The Cellar - Minimum wage: $15 NOW!; or 15... eventually

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- - Minimum wage: $15 NOW!; or 15... eventually (http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=30162)

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Originally Posted by Happy Monkey (Post 902120)

It reminds me somehow of Anne Elk.

Except her theory was correct.

And it was hers, too.

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Originally Posted by Undertoad (Post 902225)

That's much more reasonable than Seattle's plan. If the number is kept within a certain level, like the tying to inflation they suggested, it won't have as much of an impact.

Everything is tied together you know. To imagine it won't have any impact, or that it will hurt only the targets we hope for and not the ones we don't, is just wishful thinking. We constantly bolt things onto the economic plane for our various reasons and sometimes it's good. Other times the plane no longer has lift and then the entire economic engine may falter. (oh no mixed metaphor!) When there is no economic growth, that hurts the poor most of all.

And we actually want some low wage jobs. Traditionally, things like fast food are called starter jobs. The jobs are easy to do, don't add a ton of value, but wind up teaching people how to hold a job. How to apply, interview, how to get there on time and groomed, how to manage weekly pay, how to orally satisfy your bosses, etc. etc. Not all low wage jobs are taking advantage of people, and if they offer a boost to a better job, that's great. How many of us had a first job in fast food? (raises own hand) It paid shit, right? (nods) But it was good for you? Part of life? And when you realized you didn't want to do this your whole life, that was part of it too? A little motivation to make sure you didn't get stuck there. Exactly. S'a good thing.

Not having a mimimum wage also has a negative effect - people working full time, sometimes in more than one job and still being too poor to feed their families. That is wrong. And the idea that they are free not to be exploited is ridiculous, if the alternative is starvation and destitution. You can get away with not having a minimum wage if there are adequate support systems in place through benefits - if the choice is between subsistence or taking that job, then fair enough. That's a true choice.

Not having a minimum wage and not having adequate safety nets in place forces people to accept exploitation.

Some jobs are starter jobs, sure - but that's usually about the age of the person, not the nature of the job. A 17 year old, living at home with his parents and earning $8 an hour is one thing. A 40 year old with children to feed doesn't need a 'starter' job, he needs a living wage.

Over here we scale the minimum wage according to age - so a 'starter' job is only a starter job for those at the start of their working life. It's still shit and far too low - and there is growing pressure for the living wage, rather than just a minimum wage.

And if paying a living wage means you can't afford to hire the staff you need, then your business model is broken, your business is not really solvent it is just pretending to be, with the shortfall resting on the backs of people who can't afford to say no.

And yeah - it will probably put up prices of cheap burgers - but that's ok, because if working people are earning that bit more then they'll be able to afford those slightly more expensive burgers.

And if the people who run those burger bars and cheap shops are worried that they won't be able to employ enough people, because it will put the prices up and customers won;t be able to afford what they're selling, then they should be supporting decent welfare payments for those who aren't in work. Because damn near every penny of that welfare gets spent on their products.

Instead, though we (I include the UK in this) opt for a race to the bottom - wages stagnate, and benefits are slashed, so prices have to be slashed to bring in customers, and the low prices mean that wages have to stay low, and so on, and so on. And as low as those wages go, there will always be a pool of people who will take those jobs, because they have no other option if they want to remain fed and housed - and so there is no competition driving wages up.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale, remuneration and bonuses go through the roof, and are justified with the idea that in order to hire the best you have to pay high.

There is very little evidence that minimum wages damage employment levels. Very few companies are unable to hire the staff they need because they have to pay a couple of dollars more per hour. It just means they have to find their savings elsewhere. As long as there is no minimum wage and no benefits to speak of, then there is no incentive to look at less palatable savings - it is always easiest to skimp on the workforce.

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There is very little evidence

I think I've seen enough evidence. I could be wrong. This is one of those things where the truth is hard to find, because the sources we read will tell us the story we like to read. Still, the first Google result for "minimum wage unemployment" is this:

http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/31/st...-unemployment/

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Researchers looked at labor data from both the nineteen states that as of 2013 had enforced minimum wages above $7.25 per hour and the thirty-one states that had minimum wages equal to $7.25.

Overall, they found that just a $1 increase in the minimum wage was “associated with a 1.48 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate,” and a “0.18 percentage point decrease in the net job growth rate.”

Well yeah, it's a righty website writing about a vaguely righty organization's study, but it's just math they're doing in that study, and people could check their math.

But can they be sure it was the minimum wage and not other economic factors working in parallel?

I was trying to find, but couldnt - there was an article about a month ago which seemed to show evidence to the contrary.

The thing is - a 1.48 % increase in unemployment to me seems less damaging overall than huge swathes of employed people not being able to afford food.

Also worth considering - is that a permanent increase in unemployment? Or is it a temporary rise immediately following introduction of the requirement that then settles back down as the minimum wage becomes accepted as the norm?

So when states have some unique industry like fishing, which runs into unique problems like government limits/empty nets, driving the unemployment rate for that state higher than it's neighbors, that's an effect caused by minimum wage? I don't think so. There are too many factors contributing to the state rate to be saying it's cause and effect.

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...restaurant servers, from the current $2.63 per hour to $3.75 per hour, a 31 percent increase and the first since 1999,

$2.63? :eyebrow: $3.61? :eyebrow: Before taxes. :facepalm:

Not an unbiased source, but it brings together lots of studies (including a 2013 study by the University of Chicago:

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Today, the most rigorous research shows little evidence of job reductions from a higher minimum wage. Indicative is a 2013 survey by the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business in which leading economists agreed by a nearly 4 to 1 margin that the benefits of raising and indexing the minimum wage outweigh the costs.

