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posted by martyb on Sunday July 30 2017, @06:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the Lies,-Damned-Lies,-and-Statistics dept.

"In what has become a running joke amongst those skeptical of the claim that minimum wage increases have no effect on unemployment, a recent report by the Employment Policies Institute showed that 174 of the 184 co-sponsors of a bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour hired unpaid interns."

"In a review of over 100 studies, economists David Neumark and William Wascher found that,A sizable majority of the studies surveyed ... give a relatively consistent (although not always statistically significant) indication of negative employment effects of minimum wages. In addition, among the papers we view as providing the most credible evidence, almost all point to negative employment effects, both for the United States as well as for many other countries." http://www.nber.org/papers/w12663.pdf

"Yes, minimum wages still do increase unemployment."

https://mises.org/blog/seattles-minimum-wage-supporters-ignore-facts


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @06:19PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @06:19PM (#546754)

    The fundamental problem with FDR's argument is that it does not recognize that the "subsistence level" is not the same for all people. Someone who has few living expenses can work for lower wages. So can someone who is able to live on their savings while they learn something new, or someone who is of retirement age but doesn't have enough savings to fully retire. Perhaps they are not very productive, or perhaps the work they want to do is not very valuable. It is damaging to eliminate those jobs by enforcing a minimum wage. The idea that it is evil for a company to specialize in employing people in that situation is wrong. The company is simply filling a niche.

    Even the idea that work must be paid by the hour does not make sense. Some work is that way, Wallmart greeters, receptionists, and security guards being good examples. Food harvesting is not. The value of the work is mostly in the quantity of produce harvested, and the time component is actually inverted: it is valuable to spend less time per unit produced so that crops don't spoil.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31 2017, @12:35AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31 2017, @12:35AM (#546899)

    Not really, subsistence level is where you produce everything yourself. The level that minimum wages are aiming for are where people have food, shelter and the basic necessities of life, but little else. It's supposed to be a temporary situation for people either entering the workforce for the first time or possibly retirees that aren't counting on the income so much as needing something to fill the hours will.

    There's relatively little difference from person to person with the exception of healthcare costs andamount of food that one needs.

    The problem though is that there are fewer and fewer jobs that pay more than minimum wage, which makes it increasingly tough to fight your way up each rung because most of the money and wealth is now controlled by a small number of people that bribe politicians to let them keep it and more.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31 2017, @01:07AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31 2017, @01:07AM (#546910)

      there are fewer and fewer jobs that pay more than minimum wage

      To paraphrase Pastor Niemöller: [wikipedia.org]

      First they came for the wages of the burger flippers, and I did not speak out
      ...because I was not a burger flipper.

      Then they came for the wages of the warehouse workers, and I did not speak out
      ...because I was not a warehouse worker.

      Then they came for the wages of the teachers, and I did not speak out
      ...because I was not a teacher.

      Then they came for my wages
      ...and there was no one left to speak for me.

      .
      Trickle-down is actually a thing--but, like sewage trickling down from busted plumbing, it's only bad stuff that finds its way downward.

      Solidarity is the only tool that has ever been effective for The Workers.
      ...unless you want to do what they did in France in 1789 and start chopping off the heads of The Ownership Class.

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 31 2017, @12:25PM (1 child)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 31 2017, @12:25PM (#547109) Journal

      The problem though is that there are fewer and fewer jobs that pay more than minimum wage

      As an aside, the higher you make minimum wage, the more and more jobs that will pay it - in addition to the more and more illegal jobs that pay less than minimum wage.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31 2017, @03:47PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31 2017, @03:47PM (#547200)

        Yes, and what does that have to do with anything? Nobody is complaining about it because it's the minimum wage, we're complaining about it because people with full time minimum wage jobs can't afford luxuries like food and shelter and have little to no hope of saving money in case an emergency shows up. And this is at the same time when the richest haven't had it so good in a century.

        We've got the money to do the right thing, but apologists like you like to blame the people who have the least influence over the system. I'm sure your mother is very proud of what a good brown shirt you've grown up to be.