The Center for American Progress reports:
Think a higher minimum wage is a job killer? Think again: The states that raised their minimum wages on January 1 have seen higher employment growth since then than the states that kept theirs at the same rate.
The minimum wage went up in 13 states Arizona, Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington either thanks to automatic increases in line with inflation or new legislation, as Ben Wolcott reports in his analysis at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The average change in employment for those states over the first five months of the year as compared with the last five of 2013 is 0.99 percent, while the average for all remaining states is 0.68 percent.
Digging deeper, all but one of those states are experiencing increases in employment, and nine of them have seen growth above the median rate.
Related Stories
Remember States That Raised Their Minimum Wages Are Experiencing Faster Job Growth?
The states that raised their minimum wages on January 1 have seen higher employment growth since then than the states that kept theirs at the same rate.
The minimum wage went up in 13 states Arizona, Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington either thanks to automatic increases in line with inflation or new legislation, as Ben Wolcott reports in his analysis at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The average change in employment for those states over the first five months of the year as compared with the last five of 2013 is 0.99 percent, while the average for all remaining states is 0.68 percent.
Ken Zahringer refutes this:
In the ebb and flow of interventionist politics, there are some issues that surface periodically regardless of how many times and how completely they are proven to be harmful to the very people they are purported to help. Currently the tide is once again carrying the minimum wage to the forefront of collective attention.
His analysis covers: The Ceteris Paribus Principle (that the states are not the same - too many externalization); Labor Market Heterogeneity (the markets for labour are not the same); Proper Basis of Comparison (the state should be compared with themselves under both conditions); and Time (six months is not long enough to measure the impact).
NPR (formerly National Public Radio) reports:
By a 44-5 vote, Chicago's City Council set a minimum-wage target of $13 an hour, to be reached by the middle of 2019. The move comes after Illinois passed a nonbinding advisory last month that calls for the state to raise its minimum pay level to $10 by the start of next year.
The current minimum wage in Chicago and the rest of Illinois is $8.25. Under the ordinance, the city's minimum wage will rise to $10 by next July and go up in increments each summer thereafter.
[...]The bill states that "rising inflation has outpaced the growth in the minimum wage, leaving the true value of lllinois' current minimum wage of $8.25 per hour 32 percent below the 1968 level of $10.71 per hour (in 2013 dollars)."
It also says nearly a third of Chicago's workers, or some 410,000 people, currently make $13 an hour or less.
[...][In the 2014] midterm elections, voters in Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota approved binding referendums that raise their states' wage floor above the federal minimum.
Media Matters for America notes that The Chicago Tribune's coverage tried to trot out the *job-killer* dead horse once again, to which the response was
According to a March 2014 report(PDF) prepared for the Seattle Income Inequality Advisory Committee titled "Local Minimum Wage laws: Impacts on Workers, Families, and Businesses", city-wide minimum wage increases in multiple locations--Albuquerque, NM; Santa Fe, NM; San Francisco, CA; and Washington, DC--produced "no discernible negative effects on employment" and no measurable job shift from metropolitan to suburban areas.
Related:
Seattle Approves $15 Minimum Wage
Mayor's Minimum Wage Veto Overridden by San Diego City Council
States That Raised Their Minimum Wages Are Experiencing Faster Job Growth
(Score: 2, Interesting) by tathra on Friday July 04 2014, @04:05PM
as much as i'd like to see increases in minimum wages leading to more job growth, their chart just doesn't show that. its more like "increasing minimum wage has no effect on job growth", which at least proves false the statement, "increasing minimum wage kills jobs". the exaggeration is likely to end up biting us in the ass, since thats going to get all the attention.
(Score: 3, Informative) by buswolley on Friday July 04 2014, @04:10PM
The average change in employment for the 13 states that increased their minimum wage is +0.99% while the remaining states have an average employment change of +0.68%
subicular junctures
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday July 04 2014, @04:24PM
Exactly. There's no significant difference between the two groups given the variation within the two groups.
(Score: 0, Troll) by frojack on Friday July 04 2014, @04:34PM
Exactly.
If the people doing these studies are so cock sure of their assertions I propose a simple test :
Let's raise the minimum wage to 150 dollars per hour state wide in some state and see how long it takes for everyone to be unemployed.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by geb on Friday July 04 2014, @04:41PM
Large, unpredictable shifts in economic environment do kill jobs, and that would apply no matter what the change was. Investors don't like to see a business model that could be wiped out by somebody else's arbitrary decision a few years down the line. A business-friendly government is a slow moving government.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Friday July 04 2014, @04:46PM
That does fit with my observation [soylentnews.org] that the nine states with modest, automatic increases in minimum wage did much better over this narrow time period than the states with legislated, larger changes in minimum wage.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday July 04 2014, @06:03PM
Your observation works, but only because it A) assumes correlation = causation, and B) has the cart before the horse.
Point B is especially important here, because small automatic raises in minimum wage are always tied to other measures of economic growth, jobs, market conditions, etc.
So the wage increase is AFTER the already proven growth, rather than before. Wage increase is an effect, not a cause, and it is still inflationary.
And more importantly, in a raising economy, wages have already been bid up, because the burger flippers and waitresses can find other better paying jobs. Those states that use automatic raises in minimum wage are are always following the market derived minimum, not leading it. If anything, these states are only setting a ratchet [wikipedia.org].
