The NYT reports that in a unanimous vote, the Seattle City Council went where no big-city lawmakers have gone before, raising the local minimum wage to $15 an hour, more than double the federal minimum, and pushing Seattle to the forefront of urban efforts to address income inequality. "Even before the Great Recession a lot of us have started to have doubt and concern about the basic economic promise that underpins economic life in the United States," says Council Member Sally J. Clark. "Today Seattle answers that challenge." High-tech, fast-growing Seattle, population 634,535, is home to Amazon.com, Zillow, and Starbucks. It also has more than 100,000 workers whose incomes are insufficient to support their families, according to city figures and around 14% of Seattle's population lives below the poverty level. Some business owners have questioned the proposal saying that the city's booming economy is creating an illusion of permanence. "We're living in this bubble of Amazon, but that's not going to go on," says businessman Tom Douglas. "There's going to be some terrific price inflation."
Related Stories
Furthermore, since we don't log IP addresses in access.log, and IP's run through Slash are turned into IPIDs, its hard to get an idea of where our userbase is (the general feeling is the vast majority of us are based in the United States, but even then, that's more because our peak hours of traffic are between 4 and 10 PM EST). We've wanted to get a better idea of what our traffic and userbase are, so we're asking permission from the community to install piWik, and embed its javascript tag in the footer of each page, which will give us a wide berth of solid information to work from.
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: 3, Interesting) by isostatic on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:30AM
There's going to be some terrific price inflation.
They always say this. I remember the arguments against a minimum wage in the first place in the UK.
Even if it were true. Prices go up, wages go up, house prices go up, business value go up.
Rich people with money under the mattress lose out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:39AM
Even if it were true....it is true. Money under the mattress is worth less because money is worth less.
But iz all cool! Soon youze be buyin yoself a Hundred Dollar Big Mac.
(Score: 2) by hoochiecoochieman on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:48AM
Ah, the inflation bogeyman! I can't sleep because I'm so afraid of it!
Come on, dude! That's so old it's not even funny.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:54AM
But iz all cool! Soon youze be buyin yoself a Hundred Dollar Big Mac.
Which is fine, assuming I'm on $1000 an hour.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:58AM
Why should anyone pay you $1000 an hour when there are a thousand Chinese, Indians, and Mexicans who are willing to work for $50 an hour?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:34PM
Have you eaten a Chinese hamburger? Like to try one after its been floating over the ocean for a few weeks on it's way to you?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:47PM
Ancient Chinese Secret: keep frozen until ready to heat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:54PM
I'm going to take that as a no then.
PS. have you seen many cows in China?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday June 06 2014, @02:20AM
No, but I bet once the hamburgers start flowing across the ocean, there'll be fewer Chinese. ;)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:51PM
Same problem affects the average person right now, but it's $10 an hour vs 50c an hour, so to the average person, who gives a crap if the dollar deflates.
The big problems are
1) People with savings lose out. Big whoop, they aren't contributing to society right now, and they have left society in a mess.
2) Imports get expensive. Big whoop, means that joe sixpack finds out he actually afford a 60" OLED 3D 4K TV to replace his 3 year old 50" one.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by githaron on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:41AM
Correction, anyone with any savings loses out.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:47AM
Youze be riich ifan youze gots any savins! Giv all yur money to Obama, richie richer!!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:03PM
Money is an illusion. It's a proxy for work. All the money in the world won't help your old age if the nurse isn't willing to wipe your hoarding ass, or a doctor isn't trained to treat your stroke.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by youngatheart on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:33PM
Money is an illusion, but it sure becomes a useful one when you have enough of it. I have savings now and a 401k and when inflation decreases the value of my income, my savings will also increase how rapidly it increases. What's more, I'll get raises every year to compensate. Inflation isn't so dangerous when you have investments to make more money for you as interest rates rise.
You know who didn't have savings and investments to offset the pain of inflation? Me, when I worked for minimum wage and for quite a few years after that.
Minimum wage increases always even out over time so that people who saw a wage increase have the same buying power as they did before the change, (I had an economics professor who had us do the research to see) but there is a temporary offset to move money from those who have more to those who have less. That's why tying the minimum wage to an inflation index is either genius or madness. I honestly suspect madness because otherwise I think Obama would have gotten it pushed through. I think some uber-economic-geeks sat in a meeting with him and showed him how accurate their predictions of previous economic changes were and the terrible things that would happen if he actually managed to get it done. So he can still say he is in favor of it publicly, he just can't actually implement it.
