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I've identified as a liberal for some time now -- more accurately, I am aware that most of my held viewpoints or political stances align with that side of the spectrum. One issue that I've never been able to truly come to terms with is the idea of drastically raising the minimum wage. My problem, simplified, comes because, while I would love to combat poverty and increase minimum-wage workers' access to healthcare, education, and other such benefits/opportunities, I don't know that forcing businesses to pay a $15 (for example) minimum wage would do more harm than good. Cutting corporate profits, driving down stock prices at a large-business level, while significantly increasing costs of business for small-businesses, causing folks to be fired, businesses not to be launched in the first place; these are the visions I have when we talk about doubling-or-more the minimum wage. I am not sure if these premonitions I have are grounded in reality or based on capitalist-propaganda that has been force-fed to me by Fox News and my relatively conservative habitat growing up. It seems to me that we need to determine what the minimum wage is; is it the minimum wage for a life with access to decent healthcare, education, shelter, and food? or just the last 2 of those things? Should we simply be guaranteeing those items through other systems, i.e. making healthcare publicly available for free or vastly reduced costs, instead of making businesses pay people more and expecting them to invest in those items? My instincts lean towards the latter option, but raising the minimum wage almost seems *more likely* than a single-payer healthcare option in the US; I also suspect that it would be more expensive, which probably contributes towards it being more likely. So, what do you think? Is raising the min. wage a horrible idea? Are those pushing for $15 really expectant of that number, or is it a ploy to settle for an $11 minimum wage? Shouldn't this number vary according to the cost of living by region? Are we all truly, and terribly, hosed?
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Jul 27, 2015 01:38
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Here you go boss http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3727731
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Jul 27, 2015 02:15
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I'm going to go ahead and attempt a double homicide by posting the same link in this thread that I did in that ^^^ one. http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02.pdf TLDR: Your premonitions are mostly a result of capitalist propaganda and the conservative environment in which you were raised. Also if minimum wage had kept pace with inflation it would be around Edit: My inflation claim was apparently off. Oops. Buried alive fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Jul 28, 2015 |
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Jul 28, 2015 03:54
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Buried alive posted:TLDR: Your premonitions are mostly a result of capitalist propaganda and the conservative environment in which you were raised. Also if minimum wage had kept pace with inflation it would be around $16.00 or so today. If it had kept pace with increases in GDP and inflation it would be around $20.00. Great, this still says nothing about how businesses will react with hours, benefits, etc. w/r/t employees if it were implemented tomorrow and anyone who says they do is full of poo poo.
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Jul 28, 2015 05:47
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Doesn't inflation affect the price/cost of everything though, and not just wages....seems like a shifty way to present the issue. Inflation is a drag on the economy, prices/costs/wages don't increase exactly with inflation.
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Jul 28, 2015 06:07
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What exactly are you referring to by 'this'? If it's just the quoted portion then yes, sure. So what? If it's the paper as well then you should go back and look at the paper. Edit: Tautologicus posted:Doesn't inflation affect the price/cost of everything though, and not just wages....seems like a shifty way to present the issue. Inflation is a drag on the economy, prices/costs/wages don't increase exactly with inflation. Yes, that's kind of the point. Prices have gone up, the federal minimum wage has not gone up with them. Also according to the Department of Labor the wage would be around $11, not $16 if it had kept up. My bad. Buried alive fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Jul 28, 2015 |
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Jul 28, 2015 06:12
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Buried alive posted:Yes, that's kind of the point. Prices have gone up, the federal minimum wage has not gone up with them. Also according to the Department of Labor the wage would be around $11, not $16 if it had kept up. My bad. Alright i'm just saying you can't take the "inflation calculator" inflation amount or something similar and say minimum wage should have increased by that much, given all the other economic forces that inflation affects. I do agree that minimum wage should have been updated already though. Also GDP is a borderline meaningless statistic. Burning down a house and building it again increases GDP, and it's doctored in about as unsubtle ways as that anyway. And even before that, war increases GDP like nothing else. Just saying there's a lot of opportunity for spin in this debate from all sides.
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Jul 28, 2015 06:34
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If the economy has become more efficient and productive (which it has in some areas and not in others) then yes, wages should increase. But neither inflation nor GDP in isolation are the right metrics to decide that imo. And yes the rich keep fuckin the poor where they can if no one tries to stop them, but I think the right statistics/arguments need to be used in opposition. All these McDonalds employees want increased wages but most restaurants are independent franchises with near razor thin margins and McDonalds as a company is losing market share in the "fat people gorging themselves" sector rapidly. The real question is if a company like Chipotle pays their workers enough, and I have heard they are fair. The economy as a whole is slowing down due to increased frictional resistances and that needs to be taken into account. Maybe not fuel costs for now, but inflation and the effect that has on debt, and debt and food prices overall. Im no economist though, just another shitposter.