Further, a ratcheting minimum wage, when there is an economic downturn like the one we are still climbing out of, simply guarantees that more people will lose their jobs earlier, and be without jobs longer.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Friday July 04 2014, @06:14PM
Correlation is an indication of possible causation. Or it could be an indication of a modestly uncommon cluster that has no actual statistical significance. My observation is an observation whether it's of actual phenomena or spurious coincidence.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday July 04 2014, @08:34PM
Way to build confidence! You Go Girl!
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Friday July 04 2014, @11:34PM
I didn't build confidence in the first place. Merely, that my original observation fit with someone's scenario. If there really was a causation as a result of the scenario that I was replying to then one would expect to see the correlation of my observation.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Friday July 04 2014, @10:11PM
Unfortunately the worst paid are invariably the last to benefit from an improving economy. Minimum wages have a direct effect on reducing poverty, whilst the free market effect is more to reward the already rich, whilst leaving the poor where they are.
So you believe, yet all the evidence is to the contrary.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @06:08PM
Since when did investors and businesses give a shit about anything further away from this quarter's profit?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by geb on Friday July 04 2014, @06:12PM
There are plenty of investors in it for the long term. Pension providers would be one of the big ones.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Friday July 04 2014, @10:05PM
Countries should not be run simply according to the wishes of investors. Investors should be worth one vote - no more and no less than any other adult.
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(Score: 2) by geb on Friday July 04 2014, @11:08PM
I wasn't proposing that at all. Pro-business has unfortunately come to mean anti-everybody-else, but there are still things that can be done to benefit everybody equally. Increasing employment is one of them.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Saturday July 05 2014, @05:06PM
But there is no evidence that a minimum wage increases unemployment. Quite the opposite in fact.
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(Score: 2) by khallow on Sunday July 06 2014, @12:34AM
Aside from the usual model of supply and demand: increase the cost of something and the demand for it drops.
(Score: 2) by compro01 on Sunday July 06 2014, @05:24AM
If by "usual" you mean "simplistic to the point of being pretty much totally wrong", sure. Assuming a pure supply/demand model for an economy is like doing physics calculations assuming a frictionless vacuum. It makes the math real simple, but the results are rather unlikely to be applicable to reality.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Monday July 07 2014, @08:31PM
Hasn't been my experience. Having actually played around with markets and economics of all sorts, I assure you this simplistic model works quite well. And I notice no one gives any reason for supposing that labor is somehow different aside from wishful thinking, like the propaganda of Henry Ford's "five dollar day" (the mythical idea that paying your employees more means your customers, who aren't actually your employees, buy more of your stuff).
(Score: 2) by compro01 on Monday July 07 2014, @09:39PM
Because, at least in the relatively short term, there's a floor on the demand for labour, and an efficiently running business tends to be operating pretty close to it. You can't just cut staff nilly willy and still operate, so you need to have staff, pretty much regardless of how much it costs.
Over the long term, you can reduce staffing needs via automation, etc., but this has been happening whether or not the minimum wage is increased.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Monday July 07 2014, @05:54PM
Two problems with your argument:
1) That's not a rule. Sometimes increasing the cost of something increases demand.
2) Prices more often reflect what the market will bear, than cost of labour.
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(Score: 2) by khallow on Monday July 07 2014, @08:27PM
This model became a "rule" because it was usually right. Why should we expect, aside from wishful thinking, that labor costs are the exception to the rule? Especially, when labor markets are as competitive as they are in the world today?
Things don't end up on the market, if they cost more to produce than the market will bear. And reinvestment in a process (such as putting money into increasing production of something at a lower cost) depends on how much profit from the process there is to reinvest.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Friday July 04 2014, @04:52PM
This is part of the problem with minimum wage, but not for the reasons I think you're thinking.
Inflation is the problem here, if the grocery store has to pay the cashier $10/hr more, they're going to pass that cost onto the customer. If I have to pay an extra $100/week for groceries because the store is passing that along to me then I'm going to demand my employer pay me more, as I expect my co-workers would as well. My employer gives me a raise (or fires me) and passes the cost onto their customers, who in turn demand more from their employers. Eventually the system balances out and the people making minimum wage are no further ahead then they were before their $10/hr raise because the cost of living for everyone has gone up. People may not lose their jobs, but they might move somewhere where the cost of living is lower, or they just end up wherever it was they were before the inflation started.
There needs to be a balance between protected people from being exploited (by having a minimum wage) and driving crazy inflation (having too high of a minimum wage)
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday July 04 2014, @05:33PM
It is the problem with minimum wages for EXACTLY the reasons I'm thinking.
Minimum wages are inflationary by definition.
And you are already seeing the effect in places like Seattle which just raised their minimum wage to one of the highest in the country. Even before the full effect of the minimum has hit, landlords are raising rents, restaurants are cutting back on expansion plans, and the price of everything is going up.
And in the end, nobody's situation has been improved. And a lot of people on fixed income will be hurt before its done.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Friday July 04 2014, @10:17PM
No, mean wages tend to be inflationary. And only in those industries for which the wage bill is the significant cost.
