Honestly: the minimum wage does need to go up

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

This post got me thinking.

I am firmly in favor of:

A) A higher minimum wage in the whole US, and my home state of NY
B) Honesty in politics

While the OP I linked to is not exactly dishonest, it's not exactly honest either.
And this is not to put flak upon the poster there, but it's an example of political rhetoric that is used to leverage one side of a conversation, ignoring nuance.

the graphic in the linked to OP:

1) Doesn't seem to take into account state laws that raise min wage over fed laws
2) Doesn't take into account the vast difference in housing throughout a state

My objection is more with 2 than 1. 1 is easy to take care of, but 2 is not easy.

New York City is WAYYYY more expensive than Rochester or Buffalo, NY; or a large number of other places within the state I could name. Yet, this graphic gives us a number, presumably an average. But that average is way skewed. But how else should they do it? Give us on graphic for NYC and another for the rest of NY State? That wouldn't work either, because then you'd need to break it down for other cities and so on. So what do we do?

We must talk about things in the big picture without getting bogged down in details, otherwise we will have to talk for eons before we can understand what needs to be done. So while I agree that the min wage needs to go up, across the US, I have a problem with the info-graphics created to support that argument. They lack nuance, and as such, are deceiving. Even if they don't mean to be, and are honestly doing the best they can to compile and sort the data, the inevitability of misleading data is going to doom us all.

That said.
Happy saint patty's day.
Was I drunk when I wrote this? You decide.

Comments

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

So what's your argument for raising the minimum wage?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Oh, ya know, the standard argument:

people working 40 hours a weeks shouldn't be below the poverty line (and from the conservative angle: shouldn't be in need of food stamps to feed their children)

Do you have any argument against the minimum wage that wasn't used back when the minimum wage was first put into place?
Tired arguments, all of them.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Do you have any argument against the minimum wage that wasn't used back when the minimum wage was first put into place?
Tired arguments, all of them.

I'm not sure what arguments are tired in this case for you. That it will eliminate payroll hours and perhaps even jobs? Yeah, that's true. That prices will rise alongside the minimum wage, creating a feedback loop? Yep, pretty much. That nearly half of earners are under 25 (http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2011.htm), and thus aren't likely to be relying on it as their sole role in life? Sure. That less than 6% of all hourly workers are making minimum wage or less? Yep.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

That prices will rise alongside the minimum wage

It's the other way around. Well, it was until Congress decided to stop giving a fuck about earning a living wage. Now it's just prices going up.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Someone should really tell these other countries that have no evidence of this mystical connection of minimum wage and prices that they should stop raising it, lest a bottle of coke cost 20 euros soon.

Libertarianism: "Throw shit at the wall, see what sticks" style of debating.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

This doesn't even make sense.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

I love it that the underlying assumption is that prices derive 100% from labor.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

That just means prices go up at the same ratio that the prices are derived from labor.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Those are your words, certainly not mine.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Now for the less obvious ones:

That nearly half of earners are under 25, and thus aren't likely to be relying on it as their sole role in life?

Teenagers should not earn a livable wage because... they are teenagers! Not really an argument against the minimum wage, just stats.

That less than 6% of all hourly workers are making minimum wage or less?

More stats! In what world is citing stats an argument? Hey everybody, only a tiny percentage of Americans smoke (not an actual stat, just an example), so who cares if we have a harsh, regressive sin tax? I love how this one ties in with:

That prices will rise alongside the minimum wage, creating a feedback loop?

Apparently people on minimum wage are a negligible working force but simultaneously will affect prices.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Teenagers should not earn a livable wage because... they are teenagers! Not really an argument against the minimum wage, just stats.

More stats! In what world is citing stats an argument? Hey everybody, only a tiny percentage of Americans smoke (not an actual stat, just an example), so who cares if we have a harsh, regressive sin tax?

Actually, these are both strong arguments against a minimum wage. Teens don't need a living wage, that's not why they're working in general. So few people are making the wage that it's not something people are being forced to live off of if they're making a wage, generally speaking. The argument being posed in the post is that the minimum wage is linked to people being able to survive off it. Maybe people in favor of raising the minimum wage should instead stop framing it as an issue of making a living off of the minimum wage.