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Jul 28, 2015 06:51
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an skeleton posted:It seems to me that we need to determine what the minimum wage is; is it the minimum wage for a life with access to decent healthcare, education, shelter, and food? or just the last 2 of those things? Should we simply be guaranteeing those items through other systems, i.e. making healthcare publicly available for free or vastly reduced costs, instead of making businesses pay people more and expecting them to invest in those items? My instincts lean towards the latter option, but raising the minimum wage almost seems *more likely* than a single-payer healthcare option in the US; I also suspect that it would be more expensive, which probably contributes towards it being more likely. Minimum wage can often not be enough for food and shelter, and you also usually need to factor in transport to and from work into that. Also, minimum wage does vary according to the cost of living by region, there is a federal minimum wage, and states and cities can have their own, higher minimum wages. I guess it's not mandated, but the system is in place for it to happen. Those things said, a lot of the problem with fixing the minimum wage would come from the fact that minimum wage hasn't kept up so far. Ideally people would get small increases and go out and spend more, so business owners and companies wouldn't lose profit from it (Minimum wage goes up, other positions wages go up, so it's an effect across the board). Unfortunately yes, if you raise the minimum wage a larger amount quickly, it could screw over a lot of small businesses if they're just barely making it, because they would have "come up" in the old pay-scheme. It is a problem for me, I am struggling to get a small business off the ground, and I already can't afford to hire anybody to help which is resulting in literal gray hairs. We still need to raise the minimum wage though. Businesses and the economy are there for people, people aren't there for businesses and the economy. If my business fails and I can live on minimum wage, that is a waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better system than if my business succeeds and a bunch of people can't live on minimum wage. E: I also worked a minimum wage job for too long, which probably colors my perceptions. I slowly built up credit card debt the entire time, and eventually had to get a loan from relatives to help me move for a better paying job, since I couldn't get anything locally. I honestly don't know what I would have done if I hadn't been fortunate enough to have family who could help. surc fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Jul 28, 2015 |
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Jul 28, 2015 08:00
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Tautologicus posted:...I do agree that minimum wage should have been updated already though. ... Okay then, we're in agreement. Why do you think it should be updated?
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Jul 28, 2015 14:42
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Workforces won't fire people due to hire wages really, because they already automatically try to hire as few people as possible to complete whatever amount of labor they need performed. They cannot really get much more production out of anyone than they are already. At most you would see minor price increases in some areas, notably agriculture so tomatoes might cost 10 cents more (literally in that range). And the public won't accept HUGE increases in pricing anyway so employers will have to share the wealth more, which is the whole loving idea. And besides sharing the wealth is the ideal state in a consumption based economy. 1%-ers who say otherwise are loving retards who don't understand that their wealth depends n the rest of us buying poo poo. If the peasants have more money they buy more poo poo and the economy is better.
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Jul 28, 2015 15:08
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Buried alive posted:Okay then, we're in agreement. Why do you think it should be updated? I don't know exactly. The DOL probably has calculations for this sort of thing (that Congress ignores). But I don't have my own answer.
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Jul 28, 2015 18:03
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Tautologicus posted:Doesn't inflation affect the price/cost of everything though, and not just wages....seems like a shifty way to present the issue. Inflation is a drag on the economy, prices/costs/wages don't increase exactly with inflation. No, inflation isn't a drag on the economy per se and I don't understand what you think the issue is? Inflation is an increase in the price level, no more no less. The real value of the minimum wage has decreased since 1968 or whenever because it has declined in reference to the same price level
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Jul 28, 2015 21:52
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icantfindaname posted:No, inflation isn't a drag on the economy per se and I don't understand what you think the issue is? Inflation is an increase in the price level, no more no less. The real value of the minimum wage has decreased since 1968 or whenever because it has declined in reference to the same price level Well, inflation has been known to get out of hand, where countries try to inflate their way out of debt, like Weimar Germany. And yeah, that did not end well. As far as the minimum wage goes, most minimum wage jobs are basically for people who nobody else wants to hire, like teenagers and ex-cons. Most people who work minimum wage jobs manage to move on to better work. By making people more expensive to hire and fire, that means that people won't take risks hiring teenagers or ex-cons.
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Jul 29, 2015 07:34
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Raising the minimum wage won't just benefit people making minimum wage, it'll benefit anybody near it. Someone making $12 am hour benefits from a hike to $15, and there's plenty of adults trying to live at or below that point.
