Minimum Wage Study - MW Does Not Kill Jobs

[Lumpenproletariat]

ONLY Wage-earners have a special need to be babysitted.

. . . the 1907 Harvester judgement in Australia established as a principle of Australian Commonwealth Law that a working man should be paid a wage sufficient to support both himself and his wife and children.

As the National Museum of Australia website comments:

The decision was a landmark case because, for the first time, employers were challenged to formulate wages on the basic needs of their employees rather than being solely concerned with the company’s profits

Why should employers as a class be singled out to take on this responsibility but other buyers are not?

Why is it that when you pay for WAGE LABOR you're required to babysit the seller, but when you buy any other commodity such a requirement is not imposed onto you?

E.g., as a shopper or customer you're not required to take care of the seller's wife and children, even though that store owner or that vendor might be poor or be suffering economic hardship. There are many cases of a seller (other than wage-earner) suffering and in need of help to survive and raise his family. Why is it only the wage-earner sellers we have to feel sorry for and look after their needs, but not any other sellers who are just as much in need?

Don't you understand basic commerce? When you buy something from a vendor they make a profit from that sale that they can use to feed their children and pay for a house, etcetera.

same as wage-earners. They're both sellers. Some are rich, some poor, and struggling to survive, earning what they can in the market to pay for their family. So, why should the buyers of labor (employers) be made into babysitters of those selling labor to them, but customers of a vendor are not forced to babysit that vendor even if that vendor is poor and struggling to survive and even suffering from hard times in many cases?

Wages are also a payment for a product - the labor of the worker.

Yes, and in many cases that worker is better off than the poor vendor who is struggling to survive. So why is that worker entitled to be babysitted by his customer (the employer) but the poor vendor is not entitled to be babysitted by his customer (who is better off than the vendor in many cases)?

Also, businesses, big and small, get lots of help from the government and from taxpayers (the workers).

Some get lots of help, others get harassment and tax bills and regulations and licensing fees. Be that as it may, why should only those who sell labor be entitled to fix their price at a minimum level and exclude anyone competing against them by offering the same service at a lower price?

Companies still end up with a better deal than consumers/workers, . . .

Someone's getting a "better deal" than someone else? Whatever that means, it doesn't explain why we should force them to babysit their wage-earner workers but not their independent-contractor workers. Independent contractors get screwed worse than most wage-earners. And someone whining that the other guy got a "better deal" doesn't explain why a desperate job-seeker should be prohibited from competing by offering his labor at a lower price. Why isn't that desperate job-seeker entitled to seek a "better deal" than he's getting?

. . . and plenty of profits.

No, many companies lose money and go out of business. Yet they still were forced to pay the babysitting costs of taking care of their workers.

You're not explaining why the vendor or independent contractor "working man" should not be entitled to an income "sufficient to support both himself and his wife and children" just as much as the wage-earner worker. What is this bias which says the wage-earner workers are entitled to this babysitting benefit paid by their customer but that other workers are not?

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Some get lots of help, others get harassment and tax bills and regulations and licensing fees. Be that as it may, why should only those who sell labor be entitled to fix their price at a minimum level and exclude anyone competing against them by offering the same service at a lower price?

I think you must be trolling, because many producers, retailers and others set a minimum price for their product or service.
It is not the worker setting the price, but the industry who is setting it artificially low. The worker does not want to set at such a measly minimum; if they had a choice they would set it higher, so could actually live off their wage. Who is going to "offer" the same service at a lower price? Only another exploited worker (probably an illegal immigrant).

You're not explaining why the vendor or independent contractor "working man" should not be entitled to an income "sufficient to support both himself and his wife and children" just as much as the wage-earner worker. What is this bias which says the wage-earner workers are entitled to this babysitting benefit paid by their customer but that other workers are not?

Those paid salaries and other bonuses receive much more in both pay and other benefits (for instance, a company car) than the lowly paid worker. Often they have the benefit of working for themselves. Ordinary working customers pay to, for instance, tradesmen, much more than they themselves receive for that same time and expense.
Also, high paid people receive much higher childcare payments from governments than low paid workers do, and can claim much more tax deductions, etcetera.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

No--this is a Russell's Teapot situation--and you're accepting a proof it's not there.