It's funny when the executives are awarding themselves ever larger rewards packages, out of proportion to the rest of the workforce, people like you are never speaking out against the because of the inflationary problem. It's not one of the talking points you've been given.
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(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday July 04 2014, @11:33PM
Who says people like me are never speaking out?
Show me a person like me who you know for a fact has never spoken out against high executive wages?
Lets face it, you are just blowing smoke.
But lets get back to the issue. An executive making a bazillion dollars does not raise the price of a meal in a restaurant. But a law indicating that every person working there has to make $15 per hours absolutely does raise the price.
When you cut off the left side of the bell curve, you can not help but be inflationary.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Saturday July 05 2014, @05:04PM
Who says people like me are never speaking out?
Provide me a link when you have... No, I didn't think so.
But lets get back to the issue. An executive making a bazillion dollars does not raise the price of a meal in a restaurant.
Sure it does. Have you seen the prices in the restaurants billionaires frequent? Furthermore there are plenty of things other than restaurant meals that constitute inflation. Most of which don't have the same proportion of labour costs.
But a law indicating that every person working there has to make $15 per hours absolutely does raise the price.
When you cut off the left side of the bell curve, you can not help but be inflationary.
Or when you extend the right edge. But you don't have a problem with that cause of inflation.
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(Score: 1) by jbruchon on Saturday July 05 2014, @04:39AM
Take $200K/year from an executive and spread that $200K across the 1,000 lowest paid workers. Assuming 40 hr/wk and working 50 wk/yr and ignoring taxes entirely, you've just given 1,000 workers an approximate $0.10/hr raise. People love to shout about executive compensation packages, imply that the money should go to raises for workers on the low end of the company pay scale, and never once consider just how infinitesimal the "raise" would actually be once distributed evenly across all the lowest-paid workers. This isn't "talking points," just good old fashioned mathematics in action.
Excessive executive compensation relative to overall company state is an important issue, however it is a largely irrelevant factor for the purpose of discussing the overall state of wages for bottom-rung workers.
I'm just here to listen to the latest song about butts.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Saturday July 05 2014, @04:42PM
The point that you are missing is that $4 a week does make a difference to a person on minimum wage. Far more of a difference than $4K a week to an exec.
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(Score: 1) by jbruchon on Saturday July 05 2014, @05:10PM
Assuming someone's take-home pay at minimum wage is around $6 per hour and they work 20 hours a week, $4 a week constitutes a 3.33% raise. I don't see how the executive compensation distraction is of any value in this light. On top of that, a full-timer would be seeing even less of a percentage raise. This is pointless and solves nothing.
I'm just here to listen to the latest song about butts.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Saturday July 05 2014, @05:21PM
Huh? Are you saying a 3.33% rise vs nothing is irrelevant?
And how is executive compensation a distraction? They are employees too. Why argue against rises for the poor and try to sweep rises for the rich under the carpet?
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(Score: 2) by buswolley on Saturday July 05 2014, @03:55PM
You forgot to factor in the fact that more poor people mean more customers, which means more money to pay employees, which means less need to raise prices, unless they suck as a business and those dollars aren't being spent back at your store. Really your argument sounds better than it really is. All that really happens is that more of that wage money goes to the better businesses, but that is capitalism.
subicular junctures
(Score: 2) by buswolley on Saturday July 05 2014, @04:03PM
Wrong. Put it another way. Inflation comes when there are more dollars relative to goods. More dollars? How do businesses create more dollars by raising wages?? Do businesses have a $$$ printing press? Nope. Not inflationary, because businesses aren't money creators.
Raising minimum wage is wealth transfer to benifit the weakest and most needs in our country. Period.
subicular junctures
(Score: 4, Informative) by tathra on Friday July 04 2014, @04:57PM
reductio ad absurdum doesn't help your case, at best it proves that you dont have any actual facts to back up your side in a debate.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Friday July 04 2014, @05:26PM
Or that the opponent has a silly argument which can be illustrated by a reductio ad absurdum argument.
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @05:38PM
> Or that the opponent has a silly argument which can be illustrated by a reductio ad absurdum argument.
Sure, it can show that, when the reductio fully encompasses the entire system. In this case, frojack is just demonstrating his own limited understanding of the system.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Friday July 04 2014, @10:21PM
But it can't. You can't illustrate that doing something to a ridiculous degree means doing that thing sensibly won't work. Raising the speed limit by 5 mph MIGHT produce more benefits than costs. That cannot be proved false by considering raising the speed limit by 500 mph.
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(Score: 2) by khallow on Friday July 04 2014, @11:44PM
What is a sensible increase in the minimum wage? The typical argument is that more is better without any consideration of the degree. If you're going to grant that there's a certain optimal level of minimum wage, then your society might already be past that optimal level. I gather most minimum wage proponents aren't prepared to consider that.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Saturday July 05 2014, @04:54PM
What is a sensible increase in the minimum wage?
It depends.
What's a sensible amount of food to eat for lunch? It depends. The fact that eating 10,000 calories for lunch every day would kill you of morbid obesity does not mean that eating a sensible amount of food for lunch is a bad idea. And people who promote eating lunch are not saying that any amount of food for lunch is a good thing.
The typical argument is that more is better without any consideration of the degree.
If you mean they don't mention the amount. Then no indeed. A sensible amount is assumed. They are having a discussion not writing legalese to prevent jackasses doing reductio ad absurdum.
