Min Wage Increase Doesn't Impact Employement

[Washpark 176]

Another Republican policy argument found to be a flat out lie.

 

Quote

Minimum wage increases in six U.S. cities boosted worker pay without harming job growth, according to a study released Thursday by University of California at Berkeley researchers.

Economists at the school’s Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics examined U.S. Labor Department data from the first major cities to raise their local wage floors above $10 an hour: Washington, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose.

In the food services industry, a major employer of low wage workers, a 10 percent increase in minimum pay increased average weekly earnings 1.3 percent to 2.5 percent on average across the six cities, the authors found. They found no “significant negative employment effects.” Instead, they estimated the impact on jobs at between a 0.3 percent reduction and a 1.1 percent gain.

“Policies are working as the policy makers intended,” paper co-author Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist and co-chair of the center, said in an interview. “The sky is not falling.”

While the federal minimum wage has been $7.25 per hour since 2009, cities and states have made a slew of increases in their own wage floors, spurredin part by protests mounted by low-wage workers in industries such as fast food. New York City employers with 11 or more staff now must pay at least $13 per hour, and $15 starting Dec. 31.

Wage Standard

“With a substantial number of additional cities and states poised to soon enact similar policies, a large portion of the U.S. labor market will be held to a higher wage standard than has been typical over the past 50 years,” the economists wrote.

As a result, they estimate, such policies will increase pay directly for 15 percent to 30 percent of the workforce in cities raising their minimums and as much as 50 percent of the workforce in some industries and regions. By contrast, they said, “the federal and state minimum wage increases between 1984 and 2014 increased pay directly for less than eight percent of the applicable workforce.”

The findings contrast with a study by University of Washington economists last year that estimated Seattle’s $13 minimum wage reduced hours worked in low-wage jobs. The Berkeley economists suggest that Washington’s study failed to account for a Seattle-area employment boom at the time that led to workers moving from lower-wage to higher-wage jobs.

City and state minimum wage hikes have helped spur congressional Democrats and some seeking the party’s 2020 presidential nomination to call for a nationwide $15 minimum. As a candidate, President Donald Trump said American wages were too high to be globally competitive, then later that the minimum wage “has to go up” but that the issue should be left to the states rather than the federal government.

 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-06/higher-minimum-wage-boosts-pay-without-reducing-jobs-study-says

[Incredulity 11556]

Well, "flat out lie" and 

They found no “significant negative employment effects.” Instead, they estimated the impact on jobs at between a 0.3 percent reduction and a 1.1 percent gain.

don't really match up.

[The Dog 43809]

The traditional argument against minimum wage increases is that it causes inflation. Those arguing that it caused unemployment believed that the higher minimum wage would result in increased automation, but clearly some jobs can't be easily replaced by machines (cooks for example). What this tells me is that we've hit some limit on automation replacing humans or at least diminishing returns to a point that it's worth just paying people more rather than investing in the technology. 

[Incredulity 11556]

Just now, The Dog said:

The traditional argument against minimum wage increases is that it causes inflation. Those arguing that it caused unemployment believed that the higher minimum wage would result in increased automation, but clearly some jobs can't be easily replaced by machines (cooks for example). What this tells me is that we've hit some limit on automation replacing humans or at least diminishing returns to a point that it's worth just paying people more rather than investing in the technology. 

I would also suggest that the current geography that has implemented the increases is small enough that the push for automation technology hasn't been in earnest.   Meaning if 500 restaurants need robot burger flippers the market isn't big enough for Techology X Company to make one.  When 500,000 restaurants need it the game changes.

[Viper 12030]

First, being wrong in an argument isn't "a lie", second, it's entirely possible that $10 isn't high enough a raise to cause much effect yet. Note in the article the study that found the opposite result from Seattle's much higher raise to $13

Quote

The findings contrast with a study by University of Washington economists last year that estimated Seattle’s $13 minimum wage reduced hours worked in low-wage jobs. The Berkeley economists suggest that Washington’s study failed to account for a Seattle-area employment boom at the time that led to workers moving from lower-wage to higher-wage jobs

 

Third, there is the likely possibility that these increases have less negative consequences in large cities vs small towns. Meaning it would be a bad "one size fits all" policy to raise the minimum wage too quickly (much less to $15) at the state and national level. 

