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).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 18 2018, @12:21PM (5 children)
The "we didn't need those jobs anyway" argument. Why is it your place to decide what jobs are worth doing?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday May 18 2018, @01:14PM (4 children)
Why should be you to decide there are jobs that, to work in them, one need to lose money for every hour you are working in such a job?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 19 2018, @01:38AM (3 children)
Sorry, that's stupid. If someone is losing money in a job, then they won't do it. It's not complicated.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mykl on Monday May 21 2018, @06:16AM (2 children)
Interns.
People will put up with slave-like conditions on the promise of a better life later. Sadly, this often turns out to not be the case, and these people end up trapped in an economic death-spiral.
Minimum Wage helps to avoid these traps, and ensures that the lower levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs [wikipedia.org] are met, providing the opportunity for everyone to aspire to greater things rather than being trapped by circumstance.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 21 2018, @01:15PM
Amazing how adding "economic" in front of the word neuters it.
Not at all, since unpaid internships and unemployment exists even in the presence of a minimum wage.
Except where it has the opposite effect. Encouraging people to living in expensive cities just to have a minimum wage job is not meeting needs.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 21 2018, @02:28PM
In other words, they expect a lot more from the effort than merely something to do for a few months. It's a gamble, thus, doesn't always work out. So what?
Another problem with this assertion is that somehow one can only gamble once. Let us keep in mind that one can still get a regular job. An internship is still useful work experience. And sorry, the kind of people who do internships are nowhere near poverty level. They might be behind a little in wages to someone who didn't bother with the internship, but they're not "death spiraling".