This is an interesting experiment. I'm many states away from the epicenter, so I doubt the increase will have any measurable effect on our inflation rates here. That means that maybe doing it on a city by city basis could actually work to move money in that city from those who have more to those who have less without suffering the same rates of inflation. There are a few very real dangers: it could decrease the attractiveness of the city to businesses, it could increase the unemployment rates as lower paying jobs that can relocate are moved out of the city, it could incentivize automation to replace humans with what are now less expensive machines by comparison.
Since I'm pretty confident this won't hurt me or my family, I'm happy to see this happen. If it hurts them, then at least the rest of the country doesn't pay, but if it helps then maybe more cities can do the same thing.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hoochiecoochieman on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:53PM
A city that depends on minimum-wage jobs to be competitive is already a hopeless shithole, anyway.
As to automation, as it increases productivity, employed people can work less hours and still be paid the same.
The enormous automation we've been having since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution made it possible for us to work less and live in the comfort we have now. As long as the increases in productivity are socialised, the whole society benefits from automation.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:02PM
Wow, that's hopelessly naive. It hasn't happened in the last x decades, what make you think it will now?
The rich capitalists get richer and the poor get paid less and less, have to work 2 jobs to survive so the bosses can get their quarterly bonuses.
(Score: 2) by hoochiecoochieman on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:17PM
So what? Blame the fucked-up redistribution system, not the technological advances. These will happen anyway. Trying to fight them will not make it better for anyone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @04:22PM
Who's fighting the technological advances?
The poor or less skilled can still work low end jobs and be paid a decent amount and have a life. The rich will just have to settle for 3 jets instead of 4.
It's got nothing to do with redistribution, it's just greed from the already rich keeping all of the gains from the advances and not passing anything on to anyone else. If there was only some way to change that, like say a minimum wage or something. But that's absurd, just the crazed rantings of an anti-technology luddite right?
(Score: 2) by hoochiecoochieman on Thursday June 05 2014, @04:35PM
I guess you didn't understand my point. I'm all for redistribution, and a minimum salary is a pretty good way of doing it (but not enough).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @04:48PM
Perhaps we need a maximum wage, based as a percentage of what they pay as a minimum and number of employees.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hoochiecoochieman on Thursday June 05 2014, @05:00PM
I've been reading about stuff like that. I think it may be a good idea, it would surely put an end to the top salary extravaganza that's been going on in the latest years. Maybe not limit the top salaries, but increasingly tax it, making it prohibitively expensive for a company to pay millions of dollars to its CEO while keeping the janitor below the poverty line.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @09:14PM
This is what pisses the people who make the rules off. You come across like an angst filled teen who has no idea what it takes to be successful and thinks that the right way to fix the world is to steal from the rich and give to the poor. It sounds an awful lot like simple jealousy. In reality I know nothing about you, but (check Anonymous is ticked) from your comments I'm certain you're a pothead who gets pissed off because you can't have the shiny toys your neighbor does. I believe you would be happier to see your neighbor poor even if you got nothing.
Want to impress me? Give your own income to the poor, not once but regularly. Be poorer so that people who have less than you get more. Give enough that you can't afford Internet access or transportation so that people who have no running water in their village can improve their standard of living. When you are actually poor so that the truly impoverished don't suffer so much, I will listen. But until then, your self righteous and hypocritical theory that people who are successful should be punished will fall on ears exactly as deaf as they should be.
And get off my lawn you dirty hippy!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 06 2014, @02:35AM
And you come across as a monied asshole who never had to work a day in his life. Who build those roads and schools and universities and hospitals? You? Or poor people just trying to get by who are paid less and less? Let me guess your generation had a middle class and if you worked hard and had a basic job things were ok. Well that same job now pays only a 1/3 what it used to, and there are more and more people chasing those jobs so you would be lucky to even get one. So your dad worked a middle class job and your mum could stay at home and look after you and your brothers and sisters. Try doing that nowadays on 1 median wage. It probably isn't jealousy but simple frustration with people like you who had it so easy, but think they had it so hard. Think back over your life, and plug in todays numbers for wages/unemployment/etc and think how differently your life would have turned out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 06 2014, @01:44PM
Good points. I guess I do sound like that. It's interesting because I'm pretty much the opposite, I grew up in poverty, managed to get some college but couldn't afford to finish and moved straight into doing the two job thing. I've also moved several states to get a low paying job (I think it was minimum wage plus a dollar.) No, dad and mom both worked and we always had enough to eat, though rarely more. And I have looked at the numbers and they're no worse for a graduate today than they were for me, but then I'm probably not as old as you think I am either.
That is what makes this response so interesting. I appear to be pretty much the exact opposite of who I am to a self entitled kid who wants everybody else to provide for him. I'm not sure I could ask for a better response.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday June 06 2014, @10:56PM
Man, I wish I had the numbers in front of me...I did some analysis of a couple possible tax schemes a while back.
