube tech: $19.90

Meat dept.: $17.60

Apparel clerk: $17.20

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2014/06/a-report-from-the-bakken-oil-fields-where-the-jobless-rate-is-0-9-and-walmart-is-paying-2-4-times-the-minimum-wage/

Don't send 'em food; send 'em U-Hauls!

--The Late Great Sam Kinison

Bad Wigins wrote:

Recognizer of Lame Posts wrote:

Appealing to authority, huh? Lame.

As to your completely pull-it-out-of-your-ass conclusion, well, about as worthwhile as everything that comes out the same orifice.

You're a jerk, ____er of ____. Grow a nut sack and register a name and see how shitty you can get away with being. And don't fool yourself that anyone thinks there's more than one of you.

Ah, the resident moron raises his ugly little head. How quaint.

agc5k wrote:

they raised the minimum wage in Seattle to $15/hr. Not sure how long ago that was, but it was this year. It might be too early to extrapolate data from that, but I think in time we'll be able to look at Seattle as an "experiment" to see what affect raising the minimum wage to $15/hr actually has in practice and not just in theory.

Does anyone know what results have come out of Seattle so far regarding this?

The entire city has collapsed in a haze of marijuana smoke, just like all the Rush Limbaugh clones posting here would have predicted.

yeahyeahyay.. wrote:

Fat hurts wrote:

Myth: Increasing the minimum wage will cause people to lose their jobs.

A review of 64 studies on minimum wage increases found no discernable effect on employment. Additionally, more than 600 economists, seven of them Nobel Prize winners in economics, have signed onto a letter in support of raising the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016.

Too bad that social-justice warriors are demanding not $10.10 by 2016 but $15/hr RIGHT FREAKIN' NOW!!! (I paraphrase.)

To be honest, I think the $15/hr figure is for negotiating purposes. $10.10 by 2016 with automatic increases for inflation would probably settle the argument for a long time.

Essentially your entire last post was taking n=1 examples of something and then saying that because of that, then raising the minimum wage wouldn't hurt. None of it means anything because it's all anecdotal: you cite statistics about California several times, or just a single city in California, or a single city here and there. In peer review science, that sh*t doesn't fly. You can't come to a conclusion based on a single evidence from data collected one time.

The only thing in your post that would be of any importance is your line about 600 economists saying that we should raise the minimum wage to 10.10$/hr. However, this point is useless because almost all empirical evidence over the last 20 years suggests that minimum wage hikes have negative effects on employment. Your 600 economists statistic is once again more anecdotal than anything, since this will inevitably simply be the opinions (often times with a personal bias) of the economist. Your statistic doesn't say that the economists are doing this for economic reasons, or because they believe it will be economically positive. Many are probably just social justice warriors who want to feel good about themselves, facts be damned.

David neumark, an economist at UCAL Irene, and William Wascher, an economist and part of the board of governors of the federal reserve system, published a paper entitled "Minimum Wages and Employment." This concluded that 85% of the most credible studies on minimum wage laws within the last 20 years have empirically resulted in job losses and reduced job opportunities for the low skilled workers. The authors say "among the papers we view as providing the most credible evidence, almost all point to negative employment effects, both for the United States same well as for many other countries."

Liberals so often shout "research!" and "science!" When it comes to the supposed fact that 97% of climate scientists agree that the earth is warming and humans are the cause. Well then, why do you ignore empirical research and evidence when it comes to economics? The vast majority of economic, peer reviewed studies, agree that the minimum wage will have a negative impact on employment. By denying this fact, you make yourselves out to be equal fools.

No matter how many times you and the others on this thread try to repeat the lie that most economists support wage hikes, or that research indicates no negative correlation between wage hikes and employment, it simply does not make it true. History and the facts say otherwise, you are simply 100% wrong on the matter. All of the anecdotal evidence in the world is not going to change that. I know that you all are used to just repeating a lie until people believe it--and even if people do believe your lie this time, it still won't make it true, and people on the common sense and scientific side of this debate can have the intellectual satisfaction of knowing we are right.

Fat hurts wrote:

To be honest, I think the $15/hr figure is for negotiating purposes. $10.10 by 2016 with automatic increases for inflation would probably settle the argument for a long time.

The problem with this "negotiating tactic" is that it immediately turns off a large segment of the population. You see signs with "Fight for 15" which in most places would be more than a 100% increase.

You'd have wider support for a minimum wage tied to inflation or for regular, scheduled increases. But with such a radical increase, you're going to alienate a lot of people, especially skilled tradespeople who work in that $15-20/hr range.

To be fair, I think the above is a fake. As far as I know, businesses have until 2015 or 2017 to comply with the 15$/hr law (because even in Seattle they know an instant raise to 15$/hr would be horrible for small business) depending on the size of the business, so I honestly doubt that a single business is already paying that wage.

