Since people don't seem too interested in Free Trade, I'll point you to where I am discussing min wages with others. Thoughts welcome here or there.
MinnPost Raising MN's Min Wage
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19 comments:
MinnPost Hodges to Work to Raise Min Wage
Sheer and utter nonsense. If somebody wants to pay me $4/hour to do some job (because it is worth exactly $4/hour and no more), and I am willing to accept $4/hour to do the job, who does the DFL think it is to tell me I must stay unemployed?
To stir the pot, I will ask what I always ask on this subject, which is why not $100 per hour? We could all be rich!
Poor argument based on some of our past discussions. You didn't like it when I took things to extremes.
Why not $9.50 from your perspective? Most things wouldn't notice.
Any argument against $100 applies equally to $9.50, albeit to a lesser degree. Reductio ad absurdum is sometimes an absurd argument, and sometimes brilliantly points out the flaw in the opposing argument.
I guess after thinking about it, I disagree. This video gave me the idea. Income Mobility Video
Jumping the minimum wage to $100/hr would most certainly shift the whole income distribution bar chart. Whereas small changes at the bottom could easily be absorbed by compression within the scale. In other words maybe only the bottom 2 income groups would see an increase.
So in this case I think it is one of those "absurd arguments".
So, the whole idea of raising the minimum wage is based on the theory that if it's small enough, nothing bad will happen? Isn't that an equally absurd argument?
I don't think it is absurd.
And I don't remember saying "nothing bad" will happen. The question is will the benefits outweigh the costs?
I highly doubt that the ripples would affect me or people like me much at all. The big costs/benefits would occur in the world of people closer to the $10/hr income level. There would be income gains, cost increases, job losses, etc. And maybe the gains would be sufficient to make it worthwhile.
Maybe? You're out to do "good for a few" on a "maybe"?! Maybe we should just follow the incentives that this well-intentioned decree will create? OK, I am an employer with 10 employees. I am paying my STARTING employees the MN minimum of $6.25, the rest I am paying between $7 and $8.50, because they're worth it. Minnesota raises the minimum to $10.50. I fire all of my starting employees and never hire another. I bring in automation and fire the rest of them, and run the whole show myself. Now, have ten people suddenly benefitted by making $10.50 and hour, or are they out of work, making ZERO? Perhaps not every employer can do that, but isn't that the incentive? How many of these firings constitute a negative impact?
Or the owner will raise their wages, and since all of his competitors are facing the same increase, they will raise the price to us consumers by 5%...
(% less than the pay raise since pay is only a portion of the product or service cost)
Yes, and since labor is at least 50% of costs in such a business, prices will go up by about 50% in this example. And when all other costs go up along with it, what have these folks gained in living standards, even assuming they keep their jobs? And what is going to happen when that "rogue" competitor discovers that he can keep prices down by automating away his too-costly workforce? Don't my workers lose their jobs anyway, to competition?
It always amazes me how liberals believe they can radically alter some factor in the economy and achieve all the benefits, and that the economy will not adapt to obviate those benefits, or worse. The problem with the liberals' perfect society is that there are no perfect people, including those who think they are.
"radically"... ACA is a big thing, this is small potatoes since we have been there before and the world did not end.
Min Wage History
It is a significant income bump for a small group of Americans. Not what I would call it a deal maker or breaker either way.
What I do find interesting is that it is in no way tied to the cost of living of each region.
The folks in rural MN will see it as a windfall, and the folks in the metro will barely see a change. Though of course the newbies will be likely making the same as the experienced fast food workers all of a sudden.
Interesting Sources
NYT Min Wage Consequences
EPI Benefits of Higher Min Wage
EPI Winners / Losers
"the failure to ensure that lower-income workers earn a fair wage."
What loony leftist idea is it that says employees must be paid anything other than what employer and employee mutually agree the job is worth? Heck, if you tell me that I the Lord High can decree what everybody should earn and there will be no negatives, I'm going to say $100 per hour, and then tax away half! If there are no negatives, why stop at $9 or $11 an hour?
"It is a significant income bump for a small group of Americans."
You assume a) that the number benefitting is so small that employers as a whole won't react, while b) believing it is "significant" enough to guarantee that those particular employers will react. We're right back to the same exact conundrum as always. How do you make MW big enough to have positive impact, without making it big enough that it has negatives? And what makes the Wizards of St. Paul capable of knowing what the "right" number is for everybody?
By the way, you are advancing the usual argument, that most people are already making more than the MW, and therefore raising it to that level has no effect. And the number making less than that is so small that nobody notices when those jobs disappear entirely, unless of course you are one of those who suddenly becomes unemployed by government edict.
If the Legislature wanted to raise that minimum up to what "everybody is already making," and wisely keep the training wage, starting wage and tip wage where it is, that would be OK. But it wouldn't change anything. And not only is nobody proposing such "nothing" legislation, but they don't know enough to declare what that number is for everybody. Why NOT leave it to individual employees and employers to negotiate? Is there a freedom to contract, or not? Why do you think most employers pay more than minimum wage if it isn't required by law?
If you think I said there would be "NO" effect, I think you should read more carefully.
Another interesting link.
one in four?
You implied that the negative effect would be minimal or negligible, and refused to consider that negative consequences might just predominate, as in the item I referenced. As for your Think Progress article, it could be dismissed before reading as being mindlessly progressive, or I could read it first, but I get the same result either way. The fact that it costs more than 1 min-wage job to support a family, or that CEOs make more than part-time burger flippers, is completely irrelevant to the discussion. In fact, if reason and compassion were to be on the same side, it would most likely be that this discussion, of raising the minimum wage as a public policy matter, would not be held at all.
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