The absolute best is actually a form of the flat tax. It's freakin' genius, and progressives need to get on that shit because the Tea Party types will LOVE to hear proposals for a flat tax. But...it's not REALLY a flat tax. Flat tax with an exemption. Believe it or not, the idea did come from some conservative think-tank or something. Anyway, the basic idea is you have something like a 50% flat tax, but your first $30,000 of income is tax-exempt. So if you're on minimum wage, you pay no taxes. Makes sense, since we're generally giving these people money in the form of food stamps and social security, so why tax them just to give it back? If you're at the top, you pay 50%. Depending on the effect you want you can toy with those numbers, maybe even go for 90% flat tax with a $50,000 exemption or something if you want to get closer to a maximum wage. Which would be my ideal, but you'd probably have to start lower to get the damn thing passed.
The only problem is that the effective tax rate then ramps up REALLY fast and then flattens off toward the top, but it's still a hell of a lot better than what we have in place now.
When I looked at this I think 50% with $30,000 exempt was about what I used, and I ended up getting the same revenue we currently do...but census data puts everyone above $100k into the same bracket, which I fixed at an assumed $100k to be conservative. So in reality those numbers would probably increase revenue very significantly, and you could almost certainly use an even higher exemption.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 06 2014, @12:07AM
In 1942, Franklin Roosevelt wanted a 100 percent marginal tax rate [google.com] on the excessive incomes of what today would be billionaires.
He settled for 94 percent.
During Ike's administration it was 91 percent.
JFK's: 70 percent.
Historically, when tax rates on the richest have been 50 percent or higher, the USA has had a prosperous working class and national stability.
Rates below that mark are soon accompanied by economic slumps. [firedoglake.com]
Reagan ran us onto the rocks in his second term.
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:08PM
That would be every single city on the planet. It's not that the only reason somebody goes there is to have minimum wages, it's that the businesses that serve the other businesses that really drive the growth of the city survive on minimum wage workers.
Consider, for example, New York City, not exactly a hopeless case: Sure, it's the Wall Street types bringing in huge gobs of money that makes the whole thing work. But one reason the Wall Street types are comfortable working in New York City is because there's somebody to make and deliver their coffee and 3-martini lunches and Chinese takeout for them, and somebody to keep their building clean, and security guards to keep everyone reasonably safe, and so forth. And those businesses might be serving an upper-crust and not be as price sensitive and be able to pay their people pretty well for their services, but the people who do those jobs need to live somewhere and eat and somehow get to work and take care of their kids, so they in turn need a bunch of businesses that are very price sensitive, and pay their people minimum wage.
Now, I think overall this will work out well for Seattle, but it's not a sure bet, and that's part of why.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:31PM
How wrong I was when I didn't believe them telling me America is an alien planet.
I guess a single counterexample [theatlantic.com] would suffice?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3) by khallow on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:04PM
Ok, where is that single counterexample? I note that there are numerous reasons why your link is not an actual counterexample. First, it has nothing to do with minumum wage, but rather the equally dubious idea of paying people to work less (maybe same wage per unit hour but greater non-wage benefits per hour). Second, it hasn't actually been implemented. This idea still has to sneak past the people with common sense. Third, even if it is ever implemented, we'll have to run the experiment for a few years at least in order to see how badly it fails. And fourth, by then, you'll have completely forgotten about your "counterexample".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 06 2014, @04:18AM
How is it that the "counterexample" gets modded up to +5 when even a cursory glance at the link shows that it is not an example at all?
Please mod parent up.
(Score: 2) by hoochiecoochieman on Thursday June 05 2014, @04:27PM
Well, just in case, I went for some fact-checking. And guess what? You're wrong. At least at the country level. Please compare these two indexes and try to find that relation you're talking about.
The relation is not clear, but if there's any, I'd say it's quite the opposite, places with higher minimum salaries tend to be more competitive. Which makes sense, because you're not very competitive when you're starving.
Global Competitiveness Report [wikipedia.org]
List of minimum wages by country [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by khallow on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:07PM
The Global Competitiveness Report has nothing to do with competitiveness. It's not a serious metric either. Finally, I bet they have several dubious measures tied directly to the minimum wage which would be a case of circular reasoning.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:51PM
Correction: It's a proxy for work for most of us poor schlubs. For rich people, it's a proxy for their ability to invest successfully.
At the risk of being seen as a dirty commie, here's Karl Marx's idea of what happened, described in the first section of Capital:
1. People originally made all their own stuff, or operated under a command economy depending on which cave man had made himself in charge by force or popular acclaim.