If you mean they are claiming that any amount of minimum wage rise is good, then that's wrong. It's a straw man on your part.
If you had a compelling argument against rises in the minimum wage, or better still data, you wouldn't have to present fallacious straw man or reductio ad absurdam arguments.
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(Score: 2) by khallow on Sunday July 06 2014, @12:20AM
So it depends? Reductio ad absurdum applies then for one can say "it depends" to a factor of ten or more increase in minimum wage as to say, a 1% increase in minimum wage.
(Score: 0, Troll) by frojack on Friday July 04 2014, @05:36PM
reductio ad absurdum is a far more valid argument than a very narrow study done with no understanding of economics over a short period of time with cherry picked examples.
What's the matter sweetie, did you flunk out of logic/philosophy classes?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @07:04PM
> reductio ad absurdum is a far more valid argument than a very narrow study done with no understanding of economics
Two stupids don't make a smart.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday July 04 2014, @08:39PM
You've definitely proven your point with that devastating riposte.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @09:16PM
> You've definitely proven your point with that devastating riposte.
That's right, you go ahead and make yourself feel better by flaming an AC.
Seems like whenever you see a stupid, your solution is to just keep adding more stupid.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Friday July 04 2014, @10:23PM
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday July 04 2014, @11:40PM
reductio ad absurdum is FAR from a fallacious argument category.
First recognized and studied in classical Greek philosophy for example in Aristotle's Prior Analytics), this technique has been used throughout history in both formal mathematical and philosophical reasoning, as well as informal debate.
Back to school.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 05 2014, @01:35AM
> reductio ad absurdum is FAR from a fallacious argument category.
Too bad that's not what you were doing.
What you've done is known as a strawman argument. [wikipedia.org] A favorite of the simple-minded because they themselves are so easy to fool, that they fool themselves into thinking they've made a valid argument.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday July 05 2014, @03:36AM
I was accused of reductio ad absurdum, which was exactly what it was, and now you want to move the goal post?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 05 2014, @06:25AM
> I was accused of reductio ad absurdum, which was exactly what it was, and now you want to move the goal post?
I didn't accuse you of that. This isn't a discussion between you and the world where the world is just one person.
But it is unsurprising you would try to apply that illogic in your defense. You see stupid and you think you can fix it by adding more stupid.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday July 04 2014, @09:13PM
And if people are so koch-sure about testing assertions, I propose we lower the minimum wage to 0 dollars and see how long it takes for everyone to work part time at Walmart.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Saturday July 05 2014, @12:52AM
I'm up for that. It's worth noting that modern economies (with a middle class and all that) precede minimum wage. For example, the US didn't implement minimum wage laws until 1938 [wikipedia.org]. Also according to the same page, there are nine EU countries that don't have minimum wage laws.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday July 05 2014, @06:24AM
But did you miss my posited outcome? Not that everyone would be unemployed (that was frojack with the $150 minimum wage), but that everyone would be working for Walmart at a non-subsistence wage: in other words, society at large would be subsidizing low wages with government provided nutrition programs, health services, and all the rest. But your point is well taken. Minimum wages are not always required, and especially not in civilized countries where such things as the moral necessity of a living do not have to be explicitly laid out. Only in extreme situations, such as the Great Depression (or now!), where immoral employers could get people to work for less than subsistence, does the government, as the conscience of the society at large, have to step in a restrain those bastard slavers. But this is only an ideologically informed speculation, right? Like the one where increasing the minimum wage will reduce employment? Or the one where cutting taxes on the most wealthy will actually increase economic activity and thereby raise tax revenues, just like in Kansas. (And of course, the problem with non-subsistence wages that are not subsidized by the government: your employees tend to die. Even slavers are not that stupid. )
(Score: 2) by khallow on Sunday July 06 2014, @12:27AM
I didn't think it relevant (particularly since that wasn't part of the thread scope). But since you mention that, I think that idea is naive and unrealistic. There are a bunch of people who presently are not worth employing at minimum wage. This shows up, for example, as overly large unemployment rates among young people and minorities (particularly, when one is a member of both groups). Raising minimum wage increases the sizes of these groups which are not worth employing.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday July 06 2014, @01:15AM
Thread kind of went off track, which was my point. And my point about the thread going off point was that there is a lot of ideology parading around as economic theory and common sense. How do you know that there are people not worth minimum wage? If that were true, and there was some posited relation between wages and worth, then necessarily would raising the minimum wage have the effect your deduce, just as raising the minimum wage would, per the theory, decrease the number of employed persons. But that is the point, true in theory, absolutely no evidence in reality. Look up Milton Friedman on the F-twist in economic research. Reality may not be the reality some think it is.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Sunday July 06 2014, @03:51AM
Stuff like this [cepr.net]. Just under half of young African Americans are employed according to that link. Similarly, this link cites similar results [cnsnews.com].
And I say we're seeing that.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday July 06 2014, @09:07AM
Oh, excuse me! What I took to be ignorance of economics and scientific method appears to be something much more difficult to reason a person out of.
