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posted by martyb on Friday May 18 2018, @02:50AM   Printer-friendly
from the Mo'-Money dept.

An article in Australian newspaper The Age describes a paper just released by the Reserve Bank of Australia which has found that periodic increases in the Minimum Wage (also known as the "Award" wage in Australia) did not negatively affect the level of employment in each respective industry:

The paper, published by the central bank's economic research department on the final day the Fair Work Commission hearings had to decide if 2.3 million Australians will get a pay rise in July, found "no evidence that small, incremental increases in award wages had an adverse effect on hours worked or the job destruction rate".

It used a sample of 32,000 jobs between 1998 and 2008, when award wages were increased by a flat dollar amount each year, to find jobs with larger award wage rises had larger increases in hours worked than jobs experiencing a smaller award wage rise.

"I am able to rule out adverse effects on hours worked. I also find that award wage increases do not have a statistically significant effect on the job destruction rate," said researcher James Bishop.

"If anything, the point estimates suggest that the job destruction rate actually declines when the award wage is increased."

[...] The RBA paper said their results may not "necessarily generalise to large, unanticipated changes in award wages", cautioned it only included adult positions, and that the consequences of wage increases may "be borne by job seekers, rather than job holders".

"There will always be some point at which a minimum wage adjustment will begin to reduce employment," the paper stated.

Naturally, this is proving problematic for some politicians who have been advocating against increases in the minimum wage due to fears that this will harm business.

Link to Abstract and Paper (pdf).


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Touché) by c0lo on Friday May 18 2018, @11:38AM (1 child)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 18 2018, @11:38AM (#681111) Journal

    Heh! khallow dixit ex cathedra: 'It's the minimum wage that is the root of all evil! That's an axiom you are not allowed to contest, I don't need to present any argument for it'.

    The irony of it? He's doing it in spite of a research paper that shows the contrary.
    Even more, he's doing it in the face of someone (me) who lives in the very country the study was made in and who directly experienced no problems with the existence of a minimum wage, its level and increase over time (actually over a period longer than the one the study draw it's data from)

    Are you having an attack of 'Papal infallibility syndrome', khallow? You know, when you feel your decrees must .. mmm ... trump the reality?

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
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  • (Score: 1, Troll) by khallow on Saturday May 19 2018, @01:31AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday May 19 2018, @01:31AM (#681467) Journal

    'It's the minimum wage that is the root of all evil! That's an axiom you are not allowed to contest, I don't need to present any argument for it'

    Well, you are skilled at straw man arguments. My thinking however is that if your health issues are aggravated by some arsenic medicine you are taking (it doesn't have to cause the problems in the first place, let us note), then taking more of it is not going to improve things.