2. People started realizing that specializing could improve productivity, and barter is born: Og is better at making spearpoints, Mook is better at throwing them at mammoths, so Og will trade spearpoints for Mook's mammoth meat.
3. Because bartering gets really complicated when there are a lot of commodities out there being traded, eventually everyone decided to use just one commodity for bartering all the time. This commodity, such as gold, became money. And so now Og would go to a market, sell his spearpoints (a commodity) for money, then use his money to buy Mook's mammoth meat (another commodity), or what Marx shortens to C-M-C. In this scenario, money is indeed a proxy for work.
4. Some people are able to collect more money than others and build up savings. Others are not. For the sake of example, some new guy Clob has been able to collect money, whereas Mook and Og have not.
5. Those with money start finding for ways to turn money into more money without doing the work of making a commodity themselves. For example, if Mook doesn't have any money for spearpoints, and Clob has money, Clob might tell Mook "I'll buy your spearpoints, you go out hunting for mammoths and give me 1/4 of the money you make from the meat to pay me back." So Clob has used his money to buy some commodities (Og's spearpoints) in exchange for what he hopes will be a larger quantity of money (1/4 of Mook's meat sales). As soon as this happens, at least some of Clob's money doesn't represent Clob's work, but rather how much of Mook's work Clob is able to collect, and now the pattern is M-C-M' rather than C-M-C. This use of money is what Marx termed "capital".
Not part of Marx's analysis but also quite relevant: Once you introduce the concept of family inheritance, Clob's no-good son Fob might well be collecting a great deal of money from the work of Mook and other people like him, while doing absolutely no real work himself.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 3, Informative) by fadrian on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:24PM
And, to add on what a more recent Capital (Piketty's) had to say, the reason why inequality grows is that returns from labor (g) are much smaller than returns from capital (r). When r > g, inequality grows because capital begets capital more quickly than labor does.
That is all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @10:54PM
His 700-page scholarly work shortened into 1 page. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [theguardian.com]
tl;dr: People who make their money from labor (the working class) slip farther behind every day; people who make ALL their money from money (aristocratic capitalists) are the only ones who advance.
Hard work doesn't get you squat.
The elites are just laughing at your puny efforts to "make it".
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:41PM
Is it still an illusion if 99% of the people in the country believe it?
Not really sure how your comment is meant to change anything about my life, either. Or is this just the equivalent of "money sux" and I'm supposed to shut up and nod?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by starcraftsicko on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:57PM
That's an overstatement.
The nature of inflation is that asset prices increase along with everything else. Admittedly some increase or change at different rates than others, but that's true regardless of minimum wage policy.
If you have your savings invested in cash (in a mattress), or in cash equivalents, or in fixed rate debt instruments, you'll take a hit. But inflation is not an overnight phenomenon in the US, so you'll have time to make adjustments as long as you can remember where you buried the money.
This post was created with recycled electrons.
(Score: 5, Informative) by hoochiecoochieman on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:52AM
That will be good, then they'll be pressured to invest it, instead of sleeping on it, which is what they're doing now.
Modern society is tailored to favour the unproductive ultra-rich at the expense of everyone else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:39PM
they'll be pressured to invest it
One hopes, but a lot of that is offshore in tax havens because the tax savings are greater than what legit investment would bring.
Only when countries stop bidding down their tax rates will this stop.
The race to the bottom works for some nations. 8-(
Now, if you, Mr. Working Stiff, are investing, keep your money as *local* as possible.
Get the Multiplier Effect working for *your* community if at all possible.
...and when you make PURCHASES, try to buy as locally as possible.
If the item itself isn't produced locally, try to get the one that uses raw materials|partial assembly|whatever that are supplied by your municipality|county|state|region|country.
OTOH, if you go to WallyWorld to buy your stuff, most of your cash leaves your locality and goes to the fat cats in Bentonville.
The local multiplier effect is minimal.
The Multiplier Effect is what everybody in this thread so far has missed.
These workers are NOT going to sit on their pay increase; they are going to SPEND it.
In turn, the people who get the money from that purchase are going to SPEND it. etc. etc.
If done right (see above), this can snowball nicely in your locale.
-- gewg_
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Dunbal on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:10PM
No rich people on the whole don't lose out. They own stock. They have investments. They own businesses. The ones who really lose out are the elderly. Those who are forced to live off savings, pensions and or fixed income. They always lose out.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:42PM
Indeed. The rich people will get to raise prices to match or exceed inflation, while making sure payroll lags behind inflation.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:46PM
While having a decent minimum wage is a good idea, it is no substitute for providing conditions which lead to a strong middle-class and social mobility to those with the drive and work-ethic.
What I sense is going on here is that a raised minimum wage will be underhandedly phased in as a permanent replacement of middle-class salaries as the economy goes to shit and the rich get richer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:07PM
What about poor people living rich by borrowing money?