You can say that, but the original article was arguing the exact opposite, that raising the minimum increases the number of employed persons, and that theoretical explanation of the observable data is just as valid as yours. Once again, results that confirm your biases are not scientific evidence. I am not saying you are wrong, just that you ain't right but there is no way for you to ever see that. You see, if you respond again, you will just be confirming my assumptions about you. Which means that I know you will. Please prove me wrong?
(Score: 2) by khallow on Sunday July 06 2014, @02:09PM
Their data doesn't confirm their conclusions. For example, there was an obvious difference [soylentnews.org] in employment growth between the 4 states that had impromptu increases in minimum wage in 2013 and the 9 states that had predictable inflation-adjustment increases in minimum wage. This difference was significantly larger than the difference between states which had increased minimum wage and those that didn't. The 4 states with impromptu increases actually fared worse, for what that's worth, than the states which had no change in minimum wage.
Second, their data is very limited. Choosing a particular 10 month span in which to study this problem is very susceptible to cherry picking of data. While the increased levels of unemployment among young adults and minorities spans a significantly larger period of time.
Third, they don't have a model for why this works. It's just magic thinking without a basis for why anything should work the way they want it to. OTOH, supply and demand provides a simple model which explains why raising the minimum wage results in a drop in demand for labor at that level. For example, it's not worth paying someone $8 per hour to do a job which delivers $7 per hour. That simple model also explains why the developing world with its large supply of cheap labor is getting most of the new jobs in the world.
There's also secondary effects. If you're not worth employing at minimum wage, then how are you going to get the sort of job experience and such required in order to be worth more? At least in the absence of a minimum wage, you can work for less in order to get valuable job experience and demonstrate that you can hold down a job. That's appealing to employers at that level of the economy who will pay more for someone who can show that they're a good worker than someone who is a complete unknown, perhaps with a criminal record or other negative parts of their lives.
Sure, there is. Rational argument. Dumping a bunch of dogma as fact doesn't convince anyone who wasn't already convinced.
And innuendo too. I cited evidence of groups that face considerably higher levels of unemployment than the general population. What they have in common is factors that are effected by minimum wage laws. If I'm considering an ex-felon or a young adult with no job record for employment at a minimum wage job, then I take less risk, if the minimum wage is lower than if it is higher.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 05 2014, @02:59PM
http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-fallacies/30-appeal-to-extremes [logicallyfallacious.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by tathra on Friday July 04 2014, @04:29PM
well, yes, but when i saw the claim, i expected to see the states increasing minimum wage clustered up at the top, or at least closer together than randomly distributed. the main reason why their growth is higher on average is because there's less of them. half of the states that increased minimum wage are clustered up near the top though, so increased wages do seem to have some effect on job growth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 05 2014, @07:00AM
To put this into perspective for everyone arguing.
This is a difference of ~300 jobs across 100,000 people. Also the economy is just starting to recover from the housing bubble. So you are going to see a very uneven rise and fall in different areas.
http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/ [steshaw.org]
http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/chap19p1.html [steshaw.org]
http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/chap18p1.html [steshaw.org]
The lesson is the broken window fallacy. It means you can not beat the market by trying to play games. Eventually the market will even itself out with the inflation created. Also Notice none of the companies that are forced to raise their rates because of the min wage increase are complaining? Why would that be? As they know a few things. First it would make them look bad (sad CEO sales down). Secondly they can increase prices. On the books to the street it looks like 'record profits this year' (happy ceo record increases in CEO salary).
Many social polices have very short term up side to them. Long term (being 2-3 years) you see the negativity kick in. All econ plans are like this. They assume perfectly good actors and little to no thought about long term issues.
We peons are arguing about what is a small speed bump in overall cost to a company. Meanwhile they are sticking it to us with polices to make them look good and make them wildly richer. Rome burns and we are circling around Nero to critique him on his fiddle playing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @05:08PM
You should've actually read the article, instead of only glancing at the chart:
(Score: 1) by Dachannien on Friday July 04 2014, @06:21PM
It doesn't actually do that, because it's still likely that increasing the minimum wage to, say, $50 per hour would cause chaos in the economy and kill jobs until the resulting rampant inflation works itself out. But it might suggest that increasing minimum wage by a small amount per year (maybe 5-10% per year until it reaches a living wage level, and then pegged to CPI after that) wouldn't kill jobs.
(Score: 2) by naubol on Saturday July 05 2014, @02:47PM
It actually does prove false the statement, "increasing minimum wage kills jobs," because if it is possible to increase the minimum wage without killing jobs, the statement is false. A counterexample here is sufficient. We don't have to prove that it is always wrong.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @07:19PM
...Once the employers (are FORCED to) raise the prices of their
goods to cover the increased labor costs brought about by
the wage increase.
The income gains enjoyed by the employees from the minimum
wage increase WILL evaporate once the higher prices kick
in and we are then back to where we started. :P
As proof, look at the historical increase of the USA minimum
wage over time:
http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/chart.htm [dol.gov]
Here are the biggest gaps of minimum wage increase from that chart:
1981-1-1 to 1990-4-1 (9+ years)
1991-4-1 to 1996-10-1 (5+ years)
1997-9-1 to 2007-7-24 (9+ years -- NEARLY A DECADE!!!)
2009-7-24 to 2014-7-4 (4+ years and counting....)
In 1961, the USA minimum wage was $1.00 an hour.