But you are the one making the claim, not others. Some people say that a rise in minimum wage is necessary. You and other conservatives suggested it'd cause unemployment. I don't once remember anyone from the economic conservative side saying the unemployment would be undetectable! And now, it seems like you are arguing in gaps. It is real, we just can't see it. Very much like god.

No. Look at the thread--it's about a study that supposedly proved that raising the minimum wage doesn't cause unemployment Russell's Teapot doesn't exist. You're on the side of faith, not me.

No, that's crap. You and others have said min wage hike, hikes up unemployment. You never said it'd be undetectable. That is the primary claim being made and has been made repeatedly... and you are making it now, but qualifying it in a manner you (and others) didn't qualify previously. You can get cute with the teapot, but the trouble is, YOU ARE THE ONE WHO SAID THERE WAS A TEAPOT!!!

The whole point is we can't know about the teapot. Your side is the one claiming to have proven it doesn't exist.

You said we could see it!

And the reality is that in an open marketplace (which low wage workers in cities approximates well enough) that prices will be driven to the optimum point and thus any forcing them away from this will reduce productivity. Basic economics says it must be there, nothing from your side even attempts to actually rebut it. It's just proclamations that it might not happen. Just because it's the price of labor rather than the price of a thing doesn't change the fact the market will maximize the area of the rectangle.

I figured that if all companies were required to life the rate, it'd be across the board, costs increase a bit, prices follow, but people aren't making shit an hour. Instead, they'd be making a shit and a half... as again $15 an hour ISN'T ALOT OF MONEY!

And when the market stabilizes after 50% of inflation (it won't all happen in one year) they're still making shit.

1) So, when does that happen or when a study shows we didn't have 50% inflation, are you going to say inflation is another Russell's Teapot and note the inflation is undetectable?

2) 50% inflation? Are you really going with the silly hyperbole argument? The cost of labor is just a portion of the cost of production. Increasing labor does not increase the price of production 1 to 1. You can't have it both ways. You can't say the number of people at minimum wage are insignificant, hence why you can't see the unemployment increase... and then say inflation will skyrocket. These are not compatible claims.

In the long run the cost of labor is the entire cost of production. Anything that's not labor is actually buying somebody else's labor.

So, when commodity prices crash or explode, that is labor related?

 

[Harry Bosch]

Some get lots of help, others get harassment and tax bills and regulations and licensing fees. Be that as it may, why should only those who sell labor be entitled to fix their price at a minimum level and exclude anyone competing against them by offering the same service at a lower price?

I think you must be trolling, because many producers, retailers and others set a minimum price for their product or service.
It is not the worker setting the price, but the industry who is setting it artificially low. The worker does not want to set at such a measly minimum; if they had a choice they would set it higher, so could actually live off their wage. Who is going to "offer" the same service at a lower price? Only another exploited worker (probably an illegal immigrant).

You're not explaining why the vendor or independent contractor "working man" should not be entitled to an income "sufficient to support both himself and his wife and children" just as much as the wage-earner worker. What is this bias which says the wage-earner workers are entitled to this babysitting benefit paid by their customer but that other workers are not?

Those paid salaries and other bonuses receive much more in both pay and other benefits (for instance, a company car) than the lowly paid worker. Often they have the benefit of working for themselves. Ordinary working customers pay to, for instance, tradesmen, much more than they themselves receive for that same time and expense.
Also, high paid people receive much higher childcare payments from governments than low paid workers do, and can claim much more tax deductions, etcetera.

High paid workers get more childcare from governments? Huh? What higher deductions?

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Some get lots of help, others get harassment and tax bills and regulations and licensing fees. Be that as it may, why should only those who sell labor be entitled to fix their price at a minimum level and exclude anyone competing against them by offering the same service at a lower price?

I think you must be trolling, because many producers, retailers and others set a minimum price for their product or service.
It is not the worker setting the price, but the industry who is setting it artificially low. The worker does not want to set at such a measly minimum; if they had a choice they would set it higher, so could actually live off their wage. Who is going to "offer" the same service at a lower price? Only another exploited worker (probably an illegal immigrant).

You're not explaining why the vendor or independent contractor "working man" should not be entitled to an income "sufficient to support both himself and his wife and children" just as much as the wage-earner worker. What is this bias which says the wage-earner workers are entitled to this babysitting benefit paid by their customer but that other workers are not?