Apparently people on minimum wage are a negligible working force but simultaneously will affect prices.

You don't think the minimum wage impacts wages all the way up the chain?

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

I partially disagree. I am in the service and entertainment industry, with over 30 employees. My labor needs are not going to shrink if my labor cost goes up. It is just another cost increase, either absorbed, passed on, or a combination of the two.

That it will 'discourage' hiring is fear mongering. But it will lead, naturally to increase in prices to the end users. But that is what we all should do, fairly shoulder the burdens of modern society proportional to our ability.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

that last comment I am sure you find repugnant, but it is what it is.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I partially disagree. I am in the service and entertainment industry, with over 30 employees. My labor needs are not going to shrink if my labor cost goes up. It is just another cost increase, either absorbed, passed on, or a combination of the two.

If you have a certain amount of hours you can pay out, a certain payroll cap you can't exceed, you don't think artificially increasing the cost of that payroll hour is going to impact your ability to staff? You think you can just pass it along, but then you're making my next point - prices are naturally going to increase based on that.

That it will 'discourage' hiring is fear mongering. But it will lead, naturally to increase in prices to the end users. But that is what we all should do, fairly shoulder the burdens of modern society proportional to our ability.

Well, if payroll hours are at X, and a minimum wage hike is going to bring you closer to, or past, X, it's certainly going to discourage adding more hours, no?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

So which one of those arguments didnt exist when the minimum wage was created?

It will kill jobs? Yup, it was around then
It will raise prices? Yup

Note that if nearly half of earners are under 25, that means THE MAJORITY of them ARE NOT under 25. I repeat: the majority of people earning it are over 25

So what is your argument against the min wage?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I've made my argument. That the arguments are old does not invalidate them, it just means that the minimum wage proponents have utterly failed to address them.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

But higher wages means more spending, typically discretionary (our economy depends on a lot of this type spending, agreed?). In the US we are now moving away from manufacturing to service based jobs. So more jobs are created from the increase spending.

Supply/demand, etc.

The jobs and hours eliminated by MW raises will just move to another sector.

Kind of like squeezing a balloon or fighting drug wars, Jeff. Mash down one place and another pops up on the other side.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

But higher wages means more spending, typically discretionary (our economy depends on a lot of this type spending, agreed?).

Agreed to a point - I think we disagree on the matter of degree.

When you're talking wages this low, however, we're not talking a lot more spending, and the spending is offset by the other distortions it causes. If you're giving everyone an extra 50 cents an hour, the ripple is going to have an impact close to, if not exceeding, that amount depending on a number of factors.

Kind of like squeezing a balloon or fighting drug wars, Jeff. Mash down one place and another pops up on the other side.

Right. The fight to find an artificial basement for wages is a losing proposition - it's not helpful to those who might actually need it, it's not helpful to those who don't need it, it doesn't do a good enough job working itself out for cost of living differentials from area to area.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'Kind of like squeezing a balloon or fighting drug wars, Jeff. Mash down one place and another pops up on the other side. '

That other place is China.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

I figured our income, based on the game everyone was playing in that other post. And it comes to $.572 per second. Every second.

Take a 3 minute dump, earn $102.96!

This is fun~

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

what game? huh?

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

In the 1930s it was common for a dock to employ hundreds if not thousands of workers to load and unload cargo. That was before shipping containers made it faster and easier to unload cargo. With the advent of shipping containers a global boom followed... and untold hundreds of thousands of workers were fired.

Imagine how much better off we'd be if we just increased the wage of those workers. We'd have literally hundreds of thousands of people across America earning untold tens of thousands of dollars a year. We'd have TRILLIONS more in income.

Clearly this is the best course of action. We need to ban shipping containers.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Nonsense. That is an argument against technology and increased productivity. Thats not what I'm about here.

But, for a while productivity and pay kept pace. Then productivity skyrocketed and wages remained stagnant (essentially dropped as inflation occurred)

This is distinct from the min wage issue.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

But if we pay people for work that we don't need them for, we'll do better, right?

The minimum wage is just another aspect of the demand for inefficiency.

There's a very obvious reason why "richer" areas have a higher minimum wage and are always clamoring for a higher one still.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]