CBO: $15 minimum wage hike would cost 1.4M jobs

Are there even $300k properties within a 200 mile radius of NYC?

 

I think using the tax code (things like EIC) to boost incomes is a messy thing. No one makes the connections and it all gets distorted down the line as the tax code gets adjusted and jumbled. For example, this current Covid bill has a big boost to the child tax credit - $1600/child. That mom would also get an additional $2800 in stimulus checks this year. For a single mom with one kid, those basically combine to be a $2/hr wage increase if they work close to full time (more if they don't) - but no one makes that connection when they get the payment separate from their work. So the pressure will still be there to raise minimum wage.

I think if the goal is for the government to shoulder the costs of raising wages, you have to do it through a tax credit to the businesses - that betterlinks the pay to the work. If the goal is to separately have the government provide support, UBI makes the most sense. But attaching stuff into people's tax returns just adds unnecessary complications and makes the payments into lump sums instead of regular support - unfortunately, while the math may come out the same, people spend that money differently and people don't associate as something to be part of their monthly budget, so it doesn't serve its purpose quite as well. You see the same issues with Obamacare subsidies because people never really "see" the money - it just kinds of disappears in the tax code and complicated tax returns that a lot of people don't understand.

 

But productivity isn't really associated with minimum wage. If my barista is able to make twice as many lattes now because I invested in an automatic espresso machine and made "making a latte" take a lot less work, why would I pay them twice as much? They are working the same amount of time and (in this example) putting in the same amount of effort - its just that the machine lets them create twice as many lattes. The extra cost for the business to this increased productivity is in the fancier machine. Most productivity improvements aren't because people are magically more efficient at their jobs today - it's because we've invested in tools to make the work easier than it was so more can be accomplished in the same time frame.

Certainly when a business is able to produce more, in our ideal world, the extra profits are shared between the owners and labor (hopefully market driven, but that's problematic these days). But you wouldn't want to connect the minimum wage to the productivity increase because the labor is not the driving factor in that.

 

Basically you are telling us that any form of tax breaks, subsidies for corporations trickling down to wages is a abject myth that bears no resemblance to reality?

Americans were told for 40 years since Reagan that productivity of businesses are directly related to wages of laborers.

Also, minimum wage adjusted for inflation doesn't tell the whole story such as rent, healthcare, education greatly outpacing inflation hence the cost of living in America has drastically increased.

 

No. The post you quoted said nothing about tax beaks or subsidies and had nothing to do with either one.

 

No what?

Both Democrat and Republican adminstration s over the years have used the argument that wallstreet growth increases wages.

Also I edited my last post late so I'll repeat it again but inflation adjusted min wage doesn't tell the entire story because rent, education and healthcare have greatly outpaced it. Basically the cost of living in America has increased substantially over the decades.

 

You asked me if I was telling you that "tax breaks etc etc... is an abject myth". My answer is no, I'm not telling you that.

Inflation accounts for most of those things - that's it entire purpose: it's a measure of cost of living. Some things like rent have gone up faster than overall inflation. Other things have gone up slower. Inflation is the average of all that stuff. CPI includes a housing component, medical care component, and an education costs component.

 

https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/rent-growth-since-1960

According to this, rent has outpaced inflation hence "real median rent".

 

Good points and I agree that every solution has other problems associated with it. With people not associating things like EIC with wage benefits is a matter of messaging and as others have noted the Democrats aren’t good at messaging.

 

There's certainly settings where lived experience has value, but I'm going to go with Dean Baker and the generally accepted proposition that the minimum wage is substantially less than its previous value over that of random guy on a basketball message board who's arguing his right to grind his baristas into the garbage can because he took introductory micro in 1995.

 

Minimum wage isn't a safety net like unemployment. At the same time it isn't there to insure a middle class lifestyle.

 

It's a floor.

 

Idk if I’ve posted in this thread yet , but my views on this are simple .

I would like a minimum wage increase , but 15 is too much .

I prefer a combination of a UBI and raising the wage to say 11/12 .

it’s hard to tell how many employers are taking employees to task and would easily survive a wage increase without having to raise prices .

but , I would suggest that bigger businesses like macdonalds , Walmart , and the like would be able to benefit from the competitive change a wage hike this drastic would cause.

in my experience , few places pay absolute minimum nowadays . Many places at least start new / the most easily replaceable with 9/10 and bigger / more profitable places can offer 12+ . Depends on the workers education /experience also .

labor markets are ****ed in multiple sectors
Right now . Think about how badly healthcare markets are already ****ed up .

but i say all of this to mean that I started off working for 6 dollars an hour . Soon after that the minimum wage got raised and it felt like the new employees were getting a huge deal. Pretty quickly my pay went up way higher than the minimum . but I also invested in more certifications.

Anyways . I don’t think we need 15 year old lifeguards making 15 an hour . That’s just some bullshit . maybe in California .

keep it lower than 15 to help low cost of living states/ areas.

UBI is gonna help spread the gains from capital (which we need to tax a bit mo)

From that point a 2-3 dollar min wage increase will ensure that neither price nor producer surplus gets too out of control

look at how popular the checks are . It’s not that people are smart . It’s just that simple works better than some intricate tax code -targeted stimulus thing .

It all comes down to consumer spending/ investing confidence... if you’re counting by gdp . This should actually boost it and hopefully stop some of the movement towards inequality while not throwing proper incentives out of whack.

We should be smart enough to think about the problem from both sides now .

 

I’d rather teens be incentivized to do better in high school than get fifteen bucks an hour flipping burgers.

If that sounds unfair, I’d double down and create a new tax credit like EITC just for being in college. Either for parents or students paying for their own ride.

 

Again, there will always be a limited supply of skill based careers. There will always be adults who will work unskilled labor. If they work full time they deserve a living wage. Not so they can afford an xbox, or a iphone 12, but basic rent, utilities, healthcare, groceries etc.

 

Not sure why you quoted me. You're conflating min wage with living wage. Living wage for burger flipping sounds like a reason for weed stocks to moon.

Now if you quoted me because you think teens deserve a "living wage", might as well write them off and give them assistance from the day they're born. Skills jerbs are "limited". Why bother? Why bother creating a small business because everyone, including pimply faced johnny needs to pay for rent?

Anyways if voters really wanted a living wage, they wouldn't have split their ticket by voting against Trump and for Republican congressmen. Republicans wouldn't be using Bernie as the socialist boogieman. You don't even see living wage in the most socialistic of states. Yang's social dividend is still the closest you'll hear about it from a politician. I bet you won't see it in NYC even if he gets elected.

For better or worse, maybe they're more pragmatic about realistic conditions than just voting everything they feel like they "deserve"

 

getting GTA 5 cost money, you need a playstation, then a real tv.
then you need money for your subscription service so you can watch the taboo Muppet Show from the 80s
also, need to get gorilla glue removal, that's expensive as hell

 

Again, not everyone can have a skill based career and there will always be adults that will work menial jobs. Teens will never the the only group of people to work minimum wage regardless of how amazing our education system could be.

 

You guys were right. Patience pays off and a compromise did happen



https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/02/28/minimum-wage-backup-plan-biden-stimulus/

 

If you can read I’m fine with increasing the min wage, i just don’t want teens to have a boost in income that covers people living paycheck to paycheck.

Back to the drawing board?