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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

#231

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #125
xinsight wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This is a very naive view of economics. Ideally everyone's income should be derived from the value they generate. So ideally wages continue to rise because productivity continues to rise. But there are many cases where it make more sense to pay 4 low skilled workers to do a job instead of paying the costs of automation plus the cost of the higher skilled worker to use the automated solution. It's why so many jobs in…

> Ideally everyone's income should be derived from the value they generate.

Define "value". Or more specifically, how do you measure "value" for jobs that don't directly generate revenue?

How much value does the janitorial staff create?

How much value does your IT team create?

What's the dollar value of your cybersecurity team?

What about HR?

None of these teams directly create revenue for the company, but certainly they created value. Meanwhile, Amazon has workers that pack boxes. They are directly contributing to revenue by doing the actual work that is core to the business. If cybersecurity, HR, the janitors, or IT were to disappear for a week, theoretically packages would still get sent to customers and Amazon still makes money.

And yet they're having to fight for fair wages? They're the most valuable labor in the company!

The idea that income should be derived from value is incredibly naive. As I mentioned in another comment, that mentality is what leads to managers laying off the entire IT team because they're seen as a money sink.

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

#232

Post by abvdasker »

bb88 wrote: post #127
hinkley wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm old enough to remember this conversation happening three times, and wise enough to know that this conversation happens every ten years or so probably since the first wage was paid in currency instead of goods. A certain pay rate creates supply. Conditions make it hard to switch jobs. And every year you ever so slowly reduce the effective pay to those employees and they slowly give up little luxuries to make ends…

I'm cynical. I think it's frankly worse than that. When we talk about economic and market forces, we don't talk about "greed" as a major economic force. We know it's the creation of capitalism, but economists seem to do everything in their power to ignore it. Standard economic models breaks down when people are powerful enough to create their own supply/demand curves. We've had the term "working poor" for a while. I…

I don't understand why you're being downvoted (a comment which itself is likely to solicit downvotes). No serious discussion about the advantages or disadvantages of capitalism can be had without considering the role and utility of greed.

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

#233

Post by btilly »

take_a_breath wrote: post #206
Izkata wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many of the people arguing for keeping the minimum wage unchanged were arguing that in good faith? > Reasonable increases in the minimum wage, particularly ones that track inflation and cost of living are not going to harm the economy. My understanding is that plenty of the arguments against it are from people concerned about the areas of the country still near the federal minimum. It's absolutely a good-faith…

How do you define “reasonable”? The bill that passed the House wouldn’t get to $15/hr until 2025. That would be a 4.6% annual increase (CAGR) going back to 2009 when the $7.25 rate was implemented. That might be a little higher than you’d like, but is it “unreasonable”? Maybe a compromise could include a longer ramp or a ramp to $13 or $14, but I haven’t heard that argument presented. If we tracked inflation since 20…

Lots of people say "tracked inflation", but few understand that inflation is measured relative to a basket of goods, and which basket of goods you pick really matters. Which means that the inflation rate you personally experience will depend on your lifestyle.

The result is that the inflation rate as experienced by the well-off (who consume more luxuries) is generally quite different than the inflation rate as experienced by the poor.

There is no good data that I know of over a long period of time for this. But https://www.chicagofed.org/~/media/publications/working-pape... has estimates for recent years, and it appears that inflation for low income groups is currently significantly higher than for high income groups. Mostly because price differences have been rising between stores available to low income groups versus high income groups.

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

#234

Post by usepgp »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #226
aianus wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s nuts, I lived a luxurious life in college on less than that. It’s certainly enough money for a room and food and a car and savings left over in nearly every US municipality.

In what year?

I did as well (in massachusetts in 2016)

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

#235

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

donatj wrote: post #118
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.

You're not thinking your argument through.

A quick Google search says that a dollar in the year 2000 is worth half as much as a 1980 dollar. Yet, during that time, federal minimum wage went from $3.10 to $5.15, an increase of only about 66%. That means my parents had an easier time surviving off of minimum wage than I did.

How is that fair at all?

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

#236

Post by dmix »

jb775 wrote: post #141

I feel like this is a perfect example of people trying to apply a "one size fits all" band-aid to a complex issue because it sounds nice on the surface. Obviously, Johnny French-Fry would be better off making $15/hour, but there's more to it than that. I don't believe the salient impact here is "job loss", but rather "wage erosion" at other levels within the organization. There is a zero-sum game at play here, and I…

People (including researchers) always use data from mega corp retail shops to measure the effectiveness of minimum wage while ignoring the thousands of other industries and lower end of the market of small companies who are not hiring at all and can’t be easily recorded.