Lastly, I'm confused, wasn't washparkhorn a libertarian? 

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, The Dog said:

The traditional argument against minimum wage increases is that it causes inflation. Those arguing that it caused unemployment believed that the higher minimum wage would result in increased automation, but clearly some jobs can't be easily replaced by machines (cooks for example). What this tells me is that we've hit some limit on automation replacing humans or at least diminishing returns to a point that it's worth just paying people more rather than investing in the technology. 

I would argue that automation is still in the nascent phases of it's life cycle that you are only really seeing it adopted by desk/office workers, and traditionally then only in F&A, shared services, BFSI, etc.

The tipping point hasn't even really happened yet for software automation much less physical automation (self-driving cars, the robo-chefs alluded to above, etc.).

But it's coming

[sidis 9755]

56 minutes ago, Viper said:

First, being wrong in an argument isn't "a lie", second, it's entirely possible that $10 isn't high enough a raise to cause much effect yet. Note in the article the study that found the opposite result from Seattle's much higher raise to $13 

 

Third, there is the likely possibility that these increases have less negative consequences in large cities vs small towns. Meaning it would be a bad "one size fits all" policy to raise the minimum wage too quickly (much less to $15) at the state and national level. 

Lastly, I'm confused, wasn't washparkhorn a libertarian?  

not the same guy.  was certainly confusing the first few days of surly.

[UTDD 362]

I would be curious to know how overall benefit costs and PT vs FT are possibly impacted by wages in certain sectors.  I only wonder based on a specific example where I consulted with a company for something else (not tied to wage increases as that was being consulted by others), and long story short they ended up with the exact same FTE (full time employee "slots" based on budgeting with basically 200+ full-time slots based on hours) but when you actually broke it down further, they compensated for higher wages by splitting their workforce from 80/20 FT/PT (basically full benefits or not) to about 30/70 and their benefit costs were tweaked down.  Their overall budgeted payroll was down, but of course that is not factoring turnover, training, and other ancillary costs I am not familiar with for this example.  

[bernorange 8348]

Quote

New York City’s minimum wage jumped more than 15 percent overnight on January 1, and employers are already cutting workers’ hours as a result.
...
... A New York City Hospitality Alliance survey shows that 75 percent of restaurants said they planned to cut employees hours in response to the wage hike. Nearly half (47 percent) said they’d cut jobs.
...

https://fee.org/articles/the-costs-of-nyc-s-15-minimum-wage/

[Steamboat1874 4032]

7 minutes ago, bernorange said:

https://fee.org/articles/the-costs-of-nyc-s-15-minimum-wage/

I call bullshit on this.

If you are cutting hours then you were overstaffed to begin with and taking advantage of cheap labor. Pay a living wage you greedy cocksuckers.

Your customers will not mind paying more.

[Huckleberry 32704]

27 minutes ago, bernorange said:

https://fee.org/articles/the-costs-of-nyc-s-15-minimum-wage/

Are there any studies after minimum wage increases?

I don't find employers claiming before the increase happens that "WE'LL HAVE TO CUT HOURS AND CUT JOBS!!!" particularly persuasive.

[CO Horn 154]

4 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

Are there any studies after minimum wage increases?

I don't find employers claiming before the increase happens that "WE'LL HAVE TO CUT HOURS AND CUT JOBS!!!" particularly persuasive.

THIS

[bernorange 8348]

Quote

Last summer, a paper on the effects of Seattle's minimum-wage increase made national headlines with its conclusion: The change made low-income workers worse off, not better, because it forced employers to cut back on hiring and hours to afford paying higher wages.

Although the finding contradicted years of research showing that the minimum wage had little to no effect on hiring practices, the paper was widely read and generally well regarded because of its reliance on high-quality data and convincing methods. David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not involved in the research, told The Washington Post at the time that the study was “very credible” and “sufficiently compelling in its design and statistical power that it can change minds.”