Per the inflation calculator at:
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ [usinflationcalculator.com]
it should NOW be $7.96 an hour in 2014.
Per
http://www.dol.gov/whd/minimumwage.htm [dol.gov]
it is STILL $7.25 an hour.
I have now proven that it is IMPOSSIBLE to 'get ahead'
when you work for someone else in a subservient
capacity and are consistently paid by them LESS than the
current inflation-adjusted minimum wage.
In the foodservice industry, restaurant owners can LEGALLY pay their waitstaff less
than the minimum wage if the tips left by patrons cover the difference.
Otherwise, the employers pay the difference. Wouldn't it be better all
around in this part of the foodservice industry to properly (under)pay ALL
its employees the going minimum wage and treat any tips recived as bonuses?
Sadly, my guess is that things are this way in that sector of the economy
because otherwise the restaurant owners couldn't afford to stay in business
due to the extra labor costs due to kitchen-to-table service.
By comparison, the fast-food restaurant industry has essentially
the exact same business model as other waitstaff-driven restaurants
and are able to stay in business while (under)paying the (wait)staff
the going minimum wage.
Management ultimately ALWAYS forces labor to do more
with less and for less pay over time while they enjoy
the lion's share of the profits generated by millions
of overworked, overtaxed, underpaid employees--THAT IS
PATENTLY UNFAIR! :P
A resource-based economy keeps looking better and better
to me every day in order for the entire planet to finally
escape from the currently broken, corrupt, destructive,
financially-driven system we have today.
Read more about that here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Venus_Project [wikipedia.org]
http://www.thevenusproject.com/about/resource-based-economy [thevenusproject.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @08:15PM
> In 1961, the USA minimum wage was $1.00 an hour.
>
> Per the inflation calculator at:
>
> http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ [usinflationcalculator.com] [usinflationcalculator.com]
>
> it should NOW be $7.96 an hour in 2014.
In 1968 it was $1.60/hr and by that same calculator it should NOW be over $21/hour.
Anyone can cherry-pick numbers, it is typically a sign that the author is more interested pushing their ideology than in examining reality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @08:41PM
I wanted to use the inflation calculator at
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl [bls.gov]
But it is not working today on 2014-7-4
I guess the Feds turned that webserver off
for the July Fourth holiday. :P
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ [usinflationcalculator.com]
must be using different inflationary data
than the calculator at the first link.
The first inflation calculator link is using
historical data compiled by the US Federal
Government and would give a different
answer than the one from the inflation
calculater at the second link that
I used in the previous post.
Even if the numbers are not as accurate
as I wanted them, they are accurate
enough to prove my point in the post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @09:20PM
> I wanted to use the inflation calculator at...
Are really so dull as to think I was accusing you of cherry-picking the fucking calculator?
Why should anyone listen to a word you have to say after you've just proven that you are literally not the sharpest knife drawer?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 05 2014, @08:14AM
Are you really so stupid to claim someone was cherry-picking data, when your own cherry-picked data showed a much bigger change? It's obvious to anyone with half a brain that if he was cherry-picking he would have chosen your numbers.
With that out of the way, your further data just proves the point more that people are today historically underpaid compared with previous generations.All the gains of productivity etc have gone to those at the top, but it wasn't enough.They still had to scrape more from the poorest working people to build their even bigger yachts.Rich people have no intention of helping the poor make a decent living, the government has to step in and fix the problem.
(Score: -1) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @04:14PM
If companies are still hiring human beings for a number of roles even after the minimum wage has been raised, it's likely because they are unaware that they could automate or outsource the position and save tens of thousands a year: e.g. fast food chains could easily reduce most of their current work force with technology that has been available for many years now. Hopefully the shareholders will take these companies' leadership to account: fiduciary duty means increasing profits, you don't get a pass on that just because you are unfamiliar with technological progress or want to help your community out with jobs.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hoochiecoochieman on Friday July 04 2014, @04:18PM
Yeah, fuck people. People are too expensive. I wish we could have a world with no people, only money. That would be awesome.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Vanderhoth on Friday July 04 2014, @04:40PM
The reason this wouldn't work is because if there are fewer people hired, because they've been replaced with machines, then there are fewer people with money to buy things from those machines. This is most likely the reason it hasn't been done. A large part of the "Walmart/McDonalds" industry is catering to people that only make minimum wage by selling cheap products. If there are fewer people making minimum wage, there are fewer people to sell your products to.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @05:47PM
> because they've been replaced with machines, then there are fewer people with money to buy things from those machines. This is most likely the reason it hasn't been done.
What? You honestly think that businesses which rely on minimum-wage customers aren't trying to cut costs by automation in order to preserve their customer base's financial health? Maybe you don't live in the USA and haven't noticed all the stores replacing cashiers with automated checkouts? Ralphs (or maybe it was Vons they are indstinguishable) has only robot checkouts after 10pm in california. Walmart runs their robo-checkers 24-7. Home depot has been physically reducing the number of human operated checkout-lanes and filling the floor space with more product displays.
