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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

#111

Post by ikeboy »

mullingitover wrote: post #9

Minimum wage isn't just flat for a decade, it's not being adjusted for inflation. This means minimum wage workers have been getting a pay cut over time. The debate isn't just whether we should raise minimum wage, it's whether we should be cutting it. By allowing it to remain stagnant we're making the default decision to cut.

Which is great. Wages are sticky, making it difficult to reduce nominal wages. Inflation helps prevent layoffs by allowing for some real reduction in wages in a weak economy without having to reduce nominal wages.

Getting rid of this mechanism would be bad.

Perhaps minimum wage should be indexed to median wage or something, but it should absolutely not be indexed to inflation.

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

#112

Post by born_a_skeptic »

atypicality wrote: post #2

Axios cherry picked the Bureau of Labor Statistics data for the 12 states that confirm the writer's bias. They should have analyzed all states with low minimum wages vs high minimum wages for the overall picture. Reports are out there showing while many of the minimum wage earners who have not lost jobs from the hourly increase are reporting weekly scheduled hours being cut back across the board.

When I see Axios articles I automatically think, "Well, it's probably pushing some sort of liberal agenda or policy." Just being completely honest.

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

#113

Post by boomboomsubban »

sobhaobnONJ wrote: post #82
boomboomsubban wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 rest…

> and thus some of the benefit is lost because you've increased costs for the people you're helping

This is nonsensical. If paying that one dollar in taxes necessitated raising the prices, then the company spending it on insurance would also necessitate raising prices.

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

#114

Post by UnFleshedOne »

michaelmrose wrote: post #105
killjoywashere wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the paper: ‘The simplest and most commonly used method to detect publication selection is an informal examination of a funnel plot’ (Sutton et al. 2000a: 1574). A funnel graph is a scatter diagram of precision versus estimated effect (such as estimated elasticities, regression coefficients or partial correlation coefficients). Precision is best measured by the inverse of the standard error (1/Se). As the name su…

This method of quoting is unreadable on mobile

Selecting correct presentation methods should be up to the platform, not the users.

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

#115

Post by gowld »

hinkley wrote: post #71
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…

It's rare for a company to offer health insurance to employees who are pegged to minimum wage. If salaries are going down due to inflation, then you may have a point but it's a perverse one; medical costs are going up way faster than anything else. Both are reasons to support socialized medical coverage, but they don't really enter into this particular line of discussion.

If medical costs increase more than the amount of general inflation's effect on both medical costs and the rest of wages, than covering those increasing costs while holding the rest of wages constant is a wage increase.

If you don't like that, it's a social issue and a policy question, but it's not evidence what wage (how much employer is paying for employee benefits) is stagnant or droppiing.

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

#116

Post by nostromo »

One reason could be because almost nobody makes minimum wage.

In 2017 just over 2% of workers made the minimum wage. When you only look at full time employees, it's less than 1%. When you include only people over 25 it's even less.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm

It's interesting how few people know this. When you ask people to guess what percent of people make the minimum wage, you'll likely hear estimates that are 10x or 20x higher than they really are.

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

#117

Post by clairity »

rayiner wrote: post #87

> 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 marke…

> "> 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."

those are fact statements--what's to argue?

> "That's the basic problem with a federal minimum wage."

whether a federal minimun wage is good policy or not is certainly debatable. on one hand, states are the canonical unit of government and the fed should generally defer to states (other than for national defense and interstate/international relations). wages and cost of living does vary across states and even within states.

but trade (including labor, as a distinct market) is a federal concern because of interstate commerce and the interlinking of economies brought about by globalization. so it's not unreasonable to argue that the federal government has a stake here. you might argue that the fed should have differing minimum wages for different states, but that's fraught with political land mines too.

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

#118

Post by donatj »

mullingitover wrote: post #9

Minimum wage isn't just flat for a decade, it's not being adjusted for inflation. This means minimum wage workers have been getting a pay cut over time. The debate isn't just whether we should raise minimum wage, it's whether we should be cutting it. By allowing it to remain stagnant we're making the default decision to cut.

> This means minimum wage workers have been getting a pay cut over time.

This here is the strawman of the argument. Very few employed continuously for ten years continue to make minimum wage / don't move on to better jobs.

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

#119

Post by take_a_breath »

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…

Your fundamental assumption is that labor economics works like an economics 101 course. It doesn’t, that’s why it has it‘s own field of study. As an example, free markets depend on equal information and workers don’t have the same information as employers, so their ability to negotiate isn’t nearly as robust as you imply. Also, many companies enjoy a monopsony on local labor which distorts the traditional relationship between supply and demand. Those are just two examples.

It isn’t inherently negative if your hourly wage is increased but number of hours decreased. Doesn’t that give you more economic freedom? You can use that extra time for leisure or fill it with other hourly work. You might even make the same on fewer hours, which sounds like a win for low wage workers.

I’m not sure why you are redirecting to another study on minimum wage while also trying to “debunk” the Card & Krueger study instead of commenting on the substance or data in this article. Do you disagree with the headline or any of the analysis presented within?

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

#120

Post by dlp211 »

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…

Those same researchers went back and added a ton more nuance to their findings: They Said Seattle’s Higher Base Pay Would Hurt Workers. Why Did They Flip? https://nyti.ms/2AmgaNr

Broken in to 3 groups, high hour min wage, low hour min wage, and new entrants, both the high and low hour workers were better off and it's inconclusive how new entrants were affected, though there was a flattening of hiring new entrants.

There was also a lot of push back on the original paper which failed to account for a lot of cofounding factors.

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