A little more than six months later, and minds have indeed been changed — among them Autor's. He now says that other recent minimum-wage papers have underscored the limitations of the Seattle study.

Chief among those newer papers is a large analysis of the effects of minimum-wage increases that have occurred since 1979. That paper, co-written by Arindrajit Dube of the University of Massachusetts, was recently presented at the American Economic Association's annual conference.

Dube's paper is more in line with conventional economic thinking: On average, minimum-wage increases eliminated jobs paying below the new minimum, but added jobs paying at or above the new minimum. The two changes effectively cancel each other out.
...
... But the University of Washington's Jacob Vigdor, who co-wrote the Seattle study, says the two findings are not necessarily contradictory.

Seattle's minimum-wage increase, Vigdor says, was a lot steeper than most other increases have been. Minimum wages at large businesses and franchises rose by $3.53, or more than 37 percent, over just nine months. Out of the 137 minimum-wage increases included in the Dube et al. paper, by contrast, that average increase was 10 percent.

It may be the case that “small increases to hourly rates of $11 or less seem to be okay, but a rapid increase to $13 causes more problems,” Vigdor said in an interview. “Our study only raises concerns about an increase from $11 to [as high as] $13 an hour, implemented nine months after a prior increase from $9.47.”

There may be another factor lurking behind the apparently contradictory findings: Neither paper has gone all the way through peer review and been published in an academic journal.
...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/05/raising-the-minimum-wage-doesnt-cost-jobs-multiple-studies-suggest/?utm_term=.d7cdd4aa1f52

[happyfunball 481]

Dube's paper is more in line with conventional economic thinking: On average, minimum-wage increases eliminated jobs paying below the new minimum, but added jobs paying at or above the new minimum. The two changes effectively cancel each other out.

There may be another factor lurking behind the apparently contradictory findings: Neither paper has gone all the way through peer review and been published in an academic journal.

[Viper 12030]

 

6 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

Are there any studies after minimum wage increases?

I don't find employers claiming before the increase happens that "WE'LL HAVE TO CUT HOURS AND CUT JOBS!!!" particularly persuasive.

 

well it's only been 29 days. may have to wait awhile for an actual study. There's also the seattle study linked to in my previous post.

 

There have been some anecdotes of business already raising prices and cutting workers

https://reason.com/blog/2019/01/24/minimum-wage-hikes-threaten-new-york-cit

Quote

A new study conducted by the New York City Hospitality Alliance lends credence to the idea that substantial increases made to the tipped wage are far costlier than they are beneficial. After surveying 574 restaurants, they found that 2019 looks bleak: 75 percent of full-service establishments plan to cut employee hours, and 47 percent will eliminate jobs entirely in response to the forced minimum wage hikes. That follows closely on the heels of a dreary 2018, when 77 percent of full-service restaurants reduced employee hours and 36 percent cut jobs, both of which were also in response to the mandated wage increases.

Susannah Koteen, who runs Lido Restaurant in Harlem, has already had to make do with less by getting rid of her busboys, the lowest employees on the restaurant totem pole. Customer-facing but non-tipped, these workers now reap the full benefits of a $15 minimum wage, but only if they're lucky enough to stay employed.

...

According to the NYC Hospitality Alliance Survey study, 87 percent of restaurants will increase prices in 2019, and 90 percent said they already did so last year. Both Per Se and Eleven Madison Park can count themselves among that cohort, as their menu prices rose in January 2018 and again at the start of the new year, directly after the annual wage increases set in. The Grill, another Manhattan establishment, started charging $38 for a mushroom omelet in 2018—a 52 percent jump from the $24 price tag in 2017. (That better be a really, really good omelet.)

 

[CO Horn 154]

1 minute ago, bernorange said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/05/raising-the-minimum-wage-doesnt-cost-jobs-multiple-studies-suggest/?utm_term=.d7cdd4aa1f52

I agree with this article as it relates to Seattle.  Colorado increased the minimum wage by $2.70 over three years, from $9.30, to $12.  A lot of businesses complained initially, but I don't think the concerns have played out.

