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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.
(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.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(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.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(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.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(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?
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(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