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A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news

washingtonpost.com

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Re: A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news

#91

Post by SamReidHughes »

clavalle wrote: post #82
lend000 wrote: post #42

The problem I have with the minimum wage is that it transfers wealth from the very poorest to the mid-working class/lower middle class. Who am I to tell a homeless person that she is legally forbidden to engage in a voluntary, hourly employment contract for less than $15/hr? I would effectively be guaranteeing that she stays unemployed/homeless. Regardless of practical effects (which are ambiguous at best), it's wron…

When a person is desperate, 'voluntary' starts to lose all meaning. If you are dead broke and half starved and I offered you a take it or leave it offer to work carrying rocks for $2 an hour so you can get a sandwich and you agree, is that really voluntary? I do agree with you about teenagers and other people that don't need the money in order to live. For dependents and people that agree not to get public assistance…

Yes, that is voluntary. It stops being voluntary when you make it a long term contract.

Re: A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news

#92

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

tptacek wrote: post #43

I really dislike this framing. By any contemporary definition I'm a "liberal": * I support higher taxes, particularly on higher income people, almost for its own sake. * I oppose almost all military intervention abroad. * I believe the federal government needs to intervene with local governments to prevent police abuses. * I strongly support public schools and oppose public-funded charters. ... and I could go on and…

Can I get you to briefly outline why you don't believe in raising the minimum wage?

I can't say that I agree with you, but you're generally a thoughtful guy and I would appreciate getting another perspective on the issue.

(Also, curious: is the word "national" operative there -- eg, do your beliefs differ between a national minimum wage and a local one like the Seattle measure?)

Re: A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news

#93

Post by Joe-Z »

surfmike wrote: post #61
Joe-Z wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTOH if they draw conclusions from data that only very poorly reflects the Seattle labour market the study's got a problem

Your commment implies they were cherry-picking the data, which isn't true. They only included data that could definitively be marked as within Seattle vs outside Seattle.

Thanks for clearing that up! I wasn't trying to insinuate that they were cherry-picking data. But doing a study on the Seattle labour market and excluding these major companies completely seems to be overdoing it.

Re: A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news

#94

Post by surfmike »

harimau777 wrote: post #76

This seems like an interesting study, but I'm not sure its conclusion makes sense to me. Am I understanding the facts correctly: 1. Employment stayed about the same. 2. Employees overall were payed a lot more. 3. The number of low wage employees (which I assume means those making the new minimum wage) dropped. However employees overall were payed more. My understanding is that this means that employers switched to pa…

I think your assumption (1) is incorrect. Quote from article: "They've cut their payrolls, putting off new hiring, reducing hours or letting their workers go, the study found."

Re: A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news

#95

Post by zeteo »

> raised the minimum wage from $9.47 to $11 per hour in 2015 and to $13 per hour in 2016.

> we conclude that the second wage increase to $13 reduced hours worked in low-wage jobs [...] while hourly wages in such jobs increased by around 3 percent.

Sounds like some pretty intense statistical manipulation. The second wage increase was ~18% ($2/$11) not 3%. So they've fished for a larger pool that only had a 3% increase in wage and arbitrarily designated these as "low-wage jobs". Also very conveniently they've chosen to highlight only the second wage increase; it sounds like no data massaging could make the first one look bad. If they were honestly aiming at statistical significance the best approach was of course to bundle the two increases together. An overall 37% change in minimum wage should have much clearer effects than its individual halves.

Re: A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news

#96

Post by greggyb »

clavalle wrote: post #82
lend000 wrote: post #42

The problem I have with the minimum wage is that it transfers wealth from the very poorest to the mid-working class/lower middle class. Who am I to tell a homeless person that she is legally forbidden to engage in a voluntary, hourly employment contract for less than $15/hr? I would effectively be guaranteeing that she stays unemployed/homeless. Regardless of practical effects (which are ambiguous at best), it's wron…

When a person is desperate, 'voluntary' starts to lose all meaning. If you are dead broke and half starved and I offered you a take it or leave it offer to work carrying rocks for $2 an hour so you can get a sandwich and you agree, is that really voluntary? I do agree with you about teenagers and other people that don't need the money in order to live. For dependents and people that agree not to get public assistance…

Yes, it's much better to prevent any employment opportunity for that person.

Situation A: I can choose between no employment (bad), and exploitative employment (slightly less bad).

Situation B: With the benevolent intention of a minimum wage legislated into existence, I can "choose" no employment (same bad as before).

You don't make someone worse off by increasing the number of options.

You don't make people better off by arguing for the goodness of an intention.

Measure results of your policies. Keep in mind foundational economic principles. Do good.

Ninja edit for pedants: adding additional options to a baseline set of options. "Live peacefully -> (join my army | die)" is a greater number of choices, but I don't have the option of sticking with "live peacefully". I hope this helps clarify my sentence above.

Re: A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news

#98

Post by miguelrochefort »

davidw wrote: post #18

I find this to be credible - at some level, it'll certainly hurt. The problem as I see it is that some people say "aha, see, that doesn't work", but then stop there. There is a real problem in that some people (not all who make minimum wage, and not only those who make minimum wage) have real problems making ends meet. What's the best way to help them?

People really need to be more frugal.

Re: A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news

#99

Post by lend000 »

coldpie wrote: post #83
lend000 wrote: post #42

The problem I have with the minimum wage is that it transfers wealth from the very poorest to the mid-working class/lower middle class. Who am I to tell a homeless person that she is legally forbidden to engage in a voluntary, hourly employment contract for less than $15/hr? I would effectively be guaranteeing that she stays unemployed/homeless. Regardless of practical effects (which are ambiguous at best), it's wron…

> On the other hand, the minimum wage definitely benefits middle class teenagers on their first jobs (if they can get a job), and has questionable benefit for millennial humanities college grads who have yet to start a career. This is the problem. Everyone working 40 hours per week deserves a living wage, whether they're fresh out of high school or 8 years into a humanities degree. There's this weird sense out there…

> Otherwise you're just making people depend on our social safety net, and no one wants that.

I suppose the homeless and chronically unemployed people you've condemned do not usually use public assistance? I disagree with this, and regardless, it doesn't sound like a good solution for them.

There are a lot of cheap places out there (see: Midwest, South), but unfortunately, millennials do not want to live there. I would rather let economics sort it out instead of creating a vicious local inflation cycle that prices out local minorities and increases the homeless population via minimum wage.

Re: A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news

#100

Post by falcolas »

gaius wrote: post #46
Kiro wrote: post #37

The successful Scandinavian model doesn't have any minimum wages for a reason.

Nor does Germany with some of the best working conditions in the world...

What Germany does have is a better social safety net so such minimums are not required to pay for basic needs.

A minimum wage worker in the US is likely working 2-3 such jobs to cover food, rent, and other such necessities.

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