States That Raised Minimum Wage See No Slow-Down In Job Growth 778
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. Department of Labor has released data that some proponents of raising minimum wage are touting as evidence that higher minimum wage promotes job growth. While the data doesn't actually establish cause and effect, it does "run counter to a Congressional Budget Office report in February that said raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, as the White House supports, would cost 500,000 jobs." The data shows that the 13 states that raised their minimum wages in January added jobs at a faster rate than those that didn't. Other factors likely contributed to this outcome, but some economists are simply relieved that the higher wage factor didn't have a dramatically negative effect in general.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
500,000 (Score:0, Interesting)
That's a ridiculous number. There are plenty of jobs out there ("We are experiencing a heavier call volume than usual, please be prepared to wait up to 40 minutes to speak to someone." "The next available appointment is in 8 months." "Your tires will be changed in 4 hours." "Limit one truck on bridge at a time due to structural decay".). Big companies especially are sitting on bales of cash, which could be put to good use (good for the companies, that is) by hiring more and paying employees more. The downward spiral of this country is directly due to the rich being scared of losing their riches and becoming risk-averse -- "Spend taxes on this unneeded defense project in my district, not on new infrastructure that could employ more now and enable more to be employed later." Sheesh.
This will only buy a little time (Score:3, Interesting)
Automation and/or skyrocketing inequality will soon bring capitalism as we know it today crashing down. This is just sticking your finger in the dam.
The only way forward that doesn't involve revolution and bloodshed starts with mincome.
So what? (Score:4, Interesting)
In Germany the unemployment rate used to be higher 20 years ago, with industry-wide minimum wages, several protections against unfair dismissals and no short-term contracts. Unemployed people had generous allowances, that's also why companies had to offer decent wages for them to accept to work.
Now, after the neoliberal Hartz "reforms", the unemployment rate has decreased, but also the average real salaries for the newly employed, factory workers and employees. And workers' rights have dramatically decreased too. In general, the lower/middle classes' life quality has dramatically worsened.
People and the media must stop watching metrics like GDP, you need to look at its distribution instead, with the Gini Coefficient for example. I prefer a country with a GDP increase of 1% a year evenly distributed than one with a 3% GDP increase with the first tenth of the population having a 30% income increase and zero for the remaining 90%.
Give us back protectionism, big state-owned companies, the welfare state and "socialism", please. We don't like this alleged new "freedom" (of the rich from the poor).
Re:Local testing works? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Local testing works? (Score:3, Interesting)
For one, not everyone wants to move. Many of the people who call for a hands-off federal government would be quick to emphasize the value of family and stable local communities. Conservatives everywhere deplore the brain-drain and family disruption that comes with people migrating away from an area for better work elsewhere
Why one could just believe that they are selfish pricks, who just find everything in life as an example of something that affirms their beliefs.
It's usually hypocritical though, and seen through the eye of a pig.
First off, in their "we will only be wealthy when you are as poor as possible" outlook, where a minimum wage doesn't exist, giving any employee any raise immediately causes the economy to fail, and causes employers to throuw up their hands in defeat, and close their food stand, and we all starve to death.
But then there's that little thing of places like McDonald's giving employees directions on how to apply for food stamps and other Government assistance. Or WalMart employees - 80 percent of them are on Government assistance to the tune of 2.66 billion dollars per year.
So right off the bat, insistence on the type of minimum wage we have now automatically means approval of massive Government handouts. Sounds kind of like business based socialism to me.
But now back to the thread. So this slackard, drain on the economy worker, after being laid off at the local WalMart, is going to pack up their family, and strike out for the other side of the country....... for what? Another minimum wage job at another WalMart? If they are hiring, maybe. If not, well, that will help curb the excess population.
Re:Local testing works? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why not got one step further - the fines imposed on the employer could be set at the difference between the actual wage earned and the (minimum wage + $1/hour). The $1/hour/employee goes to the state bringing the prosecution to pay for the prosecution, the rest going to the employee. Punishment to fit the crime and it doesn't cost the tax payers to bring the prosecution.
Don't like it? Don't employee illegal immigrants, and pay your employees at least the minimum wage.
Re:This will only buy a little time (Score:2, Interesting)
Who said I was advocating totalitarian communism or democratic socialism (which is just as doomed because it still runs on a contemporary capitalist economy) or perfect equality (which is impossible)?
Giving about as much of the planet's resources as possible (including the work of its population) to a few hundred people is completely unsustainable however.
People could still work if they want to for some extra money. It just wouldn't be mandatory for living beyond mere survival. And if there isn't much demand for human labor, what's the problem?
Re:Local testing works? (Score:5, Interesting)
How large is large?
I know places like NYC have lots of under-the-table employees, but almost none of them make less then the $8 an hour minimum wage because if you only make $5 an hour in Manhattan you starve to death. They're under-the-table because the employer does not want to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, or do the paperwork required to issue a 1099. Most of the employers are actually upper-middle-class to rich employers who could easily do the paperwork, they simply don't bother because none of their friends bother.
I actually work at a Home Depot, which the anti-immigration activists are convinced means I know hundreds of Salvadoreans working for below the minimum wage. It just doesn't happen. It probably happened back in 2008, before the economy went to hell, but since then nope. It's probably much more common in areas with low (or no) minimum wages simply because the cost of living is low enough that somebody who is used to a lower-class standard of living in Mexico or Central America could get by on $6 an hour and still have enough left over to send a couple hundred a month home.
Re:Local testing works? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not got one step further - the fines imposed on the employer could be set at the difference between the actual wage earned and the (minimum wage + $1/hour).
Let's also set a higher than normal minimum wage for illegal/undocumented workers, a so called "employer penalty minimum wage" of 25% higher.