[CO Horn 154]

1 minute ago, Viper said:

 

 

well it's only been 29 days. may have to wait awhile for an actual study. There's also the seattle study linked to in my previous post.

 

There have been some anecdotes of business already raising prices and cutting workers

https://reason.com/blog/2019/01/24/minimum-wage-hikes-threaten-new-york-cit

 

That omelet must take a long time to make to justify a $14 increase due to the increased cost of labor!!

[Llano Estacado 1257]

That omelet must take a long time to make to justify a $14 increase due to the increased cost of labor!!

It’s scalable across the board. Have to look at your whole integrated project team, not just the grill man.

Omelette flipper needs more.
Bus boy needs more.
Hostess needs more.
Shift manager needs more.
Dishwasher needs more.
Open/close janitor needs more.

[Incredulity 11556]

13 minutes ago, CO Horn said:

That omelet must take a long time to make to justify a $14 increase due to the increased cost of labor!!

It is a sensational anecdote.

Facts are stuff is going to cost more.  Jobs will be automated.

 

The biggest concern for me in the Min Wage fight is that all of these increases have embraced an "index to inflation" methodology.  Which is all well and good while we are running at 1-2% inflation, but when the inflation beast roars there is no way legislative bodies will be able to act quick enough to deal with extremes.  The short term shocks could really be enough to destroy businesses.

[CO Horn 154]

I don't buy the argument that an increase in the minimum wage will lead to automation.  Automation will occur regardless of whether there is an increase in minimum wage.

[David Dennison 18661]

6 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

It is a sensational anecdote.

Facts are stuff is going to cost more.  Jobs will be automated.

 

The biggest concern for me in the Min Wage fight is that all of these increases have embraced an "index to inflation" methodology.  Which is all well and good while we are running at 1-2% inflation, but when the inflation beast roars there is no way legislative bodies will be able to act quick enough to deal with extremes.  The short term shocks could really be enough to destroy businesses.

The Fed has the inflation beast under control. They'll strangle the economy if they have to. Inflation hasn't been an issue for 40 years.

[Incredulity 11556]

1 minute ago, CO Horn said:

I don't buy the argument that an increase in the minimum wage will lead to automation.  Automation will occur regardless of whether there is an increase in minimum wage.

The decision to automate is simple economics.

Increasing costs(labor) is definitely a factor.  It may or may not be singular.

[Incredulity 11556]

1 minute ago, David Dennison said:

The Fed has the inflation beast under control. They'll strangle the economy if they have to. Inflation hasn't been an issue for 40 years.

that's pretty presumptuous

[David Dennison 18661]

Just now, Incredulity said:

that's pretty presumptuous

It's a good presumption. 

 

[Viper 12030]

7 minutes ago, CO Horn said:

I don't buy the argument that an increase in the minimum wage will lead to automation.  Automation will occur regardless of whether there is an increase in minimum wage.

 

4 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

The decision to automate is simple economics.

Increasing costs(labor) is definitely a factor.  It may or may not be singular.

exactly, if you can buy all the equipment and install it all for $250,000 now but all your workers only cost $100,000, you're not going to do it until the cost gets lower. Now when the workers cost is $150,000 this year and $200,000 next year, you're going to look a lot close at automating.

 

let's also remember that for these statewide minium wage increases, it's one thing to have a $13 wage in the city, but it also take into effect in the small towns.

[CO Horn 154]

8 minutes ago, Viper said:

 

exactly, if you can buy all the equipment and install it all for $250,000 now but all your workers only cost $100,000, you're not going to do it until the cost gets lower. Now when the workers cost is $150,000 this year and $200,000 next year, you're going to look a lot close at automating.

 

let's also remember that for these statewide minium wage increases, it's one thing to have a $13 wage in the city, but it also take into effect in the small towns.