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Jul 29, 2015 07:56
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thrakkorzog posted:Well, inflation has been known to get out of hand, where countries try to inflate their way out of debt, like Weimar Germany. And yeah, that did not end well. Hyperinflation only happens when you have the collapse of the government and mass anarchy. Immediate post-WW1 Germany, the French Revolution, African dictatorships, etc. The libertarian line about hyperinflation is nearly 100% false, it's incredibly dishonest at best and a complete lie at worst. Even in cases like Argentina where you have cartoonishly awful mismanagement taken straight from a right-wing caricature of the left you don't get Weimar-style hyperinflation if the government is politically stable Oh and your stuff about minimum wage job demographics is also completely false. According to this NYT article from 2 days ago less than 1/3 of workers under 12/hour wage are 25 or under, and presumably a significantly smaller fraction still are teenagers. So your stated justifications for your opinions appear to be completely full of poo poo https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/27/business/economy/scale-of-minimum-wage-rise-has-experts-guessing-at-effect.html icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Jul 29, 2015 |
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Jul 29, 2015 08:38
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icantfindaname posted:No, inflation isn't a drag on the economy per se and I don't understand what you think the issue is? Inflation is an increase in the price level, no more no less. The real value of the minimum wage has decreased since 1968 or whenever because it has declined in reference to the same price level I was going with the "inflation is the increase in the overall money supply" definition, which strikes closer to what is going on I think than overall price levels rising. Because as an economy grows, what does it need more, higher prices, or more money circulating to pay for goods and services? The latter. Higher prices are an effect of the money supply increase, which is due to the economy growing, which is the major "problem" we have had in the past 50 years, not Weimar or Nigeria type problems. The rising tide has not lifted all ships. The federal reserve has to manage the money supply as conditions warrant. Right now they are trying to avoid deflation, not inflation anyway. What I was saying is that inflation affects everyone and not just wage earners. It makes money more expensive to lend and less expensive to borrow, for example. And so purchasing power is not the sole metric of inflation, thats obfuscation to hide some of the behind the scenes economic wizardry. edit - i'll remove what I am not 100% sure about. something something M2 velocity of money something something the worst thing is fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Jul 29, 2015 |
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Jul 29, 2015 10:19
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Tautologicus posted:I was going with the "inflation is the increase in the overall money supply" definition, which strikes closer to what is going on I think than overall price levels rising. Because as an economy grows, what does it need more, higher prices, or more money circulating to pay for goods and services? The latter. Higher prices are an effect of the money supply increase, which is due to the economy growing, which is the major "problem" we have had in the past 50 years, not Weimar or Nigeria type problems. The rising tide has not lifted all ships. The federal reserve has to manage the money supply as conditions warrant. Right now they are trying to avoid deflation, not inflation anyway. What I was saying is that inflation affects everyone and not just wage earners. It makes money more expensive to lend and less expensive to borrow, for example. Nobody has claimed that inflation only affects wage earners or that purchasing power is the sole metric of inflation. What is claimed is what I bolded above, and that an increase in the minimum wage is a useful tool for correcting that.
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Jul 30, 2015 06:20
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icantfindaname posted:Hyperinflation only happens when you have the collapse of the government and mass anarchy. Immediate post-WW1 Germany, the French Revolution, African dictatorships, etc. The libertarian line about hyperinflation is nearly 100% false, it's incredibly dishonest at best and a complete lie at worst. Even in cases like Argentina where you have cartoonishly awful mismanagement taken straight from a right-wing caricature of the left you don't get Weimar-style hyperinflation if the government is politically stable Geez, did Ron Paul take a piss in your Cheerios? I tried to counter an argument that there is nothing wrong with inflation by pointing out that governments can try to inflate their way out of debt. It's a horrible plan, but it plenty of governments have run with it. And my argument was that if minimum wage jobs become more expensive, then they will become harder to come by. That's econ 101. I want people who just walked out of prison to have job opportunities, even if it's just serving fries. By making hiring and firing someone ridiculously expensive, that just means that nobody gets a job.
