Shorty
Boomer Boy
Wait, are you saying you have firsthand knowledge of McD's finances and operations because Ray Kroc visited your neighborhood in the 60s?
Obama to use executive order to raise minimum wage
- Thread starter Wrangor
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Wait, are you saying you have firsthand knowledge of McD's finances and operations because Ray Kroc visited your neighborhood in the 60s?
bigdoublezero
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He's not saying that.
I'm saying my friend's father had a butcher shop. Ray Kroc ordered hamburger from him for his first store in the Philly area. Then helped him expand his shop. eventually they got a farm to raise the cattle to sell regionally to McD stores.
myDeaconmyhand
First man to get a team of horses up Bear Mountain
Pretty sure there was a prop bet about RJ knowing Ray Kroc and being involved in the founding of McDonalds.
So you're saying you've got a long history of dealing in b.s.
To the surprise of no one...
WakeandBake
Well-known member
When the minimum wage was raised in the past did it put more people on the dole? (honest question)
How do the minimum wage levels compare today to the minimum wage levels (adjusted) under Nixon? Reagan? Other periods of prosperity? periods of recession? wrt to prices/inflation?
The arguments to leave the minimum wage alone seem to be based on speculation, predictions, and theories. What does the historical record show?
How do the minimum wage levels compare today to the minimum wage levels (adjusted) under Nixon? Reagan? Other periods of prosperity? periods of recession? wrt to prices/inflation?
The arguments to leave the minimum wage alone seem to be based on speculation, predictions, and theories. What does the historical record show?
The historical record shows that employers act rationally in the marketplace and respond to actors/forces who also demonstrate an awareness of market forces. See Detroit.
WakeandBake
Well-known member
Answer the questions. Has this specific act of policy resulted in what you and its detractors are predicting. Yes or no.
WFFaithful
Well-known member
You're like two peas in a pod.
WakeandBake
Well-known member
blahbity blah blah rationally marketplace blah blah. I'm in the goddamn marketplace as an employer, a consumer, and a worker. Have been for a long time, longer than you I'm quite sure. I read the same papers and op/eds you do. The evidence I see says you are full of shit, that raising the minimum wage is not going to be the economic armageddon you say it is. Now refute my point with some facts for once, Cochise.
Wakeforest22890
Snowpom
Interesting paper on the topic.
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02.pdf
Conclusion of the paper:
Economists have conducted hundreds of studies of the employment impact of the minimum wage.
Summarizing those studies is a daunting task, but two recent meta-studies analyzing the research
conducted since the early 1990s concludes that the minimum wage has little or no discernible effect
on the employment prospects of low-wage workers.
The most likely reason for this outcome is that the cost shock of the minimum wage is small relative
to most firms' overall costs and only modest relative to the wages paid to low-wage workers. In the
traditional discussion of the minimum wage, economists have focused on how these costs affect
employment outcomes, but employers have many other channels of adjustment. Employers can
reduce hours, non-wage benefits, or training.
Employers can also shift the composition toward
higher skilled workers, cut pay to more highly paid workers, take action to increase worker
productivity (from reorganizing production to increasing training), increase prices to consumers, or
simply accept a smaller profit margin. Workers may also respond to the higher wage by working
harder on the job. But, probably the most important channel of adjustment is through reductions in
labor turnover, which yield significant cost savings to employers.
And furthermore:
The strongest evidence suggests that the most important channels of adjustment are: reductions in
labor turnover; improvements in organizational efficiency; reductions in wages of higher earners
("wage compression"); and small price increases.
So employers tend to keep labor longer, improve their own efficiency, reduce wages of higher earners, and pass on the costs to the consumer. OH THE HUMANITY THAT THIS WOULD OCCUR.
Another interesting point people have talked about on here from a 2012 study on the minimum wage topic:
""Using... standard fiscal multipliers to analyze the jobs impact of an increase in
compensation of low-wage workers and decrease in corporate profits that result
from a minimum-wage increase, we find that increasing the national minimum wage
from $7.25 to $9.80... would result in a net increase in economic activity of
approximately $25 billion over the phase-in period and... generate approximately
100,000 new jobs."