With the current state of technology, the cost of automating certain job functions is cost effective even at the current minimum wage level

[bad_teammate 13132]

$13/hr @ 40hrs/week @ 50 weeks/yr = $26,000 a year in gross pay

Anyone who begrudges a working American that level pay is a monster.

[NBMisha 224]

Back to the OP, in any campaign for or against minimum wage increases, the against folk immediately bring out claims that the increases will always/inevitably cause job reductions.  Yet the empirical evidence, even prior to the studies referenced in this thread, were persistently mixed in the observed outcomes.   

I don't like the lying about what the case history reveals.  Somewhat separately, if the outcome is difficult to forecast, it seems that a city or county or state can take the position that the risk is something they are willing to take for the known benefit of better wages for some at that entry level wage.  Or they can think it not worth the risk.  But it is just not an open and shut case.

 

[Rimbo 25786]

On 9/6/2018 at 7:58 AM, The Dog said:

The traditional argument against minimum wage increases is that it causes inflation. Those arguing that it caused unemployment believed that the higher minimum wage would result in increased automation, but clearly some jobs can't be easily replaced by machines (cooks for example). What this tells me is that we've hit some limit on automation replacing humans or at least diminishing returns to a point that it's worth just paying people more rather than investing in the technology. 

See also, Tesla's struggles with the Model 3 and their failed attempt to build a 100% automated factory.

[Incredulity 11556]

4 minutes ago, NBMisha said:

 

I don't like the lying about what the case history reveals.  Somewhat separately, if the outcome is difficult to forecast, it seems that a city or county or state can take the position that the risk is something they are willing to take for the known benefit of better wages for some at that entry level wage.  Or they can think it not worth the risk.  But it is just not an open and shut case.

 

Well, rejoice.  Because this is exactly what is going on.

[Cheeseweasel 26437]

2 hours ago, Steamboat1874 said:

Your customers will not mind paying more.

Yeah. Walmart is huge because of great service that people are willing to pay for.

[happyfunball 481]

Quote

Almost three years ago, we got a chance to watch a real-time experiment of the impact higher minimum wages would have on job creation after some localities passed laws to raise pay floors. Although opponents immediately decried the increases as job killers and as proof that leftists are intent on destroying the economy, the wiser course was to wait and see what the data produced.

We now have a growing body of evidence that tips the scale in favor of the proponents, bolstered by several decades of research on the subject. At this point, the clear conclusion is that modest increases in minimum wages implemented slowly over time don’t destroy jobs or hurt growth.

The latest reminder comes in a new research paper by Doruk Cengiz, Arindrajit Dube, Attila Lindner and Ben Zipperer that looks at data during the period from 1979 to 2016 in 138 U.S. states and regions where minimum pay was increased. The conclusion is that low-wage workers had a pay gain of 7 percent after a minimum-wage law was enacted, but there was little or no change in employment.

This is another blow to those who carped and complained after cities such as Seattle, 1 Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis and others adopted higher pay floors.

Specifically, the authors looked at jobs after the implementation of new wage laws, and at jobs paying less than the minimum wage that were replaced by jobs at or above the new pay floor. The researchers found that the overall number of low-wage jobs remained essentially unchanged during the five years after minimum-wage increases. This offers further support for the argument that increases don’t hurt the lower end of the employment market.

The modern history of the minimum-wage debate traces back to a seminal 1993 paper by economists Alan Krueger and David Card. 2 Card, in an email, said that the latest research “results confirm the main findings from the stream of more credible studies that have been conducted for the past 25 years i.e., pretty large wage impacts but very small employment effects.” 3

If confirmed by other research, the study could build support for more regional or even a national increase in minimum wages. Legislation leading to higher pay – but without hurting employment -- is a main focus of the labor movement. It has attracted interest and backing from many of the Democratic congressional freshmen. The national minimum wage now is $7.25 an hour and hasn’t been raised since 2009.