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Jul 31, 2015 04:41
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thrakkorzog posted:Geez, did Ron Paul take a piss in your Cheerios? You know that price isn't the sole determining factor in demand, right? Like, econ 101 doesn't actually line up to the way world works terribly well at all. Besides, there's this line of thinking to contend with. Assuming that ex-cons are the bottom of the barrel, any company which has hired ex-cons must simply not have any other options. Raising the price of that employment will not, by itself, prevent the hiring of an ex-con, as any company which has filled those positions with ex-cons must continue to do so or simply leave those positions unfilled. Of course, if the company could perform just as well without filling those positions, they would already be doing so. The company's only options are to fill that position with an ex-con, or not have it at all. The most recent evidence indicates that  Modest increases in the minimum wage have at best a negligible affect on employment and most of those affects are seen in teen and single-parent demographics, probably because now the teen can spend time on school work since their parents are actually pulling in a decent wage and they don't have to contribute money to the household anymore and now the single-parent only needs one job instead of two in order to get by.Notes for arguing against the above: Any attempts to introduce nuance or additional complexity is going to start pushing against and stepping out of econ 101. Throwing around things like a $100.00 minimum wage is just straw manning. From what I can tell, any total minimum wage around $11.00, give or take 0.50 cents, counts as 'modest'.
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Jul 31, 2015 05:22
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A sustainable workforce is a good thing
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Jul 31, 2015 05:41
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$15 an hour: "ridiculously expensive"
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Jul 31, 2015 05:55
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Buried alive posted:You know that price isn't the sole determining factor in demand, right? Like, econ 101 doesn't actually line up to the way world works terribly well at all. In terms of the second, capital vs. labor, if you raise the price of labor, then capital becomes more appealing. Instead of having 10 guys with rakes to do groundskeeping, maybe I'll move to 7 guys with leaf blowers. Or spend more money on automation, or a million other investments in labor reducing technology. Please note that I'm not saying anything about the magnitude of these effects, I have no clue if they'll outweigh the benefits of a min wage hike, but they do exist to some extent. It's being willfully ignorant to pretend that just because no company hires extraneous workers no hours and jobs could possibly be lost.
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Jul 31, 2015 13:55
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Buried alive posted:Nobody has claimed that inflation only affects wage earners or that purchasing power is the sole metric of inflation. What is claimed is what I bolded above, and that an increase in the minimum wage is a useful tool for correcting that. You said in your first post that "if minimum wage were increased in line with the level of inflation, then...", and I said that's the first step towards doublespeak about the issue because talking about wages solely in terms of inflation even if for a second, is borderline intentionally misleading. Instead of enforcing high minimum wages, I think it's governments that should make up the shortfalls, and claw it back through further discretionary employment taxes. So that's my answer to this. somethin somethin etc Mucking about with economic forces always ends poorly. See: government education loans and the for profit school companies that were created in response...and the useless debt that followed.
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Jul 31, 2015 14:12
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junidog posted:I think there are two aspects you're missing here: marginal hours, and substitution of capital for labor. Of course no business has useless employees they could cut. But consider a coffeeshop deciding whether or not to stay open an additional hour: they'll bring in $50 in revenue in the last hour, and their costs are $45, 20 of which is labor (2 employees at 10/hr). With a $5 minimum wage hike, now that last hour is not profitable, as costs are $55. The place will still be open at noon, when it's crazy busy, no question, but it won't stay open as late, and there go some employee hours. Operating on margins that slim without lots and lots of volume is like not having health insurance
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Jul 31, 2015 18:06
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signalnoise posted:Operating on margins that slim without lots and lots of volume is like not having health insurance Again, it's not that the whole company is operating on a thin margins: the made up coffee shop will still be making bank at peak periods. Its that there are hours that have thin margins, and those hours will be cut.
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Jul 31, 2015 20:53
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junidog posted:Again, it's not that the whole company is operating on a thin margins: the made up coffee shop will still be making bank at peak periods. Its that there are hours that have thin margins, and those hours will be cut. Alternatively they could provide a reason to be open
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Jul 31, 2015 21:05
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Tautologicus posted:You said in your first post that "if minimum wage were increased in line with the level of inflation, then...", and I said that's the first step towards doublespeak about the issue because talking about wages solely in terms of inflation even if for a second, is borderline intentionally misleading. Instead of enforcing high minimum wages, I think it's governments that should make up the shortfalls, and claw it back through further discretionary employment taxes. So that's my answer to this. somethin somethin etc Yes, I did say that in my first post. That does not entail that inflation only affects wage earners or that purchasing power is the only way to measure inflation, which is something you brought up and argued against. For some reason. Inflation is affecting the price of all kinds of things, but it's not (or at least hasn't been) affecting wages as much. This is a problem, because it means wage earners are losing purchasing power. Again, this does not entail that wage earners are losing purchasing power due to inflation by itself. It's just one way to approach the issue. junidog posted:I think there are two aspects you're missing here: marginal hours, and substitution of capital for labor. Of course no business has useless employees they could cut. But consider a coffeeshop deciding whether or not to stay open an additional hour: they'll bring in $50 in revenue in the last hour, and their costs are $45, 20 of which is labor (2 employees at 10/hr). With a $5 minimum wage hike, now that last hour is not profitable, as costs are $55. The place will still be open at noon, when it's crazy busy, no question, but it won't stay open as late, and there go some employee hours. If the employee is making as much or more despite the loss in hours, what's the problem? Going by the math in your own example, as long as the employees worked 4 hours under $10.00, and 3 hours under $15.00, they come out ahead. A natural argument to make in response is that these employees don't exist in a vacuum and the prices of other things can go up to offset the gain. True! Also handled by that first link I posted, so go read that if that's what you're thinking. Also did you miss the phrase 'at best negligible' in my post? Because negligible losses and no losses are not at all the same thing.