I’ve seen a number of studies justifying minimum wage that only looked at major chain restaurants then used that to justify the hammer being justified on every company size, industry, full time/part time/temporary workers.

These are easy things to lie with statistics and cherry picked data.

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

#237

Post by BurningFrog »

pwthornton wrote: post #168

How many of the people arguing for keeping the minimum wage unchanged were arguing that in good faith? In general, increasing pay into people at the bottom of the ladder has a much bigger economic effect than the opposite. Reasonable increases in the minimum wage, particularly ones that track inflation and cost of living are not going to harm the economy. As many have pointed out, the minimum wage in many places has…

> In general, increasing pay into people at the bottom of the ladder

The bottom of the ladder is the unemployed, who make $0/h.

The good faith argument for no minimum wage is that those people would have a much bigger chance to find jobs and build job skills.

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

#238

Post by gremlinsinc »

aianus wrote: post #211
krnlpnc wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minimum wage works out to about $2500/mo before taxes where I live. That’s not enough to pay for rent, utilities, food and incidentals. Not to mention insurance(s). Not to mention a car if your commute requires it. Not to mention family/dependents. Not to mention emergency savings. Not to mention retirement. The list goes on. It’s not about a “much more than comfortable lifestyle”. It’s about establishing a baseline…

That’s nuts, I lived a luxurious life in college on less than that. It’s certainly enough money for a room and food and a car and savings left over in nearly every US municipality.

Yay, must be nice being single all your life because you'll never be able to afford a family. Some people don't have the ability to get higher than min-wage jobs - ever because they lack the education necessary.

I live in an average city in utah. We rent a home for 1400. That's been our average for the past 4 places we've rented regardless of whether it was in a bigger city or rural. There are many rentals that are double or triple that w/ more room.

We generally try to go for 4-5 bedroom.. which includes a master, 2 kids rooms, and 2 offices for myself and my wife.

On top of that healthcare is about 1000/month. Kids grow fast we need to replace their wardrobe completely every 4-6 months. so say $200/month on clothes for two boys.

We're already at $2600/month. Add about $1000 for groceries (formula is $250 a month!). That's $3600. Add gas to get around town maybe $250/month. So $3800. Shouldn't people have some leisure? You said you lived a luxurious life, did you own a car? Go to social events? Go to movies ? how much per month was alotted for 'luxury'....I'd like to take the kids to Disney land that'd cost about $3000 or more.. so to budget that we'd need to break out maybe $300 per month into savings.

This is in Utah. San Francisco you're looking at a room going for 2x as much as our 5 br house. Cost of living increasing exponentially from there. I don't see how anybody in California exists on their minimum wages....

I'm a developer but I sometimes take crappy clients when jobs are low. Currently my most active client can only afford $25... I feel practically raped as I was used to $50/60 per hour doing laravel+vue, but can't figure out how to keep steady higher paying clientele. Summer left us almost homeless though, so I put out tons of lowball ads just to keep us housed. So now I'm essentially a senior-level developer earning $10 more than minimum wage. Depression and imposter syndrome don't help much with things either. Even for people w/ good skills times get hard in America. Higher minimum wages might make us freelancers be able to charge more, since we can compare our rates w/ low-skill workers.

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

#239

Post by Ericson2314 »

btilly wrote: post #227
monocasa wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, luckliy FDR himself discussed the concept in a speech as he signed one of the base laws to allow a federal minimum wage. > In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean…

It is worth noting that the rise of wealth in our society means that "decent living" by the standards of the 1930s means "extreme poverty" by today's standards. More precisely the real value of median income tripled from the 1930s to the 1980s. Lower income brackets did likewise. So it is historically incorrect to hear FDR say "decent living" and map it onto current notions of a decent living. Separately, we have man…

If you measure it in calories or other form of nutrition, did it triple?

If you define poverty not by an absolute standard of living but the poverty trap (the range where the rest of society trivially exploits you, intentionally or not, and you cannot advance as they do), does it triple?

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

#240

Post by monocasa »

btilly wrote: post #227
monocasa wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, luckliy FDR himself discussed the concept in a speech as he signed one of the base laws to allow a federal minimum wage. > In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean…

It is worth noting that the rise of wealth in our society means that "decent living" by the standards of the 1930s means "extreme poverty" by today's standards. More precisely the real value of median income tripled from the 1930s to the 1980s. Lower income brackets did likewise. So it is historically incorrect to hear FDR say "decent living" and map it onto current notions of a decent living. Separately, we have man…

FDR would have very much been of the opinion that rise of wealth in our society needs to be distributed to everyone, particularly the least well off among us.
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