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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

#111

Post by adventured »

ethanbond wrote: post #91
dimitrios1 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is 3,531,905.403 square miles large, and the majority of us choose to live in under 100,000 of it. Maybe that too also contributes to these issues. You may fashion yourself to be virtuous enough to not charge more when you so easily can, but we shouldn't assume everyone will be.

Have you considered that people are more productive when they are working together? This higher productivity is what allows for rent to be high (the land is more productive), but that does not necessarily imply that the increased productivity should go into the hands of people who merely hold land and are not themselves producing anything on it.

It also does not imply the owners of that land - that had to take a risk in allocating their funds to acquire it - do not deserve to benefit from it (given they also very likely pay taxes on that ownership, which is true in the vast majority of the US; and property taxes are a very important government funding source in the US).

"Producing something on it" is a wholly subjective standard. I can just as well proclaim the opposite, that not producing anything on it is the standard that should determine ownership.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#112

Post by pydry »

ethanbond wrote: post #99
pydry wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you assume that minimum waged employees would spend 100% of their raise on rent then landlords would swallow the surplus but more likely the workers would spread it around. They do have other costs. I havent seen a study that connects the two. A quick google suggests a fair number of business-centric publications spreading FUD about it though. This article suggests it was connected to lower business rents: https:/…

> the researchers present evidence that minimum wage changes led area restaurants to raise prices, change menu items, obtain lower rents in the high wage areas and, in some cases, caused eateries to shut down. I wonder if the units made empty by closures may have reduced price pressure on the ones that survived.

Yes, maybe. There's a definite tension between:

* Restaurants being unwilling to raise prices (diners are notoriously intolerant, it can kill restaurants).

* Landlords being unwilling to lower rents.

* Restaurants being unwilling to tolerate * Landlords being unwilling to lose a good, paying tenant if there isnt another around the corner.

The pain has to be distributed somehow though.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#113

Post by giantg2 »

jimmaswell wrote: post #94
Workaccount2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a term I use myself. It's pushing down on higher wages while pushing up on lower wages in effort to concentrate people into middle class. This would also mean that many people who are not even remotely close to "the billionaire class" would get pushed down, so it's not really popular with high-earning coastal liberals, and probably many people here.

Raising lower end wages coupled with inflation would have the same effect, wouldn't it?

At least in my experience, the higher end people understand inflation and would demand higher pay to match or beat inflation. Especially at the executive level.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#114

Post by Pokepokalypse »

mostertoaster wrote: post #106
ethanbond wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a landlord! Breaking the cycle is a farce: why do you think it’s a cycle? It’s self-reinforcing and resilient to small changes (like a few landlords here and there delaying rent increases for a few years).

Well have you charged less than market rate for rent? I had a place for 10 years that I was charging about 60% market rate on because the lady was old and lived off social security. I had negative cash flow on it. My other rental has a negative cash flow as well. I make good money so I can afford it. If every single person who complained about the plight of the poor actually physically went and helped the poor, their…

>the one the “caring progressives” keep voting for.

And the alternative is what?

Keep on hoping the oligarchs will share their wealth and it will "trickle down"?

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#115

Post by caseysoftware »

mostertoaster wrote: post #47
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.

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?

How have your property taxes and/or insurance changed during that period?

I have a rental (family living in it) where the insurance has changed a few percent in the last 5 years but the property taxes are up 5x. Yes, 5x in 5 years between the rate and appreciation.

What started as a small net loss is getting bigger and bigger so I hope you're not in the same boat.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#116

Post by pnutjam »

nights192 wrote: post #82
pnutjam wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just another guy trying to sabotage the working class, ignore the FUD about rents.

I don't believe that's a very good-faith interpretation; what makes you believe that, man?

Rents go up regardless of inflation. I've been renting for decades.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#117

Post by dahfizz »

tyingq wrote: post #43
dahfizz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, inflation isn't solely driven by wage increases. And wage increases aren't solely driven by minimum wage legislation.

But a bump in minimum wage which results in higher wages for everyone and a devaluation of the currency is inflation. I don't think that's any more simplistic than your premise of all the "tiers" of jobs getting a raise. What you described is inflation.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#118

Post by vidarh »

matsemann wrote: post #89
StefanWestfal wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain? I would assume that only a part of the increase in wages would go to rent. I live in Norway where the minimum salary is high. Rents are too but the average person has to spent less time working to pay for housing. Do you think the hours a person needs to work to pay for housing would stay the same if the wage increase?

(just a nitpick, but we don't have a general minimum salary / minstelønn in Norway. Unions however, have managed to establish rules binding everyone in certain industries to some minimum)

To add to that: About half the Norwegian workforce is unionised (which is the lowest of the Nordic countries, but higher than all other non-Nordic countries in the OECD than Belgium), and something like 3/4 of all workers are covered by sectoral agreements (tariffavtaler), which is why there's not much demand for minimum wage laws.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#119

Post by danaris »

nemo44x wrote: post #68
folkrav wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the main reasons why I left the field before even graduating (elementary education, left halfway through the degree). The amount of bullshit you have to deal with on top of the terrible compensation and how little people seem to value the profession despite its importance played a big part. I'm not even 5 years out of school as a dev (and not even as a college level graduate), I already make way more t…

You should consider you've only been a dev in a massive bull market for software engineers. Teachers don't get laid off or face the types of uncertainty other types of careers do. You'll always make more money in private industry but you will probably work more and have less time off. Teachers get a lot of time off and work about 35 hours per week during the school year. And then of course the summers. It's an especi…

Have you ever actually been a teacher?

Unless you're one of those that scrapes by doing the bare minimum, teachers frequently work about 60-80 hours per week during the school year, and 20-40 during the summer to prepare.

There are lessons to plan, classwork/homework/papers/tests to grade, extracurriculars to coach/lead, students needing extra help to work with...

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#120

Post by vanveenada »

ethanbond wrote: post #105
vanveenada wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, because nothing lasts forever in this fallen world. That said: the amount of time spent in a state of wage-driven inflation -- setting up the situation where temporary moments of price stickiness result in increases of effective demand that in turn hot up the economy as a whole -- is the thing we want to maximize.

Totally! We can also go ahead and tax away all the gains captured by landlords on the unimproved value of their land (definitionally price movement that is not due to them).

found the Georgist!
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