(Score: 2) by khallow on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:19PM
And then they have to raise the minimum wage again.
business value go up.
Value != price. That's the fundamental lesson of inflation.
Rich people with money under the mattress lose out.
Anyone who has to pay capital gains tax loses out. Sure, that's mostly the rich, but it's a lot bigger group than merely the mattress-stuffers. And there are a lot of dumb regulations (in addition to capital gains taxes) that don't take into account inflation. For example, the US has the "alternate minimum tax" (or AMT) which is a way to force relatively rich people to pay capital gains annually. It keeps catching more people each year.
br
And it has a nasty synergy with inflation since capital gains due to inflation are taxed at the same rate as capital gains due to an increase in the value of the asset in question. And the AMT forces people to declare capital gains each year which increases the effect of inflation-based capital gains taxes. You'll get a higher final return, if you pay capital gains once, twenty years from now on your asset rather than each year.
(Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:53PM
> Rich people with money under the mattress lose out.
I think this is a very common mis-perception. The people who are most hurt by inflation are people without assets. As inflation occurs, the guy living paycheck to paycheck loses buying power as his raises lag the rate of inflation. Meanwhile, the guy with investments in income producing assets is well protected, because the income those assets generates adjusts more quickly than a paycheck.
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 1) by deimtee on Friday June 06 2014, @04:39AM
How can his pay rise lag inflation, if raising his pay is the cause of the inflation?
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 06 2014, @10:03AM
Easy. His pay goes up 10%, inflation is 20%, Assets go up 50%.
Rich get richer poor get poorer.Prices don't change because of what happened in the past or even the present. Companies adjust prices based on what they think will happen in the future. The last thing that always happens is the crumbs go to the poor (if they are lucky) after everyone else has had a bite of the cake.
(Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Friday June 06 2014, @02:51PM
That's actually a great question. The answer is that there are different types of inflation and that they are caused by different forces. Commodity inflation, for instance, might be caused by bad weather, a crop failure, and higher grain prices. We saw this in Asia in recent years where the poorest people were dramatically affect by huge spikes in the cost of their biggest expenditure. In the US, much of our inflation is caused by the financial system. Regulators are constantly walking the line between too much unemployment and too much inflation. Wage inflation, as you point out, is another particular type of inflation. In the case of Seattle, if barista salaries go from $10 to $15 an hour, the cost of a cup of joe, will also rise or lots of coffeehouses will fail. In this specialized case, low level employees don't fare too badly. In reality, wage inflation usually lags other types of inflation as a response to economic conditions. I can think of only a few counter examples. During the internet bubble we saw salaries of workers in certain tech sectors spike way up, because there weren't enough butts to fill all the seats available. It was great for the workers until the bubble popped. In the Seattle example from the main story, we see legislation as the root cause of wage inflation. Probably the effect will be limited to service industries served by a relatively small percentage of the population. The price of a loaf of bread might not be affected much because local labor is such a small part of the inputs, but a cup of coffehouse coffee, is mostly made up of labor costs and so will get more expensive.
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Thursday June 05 2014, @05:40PM
Well, they already lose out, because a huge wad of their taxes currently goes into making welfare payments to hard working people who's jobs don't pay enough for them to sleep indoors and eat.
Unless you want to adopt a strict "work or starve" policy (which would eventually push up wages, because dead/dying people don't make very good workers) then not having an adequate statutory minimum wage is the indirect equivalent of handing out nice fat taxpayer subsidies to industry. Of course, government makes a big song and dance about the "long term unemployed" and the press obliges by scouring the country for stories of benefit cheats and scroungers to hole up as scapegoats, but never stops to ask why so many people who are working are dependent on benefits.
(Score: 1) by MorbidBBQ on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:31PM
The top 30% don't have money under the mattress. They have it in stocks.
The bottom 70% have money under the mattress.
(Score: 1) by caffeinated bacon on Friday June 06 2014, @02:44AM
Compared to the top 30% the bottom 70% don't have any money to put under a mattress. Any money they think they have is barely a rounding error.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jasassin on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:36AM
Ok. In USA you need to make at least 11.5 thousand dollars a year to qualify for healthcare. That gives you the bronze plan. If you are 18 with no parents you MUST make at least 11.5 a year or you pay a $95US fine, because without the subsidies that come over 11.5 insurance is double your salary. Fuck you Obama. Fuck you.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:45AM
Good luck finding a job in the Obama-nation, where job postings are faked to keep HR busy. You can apply, you can even go to an interview, but check with HR later and you will be told that no, no one was actually hired. HR are very very careful to indemnify themselves against lawsuits for fraud, because fraud is their business.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by dublet on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:05PM
I know, right. How dare he not want cancer to bankrupt someone AND kill them? How dare the government care for it's citizens and ensure they don't get financially crippled when, through no fault of their own, they get an illness of some sort? How dare the president of the USA do this thing?