Those paid salaries and other bonuses receive much more in both pay and other benefits (for instance, a company car) than the lowly paid worker. Often they have the benefit of working for themselves. Ordinary working customers pay to, for instance, tradesmen, much more than they themselves receive for that same time and expense.
Also, high paid people receive much higher childcare payments from governments than low paid workers do, and can claim much more tax deductions, etcetera.

High paid workers get more childcare from governments? Huh? What higher deductions?

Perhaps not in USA, but they do in Australia - massive childcare in the last couple of decades. Tax deductions for office supplies, depreciation, etcetera.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Some get lots of help, others get harassment and tax bills and regulations and licensing fees. Be that as it may, why should only those who sell labor be entitled to fix their price at a minimum level and exclude anyone competing against them by offering the same service at a lower price?

I think you must be trolling, because many producers, retailers and others set a minimum price for their product or service.
It is not the worker setting the price, but the industry who is setting it artificially low. The worker does not want to set at such a measly minimum; if they had a choice they would set it higher, so could actually live off their wage. Who is going to "offer" the same service at a lower price? Only another exploited worker (probably an illegal immigrant).

You're not explaining why the vendor or independent contractor "working man" should not be entitled to an income "sufficient to support both himself and his wife and children" just as much as the wage-earner worker. What is this bias which says the wage-earner workers are entitled to this babysitting benefit paid by their customer but that other workers are not?

Those paid salaries and other bonuses receive much more in both pay and other benefits (for instance, a company car) than the lowly paid worker. Often they have the benefit of working for themselves. Ordinary working customers pay to, for instance, tradesmen, much more than they themselves receive for that same time and expense.
Also, high paid people receive much higher childcare payments from governments than low paid workers do, and can claim much more tax deductions, etcetera.

High paid workers get more childcare from governments? Huh? What higher deductions?

Perhaps not in USA, but they do in Australia - massive childcare in the last couple of decades. Tax deductions for office supplies, depreciation, etcetera.

Well, I'll be the first to say that I don't know much about Australia! In America, only companies take depreciation. And here, depreciation isn't a tax cut. Companies are taxed on the profit they generate (sales - expenses basically). Depreciation reduces the amount of expense a company can take on capital assets or long term assets.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Yeah, I shouldn't have put depreciation there as it is a means to help towards replacement costs for expensive machines.

 

[bilby]

Yeah, I shouldn't have put depreciation there as it is a means to help towards replacement costs for expensive machines.

I used to claim depreciation of the furniture I bought for working from home as a deduction from my income tax. I worked from home for a decade (and then changed jobs just before Covid).

The ATO considers depreciation of office furniture and equipment for work-at-home employees to be a legitimate deduction; For most of the time that I was claiming it, I had an allocated desk in the IBM building in the CBD, that I literally never used except on the one day of the year when they gave out flu shots.

 

[Toni]

Yeah, I shouldn't have put depreciation there as it is a means to help towards replacement costs for expensive machines.

I used to claim depreciation of the furniture I bought for working from home as a deduction from my income tax. I worked from home for a decade (and then changed jobs just before Covid).

The ATO considers depreciation of office furniture and equipment for work-at-home employees to be a legitimate deduction; For most of the time that I was claiming it, I had an allocated desk in the IBM building in the CBD, that I literally never used except on the one day of the year when they gave out flu shots.

I don’t know the rules with respect to using part of your home as a work space but I can state that some recent reforms in the federal tax codes have eliminated deductions for some expenditures we used to be able to deduct. In the past, I know that office space within a home could be used as a deduction but I don’t think that ever made sense for us. Here, some types of deductions are useful at certain levels of income and not so useful at others. I’m not as conversant with tax laws as hubby typically files out joint income tax. Some of his colleagues are accountants, which has been useful.

 

[Juvenal]

Minimum wage started out racist--because they wanted to restrict the labor pool by keeping blacks out of it.

It's still about restricting the labor pool although it's not deliberately racist anymore.

You're busted posting and agreeing with a deliberately racist policy of promoting the suppression of wages for blacks. This is objectively true. This is objectively racist.

Don't be a racist.

And don't think you can weasel out of it by making baseless counter-accusations. The principal effect of minimum wage legislation is ... wait for it ... raising the minimum wage. That's an objective fact, too.

 

[laughing dog]

Minimum wage started out racist--because they wanted to restrict the labor pool by keeping blacks out of it.

