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Job loss predictions over rising minimum wages haven't come true

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Re: Job loss predictions over rising minimum wages haven't come true

#81

Post by CharlesColeman »

xyzzyz wrote: post #50
CharlesColeman wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some businesses cannot be profitable and therefore will not exist at certain minimum wages, though. It's also worth noting that some businesses probably can't be profitable without chattel slavery, though it's hard to find examples since the practice has been illegal for so long. > The US minimum wage is a big part of why manufacturing jobs have moved out of the US, for instance. No. I'd say the bigger part of the…

> Americans would starve and die of exposure on those wages. No, they wouldn’t. Americans survived on wages lower than that in the past. They would simply have to adjust their lifestyle to look more like the one of Bangladeshi —- unless you assume that Americans are somehow extremely inept compared to Bangladeshi.

>> Americans would starve and die of exposure [in America] on [Bangladeshi] wages.

> No, they wouldn’t.... [Americans] would simply have to adjust their lifestyle to look more like the one of Bangladeshi

I appreciate your honesty, but listen to what you're saying. No one "simply" accepts massive regressions in living standards across large swaths of the economy, and that's exactly what you'd need for Bangladeshi wages to be livable in the US. That kind of thing leads to revolutions, and rightly so.

Re: Job loss predictions over rising minimum wages haven't come true

#82

Post by sobhaobnONJ »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #76
sobhaobnONJ wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why this isn't a red herring. Minimum wage may be remaining stagnant but total employee compensation has been rising steadily, it's just that most of that compensation is in the form of spending on employee benefits like insurance. If people quit expecting employers to provide them with anything except for cold hard cash then you'd likely see wages increasing with time. To expand a bit more on this…

>This creates a scenario where a dollar into the insurance budget yields more than a dollar worth of value Using this same logic, a better use of that dollar would be spending it on taxes as the even larger government can negotiate even better rates with healthcare providers, providing even more value to the employee. Instead, the company fights to keep that dollar so they can spend it as they see fit, and the employ…

That's not entirely true. Taxes on production and services are ultimately taxes on consumption, this is part of why many economists have advocated for a mix of raising income taxes on specific income brackets and having a more generous EITC.

You could of course do as you propose, but that same logic could also be used to argue that we simply shouldn't let healthcare providers negotiate with employers and instead restrict them to dealing directly with State entities (since otherwise the bargaining power becomes slanted against individuals).

Edit: I didn't clarify well, the reason I mentioned the point about production taxes is because many minimum wage employees work in places like Walmart that sell commonly needed items and thus some of the benefit is lost because you've increased costs for the people you're helping. In theory this isn't a problem for luxury goods but that's more complicated so I haven't talked about those much.

Re: Job loss predictions over rising minimum wages haven't come true

#83

Post by thomasz »

pg_bot wrote: post #56

You might not lose your job, but you may see your hours reduced or you might not get the opportunity in the first place. Technically the employment numbers don't change, but you shouldn't think of of minimum wage employees like salaried employees. Minimum wage earners can lose fractional percentages of their jobs unlike salaried employees. Most proponents of raising the minimum wage cite the Card & Krueger paper whic…

Countries with a social-democratic (Sweden, Norway) or conservative-corporatist (Germany) welfare state traditionally do not have minimum wage laws, because relatively strong unions and a somewhat robust social safety net have the same effect - you won't find someone willing to work for less than social security benefits which creates a lower bound.

As soon as these states move towards a more liberal welfare model (USA, UK) , they have been forced to offset the worst excesses of the labor market with mandatory minimum wage laws. I think the last was Germany, which recently introduced mandatory minimum wage in 2017.

Re: Job loss predictions over rising minimum wages haven't come true

#85

Post by jcims »

blix wrote: post #46
Cheyana wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work part-time stocking shelves at a Walmart, and I can say from first-hand experience that while there is talk of cutting hours, the reality is that it won't happen at this time. Shelves don't stock themselves. Robots are a long way away, no matter what you hear, as the current process is inefficient enough to make it difficult for automation. Robots won't clean poop out of the urinals, or off the floors (yes, peo…

> The CEO of Walmart even advised the feds that they should raise the minimum wage. High minimum wages favor larger entities than can leverage economies of scale. Amazon has expressed similar support. I don't think this is entirely altruistic.

