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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) 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!