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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: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @07:19PM
...Once the employers (are FORCED to) raise the prices of their
goods to cover the increased labor costs brought about by
the wage increase.
The income gains enjoyed by the employees from the minimum
wage increase WILL evaporate once the higher prices kick
in and we are then back to where we started. :P
As proof, look at the historical increase of the USA minimum
wage over time:
http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/chart.htm [dol.gov]
Here are the biggest gaps of minimum wage increase from that chart:
1981-1-1 to 1990-4-1 (9+ years)
1991-4-1 to 1996-10-1 (5+ years)
1997-9-1 to 2007-7-24 (9+ years -- NEARLY A DECADE!!!)
2009-7-24 to 2014-7-4 (4+ years and counting....)
In 1961, the USA minimum wage was $1.00 an hour.
Per the inflation calculator at:
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ [usinflationcalculator.com]
it should NOW be $7.96 an hour in 2014.
Per
http://www.dol.gov/whd/minimumwage.htm [dol.gov]
it is STILL $7.25 an hour.
I have now proven that it is IMPOSSIBLE to 'get ahead'
when you work for someone else in a subservient
capacity and are consistently paid by them LESS than the
current inflation-adjusted minimum wage.
In the foodservice industry, restaurant owners can LEGALLY pay their waitstaff less
than the minimum wage if the tips left by patrons cover the difference.
Otherwise, the employers pay the difference. Wouldn't it be better all
around in this part of the foodservice industry to properly (under)pay ALL
its employees the going minimum wage and treat any tips recived as bonuses?
Sadly, my guess is that things are this way in that sector of the economy
because otherwise the restaurant owners couldn't afford to stay in business
due to the extra labor costs due to kitchen-to-table service.
By comparison, the fast-food restaurant industry has essentially
the exact same business model as other waitstaff-driven restaurants
and are able to stay in business while (under)paying the (wait)staff
the going minimum wage.
Management ultimately ALWAYS forces labor to do more
with less and for less pay over time while they enjoy
the lion's share of the profits generated by millions
of overworked, overtaxed, underpaid employees--THAT IS
PATENTLY UNFAIR! :P
A resource-based economy keeps looking better and better
to me every day in order for the entire planet to finally
escape from the currently broken, corrupt, destructive,
financially-driven system we have today.
Read more about that here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Venus_Project [wikipedia.org]
http://www.thevenusproject.com/about/resource-based-economy [thevenusproject.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @08:15PM
> In 1961, the USA minimum wage was $1.00 an hour.
>
> Per the inflation calculator at:
>
> http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ [usinflationcalculator.com] [usinflationcalculator.com]
>
> it should NOW be $7.96 an hour in 2014.
In 1968 it was $1.60/hr and by that same calculator it should NOW be over $21/hour.
Anyone can cherry-pick numbers, it is typically a sign that the author is more interested pushing their ideology than in examining reality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @08:41PM
I wanted to use the inflation calculator at
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl [bls.gov]
But it is not working today on 2014-7-4
I guess the Feds turned that webserver off
for the July Fourth holiday. :P
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ [usinflationcalculator.com]
must be using different inflationary data
than the calculator at the first link.
The first inflation calculator link is using
historical data compiled by the US Federal
Government and would give a different
answer than the one from the inflation
calculater at the second link that
I used in the previous post.
Even if the numbers are not as accurate
as I wanted them, they are accurate
enough to prove my point in the post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @09:20PM
> I wanted to use the inflation calculator at...
Are really so dull as to think I was accusing you of cherry-picking the fucking calculator?
Why should anyone listen to a word you have to say after you've just proven that you are literally not the sharpest knife drawer?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 05 2014, @08:14AM
Are you really so stupid to claim someone was cherry-picking data, when your own cherry-picked data showed a much bigger change? It's obvious to anyone with half a brain that if he was cherry-picking he would have chosen your numbers.
With that out of the way, your further data just proves the point more that people are today historically underpaid compared with previous generations.All the gains of productivity etc have gone to those at the top, but it wasn't enough.They still had to scrape more from the poorest working people to build their even bigger yachts.Rich people have no intention of helping the poor make a decent living, the government has to step in and fix the problem.