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome. [dublet.org]"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:10PM
Except for Obamacare is too expensive. As an American, I can only afford Reagancare.
(Score: 2) by Oligonicella on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:10PM
How dare he force the VA down everyone's throats?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:14PM
You jealous bro? Should have volunteered to serve Obama. He takes care of his homies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:38PM
lshmsfoaidmt
(Score: 1, Troll) by khallow on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:05PM
And the only cost for all this wonderful care and concern is the future of the US.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hoochiecoochieman on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:22PM
Wow, I didn't know the US were so weak that their future is compromised by creating something that all other developed countries already have.
I guess you know something we don't. Maybe we're all too stupid and only you right-wing Americans are smart. If we could only be as smart as you guys we could have a Third-World-class healthcare system [wikipedia.org] which is also by far the most expensive in the world [wikipedia.org]! Now, who would want to change such a wonderful thing?
(Score: 2) by khallow on Thursday June 05 2014, @09:14PM
Ok, here's something I know which you apparently don't. Obamacare didn't create something which all other developed countries have. There are huge dynamics more or less unique to the US system for driving up health care costs such as employer-based health insurance, massive health insurance subsidies which insulate a huge class of people from the cost of their health care, and built-in bailouts for insurance companies who gamble too much. Sure, it might be nice to implement one of these other health care systems and save some money, but that didn't happen.
Another thing which I know which you apparently don't is that every developed world country has problems with rapidly growing health care costs and unfavorable demographic trends. The US just happens to be the worst of the lot by a bunch. But everyone else will be facing these same issues in time and no doubt, making similar bad choices.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by jasassin on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:54PM
I know, right. How dare he not want cancer to bankrupt someone AND kill them? How dare the government care for it's citizens and ensure they don't get financially crippled when, through no fault of their own, they get an illness of some sort? How dare the president of the USA do this thing?
OK smartass I'll bite. So you believe fining people who make less than 11.5 thousand a year is the answer to a monetary deficiency? If that's what you truly believe, you are just as fucked as Obama. Dumb fuckhead.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by Sir Garlon on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:15PM
If you're over 18 with no parents and making less than 11.5K a year, then you can apply for a hardship exemption [healthcare.gov], dumbass.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 1) by meisterister on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:53PM
Why does someone even need an exemption? Why can't we either move to price caps or a socialized system, like every other developed country?
Trying to solve the mess that we have with a massive kludge really isn't going to help much.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:04PM
If you are a single person with an annual income of less than 133% of the federal poverty line (currently $15521.10 a year), then you are eligible for Medicaid, and do not pay the penalty.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 1) by compro01 on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:32PM
Only if you live in a state that accepted the medicaid expansion, which is only about half of them.
(Score: 2) by Sir Garlon on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:06PM
And somehow that is Obama's fault, I'm sure.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Thursday June 05 2014, @09:26PM
And somehow that is Obama's fault, I'm sure.
Maybe, maybe not, but it is the way it is... and Obama is commander in chief.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by monster on Friday June 06 2014, @10:07AM
Commander in chief != Emperor
The POTUS has indeed some margin to do stuff, but drafting most legislation is the sole jurisdiction of Congress and Senate, Obama just has the option to veto it (and even his veto can be overturned).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:08PM
So don't live in one of the stupid states. I thought that was the whole point of America, you can move freely between the states and they are supposed to be competing with each other.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Friday June 06 2014, @12:57AM
I thought that was the whole point of America, you can move freely between the states and they are supposed to be competing with each other.
I don't think you grasp the concept of the United States of America. We leave each other alone unless they try to gank our bank. But we do rifle the barrels and machine the bolts.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 06 2014, @02:55AM
Yea, exactally. Your a states rights kinda country who dont want the feds messin' with ya stuff. And if your state does something stupid compared to other states, just move to a sensible state. Eventually when the better ideas get the kinks worked out the feds can implement the best solution for the country. You know, competition of ideas.
If your state/city goes bankrupt or everyone dies because they have no healthcare the other states/cities benefit from the sensible people realising what's happening and leaving for greener pastures. Stupid people of course will hold those bibles and guns closer and get angry when all the other cities/states leave them behind.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:29PM
Right, so what happens if you don't have healthcare? You get hit by a bus and you're left to rot at the side of the road?
