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The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

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Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#41

Post by nemo44x »

teekert wrote: post #12
pydry wrote: post #7

This paper is a good rebuttal to talking points like this tweet that crop up from time to time: https://i.redd.it/b57t1w5jllb61.jpg (I was trying to look up a similarly awful article referencing EMTs earning $minwage + $2 I saw a while back but googlefu is failing me)

It's shocking how little we pay the people that spend so much time with our kids.

People who pay a significant amount of taxes don't often send their kids to public schools where staff is paid poorly. Many communities choose to have a low property tax rate and give minimum funding to the schools and the parents can then use the money they saved and spend it on private education. People without kids enjoy this scheme as well as they aren't paying for other people's kids.

For example, you could live in a community where the public school offers a low salary to teachers but you don't send your kids there. Instead you send them to a prep school where you pay $30k-$60k per year. The classes are small and the best teachers are attracted to the school as the student body is more enjoyable to teach and the pay is better too.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#42

Post by wonderwonder »

pydry wrote: post #7

This paper is a good rebuttal to talking points like this tweet that crop up from time to time: https://i.redd.it/b57t1w5jllb61.jpg (I was trying to look up a similarly awful article referencing EMTs earning $minwage + $2 I saw a while back but googlefu is failing me)

This is a terrible rebuttal. It essentially says because society has decided to underpay the people that look after our kids for 8 hours a day, that no one else should be able to make money either. The correct take should be teachers are woefully underpaid for the work they do which includes looking after our kids in the event of a school shooter. Strange to me that so many people rally to keep their fellow citizens down. Not the good rebuttal you think it is.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#43

Post by tyingq »

dahfizz wrote: post #26
tyingq wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>could be diluted by including non-minimum wage jobs Wouldn't there be a stair-step effect eventually? For example, licensed vocational nurses are typically in the next tier up, with ~$20/hour entry level pay. But it's hard work. If you aren't paying more than the jobs that used to be minimum wage, but now aren't, you won't be able to hire anyone. Then rinse and repeat that for the 3rd tier.

Yes, that is called inflation.

That's a little simplistic, isn't it? Inflation isn't solely driven by wage increases followed by higher product and service prices. There's "Wage Push" inflation, which is just one of many types.

I'm not even sure it's really "inflation" if the wage increases aren't exceeding cost of living increases.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#44

Post by pydry »

mdorazio wrote: post #24
stavros wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes that the company can't absorb the raises.

As an example, average restaurant profit margins are between 2% and 6%. They cannot absorb labor rate increases without raising prices or going bankrupt. Margins tend to be similarly low for many other industries as well. Tech is a massive outlier in its ability to absorb large wage increases.

Their landlords can though.

Evidence from LA suggests that this has happened as restaurants negotiated cheaper rents in response: https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/a-15-minimum-wage-may-have-...

Restaurants do also have a tendency to be run out of business and replaced by other restaurants when the minimum wage gets hiked though. Restaurant owners take hikes extremely personally. The market can be an unkind mistress.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#45

Post by pitaj »

ethanbond wrote: post #27
shockeychap wrote: post #15

I found this to be many words with little information. It largely boils down to "when Amazon increases wages, other employers follow suit, to varying extents." There was almost nothing about the myriad of other effects, including things like inflation, effects on already higher wage earners, effects on automation, and more. They touched on the increase in unemployment from competitors, but that was it.

Or the most critical consequence: rent. Rent goes up. Landlords get richer, minimum wage earners go back to poverty. Pretty obvious cycle. High paying employer moves somewhere? Rent goes up. Normal employer pays more? Rent goes up.

Rent goes up because of supply and demand. If a rich person moves into an area with a housing shortage, they will displace poor renters and rent will go up. But the problem is the housing shortage, a consequence of many years of terrible housing policy.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#46

Post by giantg2 »

k2enemy wrote: post #19
giantg2 wrote: post #3

This seems to be missing some details. Are they comparing to only other large retailers, or non-Amazon employers across industries? Are they only comparing wage increases for minimum wage? The reason I ask is that the increases could be diluted by including non-minimum wage jobs, or jobs in other industries. A .6-1% increase is way less than inflation. I suppose it's better than 0%, but still not a good thing. It see…

The article links to the actual paper, which would be a good place to look for these details. For example... """ We calculate the bite of the large retailer’s minimum wage as the fraction of job ads by other employers with pre-period wages below the announced minimum wage, within detailed occupation, employer, and commuting zone (“CZ”) categories. This approach mirrors that of papers estimating the causal effect of t…

Thanks

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#47

Post by mostertoaster »

ethanbond wrote: post #27
shockeychap wrote: post #15

I found this to be many words with little information. It largely boils down to "when Amazon increases wages, other employers follow suit, to varying extents." There was almost nothing about the myriad of other effects, including things like inflation, effects on already higher wage earners, effects on automation, and more. They touched on the increase in unemployment from competitors, but that was it.

Or the most critical consequence: rent. Rent goes up. Landlords get richer, minimum wage earners go back to poverty. Pretty obvious cycle. High paying employer moves somewhere? Rent goes up. Normal employer pays more? Rent goes up.

I haven’t raised my tenants rent since 2018 when I bought the rental. I just had him pay what he had been paying.

Maybe you should be a landlord and help break the cycle?

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#48

Post by BurningFrog »

shockeychap wrote: post #15

I found this to be many words with little information. It largely boils down to "when Amazon increases wages, other employers follow suit, to varying extents." There was almost nothing about the myriad of other effects, including things like inflation, effects on already higher wage earners, effects on automation, and more. They touched on the increase in unemployment from competitors, but that was it.

To be fair, the myriad of other effects are unknown, and to some extent unknowable.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#49

Post by cortesoft »

spamizbad wrote: post #35
ethanbond wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the most critical consequence: rent. Rent goes up. Landlords get richer, minimum wage earners go back to poverty. Pretty obvious cycle. High paying employer moves somewhere? Rent goes up. Normal employer pays more? Rent goes up.

Really shows the power land owners have to capture upside.

Isn't it more about the inelasticity of housing supply? When demand goes up, prices go up?

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#50

Post by linspace »

> the researchers find that a 10 percent rise in average Amazon wages is associated with an increase of 2.3 percent in the average advertised wage at non-Amazon firms in the same labor market.

> When large retailers raise minimum wages, there are also small drops in employment. The estimates range from a 0.4 percent to a 1.3 percent decline in employment

If I read correctly then it's a net gain for employees even with worst case drop in employment. I think it's interesting because drop of employment is a usual complaint against raising the minimum wage

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