And then there's this from a 2010 study:
"Employers may also absorb the extra costs associated with a minimum-wage increase by accepting
lower profits. Unfortunately, "there is almost a complete absence of any study directly examining
the impact of minimum wages on firm profitability"
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02.pdf
Conclusion of the paper:
Economists have conducted hundreds of studies of the employment impact of the minimum wage.
Summarizing those studies is a daunting task, but two recent meta-studies analyzing the research
conducted since the early 1990s concludes that the minimum wage has little or no discernible effect
on the employment prospects of low-wage workers.
The most likely reason for this outcome is that the cost shock of the minimum wage is small relative
to most firms' overall costs and only modest relative to the wages paid to low-wage workers. In the
traditional discussion of the minimum wage, economists have focused on how these costs affect
employment outcomes, but employers have many other channels of adjustment. Employers can
reduce hours, non-wage benefits, or training.
Employers can also shift the composition toward
higher skilled workers, cut pay to more highly paid workers, take action to increase worker
productivity (from reorganizing production to increasing training), increase prices to consumers, or
simply accept a smaller profit margin. Workers may also respond to the higher wage by working
harder on the job. But, probably the most important channel of adjustment is through reductions in
labor turnover, which yield significant cost savings to employers.
And furthermore:
The strongest evidence suggests that the most important channels of adjustment are: reductions in
labor turnover; improvements in organizational efficiency; reductions in wages of higher earners
("wage compression"); and small price increases.
So employers tend to keep labor longer, improve their own efficiency, reduce wages of higher earners, and pass on the costs to the consumer. OH THE HUMANITY THAT THIS WOULD OCCUR.
Another interesting point people have talked about on here from a 2012 study on the minimum wage topic:
""Using... standard fiscal multipliers to analyze the jobs impact of an increase in
compensation of low-wage workers and decrease in corporate profits that result
from a minimum-wage increase, we find that increasing the national minimum wage
from $7.25 to $9.80... would result in a net increase in economic activity of
approximately $25 billion over the phase-in period and... generate approximately
100,000 new jobs."
And then there's this from a 2010 study:
"Employers may also absorb the extra costs associated with a minimum-wage increase by accepting
lower profits. Unfortunately, "there is almost a complete absence of any study directly examining
the impact of minimum wages on firm profitability"
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Wakeforest22890
Snowpom
Excerpt from an article by the same guy (John Schmitt - who has a degree from the London School of Economics)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-ed...umns/minimum-wage-catching-up-to-productivity
"If it had, the minimum wage today would arguably be about $22 per hour. Even if we use a more conservative measure of productivity growth suggested by my colleague Dean Baker, the minimum wage today would still be about $16 per hour. To put this in perspective, in 2012, the medianworker in the United States—that is, the worker exactly in the middle of all wage earners—made about $16 per hour (about $32,000 per year). A $16 per hour minimum wage—in line with what we paid minimum-wage workers in 1968 relative to the productivity level of the time—would be equal to, or higher than, the earnings of half of all U.S. workers.
That is a radically different world from the one we now inhabit. Obviously, workers at the bottom would be earning much more. But, so too would workers in the middle, whose earnings over the last three decades have moved much more in line with wages at the bottom than at the top. Meanwhile, top earners, who have received by far the largest share of productivity gains since the end of the 1970s, would have given up much of those gains to workers at the middle and bottom. To be clear, high earners in this alternative world would still make substantially more than those in the middle—and even substantially more, in inflation-adjusted terms, than what high earners made back in 1968—but the gap between the top and the rest would be much smaller than is the case in the economy we actually inherited.
In our age of diminished expectations, talking about a $16 per hour minimum wage can induce a serious case of sticker shock. But remember: Adjusting for productivity growth, we already paid workers the equivalent of $16 per hour back in 1968. The higher rate simply amounts to maintaining the same degree of wage inequality we had then, and letting the earnings of workers at the bottom, middle, and top grow at the same rate from that point on—exactly as happened in the 1950s and 1960s"
The middle paragraph seems to suggest that one of the reasons for the deterioration of the middle class in America (i.e. the increase in the gap between the poor and the wealthy) can be traced back to the failure to tie the minimum wage to any sort of economic indicator for inflation/worth of a dollar.
