Job loss predictions over rising minimum wages haven't come true • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by BurningFrog » Tue, Nov 26, 2019, 2:50 AM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #281

BurningFrog wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

What job skills exactly are you learning doing minimum wage jobs in 2019? That always seemed like a bit of a meme to me, considering if you've already held one minimum wage job before then you've already learned everything they have to offer practically. This might be different if companies were interested in training employees but they aren't. So what happens with no minimum wage is that you have a class of workers…

Job skills to learn for people who can't get a minimum wage job can be

- Getting to work on time and every day.

- Functioning in a workplace without getting in fights.

- Sobriety.

- A basic knowledge of English.

Once you've mastered those, McDonalds will be happy to hire you.

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

#292

Post by throwaway5153 » Tue, Nov 26, 2019, 2:51 AM UTC

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.

I worked temp jobs without benefits for more years than I care to think about.

Here are some additional costs you haven't mentioned.

Medical insurance

Elder/child care

Student loan payments

Life doesn't always proceed exactly as you planned. Here are some situations that have happened to friends and acquaintances.

Husband became addicted to Oxycontin, sold most family assets to pay for it.

Wife moved to the opposite end of the country before the husband. She was told that she wouldn't have to work and to buy everything she needed on credit cards. He left the country with no forwarding address.

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

#293

Post by closeparen » Tue, Nov 26, 2019, 2:52 AM UTC

ScottBurson wrote: post #213

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…

> The reality for us every-day workers is that either the minimum wage is increased or we'll have to make up for it in taxes that support programs to compensate for the lack of a liveable wage. Exactly. Too low a minimum wage actually becomes a subsidy to employers.

I used to think this was bad. Now I’m not sure. The model where employers are responsible for employee well being leaves a lot to be desired:

a) The employer can always get out of the obligation by just not employing the person, reducing their hours, switching to a contractor relationship, etc. It only benefits employed people.

b) It creates pressure for everyone to be employed by a corporation, as opposed to retirement, entrepreneurship, or whatever else people might want to do.

c) It favors large employers over small ones.

If we want everyone to have something, we should provide it at public expense, not attach it as a condition of other relationships. Yes this might be “a subsidy for employers” but progressive taxation takes it from the employer’s beneficial owner anyway.

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

#294

Post by sudosysgen » Tue, Nov 26, 2019, 2:53 AM UTC

Scapeghost wrote: post #261

bb88 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

While not exactly homeless, employed people not being able to afford their own house is the norm instead of the exception in the majority of the world. In the "East" and Middle East, many employed young adults live with their parents instead of moving out, even after getting married. In the UAE for example, many expats live in crammed conditions with as many as 6 people in a single room ! and sharing a single bathroo…

I come from Morocco. There, until recent times, most left the family house to go buy their first home, after their first real job. "Renter" was an insult because you had to be really poor to have to rent. Now that speculation and foreign investment is flooding the housing markets and land prices have literally went up 3000x in some cities, it's changing. It's not a first world dream, it's a problem that's rising everywhere around the world.

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

#295

Post by ChrisLomont » Tue, Nov 26, 2019, 2:58 AM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #231

ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>How much value does the janitorial staff create?

When the company hires them, the company has decided that the company obtains enough value for the transaction. So does the janitorial staff.

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

Not if someone else is willing to do the job for the same pay - this is market clearing. They're paid what it takes to fill the position, and they show up for that wage. Both sides benefit, otherwise the side without getting benefit would not show up.

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

#296

Post by EricE » Tue, Nov 26, 2019, 3:03 AM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #207

qzx_pierri wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but people who argue for it most vocally refuse to acknowledge the fact that it’s not economically feasible to reward the lowest paid people with a MUCH MORE than comfortable lifestyle. The minimum wage is for two things: To prevent the exploitation of workers at a certain level, and to allow workers to support themselves. Some people also fail to realize that there will always be poor people. The only…

"Some people also fail to realize that there will always be poor people" and "If they really wanted to get out, they would. I did" are interesting beliefs to share at the same time. The connecting thread is "some people are satisfied being poor" but it's pretty tenuous. If those people stopped being satisfied, what happens?

>If those people stopped being satisfied, what happens?

Do what grandparents on both sides of my family did - work hard as hell and provide more for your kids than you had.

Not waiting around for the roast duck to magically fly into your mouth on it's own...

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

#297

Post by krnlpnc » Tue, Nov 26, 2019, 3:04 AM UTC

aianus wrote: post #279

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what year?

2010 565 room (5 ppl in one apt but in separate rooms) 800 car all in (I drove a bmw, wasteful luxury) 600 food (ate out all the time, wasteful luxury) 50 utilities (gas and internet were included in rent) 100 entertainment (not much time) That’s about 2400 in 2019 dollars and if I had gotten a cheaper car or taken public transit like most students there would have been plenty of savings.

On minimum wage you are about 400 in the hole after taxes, and before health insurance, savings, retirement, SO, kids etc. Not to mention this is one rented bedroom, not even a studio apt.

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

#298

Post by IG_Semmelweiss » Tue, Nov 26, 2019, 3:06 AM UTC

nine_zeros wrote: post #12

Ididntdothis wrote: post #6

It seems that a lot of economics as it’s used for political decisions is way oversimplified to the point of being useless or just plain wrong. The minimum wage issue is an example where reality is much more subtle and complex than what a lot of economists in the news say. Same for tax cuts for upper incomes that were supposed to spur investments in new technologies but seem to have done more to drive up asset prices.…

I think typical economists like to think of the world as a perfectly rational system. They look at the world from the lens of some bullshit econ 101 nonsense. Extraordinary economists figure out that reality is super complicated, often uncontrollable at all. All you can do is experiments. A real example of this is the Bernanke asset inflation. All he could think about is assets and recovery of banking system. He thou…

"The govt needs more educated people"

Nonono you have it backwards! It is precisely the pretense of knowledge of the ivory-tower educated krugman/bernake/etc that got us into the current mess in the first place.

What we need is not "better educated" govt staff. What we need is less govt staff, period!

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

#299

Post by mikepurvis » Tue, Nov 26, 2019, 3:07 AM UTC

LegitShady wrote: post #219

UnFleshedOne wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

the user chose the wrong blocks. There's no way for the platform to know

HN doesn't support proper quoting, which is why people do these hacks.

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

#300

Post by IG_Semmelweiss » Tue, Nov 26, 2019, 3:09 AM UTC

autoexec wrote: post #242

conanbatt wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is to say what is the best wage? Should the government decide what people's wages should be? Should the government come to you and tell you specifically that your salary is not what you got from the exchange of labor with your employer and change it unilaterally? Minimum wage debates in economics aside, there is a core ideological issue where some people really do like the idea of controlling other people, and so…

> Who is to say what is the best wage? Should the government decide what people's wages should be? I don't think the government should dictate exactly what a person's wage should be but setting a minimum makes perfect sense because otherwise businesses pay slave wages and use taxpayer money to subsidize their labor expenses. As a taxpayer I don't want to my taxes spent on food stamps for employees working 40 hours a…

Funny, i dont see you starting a business. If you want to tell businesses how to operate, less talk and more action.

If your public statements are different from your private practice, that doesnt override your private practice but instead negates your public statements