Of course businesses are automating as much as they can, they don't give a damn about where their customers get their money from, that's waaaay too disconnected from them to worry about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @06:59PM
but of course, those bloody people with living wages would not buy from Walmart. They only buy items handcrafted by monks living on isolated Pacific islands that are transported inside floating coconuts. Actually we should cut even the minimum wage requirements (in the socialist paradises where they're still law), this way people will have less money, so they'll buy more cheap products. And capitalism will win forever.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Saturday July 05 2014, @12:24AM
Define living wage. In Canada it's not much more than minimum wage, actually social assistance is even comparable. I digress, there's a much larger population of people making minimum wage than making a "living" wage. You can only sell so much crap to people with money, but there's practically an unlimited supply of people making next to nothing. Which is why so much cheap crap is made in China and sold in the states.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday July 05 2014, @06:21AM
A decent living wage (working full time and not being in abject poverty) for a family in Canada is much higher then minimum wage and way higher then disability social assistance, little well basic social assistance. Here it is basically $17.02 an hour compared to the minimum wage of $10.25 and increased 4% over last year. Of course if you want to save for retirement, your childs education, take a holiday, pay of your loans, buy a home or look after your elderly parent it is much higher.
http://vibrantabbotsford.ca/projects/living-wage/ [vibrantabbotsford.ca]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @04:26PM
This data is in conflict with my world view! Who do I have to attack to suppress it?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Friday July 04 2014, @04:42PM
Ok, these are studies supposedly of the short term effects of minimum wage increases, but I see several flaws. First, it doesn't actually measure employment around the increase, unless the increase happens to occur at the year boundary. Second, there's no consideration of the degree of increase. Reading through the report, I see this:
Three of the four states that passed legislation ended up at the bottom of the group of these 13 states by employment increase (with all three below the employment increase rate of the states which didn't increase minimum wage). The other nine states, which had automatic minimum wage increases fared far better. At a glance, the states without current minimum wage increases improved by 0.68%, the 13 states above with any sort of minimum wage increase by 0.99%, the 9 states with automatic, inflation adjusted schemes by 1.19% (my calculation), and the 4 states with impromptu minimum wage hikes by 0.34% (my calculation). There is a very pronounced apparent difference in outcome there which may or may not be relevant (this is after all very small sample sizes).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @05:04PM
Was there an actual study? As far as I can tell, its just them taking the facts and making a statement about the data. It does show that studies should be done in this area, but as we all know, the people who most need to hear the results of those studies are the best at starting from conclusions and ignoring facts.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Friday July 04 2014, @08:53PM
Interestingly there is a plausible mechanism for that - decreasing uncertainty and risk.
Increasing employment implies expansion and _investment_. Investment decisions are made (well, sometimes :-)) taking into account risk, and increasing cost of employees is a risk. If the increase is automatic, then the cost - although increased - is _known_ and a risk is eliminated, possibly increasing the chance of investment being made.
On the other hand, even in the states that did not actually increase, there may have been a risk that they would - a risk that might postpone or dissuade investment.
Of course, that is what happens when the economy is generally growing - in a recession or depression an automatic increase may work the other way and employers may cut back staff sooner because they _know_ that wage costs will increase.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Theophrastus on Friday July 04 2014, @04:45PM
give a dollar to less rich person and you'll see more of that dollar spent in your immediate market. give a dollar to a rich person (CEO, investment banker, oligarch, tech billionaire) and you'll see very little to zilchmo of that dollar returned to the local market. (the less rich person can't afford to invest it in overseas factory futures) so, (by this means), do we come to understand how putting more money in the hands of those with less money does more for your local economy [Stephen Colbert hand dusting gesture]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday July 04 2014, @05:32PM
Consider yourself up-modded. It shouldn't be rocket science, but the above doesn't seem to be appreciated by too many people in decision-making positions. It's the fallacy of trickle-down economics, which deep down has never been anything but the economics of greed.
And I say that as someone relatively rich in a fairly poor country, who tries to make sure as much of my expenditure as possible is into the hands of local companies, and even local market traders. (Who sorted me out with a stunning piece of tenderloin yesterday, probably the best I've had in my life. Beef tartare, and steak for the rest of the weekend for me and my g/f! And that includes breakfast - it was huge!)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by khallow on Friday July 04 2014, @07:42PM
Give a dollar to the rich and you'll see it invested. Give it to the poor and you'll see it transferred to the rich and then invested. If your economy is so unattractive that you can't keep investment, then you will have problems no matter who you give the money to.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday July 05 2014, @06:53AM
Give a dollar to the rich and they will invest it in China to decrease costs. Give it to the poor and they will spend it locally, it'll pass through a few hands enhancing the local economy before it is transferred to the rich and invested in another country.
If another country treats its people as shit or even just has a much lower cost of living and free trade agreements allow money to be invested overseas then you have problems, especially if the rich of that other country are driving up the local cost of living. (Here the Chinese upper classes are driving up housing prices to insane levels where most employed people can't afford a home)
(Score: 2) by khallow on Sunday July 06 2014, @12:31AM
The point here is that keeping investment is far more powerful than giving out money to the poor. You aren't enhancing the local economy, but merely prolonging by a little bit the departure of wealth from your society by choosing who you pass the wealth on to.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dry on Sunday July 06 2014, @04:58AM
We're not talking about giving money to the poor, we're talking about paying people who are working full time a living wage. You know, enough money to meet basic needs, maintain a decent standard of living and participate as equal members of society. Hopefully eventually they get even better paying jobs that allow things like vacations, saving for retirement (a living wage would mean a couple of weeks of emergency funds), paying off student loans and other debt and perhaps caring for the aging relative.