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-ed...umns/minimum-wage-catching-up-to-productivity
"If it had, the minimum wage today would arguably be about $22 per hour. Even if we use a more conservative measure of productivity growth suggested by my colleague Dean Baker, the minimum wage today would still be about $16 per hour. To put this in perspective, in 2012, the medianworker in the United States—that is, the worker exactly in the middle of all wage earners—made about $16 per hour (about $32,000 per year). A $16 per hour minimum wage—in line with what we paid minimum-wage workers in 1968 relative to the productivity level of the time—would be equal to, or higher than, the earnings of half of all U.S. workers.
That is a radically different world from the one we now inhabit. Obviously, workers at the bottom would be earning much more. But, so too would workers in the middle, whose earnings over the last three decades have moved much more in line with wages at the bottom than at the top. Meanwhile, top earners, who have received by far the largest share of productivity gains since the end of the 1970s, would have given up much of those gains to workers at the middle and bottom. To be clear, high earners in this alternative world would still make substantially more than those in the middle—and even substantially more, in inflation-adjusted terms, than what high earners made back in 1968—but the gap between the top and the rest would be much smaller than is the case in the economy we actually inherited.
In our age of diminished expectations, talking about a $16 per hour minimum wage can induce a serious case of sticker shock. But remember: Adjusting for productivity growth, we already paid workers the equivalent of $16 per hour back in 1968. The higher rate simply amounts to maintaining the same degree of wage inequality we had then, and letting the earnings of workers at the bottom, middle, and top grow at the same rate from that point on—exactly as happened in the 1950s and 1960s"
The middle paragraph seems to suggest that one of the reasons for the deterioration of the middle class in America (i.e. the increase in the gap between the poor and the wealthy) can be traced back to the failure to tie the minimum wage to any sort of economic indicator for inflation/worth of a dollar.
Wakeforest22890
Snowpom
Then there's this tidbit from the Heritage Foundation, which argues that increasing the minimum wage doesn't actually help people in poverty because they simply lose welfare benefits and the minimum wage increase does not make up for the loss in benefits:
http://www.heritage.org/research/te...m-wage-its-history-and-effects-on-the-economy
"Consider a Patty Jones, a hypothetical single mother in Des Moines, Iowa, who gets an offer for a job at minimum wage.[43] If she goes from not working to working full time, her monthly income rises from $1,146 to $1,838. However, if she gets a raise to $10.10 an hour, her monthly income falls to $1,574. She loses over $260.While her market income rises by $494, she loses $71 in EITC refunds, pays $37 more in payroll taxes and $45 more in state income taxes. She also loses $88 in food stamp benefits and $528 in child-care subsidies. Patty would be better off without the raise."
"The Congressional Budget Office studied this issue in a report released last year.[40] It found that a single parent with one child earning between $15,000 to $25,000 experiences almost no financial benefit from working additional hours or getting a raise.[41] What they gain in market income they lose in reduced benefits, leaving them no better off.
The academic literature concludes that low-income families financially benefit when the head of the household enters the labor force and takes a job that pays near the poverty level. However, additional hours of work – or higher wages – beyond that generally produce little additional net benefit until earnings exceed 150 to 200 percent of the poverty level.[42]
Unfortunately, minimum-wage workers with incomes below the poverty level fall into this earnings dead zone. A childless adult working full time for the minimum wage earns $15,080 a year, above the poverty level for one person ($11,490). That adult (or a teenager) qualifies for relatively few federal benefits. But a single parent working the same job would fall below the poverty level for either one ($15,510) or two ($19,530) children. That single parent qualifies for many means-tested federal benefits. If the federal minimum wage rose to $10.10 an hour ($21,008 a year for a full-time job) benefit reductions would claw back the majority of his or her raise."
http://www.heritage.org/research/te...m-wage-its-history-and-effects-on-the-economy
"Consider a Patty Jones, a hypothetical single mother in Des Moines, Iowa, who gets an offer for a job at minimum wage.[43] If she goes from not working to working full time, her monthly income rises from $1,146 to $1,838. However, if she gets a raise to $10.10 an hour, her monthly income falls to $1,574. She loses over $260.While her market income rises by $494, she loses $71 in EITC refunds, pays $37 more in payroll taxes and $45 more in state income taxes. She also loses $88 in food stamp benefits and $528 in child-care subsidies. Patty would be better off without the raise."