Although taking away things such as free food and overtime hours are very real "adjustments" managers make when the minimum wage is raised. I was working a minimum wage job in high school when it was raised, and instantly any overtime hours were cut and there was a lot less free food to go around.

Ok, so inequality is justifiable because nobody lives in absolute poverty? Well since that is not the discussion that people are having, it seems to be an absurd assertion. Especially since it is not as if more equal societies lead to people living in extreme poverty.

In any case, people have more access to cheap consumables yes, but that absolutely doesn't mean that people are experiencing real hardships. I mean, close to a third of all Africans now own movile phones, but it would be ludicrous to take this as meaning that people in Africa aren't genuinely poor. Having a TV in no way means that people aren't struggling in areas that actually matter, like food, education, heating...

Beyond that, saying that people have access to this stuff doesn't impact the key argument that high levels of inequality hold living standards back. Living standards may have improved over all but it absolutely doesn't hold that economic growth and technological development wouldn't have happened so in a more equal society.

anapaix wrote:

To be fair, I think the above is a fake. As far as I know, businesses have until 2015 or 2017 to comply with the 15$/hr law (because even in Seattle they know an instant raise to 15$/hr would be horrible for small business) depending on the size of the business, so I honestly doubt that a single business is already paying that wage.

I see no pattern that causes me to doubt

Also:details on how some Seatac business adopted full provisions w/in 6 weeks of passage AND some interesting notes on biz closures/layoffs and the effects on LOW SKILL workers (fired) as well as HIGHER SKILL workers (demanding, duh, MORE than $15/hr...):

fair trade worker wrote:

Fat hurts wrote:

To be honest, I think the $15/hr figure is for negotiating purposes. $10.10 by 2016 with automatic increases for inflation would probably settle the argument for a long time.

The problem with this "negotiating tactic" is that it immediately turns off a large segment of the population. You see signs with "Fight for 15" which in most places would be more than a 100% increase.

You'd have wider support for a minimum wage tied to inflation or for regular, scheduled increases. But with such a radical increase, you're going to alienate a lot of people, especially skilled tradespeople who work in that $15-20/hr range.

You are right. It does turn a lot of people off. That's why I think it's actually pretty smart as a tactic. The working poor have almost no clout. The only reason we have any anti-poverty laws at all is so that people who don't really care about the poor will not have to deal with an uprising.

Those alienated folks you are talking about will say, "Those crazy people demanding $15 an hour will go away if we give them $10." They'd rather give in politically than fight for something they don't really care that much about.

But if protesters only demanded $10, they would end up with $8.50.

If Republicans are smart, they'll raise the minimum wage right after midterms, just to take it off the table. Otherwise, the entire 2016 election will be about immigration and income inequality. Democrats will win big and control everything in sight.

another canuck wrote:

The CBO report this year states that 500,000 jobs may be lost, but 900,000 people raised out of poverty and 16,500,000 workers benefitted.

Thus the conclusion some adverse affects but overall benefits.

As someone else said, the min wage in real terms was considerably higher many years ago, and has not kept pace with the growth of the economy.

There are numerous other studies that come up with a simple search. Just do some research.

The sound of reason. Thank you.

Opponents to raising the minimum wage should ask themselves these questions:

1. Should the minimum wage still be 25 cents an hour? (1938)

2. If there was no minimum wage (or if it was still 25 cents an hour), do you think that would be more of an incentive for people on unemployment to start looking for a job?

3. If raising the minimum wage causes inflation (as so many foolishly believe), then why was there inflation in the country from 1981 to 1989? In that 8 year span, the minimum wage was never raised.

4. If raising the minimum wage causes inflation, then why is Wall Street worried about deflation right now after several states have raised the minimum wage?

5. If raising the minimum wage is a liberal political act, then why do Bill O'Reilly and many other republicans and conservatives support raising the minimum wage?

6. Do you understand what inflation is and the dynamics that cause it?

The minimum wage increases generally produce a large number of people with added income and their additional spending produces a positive economic benefit overall. There is either a small decrease in overall employment or an increase. Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 is projected to raise the incomes of 16 million people, and there is a wide range of estimates on the effects on the # of jobs, from positive 1 million to negative 500,000. But the fact is that when you go year after year without raising the minimum wage, you are decreasing it every year against inflation, and the increases would merely put it in line with past levels. There is no serious argument against raising it.

akornfv897g wrote:

A better question is do minimum wage changes decrease the amount of government aid handed out?

Excellent question. I always felt that if someone is willing to work a 40 hour week we better make damn sure his life is much better than someone on the public dole.