As the old saying goes: Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy a jet ski. And you never see an unhappy person riding a jet ski.
That's rubbish. A lot of rich people suffer from depression, to the point of suicide.
For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests
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Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests
#72What would increased minimum wage due to small business (<$50m/yr in revenue)? Wouldn't it force them to cut shifts/hours/consolidate positions?
For $1/hour? I'd hope it would force them to review their expenses. But you're right, it won't, they'll just cut hours.
Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests
#73The minimum wage should be 0 - sincerely any good economist
That's a common trope, but there have been studies indicating that minimum wage doesn't have a significant effect on unemployment. [0] [1] Assuming that's accurate, then shouldn't we mandate that these corporations pay their workers a livable wage? If they don't pay the workers a livable wage, guess who does? The taxpayers, in the form of food stamps, welfare, and increased prison population. I really don't see why t…
Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests
#74I’m all for fair pay, even if it means things (products or services) become more expensive. But therein is the problem: If the minimum wage is ten dollars an hour and you’re making twelve dollars an hour, that’s very different from minimum wage being twelve dollars and you’re making twelve dollars. Raising the minimum doesn’t just give minimum wage earners more money, it simultaneously devalues the money they receive…
It does not devalue it if they're sharing demand for those products with people who make $50 an hour and a select few who make $1000 an hour - assuming those incomes don't go up proportional to the increase in minimum wage.
This time cost cannot be less than a factor directly proportionate to minimum wage (local minimum wage or global minimum wage depending on economic policy).
In a sense, minimum wage is the cost of (human) time itself. You’re saying “regardless of the labor involved or otherwise, the skill involved or otherwise, the care involved or otherwise, the social skills involved or otherwise, the know-how involved or otherwise, this is the lowest you can pay someone to do something on an hourly basis (with many caveats, such as allowing employers to deduct the cost of services they provide their employees from said wage, etc). You can’t raise that cost without the cost of everything else shifting upwards by some extent with it. No one that understand economics debates that. The question is just how big this shift is.
Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests
#75Does anyone have access to the paper? Raising the minimum wage means less jobs will be available, as employers cut costs and perform layoffs. My assumption is the paper neglects to factors this into their analysis, but if they do, I'd love to read it. edit: paper shared below!
This is the paper: https://jech.bmj.com/content/jech/early/2020/01/03/jech-2019...
If this result stands up, it'd be very interesting to drill in and figure out what's really happening. Quite challenging, though--apparently long study hasn't even settled the question of how minimum wage affects the job market.
In this case, one could imagine all sorts of confounders. For example, maybe communities that have higher minimum wages simply have them because they're wealthier as a whole, which could in turn lead to lower suicide rates. Or perhaps a higher minimum wage leads to the most marginal workers losing their jobs, and it turns out that they're happier for it somehow.
Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests
#76Does anyone have access to the paper? Raising the minimum wage means less jobs will be available, as employers cut costs and perform layoffs. My assumption is the paper neglects to factors this into their analysis, but if they do, I'd love to read it. edit: paper shared below!
please read any study on cities that have substantially raised min wage in recent years (like Seattle) and understand how wrong you are about there being "fewer jobs" as a result before making such ridiculous statements
Seattle--a world-class tech nexus point--raising its minimum wage affected a relatively small percent of businesses compared to a "normal" city, as businesses in Seattle would have long since needed to offer higher wages in order to keep employees.
I'd be much more interested in seeing the effects of a $15 wage in Nowheresville, USA than in Seattle.
Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests
#77I was reading the other day that typically mass shootings happen during a recession, and right now is a confusing time because the economy is supposedly doing fantastic, yet we keep having mass shootings. Could this have to do with the mounting inequality? It seems the standard indicators for the health of the economy are breaking because wealth just keeps pooling near the top. So what this study could be saying is,…
Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
... who would never work for 0 themselves, even though their own work arguably provides little tangible value.
Exactly. People won't work for less than their worth. So a minimum wage doesn't accomplish much except set a price floor that excludes low value add workers from the economy.
Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests
#79I wonder what would happen to the suicide rate with medicare for all, and creating a max-wage that is (avg of contractors + employees * 150), or something similar, w/ additional 'bonus' multipliers for increasing # of U.S. hired. UBI would also probably help. As a freelancer I've had some really slim months and depression hits hard when money is tight. There's a very direct correlation between income security, insecu…
Re/ medicare for all ... Canada has universal health care yet a very similar suicide rate to the USA.[1] Canada doesn't have a livable minimum wage either. Each province sets its own. There is talk of UBI experiments. [1] https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/02/us-vs-can...
Re: For suicide prevention, try raising the minimum wage, research suggests
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
... who would never work for 0 themselves, even though their own work arguably provides little tangible value.
Exactly. People won't work for less than their worth. So a minimum wage doesn't accomplish much except set a price floor that excludes low value add workers from the economy.