There are a two counterarguments to Cengiz et al.’s research that are worth considering: The first is that by only measuring low-wage jobs, and not total employment, the researchers missed a big chunk of minimum-wage effects. That may or may not be true; the challenge is showing a causal connection between minimum-wage laws and those working in higher-paying jobs being displaced. Explanations for this appear circumstantial or tenuous at best.

The second and more intriguing challenge is that the minimum wage has lagged so far behind productivity gains and inflation that pay increases — even substantial ones — have little or no effect on the supply-and-demand equilibrium. The chart below shows how wage gains have failed to keep up with productivity:

Let’s consider a simple argument, which is straight out of Econ 101: Raise the price of a good or service, in this case labor, and the market responds by consuming less of it, meaning employers cut hiring. 4 However, if the lowest-paid workers’ salaries are so far behind the value of their work to employers, wages might rise fairly substantially before having an impact on the balance of labor supply and employer demand. In other words, even with an increase in the pay floor, workers don’t make up lost ground after minimum wages are raised.

At some point, of course, raising the minimum will reach an equilibrium and further increases could reduce the total job count. But at this point it’s possible that a national $15 minimum hourly wage could be adopted and there would be little or no negative impact on total employment.

Those who claim that minimum wages are job destroyers have been successful in thwarting an increase in the federal minimum wage for a decade. Yet, the accumulation of data and a shift in the nation’s political currents make it likely that an increase is becoming more acceptable. With the 2020 presidential election already heating up, demands for raising the minimum wage could very well become a defining issue.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-24/u-s-economy-higher-minimum-wages-haven-t-increased-unemployment

[F250 28694]

23 hours ago, NBMisha said:

Somewhat separately, if the outcome is difficult to forecast, it seems that a city or county or state can take the position that the risk is something they are willing to take for the known benefit of better wages for some at that entry level wage.  Or they can think it not worth the risk.  But it is just not an open and shut case.

This makes sense. The price floor for wages varies by location and it's probably best to leave these decisions to local governments. $15 an hour might not have much of an impact on businesses in Austin but could potentially have negative consequences in Mason, TX.

[High Plains Drifter 10981]

Two things:

If your business model relies on paying your employees a wage that is not livable, then you shouldn't be in business.

If raising the minimum raise results in one employee attaining a livable wage and one employee becoming unemployed, instead of two earning below a livable wage, then I'm fine with that trade off.

 

However, it seems there is some evidence that the second point I made isn't really what is happening, at least in many cases.

[High Plains Drifter 10981]

On 9/6/2018 at 9:29 AM, Incredulity said:

Well, "flat out lie" and 

They found no “significant negative employment effects.” Instead, they estimated the impact on jobs at between a 0.3 percent reduction and a 1.1 percent gain.

don't really match up.

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here. Based on OP's link, it sounds like the blanket statement, made repeatedly by Republicans, "Higher minimum wages mean fewer jobs" just isn't true.

[Incredulity 11556]

6 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here. Based on OP's link, it sounds like the blanket statement, made repeatedly by Republicans, "Higher minimum wages mean fewer jobs" just isn't true.

Unless it is true, as in  ".3 percent reduction" in jobs.

 

[NBMisha 224]

4 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

Unless it is true, as in  ".3 percent reduction" in jobs.

 

Not it all cases, is the point.  Not always true, not inevitably true.  Do you get it?

[Incredulity 11556]

1 minute ago, NBMisha said:

Not it all cases, is the point.  Not always true, not inevitably true.  Do you get it?

Which is exactly my point.  Job losses may or may NOT be the case. 

If it does, then Republicans haven't, "flat out lied".

[NBMisha 224]

The lie, which is most common, is that pubs claim minimum wage increases will certainly reduce employment.  The onus is on those who make this claim.  No one says these moves never effect employment.

[Incredulity 11556]

1 minute ago, NBMisha said:

The lie, which is most common, is that pubs claim minimum wage increases will certainly reduce employment.  The onus is on those who make this claim.  No one says these moves never effect employment.

And the study say it might reduce employment.  So round the fucking circle we go....

[Llano Estacado 1257]

 No one says these moves never effect employment.

What’s the thread title again?

