Seattle should give some good indication of what is happening, the whole point of minimum wage is more purchasing power, if it does give lower class significantly more purchasing power without significantly eroding purchasing power of the middle class, this will be a success experiment. We will also have to keep in mind if there are significant job losses, the data will be there soon enough.
Short term it gives those making the minimum wage more purchasing power, but that's only a short term consequence. Prices adjust fairly quickly and then they are back to having the same purchasing power while the middle class' purchasing power is eroded. Fortunately for the middle class, their salaries often adjust to the new economy so it won't hurt all of them in the long term, but those who don't end up falling out of the middle class.
I do not know how thing will turn out, long term vs short term. If after prices and salaries adjustments the purchasing power increase is very modest, then the experiment is a failure, let the data speak. We all know how the Kansas experiment turned out, complete disaster.
I don't watch Fox, like you religiously watch MSNBC. Fox is to Conservative Morons as MSNBC is to Liberal Idiots.
Bobby, in the long term, things are headed in the opposite direction as what you believe. I mean in the long long term, like each 100 years, the world will be exponentially more socialistic if we're all still around. That's just where it's going. We hit the peak of wealth distribution in one direction. There's only one other direction. You can't stay still, because people are losing their minds. It's not working. Nothing is going to stop that from happening. That's been the direction we've been going since as far back as history recalls. The only thing that's going to delay that in the medium term is hurting or killing large large groups of people, like seriously harming hundreds of millions of people all over. That works for about half a decade at a time, which is long enough to satisfy a selfish human being, and that's one of the core spiritual obstacles humanity faces these days. Jesus spoke plenty about it, I don't know how familiar you are with his teachings. Now you can fight this for the rest of your life or you can accept that, like ageing, this is going to happen. You can get plastic surgery and apply tons of makeup, but this thing is happening. And one day it will look like this: Spoiler Do you really see the world getting more willing to allow people to live on a starvation wage? It's a starvation wage bobby. They will be able to get more food and education and SURE if they want, better mar1juana too. And when that flatens out, you bump up the wage again. Just like you guys were doing for some 50 odd years after the 1930's. You kept giving people more, and in turn they were producing more. They kept increasing production and you guys stopped increasing their wages because China. Is that right bobby? These are your neighbours bobby. Your grocer. Your waitress. The guy who maintains your pool. It's your community. Occasionally I get very demoralized about things that happen in the short term which impede human progress towards an acceptable standard of living for all. But one thing I know is, I don't believe in anything that goes against clear patterns in human development since we have started writing **** down. There are some things we know are going to win out. Slavery will diminish. Kingdoms will disappear. We are down to the last superpower right now. The gap in global education will shrink. Poor people will take from the rich, as long as they outnumber them so heavily. And it's not stealing. It's - for lack of better word - reparation. The human collective spirit dealing out justice. Can't stop that ****. It's like magic. Calm down bobby, and lead a less stressful life. It can't be good for you, worried about the stagnant lives of poor people and not having a working solution for it for 30+ years now. We're all brothers and sisters. If you want to earn lots of praise for working hard, I'll give you that praise. I will call you the hardest working man alive, if you will support a movement that refuses to allow some people to starve. We all will. But come chill with us. We love you.
I believe Jerry Brown's approach to minimum wage is the correct one -- an incremental increase towards $15 so business can adapt to higher labor costs. In addition, I would give a way out for economically depressed cities to be exempt from the mandatory minimum wage increase -- a decision to be made by the local city council. As illustrated by an article that I read, affluent cities like Palo Alto where the median price of a home hovers around $2.5 M, the $15/hr can be easily absorbed. Otoh, small business in Sacramento and smaller CA towns are likely to find the rate hike troublesome to their bottomline. In short, the above two-pronged approach makes the most sense, fully taking into consideration economical and geographical differences.
Why $15? There's nothing special about that number, sure it might be considered a good wage if the minimum is 7.25, but if the minimum is $15 then it'll be a "starvation wage" and we'll be talking about needing a "living wage" of $35 an hour.
The reverse of the municipal-level minimum wage ordinances. I think both approaches are equally flawed. Make a uniform rule across the whole state so businesses don't govern their real estate decisions based on the whims of a hundred city councils. Cities would feel economic pressure to make themselves exempt to compete for businesses to include in their tax base. They'd throw their low-wage residents under the city bus in exchange for more tax revenue by making their city more "business friendly" than the surrounding area. You'd also get this funny distortion where businesses in unincorporated rural areas would pay better than businesses in small urban areas, the opposite of what is generally the case. I understand the appeal of targeting by geography, but you aren't dictating prevailing salaries here anyway; you are only defining minimum acceptable standards. Palo Alto can absorb the cost more easily, yes, and market forces may dictate even higher salaries to justify the low-wage worker's commute from wherever they can find an acceptable rent. Capitalism can sort that out. For the minimum standard, uniformity is best.
Bobby is sure about everything. But, I do generally agree with him. The minimum wage can have an inflationary effect that erodes the buying power of the new salaries. If the minimum was indexed to inflation though, buying power would be better preserved. In any case, I don't see that as an argument to not increase minimum wages. I see it as an argument to adopt more policies to strengthen the bargaining power of labor against capital.
There's more variables at play here. Inflation has been at check for a long while - due in part to declining real wages, globalization, and massive increases in productivity. The worker has not benefited from this. Usually when productivity goes up, so do wages and companies can pay more as they are making more profits. The idea that this minimum wage increase would be inflationary is challenged by all the other factors keeping prices down. You have a strong dollar, globalization, tepid consumer demand, global competition, incredible efficiency and disruption. Lots of things to suggest that bringing wages in line isn't that big of a deal. Minimum wage hasn't gone up in 7 years. And in a state like california $15/hr by 2020 isn't that much of an increase. The cost of living is higher, yet people aren't earning more. A little inflation isn't a horrible thing when interest rates are under 1%. I can't see workers making so little as healthy. Given that there is no data to show that minimum wage hurts an economy or is even inflationary, I think it's a no brainer to increase it as most economists think it has little impact on the overall health of the economy.
VICE News @vicenews Boeing is cutting jobs, but Washington state is still on the hook for $9B in tax breaks http://bit.ly/1RyTCYS
A lot of the working poor are living paycheck by paycheck and are one or two small financial accidents ($500-5k medical/legal/car/housing bills) away from extreme poverty. You're projecting your financial condition with some arbitrary weighting (a.k.a. imagining a poor Bobby) on those 2 million affected people by assuming that they'd immediately re-inject that money back into the economy when they likely have bills, loans, repairs and rent to pay...all of which impacts your ideas of purchasing power. I noticed some post monkey uploaded a youtube of Peter Schiff on this or another topic. He's the joker who thought lax Fed lending and aggressive QE policies of the last 8 years would lead to catastrophic hyperinflation. Similarly to the bottom percentile of workers, increasing that money supply didn't cause hyperinflation because those banks weren't in a favorable position to use it or inject it into the immediate economy. That's the plain and simple difference between 15/hr and 50/hr. Typical min wage suggestions have been half of the state's median wage. California lawmakers understood that historical benchmark only sustained a status quo that has lead to the second Gilded Age, so they're trying something that hasn't been done before and has no historical data for reference. Acting like your thoughts are complex and following through on them are different things. Carry on.
Can I get $15/hr and work less hours please? http://usherald.com/after-getting-1...-want-less-hours-so-they-can-stay-on-welfare/