It's not altruistic at all. In ten years Amazon (and likely WalMart) will be out of that labor market entirely and their competition will be left with the baggage.

Re: Job loss predictions over rising minimum wages haven't come true

#86

Post by aflag »

pg_bot wrote: post #74
Lavery wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The countries you cite are able to have a minimum wage of zero because it's coupled with a robust social safety net (sometimes along with other backstops--Norway, for instance, is heavily unionized). This pairing is important, and is absent in the US.

There are about 40 countries without a minimum wage. I cherry picked countries that most people on HN would recognize since I'm assuming people would not know much about the economies of Tuvalu, Tonga, or Rwanda.

Not sure what your point is anymore. Are those examples of countries without social welfare and no minimum wage? That seems to strengthen the point above your comment.

Re: Job loss predictions over rising minimum wages haven't come true

#87

Post by rayiner »

> Cities like New York, Seattle, Chicago and San Francisco have raised local minimum wages

> Laws in New York, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey will eventually increase minimum wages to $15 per hour.

I don't find this reasoning very convincing. The places that have raised minimum wages are some of the most expensive places in the country already. It may well be that the market wage floor is already pretty close to the raised minimum wage. The minimum wage here in Maryland is $10.10, and you can't get teenagers to work at that rate here.

But what about Des Moines? That's the basic problem with a federal minimum wage. The average rent in Des Moines is about a third of what it is in New York City. What would be the impact of a $15 minimum wage there?

Why should the "living wage" in expensive coastal cities dictate the minimum wage everywhere?

Re: Job loss predictions over rising minimum wages haven't come true

#88

Post by sobhaobnONJ »

bart_spoon wrote: post #65
sobhaobnONJ wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why this isn't a red herring. Minimum wage may be remaining stagnant but total employee compensation has been rising steadily, it's just that most of that compensation is in the form of spending on employee benefits like insurance. If people quit expecting employers to provide them with anything except for cold hard cash then you'd likely see wages increasing with time. To expand a bit more on this…

Increased spending on employee insurance is due to increasing healthcare costs. Even if companies are spending more on their employees healthcare, employees are still paying more on healthcare than ever before. So, that still means less money available for everything that isn't healthcare, and is functionally equivalent to a pay cut.

An increase in spending is an increase in spending, it is still a part of the total compensation an employee has received. My point was purely that lensing the issue through minimum wage by itself seems like a distraction in terms of understanding employee wealth, I'm not arguing that employees should stop wanting more because they're getting enough.

Re: Job loss predictions over rising minimum wages haven't come true

#89

Post by kuzimoto »

blix wrote: post #46
Cheyana wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work part-time stocking shelves at a Walmart, and I can say from first-hand experience that while there is talk of cutting hours, the reality is that it won't happen at this time. Shelves don't stock themselves. Robots are a long way away, no matter what you hear, as the current process is inefficient enough to make it difficult for automation. Robots won't clean poop out of the urinals, or off the floors (yes, peo…

> The CEO of Walmart even advised the feds that they should raise the minimum wage. High minimum wages favor larger entities than can leverage economies of scale. Amazon has expressed similar support. I don't think this is entirely altruistic.

Yep, larger companies are probably way better equipped to deal with raising the minimum wage.

This will just hurt small/medium business.

Re: Job loss predictions over rising minimum wages haven't come true

#90

Post by xinsight »

roflchoppa2 wrote: post #54
helpPeople wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure your area, but unskilled labor goes for 15$/hr in metro Detroit. You cannot get people to show up for less than that. Source, wife owns a business and that's going rate to answer phones.

is it difficult for your wifes business to make money, and pay your employees at $15 (or more)? Serious question.

If it is difficult, then it's not a very good business.

Serious question: Why would you want to run a business that can only survive by paying people poverty wages?

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