Posted on 06/22/2021 4:29:32 AM PDT by Kaslin
Does raising the minimum wage cause job loss? It's a complicated issue, with such factors as economic growth, economic justice, income, the deficit, fairness, inflation, poverty, inequality, the work ethic, and eligibility for benefits thrown in to cloud the picture.
As Jack Kelly wrote, it is an issue fraught with unintended consequences. He cited a 2019 study by the Congressional Budget Office:
"Increasing the federal minimum wage would have two principal effects on low-wage workers. For most low-wage workers, earnings and family income would increase, which would lift some families out of poverty. But other low-wage workers would become jobless, and their family income would fall -- in some cases, below the poverty threshold."
Similarly, J.B. Maverick at Investopedia says:
"Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour is a policy goal for many lawmakers. Increasing the minimum wage is expected to lift individuals out of poverty and improve work ethic, however, it also comes with many possible negative implications, such as inflation and a loss of jobs."
What does research say? Results are all over the place. As Dee Gill wrote, "...the research evidence of what actual minimum wage requirements do to job numbers goes both ways; many studies find that minimum wage laws reduce employment, and many other studies on the exact same laws find they have little or no effect on jobs.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
From what I can see, instead of fifteen cashiers in a store making $10/hour we now have maybe three at $15/hour and a load of self-checks.
Of course it does.
You don’t lift these people out of poverty...you just give poverty a new floor.
Everyone else’s wages will rise and so will the cost of goods and services. the magic $15 will have no more buying power than the current base wage. After a brief euphoria, the poor will still be poor and there will be fewer employed as employers struggle to not price themselves out of the market.
Happens every time.
Here in MA my local DD has a sign stating 15/hour..
Wow. I am in Florida and in my area 10 a hour is not bad.
I’ll take Rhetorical Questions for $1000 Alex.
I like that cartoon.
An angle of the minimum wage argument that is seldom spoken of is the effect that such a drastic hike poses to the rest of the wage structure.
Imagine an enterprising young guy. He joined up at a considerably lower wage (because that was the prevailing wage then), and worked his way up to, say, $16/hr. Now he sees newbies starting for just a dollar less than he worked his ass off to achieve. And he knows that his employer has drained the discretionary budget so there will be no wage increases for a long, long time.
How do you suppose he feels? Where is the incentive to work harder or try to prove oneself when you know you won’t be compensated?
Government should get the hell out of the labor market!
It depends on the elasticity of the supply and demand curves for labor, in the wage range specified. And about ten thousand other factors. This is why the markes, like weather (or “climate”) cannot be controlled by men. If you allow for x number of factors, there’s always at least one you didn’t anticipate.
I'm sure that cuts down on the headcount and allows them to pay those who do work a little bit more. I think that's going to be the new business model.
I typically order my coffee on the app and go inside to get it. As those drive-through lines are getting ridiculously long.
The experience with the app is very good by the way. When I commute to NYC, I can order my coffee while still on the train pulling into Grand Central. It's always sitting there waiting for me as I go into my office building.
No, if you look at the data there is no correlation between raising the minimum wage and increasing inflation or unemployment.
When ground beef goes up do restaurants use less meat? No, the pay more. When wages go up do they use less labor? No, the will pay more.
I don’t disagree. Welfare for slumlords. An unrelated question;
if people are getting $300 in Fed unemployment and regular state unemployment, why are they not paying their rent?
Seattle’s business problems have NOTHING to do with the min wage...
The displacements that occur with min wage falls under the crony capitalism umbrella (there, said it without the word ‘socialism’). Milton Friedman is turning in his grave.
Really screws up the mechanics and dynamics of productivity.
Simple answer, YES.
The minimum wage is always $0.
Liberals have this notion that if you raise the wages of the unskilled to that of the skilled, that we will have this utopia where some guy mopping the floor at Wal-Mart will buy a three-bedroom house and live next door to his store manager.
Nope, it doesn't work like that.
My minimum wage job was back in 1972.
Dishwasher/porter in a hospital. Paid $1.76 an hour (I think minimum wage was $1.60). Time and a half for holidays and anything over 40 hours a week.
Part time job while I was in high school.
Many a week I when over 40 hours - but that was because I was willing to work double shifts on weekends.
I knew the Fed government give away was going to happen. The radicals in the GOP refused to negotiate on the MW so the Feds muscled in during the pLandemic and went head to head with Mr. Small Bidness for unskilled wages. LOL! A pox on both houses...
I for one do not want a burger that has been prepare by a member of antifa or blm.
I welcome robots and anymore rank their use in food related industries as a matter of national security.
Likewise, I would prefer my meds not be manufactured by Communist.
Raising the federal minimum wage has two major undeniable effects.
Unions are able to get their contracts renegotiated since all contracts are indexed on the minimum wage.
Automation becomes cheaper than labor and more automation shows up. No one gets fired, but fewer actually get hired in the first place.
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