Also.... for each illegal: if the farm employer paid them in cash or cannot otherwise prove beyond a shadow of doubt any particular payment, then it shall be assumed the employer made every effort to defraud the employee of wages and hours worked and that the payment was actually $0, so the entire minimum wage is due fir the maximum conceivable number of hours the employee might have worked.
Similarly... if they cannot show affirmative documentation of the hours worked: then it will be assumed an illegally numerous 16 hours a day for every day since hiring. Burden of proof on the employer to show what was paid and how many hours or days the employee worked.
Re:Local testing works? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Crazy (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, we could solve all these problems with unconditional basic income [wikipedia.org] sufficient to live tolerably on. Then we could remove minimum wage entirely and appreciate automation as liberator of humanity from toil rather than fearing it as a threat. At the same time, it would smooth out the boom-bust cycle by guaranteeing a level of economic demand.
Our current model of employment is an artifact of Industrial Era, and is quickly becoming obsolete in our post-Industrial one, which is the ultimate cause of our economic problems.
So basically, if you work for a living, you're screwed.
Re:Local testing works? (Score:4, Interesting)
While I generally agree, there's little a financial fine would do to a business. If it's low, it's not a matter for legal but one for cost accounting and risk management. If it's high, the company is sent into bankruptcy and the assholes running it simply continue.
Re:Local testing works? (Score:3, Interesting)
Prior to government handouts, people with no skills, worked no skill jobs. it was a net win for the country as people who were unemployable had jobs. with government handouts, at the bottom of the scale it is easier for people with no skills to collect a check from the government (OUR pockets) while at the same time forcing employees to hire illegals to do the job "americans dont want", this has the double negative of burdening our system even further and taking money out of our economy as a large number of migrant workers send their money back home, taking it out of the american economy.
why cant these people on welfare be given jobs "americans wont do" and start contributing "their fair share"???
Re:Local testing works? (Score:4, Interesting)
The outlook that states the pie is only so large - if I get rich someone else has to get poorer - is a fallacy perpetuated by progressives to justify redistribution. It's simply not how our economy works. But it is an economic reality that increasing the minimum wage decreases profits which increases costs to the consumer. That being said, if we are going to have a minimum wage at all, it should be reasonable with adjustments for inflation
Henry Ford thaought that the employees should be able to but th product.
Today, that is apprantly no longer true. The employee must be paid as absolutely little as possible, so that the sharholders are served.
But what happens when no one buys the product any more?
Here is the http://www.forbes.com/sites/cl... [forbes.com]
Although WalMart points to a 2005 report to invalidate those socialists at Forbes. I know WalMart employees who haven't had a raise since then.
McDonald's cost's us 1.2 billion dollars in Government support.
THere is even more data, but I figured you would just say that Huffpost and Daily Kos were tools of the liberal elite. You can Google it if you like
Now that we are here, I would like to talk about how my Tax dollars and yours are going to support the low wages that these companies say they have to pay their workers?
I thought that Government was inefficient, and spends the money poorly. So why should we subsidize McDonalds and WalMart so that they can pay their employees less? Would it not make sense to pay the employees directly? 6.2 Billion dollars is one fucking gobsmack of a tax break for WalMart. And it's semi hidden, allowing them to act like the free market superstars while they are secretly socialist redistribution of your money and mine to thos epoor people w e've been trained to know are the source of all their problems.
As an aside, there's plenty of above-minimum-wage jobs out there if you know where to look. The mikeroweWORKS foundation is a wonderful organization that promotes scholarships and training for those willing to work in skilled trades that are hurting for people.
Those fucking lazy poor people really frost my cupcakes too. Skiiled trades. Let us talk about them.
Because the person who is laid off at say 50, is going to spend 4 years leaning a new trade, to apply for a job they won't get hired for because they are "too old"? Because the person laid off from their factory job will just become an investment broker or open a machine shop?
I like Mike Rowe a lot, and agree with his idea that the blue collar workers don't get the respect they deserve.
But there is an elephant in this room.
You are not going to just plug in anyone anywhere. Isn't going to happen. Some people can make fundamental shifts in what they do, others cannot. I can and have. I've been a lifeguard, a cable TV technician, a linesman, a printed circuit manufacturer, a Digital programmer, a photographer, a videographer, and computer support to Suits. I'm the person who shifts careers as need be.
My better half, who is every bit as smart as I am, doesn't adapt as well - she's pretty much been stable in her work life.
I'd say 80 percent of people retrain only under great duress, and with very mixed success.
Thern there are the other people. Whether we want to admit it or not, a whole lot of people are just not cut out to do much that is complicated. They just aren't. But they need to support themselves.
Unless you want to support them through socialist programs, or remove them from the food chain, that is.
Re:Crazy (Score:1, Interesting)
Maybe you can tell me this, oh wise one, just how many people are supposed to be on welfare provided by a few companies in the world exactly? Let's say the companies make it possible for people to buy enough food and energy and shelter and clothing and medical help to sustain 70 billion people, not 7, should the companies be forced to provide these 'human wages', however you define them or maybe the companies should be forced to pay everybody welfare (the way it is done now)?
Ok, so let's have a 1 working person to 10 parasites ratio, how about 1 to 100, 1 to 1000? The parasites that are given free stuff never fail to procreate, so the ratio will never decrease, it will always go up. So in your generous estimation, do you think that at some point if one person runs a bunch of factories that produce everything that everybody needs, should he be forced to subsidise everybody?
1 to (ALL-1) ratio? Interesting, what if he decides to stop and blows up all of his factories and all of these people are only alive and eating because he is so productive to feed them all? 99.99999% of them will die from starvation, right? Good plan. Let's turn one guy into the slave of the all. That's basically your idea, if not that extreme in the beginning.