Besides the obvious benefits of having everyone feeling like they are part of society rather then outside and sucking resources, whether through government assistance or crime they'd be spending money in the local economy. While as you say, the wealth is going to depart eventually at least it would do some good first.
Having tons of money tied up in the Canary Islands doesn't really help the local citizens of N. America and as the last decade has shown, the rich getting richer hasn't improved things for the average person, little well the lower then average.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Monday July 07 2014, @02:44AM
Unless they lose their job. And where's the long term incentive to invest in these more expensive employees? You have to stop eating the seed corn at some point.
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday July 07 2014, @03:53AM
The long term incentive is to have higher employee loyalty, productivity, lower absenteeism, less employee turnover and saving money by not having to hire and train new employees.
We're not talking about eating the seed corn, rather using it to grow corn for eating and having more seed corn.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Monday July 07 2014, @08:37PM
The same long term incentives exist in the absence of a minimum wage. People aren't going to jump ship just because someone out there is earning less than a certain arbitrary amount.
Further, this actually has advantages. Someone who is willing to work cheap demonstrates a number of positive traits which an employer would like. The employer can thus pay more to keep those who demonstrate such fitness. Unpaid interns do this all the time, I might add, so it's not some alien thing that businesses won't touch.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday July 08 2014, @05:15AM
Of course they are, with that arbitrary amount varying but basically less then what is needed to live. Witness the 2 million plus prison population in the States and remember that most criminals don't get caught.
Would you work for less then it costs you to eat? At least for an extended time.
I wouldn't hire someone who was willing to work too cheap, with the exception of perhaps a kid or someone who wasn't working for their livelihood.
Unpaid interns are one of the most abused positions there are. Though the idea of working cheap or even for free for a short while to learn enough to get paid more is fine. I've even offered to do it in the past, no employer accepted.
Perhaps you dream of going back to slave labour or an economy like Qatar where the labour abuse reaches amazing highs.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Tuesday July 08 2014, @01:35PM
You'll have to take my word for it, but I'm rolling my eyes. You can live on a lot less than minimum wage. Buy bulk food, live with a bunch of people, etc. In addition, low wages aren't a permanent state of affairs. If you can show that you're a good worker and you pick up some skills, then you can earn more than bottom of the barrel wages. OTOH, if you're a shitty worker who can't be bothered to learn the basics like how to show up to work on time or when not to take recreational drugs, then I can't be bothered to care.
It's worth noting that there are a fair number of people who can actually afford to work for less than starvation wages. That's because they have a second income source. Most teenagers fall into this category (their parent(s) work), for example.
Further, we need to remember that the actual minimum wage is zero dollars per hour. If you're not working at all, then you can't pay for your own food, place to live, etc and you're even more stuck than if you have a job that at least makes ends meet.
Of course not. Because I don't have to and I'm pretty cheap to feed as well.
Well, you have to put the people who aren't worth hiring at minimum wage somewhere. Prison is one of the big places where the perpetually unemployed go.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday July 07 2014, @05:36AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by khallow on Tuesday July 08 2014, @01:59PM
Minimum wage doesn't create more experienced companies or employees.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday July 08 2014, @03:50PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by khallow on Tuesday July 08 2014, @07:11PM
Exploting workers does not create experienced companies or employees.
That's a separate issue from minimum wage. You really ought to look into all these hidden assumptions you are making. A certain level of pay doesn't make exploitation. Nor is exploitation of workers automatically something which proscribes experienced companies or employees. After all, any employer can be considered to exploit their employees. That is the whole point of employment - exploitment in exchange for wages.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday July 08 2014, @07:32PM
No, it isn't.
"A certain level of pay doesn't make exploitation."
What an absurd thing to say... Yes, it most certainly and obviously does. You'd seriously have to be unaware of cost-of-living to assert something like that.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @05:31PM
Apparently when people are paid enough to buy things, they buy things. This lets other people get paid more to buy things.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Friday July 04 2014, @06:15PM
You know the saying: there are lies, damned lies and statistics. By carefully defining your terms and picking your data, you can prove just about anything.
I don't have the time or interest to analyse the report in detail, to see whether or not they have played games with the numbers. However, I do note that the organization that published this report is also an organization that campaigns for minimum wage increases, so they are not exactly a neutral source for analysis.
Just a couple of points that they do not address:
- Is any of this seasonal? They only look at the first five months of the year, and different states will have different seasonal patterns.
- They do not compare to previous years. California leads the pack - do they lead the pack every year? Are these results better or worse than expected based on previous years?
- What is the definition of unemployment? The federal government makes unemployment figures look artificially low by removing anyone who has given up finding employment (see "Shadow Stats" for a more realistic view). A state with many long-term unemployed people may show a decrease in unemployment as discouraged job-seekers are taken off the books.
Maybe the news really is good, but the study does not seem to address any of these difficult issues - it looks more like a propaganda piece...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Tuesday August 26 2014, @07:15PM
If they raise minimum wage, they raise rent. Either way you live check to check. Shit is getting fucking crazy. Fuck the man.
Day is neverendin.. Massah got me working.... Some day massah set me free.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A