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Paul Krugman, Princeton University, February 2013: “Now, you might argue that even if the current minimum wage seems low, raising it would cost jobs. But there’s evidence on that question — lots and lots of evidence, because the minimum wage is one of the most studied issues in all of economics. U.S. experience, it turns out, offers many ‘natural experiments’ here, in which one state raises its minimum wage while others do not. And while there are dissenters, as there always are, the great preponderance of the evidence from these natural experiments points to little if any negative effect of minimum wage increases on employment.”

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In Focus: Two Leading Studies on Minimum Wage and Job Growth

Study: Do Minimum Wages Really Reduce Teen Employment? (2011)

Summary: Examines every minimum wage increase in the United States over the past two decades—including increases that took place during protracted periods of high unemployment—and finds that raising the wage floor boosted incomes without reducing employment or slowing job creation. The research demonstrates how a body of previous research—one frequently relied on by business lobbyists who oppose minimum wage increases—inaccurately attributes declines in employment to increases in the minimum wage by failing to sufficiently account for critical economic factors. [NELP Summary]

Study: Minimum Wage Effects Across State Borders (2010)

Summary: Provides the most sophisticated study to date of the effects of increases in the minimum wage on job growth in the United States. Taking advantage of the fact that a record number of states raised their minimum wages during the 1990s and 2000s – creating scores of differing minimum wage rates across the country – the study compares employment levels among every pair of neighboring U.S. counties that had differing minimum wage levels at any time between 1990 and 2006 and finds that higher minimum wages did not reduce employment. [NELP summary]

Lawrence Katz, Harvard University, April 2011: “This is one of the best and most convincing minimum wage papers in recent years.” (Source)

David Autor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, April 2011: “The paper presents a fairly irrefutable case that state minimum wage laws do raise earnings in low wage jobs but do not reduce employment to any meaningful degree. Beyond this substantive contribution, the paper presents careful and compelling reanalysis of earlier work in this literature, showing that it appears biased by spatial correlation in employment trends.” (Source)

http://www.raisetheminimumwage.com/pages/job-loss

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Very few companies are unable to hire the staff they need because they have to pay a couple of dollars more per hour. It just means they have to find their savings elsewhere. As long as there is no minimum wage and no benefits to speak of, then there is no incentive to look at less palatable savings - it is always easiest to skimp on the workforce.

Let's get it out of the way -- I think there should be a minimum wage set by government. I think it's society sending a signal to the markets that workers should not be taken advantage of, which is always a danger, and here is a level we have kind of agreed on, below which we think you're kinda sorta taking advantage.

Also, I brotherylove you D, don't ever change.

~ with that outta the way ~

I agree that the new labor situation will put pressure on things other than workers. Everything is connected. Perhaps in our mythical business, the owners will not buy the new oven this year. Maybe they will take a lower wage themselves. Maybe they will raise the price of their burgers. Maybe they will do with one less cook. Maybe they will cook more hours themselves. Maybe they will have customers with more money who will absorb the price increase. Maybe with that new money they will hire more workers at the new wage.

Stop, all the possible outcomes are overwhelming!

Everything is connected. When you say "It just means they have to find their savings elsewhere" you have personalized a model business that jibes with how you want and expect it to work.

We like to imagine that business, because these models that appeal to us. And they do help us to think about what's involved.

But there are hundreds of thousands of business models out there, each one making hundreds of decisions every day. How do we know if our model business has anything to do with reality?

Here's another model: imagine one person in an office in a major city, running a very large Excel spreadsheet, and saying wow: if we automate the drinks machine we pay $25000 per store, but we save $11000 in labor each year, and using the present value calculation with low inflation we will turn a profit in first quarter 2018.

But even that is a cartoon of the economy, and a model that jibes blah blah blah.

Ugh, I'm an hour into this, let me just post and walk away.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Undertoad (Post 902225)

The jobs are easy to do, don't add a ton of value, but wind up teaching people how to hold a job. How to apply, interview, how to get there on time and groomed, how to manage weekly pay, how to orally satisfy your bosses, etc. etc.

You're thinking of choirboys. :rolleyes:

The minimum wage only effects the starter job concept, the pimply faced teen learning responsibility at McWenBurg, is misleading. But that's what most people think about when the subject comes up. There is a whole hell of a lot of people working for minimum wage who are not in fast food. Both the fast food and other jobs are no longer a step to something bigger and better because that next step rarely opens up unless somebody dies or gets jailed.

I have no clue if this is accurate or completely from whole cloth, but there is certainly plenty of anecdotal evidence to make it sound reasonable.

Awww Tony, ya know I sisterylove you too :P

One thing to bear in mind though - is that according to those studies I linked to ; three quarters of those on minimum wage work for large companies, not small businesses. Small businesses are more likely to pay a fair wage than large corporations (small indy burger bar rather than McDs)

And its those big corporations that are paying its CEO's billions off the backs of those minimum wage employees...reducing them to nothing more than wage slaves.

How else do you keep the rabble in their place. As soon as they're making a living wage they have extra time to start thinking, and we all know what happens when the rabble start thinking. Boston Tea Party? Ft Sumter? Alamo?

North Dakota is not thinking minimum wage.

Yeah. But, but They'er only hiring only 3 people. Rest is self check out lanes. :angry:

Sounds like amazing pay, but you can't live on those wages in ND because there is almost no housing.

You'd need to tow a camper with some nice insulation for the winter months and find a place to park it and let you hook it up.

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find a place to park it and let you hook it u

I imagine Walmart might be interested in such an arrangement