"The Congressional Budget Office studied this issue in a report released last year.[40] It found that a single parent with one child earning between $15,000 to $25,000 experiences almost no financial benefit from working additional hours or getting a raise.[41] What they gain in market income they lose in reduced benefits, leaving them no better off.
The academic literature concludes that low-income families financially benefit when the head of the household enters the labor force and takes a job that pays near the poverty level. However, additional hours of work – or higher wages – beyond that generally produce little additional net benefit until earnings exceed 150 to 200 percent of the poverty level.[42]
Unfortunately, minimum-wage workers with incomes below the poverty level fall into this earnings dead zone. A childless adult working full time for the minimum wage earns $15,080 a year, above the poverty level for one person ($11,490). That adult (or a teenager) qualifies for relatively few federal benefits. But a single parent working the same job would fall below the poverty level for either one ($15,510) or two ($19,530) children. That single parent qualifies for many means-tested federal benefits. If the federal minimum wage rose to $10.10 an hour ($21,008 a year for a full-time job) benefit reductions would claw back the majority of his or her raise."
Wakeforest22890
Snowpom
I took an Employment Law class this past quarter with a guy who is a self-proclaimed socialist and his response on whether or not a minimum wage increase would be beneficial or harmful to the economy was "nobody knows and it's likely nobody will ever know, but if we don't have any idea I'll err on the side of providing low-wage workers with additional income."
BigTreeDeac
Ricky Peral
Your point is only valid if those minimum wage workers spend all their money at businesses impacted (they won't) and all the items they bought increased at the same rate (they wouldn't). Since that is not the case, it is a net gain for those employees. That is unless, of course, they were to lose more govt benefits than their pay raise amounts to but there is no way you could be upset about a move that resulted in people coming off the govt dole right?
A "hike" like the one proposed is tantamount to incremental increases, it is just making up for decades of failure to do said increases...due to an apparent need to keep bootstraps cheap or something like that. I do not know the "rationale" because I find it highly irrational wages have been stagnant/falling for everybody but those at the top. Just look at Numbers posts for why this is needed, how businesses can and will adapt to the increase without necessarily having to (some will CHOOSE to) fire employees, and of course why it will not be as doom and gloom as some of you make it out to be.
All we hear from the board Pubs ie that we need to treat poor people with more dignity and respect than the big, bad Dems do with their subsistence inducing handouts but when it comes time to do that in the form of paying a dignified and respectful wage in compensation for their work suddenly treating poor people with dignity/respect is not as big a priority. It is funny how easy things are to advocate for until it might cost you some extra money.
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ONW
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Wakeforest22890
Snowpom
Yeah there's just something that feels strange about the fact that it's "too big an increase in the minimum wage now that will cause harm to the economy" when it's basically the business community's doing that minimum wage has either not been indexed at all, or has not been increased enough to keep up with inflation and the worth of a dollar.
Wakeforest22890
Snowpom
I just don't buy the concept that restaurants, small businesses, and large chains alike will be systematically laying off workers left and right because they just can't handle the economic side of having to pay a little bit more for labor.
Additionally some mega-corporations like Walmart basically have a standard business practice of engaging in FLSA violations and simply paying the fines to make up for it.
Additionally some mega-corporations like Walmart basically have a standard business practice of engaging in FLSA violations and simply paying the fines to make up for it.
DreamOnDemOn
Banhammer'd
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Why don't we just let employers and employees decide between them what the wages the employee recieves will be? I really don't see any reason for greedy politicians to get involved in this process. If someone is using some kind of force or fraud, by all means prosecute them. If not, try just leaving everyone alone. If the employee accepts the employer's offer, that means that the employee decided they were better off taking the offer than they would be not taking the offer. If you make it illegal for the employee to accept an offer of less than some amount, that will greatly restrict the opportunities for low skilled people to start on the road to advancement.
This could very well be one reason so very many young minority people who haven't developed many job skills yet are unable to find work.
http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/negative-effects-minimum-wage-laws
This could very well be one reason so very many young minority people who haven't developed many job skills yet are unable to find work.
http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/negative-effects-minimum-wage-laws