[Incredulity 11556]

2 minutes ago, Llano Estacado said:

 

What’s the thread title again?

 

Are you going to believe him, or your lying eyes?

[Bozo_Casanova 26290]

Me reading a Surly/Shaggy thread about the labor economy

[Incredulity 11556]

[High Plains Drifter 10981]

54 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

Unless it is true, as in  ".3 percent reduction" in jobs.

 

A 0.3 percent reduction is so small that it is probably within the margin of error, meaning that a "0.3 percent reduction" is noise or random occurrence. As most likely would be a 1.1 percent increase, although because 1.1 is an order of magnitude greater than 0.3, 1.1 is more likely to be significant. Hence the use of the term "significant", which is being used in a statistical sense, not an everyday usage sense.

significant: caused by something other than mere chance -- "statistically significant correlation between vitamin deficiency and disease".

 

You are not seriously arguing that a .3 percent decrease means that Republicans are correct, are you?

[High Plains Drifter 10981]

1 hour ago, Incredulity said:

And the study say it might reduce employment.  So round the fucking circle we go....

No, this is simply incorrect. Op's study says that higher minimum wages have no effect on employment, unless 0.3 and 1.1 changes are significant, which would mean that higher minimum wages is more likely to increase employment than decrease it.

 

Let me say that again: The part of the study you quoted: They found no “significant negative employment effects.” Instead, they estimated the impact on jobs at between a 0.3 percent reduction and a 1.1 percent gain. 

says that higher minimum wages does not affect employment.

[UTDD 362]

I brought this up once before, but I still wonder if these studies are carefully considering 1) full-time and part-time worker changes and 2) benefit costs as part of overall payroll expenses for companies versus just looking at job slots/hours only because I still am seeing now more than once (although you can't really pull this off easily with some types of jobs) companies that have adjusted with almost the exact same total hours overall in their workforce, but they now have more overall workers at part-time versus full-time to offset the wage increases with lower benefit costs.  So on paper you would see that company with basically no real change in hours worked but deeper down in the details you would see less FT employees overall.  

[FondrenRoad 4378]

On 1/29/2019 at 10:55 AM, bernorange said:

https://fee.org/articles/the-costs-of-nyc-s-15-minimum-wage/

 

On 1/29/2019 at 11:03 AM, Steamboat1874 said:

I call bullshit on this.

If you are cutting hours then you were overstaffed to begin with and taking advantage of cheap labor. Pay a living wage you greedy cocksuckers.

Your customers will not mind paying more.

"Planned" is the key word there which gives away the fact that its just a bullshit scare tactic. Restaurant owners in NYC can't cut the hours of necessary kitchen staff if they want to stay in business. Customers won't tolerate long waits at the types of establishments that consider their kitchen staff minimum wage and disposable. Disposable cooks cook disposable food, and that only works at dime a dozen lunch counters, so if you cut staff and make people wait, they will just go next door.

Its weird how all these supposed conservative titans of industry forget that labor is there to provide value to customers. If you have inadequate labor, you will have fewer customers. An employer isn't doing his employees a favor by giving them jobs. The employee is producing for the employer's customers.

If there is an actual negative effect, it would be in retail, but the primary driver right now in retail and restaurant closings is rent. Rent is so astronomical now in 3 of the 5 boros that the minimum wage increase is practically a rounding error. Wages may be a small factor, but its a single snowflake falling on an avalanche. Rents are absolutely wrecking the ability of mom and pops to enter the market and compete. 

Edited January 31, 2019 by FondrenRoad

[happyfunball 481]

[tantric superman 4667]

On 1/30/2019 at 12:25 PM, Incredulity said:

And the study say it might reduce employment.  So round the fucking circle we go....

I think the approach should simply be if you can show that a certain rise will cause an unemployment cost that outweighs the increased wage benefit, then you shouldn't implement the rise.  I.e., the onus should be on the persons making the argument.  If the burden is on you, then you need to do better than just a "maybe".   So it's not going around a circle.  It's using data to show whether it does cause the damage you claim it will cause.