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Thursday June 05 2014, @09:12PM
By law emergency rooms must accept you regardless of insurance.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by monster on Friday June 06 2014, @10:10AM
Right. They accept you, treat your trauma and then give you a nice debt to pay. But it's ok because you are free to choose if a bus hit you.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday June 06 2014, @12:06PM
So how come the family of a 12-year-old girl that got stabbed [bbc.co.uk] is trying to raise money for medical bills?
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Saturday June 07 2014, @09:25PM
I read your link. They want to raise $250,000US. I'll leave it at that.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:52AM
As businesses rush to leave, Seattle competes with Detroit and Chicago for the title of America's worst urban decay.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:17PM
That's a testable hypothesis. If it doesn't prove true, will you then change your opinion about the minimum wage?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:24PM
Yes, I would never spit in the face of Science, stab it to death, and then violently rape its lifeless corpse.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:08PM
And if it does prove true (like, I might add, it has in the past), will you change your opinion? I notice people haven't in the past been able to connect the dots between minimum wage, and massive unemployment in inner cities and among young adults.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:46PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by khallow on Thursday June 05 2014, @09:03PM
Read your link. There's nothing there about a minimum wage. Further, that story shows that those workers wanted to work longer hours in the end. Reading between the lines, the fact that both employer and employees wanted the shift to 40 hour work weeks indicates to me that even that longer work week was probably more productive for the employer as well.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Theophrastus on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:49PM
Seattle has made several similar improvements to level the playing-field of late. One of them, approximately a year ago, is guaranteed sick leave, (essentially allowing sick employees to be away from their work to recuperate without fear of being fired). When this, (seemingly sensible), provision was put in place there was a constant howling from businesses that they would leave, have to fire half their staff, or go out of business(!) Seattle has statistically lost no businesses. And yes, we even heard that we would certainly become "Detroit!" (what exemplar was used before we had Detroit to point at? (the lesson of Detroit is never generally understood - the danger of a monoculture))
I just counted the number of construction cranes over downtown Seattle, i don't recall that there have ever been more. For a pinko-commie-paradise, it's doing pretty damn well for the capitalists.
And just this morning, the more conservative, more opulent, city across our lake is considering adopting the higher minimum wage standard.
(Score: 3) by khallow on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:21PM
Just because this straw didn't break the camel's back, doesn't mean it won't ever happen. Seattle is messing around with its life blood, its economy for some pretty petty bullshit. That will bite it. How badly depends on how much they do before they stop.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 05 2014, @04:13PM
You may want to check again that Chicago decay statement...
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:34PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Informative) by AnonTechie on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:57AM
As I understand, this minimum wage of US$ 15 is not effective now ... It is to be phased in over three to seven years, Seattle may have the highest minimum wage in America.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2014/06/02/seattle-set-to-enact-15-minimum-wage-a-phased-in-big-dream/#23925101=0 [seattlepi.com]
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 2) by scruffybeard on Thursday June 05 2014, @06:33PM
From the NY Times article:
Given that they are doubling the current minimum, a 7 year phase in seems like a good compromise to balance the perceived burden on smaller employers.
(Score: 4, Informative) by LaminatorX on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:56PM
Here's something I found to be illuminating: MIT has compiled nationwide economic data to generate a regional living wage calculator [mit.edu]. According to their data on Seattle [mit.edu], $15/hour is more than a single adult needs to decently support one's self, but less than ideal for a single parent with one child. That single parent could scrape by frugally on it withut living in abject poverty though.
The problem with this scenario it that a patchwork of regional minimums leads to wage arbitrage by businesses without direct regional ties, but it's still better than nothing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:28PM
MIT murdered Aaron Swartz. Civilized society does not want to hear what murderous murderers at MIT have to say.
(Score: 2) by scruffybeard on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:26PM
I am not sure how setting minimum wages based on a geographic area is bad. According to your website, a living wage in NY City is $12.75/hr, in LA $11.37, Huntsville, AL $8.64, and Ft. Wayne, IN $8.19. That is fairly large swing, and if an employer wants to move its operation to take advantage of a cheaper labor pool, why shouldn't they? We do this all the time as consumers. Why shop at Best Buy when you can get it cheaper from Amazon? Many communities use their relatively low wages and cheap standard of living to attract new business to the area, which benefits everyone in the long run. As economic conditions change, then they can petition the State to raise the minimum wage accommodate that.
Personally I think minimum wages should be largely left to the States to administer. Sure, set a $10 national standard, but then let the New York's, or California's raise it higher if they feel it is necessary.
(Score: 1) by rancid on Thursday June 05 2014, @06:39PM
A horse makes a living wage.
(Score: 2) by velex on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:12PM
Ho-lee Shit.
I thought we had better trolls than this!