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Aug 1, 2015 02:39
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junidog posted:Again, it's not that the whole company is operating on a thin margins: the made up coffee shop will still be making bank at peak periods. Its that there are hours that have thin margins, and those hours will be cut. Those hours don't exist; if a coffee shop has times where two or three employees are standing around doing nothing, those shifts will be cut immediately, $8 wage or $15 wage. Virtually every business has cut back to the bare minimum of employment required for the business to function and a wage increase would only benefit the workers. Picture this scenario: Walmart has (say) an average of two dozen shifts per day of people stocking the floor. Two dozen was settled upon as the minimum number of shifts needed to stock the shelves within an allowable time. If the wage goes up, they can't simply cut the number of shifts down to 18 because they would be physically unable to get products on display. If they could subsist on 18, they would have done so already. Here's my 5yo take on the macroeconomics of the situation: when wages are low, profits float to the highest earners. Those earners spend money on foreign cars, extravagant vacations, minimally taxed investments and the like. Someone going from $8 to $15/hr would spend that excess on goods taxed at higher rates than rich person poo poo and more likely within their own communities (property and sales taxes), raising the standard of living for everyone around.
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Aug 3, 2015 07:14
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theflyingexecutive posted:Here's my 5yo take on the macroeconomics of the situation: when wages are low, profits float to the highest earners. Those earners spend money on foreign cars, extravagant vacations, minimally taxed investments and the like. Someone going from $8 to $15/hr would spend that excess on goods taxed at higher rates than rich person poo poo and more likely within their own communities (property and sales taxes), raising the standard of living for everyone around. This is exactly my argument against trickle down economics. Some guy buying his second Lambo really isn't going to put alot back into the local economy.
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Aug 5, 2015 19:59
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theflyingexecutive posted:Those hours don't exist; if a coffee shop has times where two or three employees are standing around doing nothing, those shifts will be cut immediately, $8 wage or $15 wage. Virtually every business has cut back to the bare minimum of employment required for the business to function and a wage increase would only benefit the workers. Picture this scenario: Walmart has (say) an average of two dozen shifts per day of people stocking the floor. Two dozen was settled upon as the minimum number of shifts needed to stock the shelves within an allowable time. If the wage goes up, they can't simply cut the number of shifts down to 18 because they would be physically unable to get products on display. If they could subsist on 18, they would have done so already. This really isn't how it works. Marginal cost of production changes based on quantity produced, it's not flat. In your above example, if the marginal cost shifts upward due to a wage increase, walmart would simply cut down on the amount of goods they sell. It would remove the goods with low profit margins from the shelves and simply stock less. Junidog's example is the easiest way to visualize this. Let's say a restaurant operates late night between 9pm and 4am with two workers costing $160 in wages. During this period it earns on average $100 in profit, thus it stays open. If you suddenly double the cost of labor, then it becomes unprofitable to open during late night, and the restaurant either needs to increase its menu price to offset this or it simply closes during late night, laying off the late night shift. quote:Here's my 5yo take on the macroeconomics of the situation: when wages are low, profits float to the highest earners. Those earners spend money on foreign cars, extravagant vacations, minimally taxed investments and the like. Someone going from $8 to $15/hr would spend that excess on goods taxed at higher rates than rich person poo poo and more likely within their own communities (property and sales taxes), raising the standard of living for everyone around. The EITC is one of the most successful welfare programs in history, we should be expanding that into a full blown wage subsidy program. The progressive nature of the income tax means the heaviest part of its burden falls on those most able to afford it, instead of hitting random mom and pop stores that operate on a 2% margin. Calls for doubling the minimum wage are misguided and will have all sorts of negative effects on the economy and middle class purchasing power. Gamesguy fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Aug 6, 2015 |
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Aug 6, 2015 03:04
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progressive taxes = good, increasing the cost of labor to that which makes sense to automate with machinery = bad
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Aug 6, 2015 04:25
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