Just a bunch of Obamacare/Romneycare shit? It's like you guys are more hung over than I am!
Come on, fellow trolls! Get your act together! At least tell me why Obama/Romney-care is a bad idea, and what that has fuck all to do with the minimum wage. Hell, from over here, a wage of $15/hr would disqualify you for most entitlement programs.
Maybe that's the point. Push everyone into an income bracket that disqualifies them for assistance programs and then require them to buy health insurance, which is not health care! Ok, admittedly, health "insurance" is now required to provide preventative services for "free."
Ok. Fuck! Why doesn't my car insurance cover preventative maintenance like oil chances for free?
Never mind the ass hats on Faux News running their mouths about free Obamacare sex changes. Tell me where to apply! Srsly.
tl;dr God damn it all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:44PM
obamacare is totally awesome if you're one of the cream of the crop insurers who invested/gambled heavily in obama's elections
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 05 2014, @04:29PM
Well, its kind of off-topic...
Obamacare is bad because the only way to start fixing the US system is to learn from elsewhere:
1) go single-payer and remove the excessively costly insurance complexities. My doctors all have to hire one or two persons just to deal with insurances, guess who pays?
2) get rid of the lawyers, who make the malpractice insurance cost so high everyone pays more. Establish an indemnity and doctor punishment system that doesn't involve stupid jurors (hi, everybody, you're just collectively dumb)
3) force schools to only charge a small tuition to remain accredited. Many MDs start their careers with quarter-million dollar debts. Guess who pays higher fees? MD is a difficult highly qualified job with long studies. They should be paid well. But it is, a lot more so than the terrorism BS, in the supreme interest of the nation to have MDs cost less. Subsidizing their education rather than loading them with debt is a way to help keep them from charging insane prices from day one.
But Obamacare doesn't even start addressing these. It's a band-aid at the edge of the wooden leg, helping for a little while.
In 10 to 30 years, the situation will be critical again, because the real problems are not addressed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05 2014, @09:27PM
Think of it this way.
Something costs 100 dollars today. With inflation in 10 years at 2% it will be ~120.
Now lets say I GIVE everyone 100 dollars. What happens to the price of a good? It naturally goes up. As I getting 'free' money am more willing to spend it. As in effect it makes money worth less...
However, if you want to read up more on it here is a very good source of it
http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/chap06p1.html [steshaw.org]
http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/chap13p1.html [steshaw.org]
http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/chap15p1.html [steshaw.org]
http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/chap24p1.html [steshaw.org]
and what that has fuck all to do with the minimum wage.
http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/chap05p1.html [steshaw.org]
http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/chap19p1.html [steshaw.org]
Min wage is about 1-2% of our GDP however it is 10-15% of our workforce. For me and you spending an extra 50 cents on a burger is no big deal. For people who make min wage they do not come out ahead. In fact they usually come out behind.
But go on thinking obamacare is the best thing ever to happen. Right now it might all be roses. But in about 5 years. *EVERYTHING* in medical care is going to go thru the roof. Like most economic theories people only think 1 step out and forget the golden rule of all economic theories. Everyone is a dick.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by EQ on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:48PM
That's what's in question. Pricing it higher than its worth will make some job disappear - either to automation (think kiosks at the mcDonalds and automated drink and burger making machinery instead of min wage workers), or simply as the business that do not have the overhead close up. The big companies will not be hurt, they have fiscal reserves and other parts of the company to tide them over. Its the small businesses and local places that get hit hardest. They don't have the automation and capital reservers the big guys do. So they big guys price under them, drive them out of business. Then once the competition is reduces, up go the prices to a level fitting the costs. The end result is fewer but larger corporate employers at the bottom end, less diversity, and much slower job creation - because small and medium businesses do a majority of the job creation in the economy. So Seattle becomes more and more dependent upon fewer and fewer large companies. Who will use this leverage to extract favorable treatment. Also, if you live just outside the city limits, get ready for a surge of small businesses opening near you - they will gladly leverage the lower wages in the surrounding areas to sell to those in the higher cost city with good margins - and likely move out there themselves to avoid the coming problems in seattle, as the tax base shrinks and tax burden goes up with the departure and destruction of the small and medium business sector. So boom time for the burbs is owing, but not so much for the city itself short of large corporations doing well. Seattle, you asked for it, you've committed slow suicide - hope you enjoy only having box box retailers and megacorp stores to choose from - you've strangled the small entrepreneurs or else force them to find more favorable ground. Key measure to watch? Unemployment, and small business growth/shrinkage - despite Seattle thinking they exist in a bubble, they don't - surrounding areas can and will compete for businesses, and they've just been handed a huge advantage. Ask California how it feels to pass stupid laws that push companies into leaving for Texas.