You have posted no evidence to support your claim that the federal minimum wage was implemented to keep blacks out of the labor pool. None. You persist in conflating effect with intent.

It's still about restricting the labor pool although it's not deliberately racist anymore.

More nonsense. A minimum wage does not restrict the labor pool. Employers are free to hire anyone they wish as long as they pay the legal minimum wage. Employers may opt to only hire those who they believe to add to their profits, but that is true at any wage, legal minimum or free market wage.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In the long run the cost of labor is the entire cost of production.

Yabut ...
The opposite is equally true - in the long run the cost of stuff is the entire cost of production. Any labor is just paying people to assemble stuff into value-added forms of stuff or move stuff to new, more useful locations where value can be added.
Just a matter of perspective. I don't see the real world utility of either paradigm, but I'm frankly terrible with money.

All is labor is very relevant because you can't increase labor's share--it's already 100%.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I understand what a null hypothesis is. I have a background in science.

You are only looking at a single instance with one employer leaving because of minimum wage. You are ignoring the decades of data that show that poverty decreased after a minimum wage was instituted. You are also ignoring the high rate of poverty for those in occupations that do not have a minimum wage: agriculture workers, undocumented workers in food service and food processing: those who have no better options.

Then you should also understand that correlation doesn't prove causation.

Of course, a viable option would be for the employers to take a somewhat less enormous profit and pay their workers a decent wage.

And everyone above minimum wage demands wage increases, also--you end up with inflation but no lasting gain.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Minimum wage causes those who can't get hired at minimum wage to starve.

Really, how do you come up with such howlers ? It is possible to starve making the minimum wage, let alone a lower wage.

Once again I see no attempt to rebut.

Open your eyes, read then think about what you read.

I still see no attempt to rebut. If I'm wrong show how I'm wrong, your continual attacks on me simply show that you have no answer.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In the long run the cost of labor is the entire cost of production. Anything that's not labor is actually buying somebody else's labor.

So in the long run, Marx was right!

Marx made one huge, fundamental blunder in assuming a static world.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

No--this is a Russell's Teapot situation--and you're accepting a proof it's not there.

But you are the one making the claim, not others. Some people say that a rise in minimum wage is necessary. You and other conservatives suggested it'd cause unemployment. I don't once remember anyone from the economic conservative side saying the unemployment would be undetectable! And now, it seems like you are arguing in gaps. It is real, we just can't see it. Very much like god.

No. Look at the thread--it's about a study that supposedly proved that raising the minimum wage doesn't cause unemployment Russell's Teapot doesn't exist. You're on the side of faith, not me.

No, that's crap. You and others have said min wage hike, hikes up unemployment. You never said it'd be undetectable. That is the primary claim being made and has been made repeatedly... and you are making it now, but qualifying it in a manner you (and others) didn't qualify previously. You can get cute with the teapot, but the trouble is, YOU ARE THE ONE WHO SAID THERE WAS A TEAPOT!!!

The whole point is we can't know about the teapot. Your side is the one claiming to have proven it doesn't exist.

You said we could see it!

I claim we saw one gargantuan teapot--note that he never said it was impossible to see the teapot, but rather that it was impossible to prove it's not there.

And the reality is that in an open marketplace (which low wage workers in cities approximates well enough) that prices will be driven to the optimum point and thus any forcing them away from this will reduce productivity. Basic economics says it must be there, nothing from your side even attempts to actually rebut it. It's just proclamations that it might not happen. Just because it's the price of labor rather than the price of a thing doesn't change the fact the market will maximize the area of the rectangle.

I figured that if all companies were required to life the rate, it'd be across the board, costs increase a bit, prices follow, but people aren't making shit an hour. Instead, they'd be making a shit and a half... as again $15 an hour ISN'T ALOT OF MONEY!

And when the market stabilizes after 50% of inflation (it won't all happen in one year) they're still making shit.

1) So, when does that happen or when a study shows we didn't have 50% inflation, are you going to say inflation is another Russell's Teapot and note the inflation is undetectable?

2) 50% inflation? Are you really going with the silly hyperbole argument? The cost of labor is just a portion of the cost of production. Increasing labor does not increase the price of production 1 to 1. You can't have it both ways. You can't say the number of people at minimum wage are insignificant, hence why you can't see the unemployment increase... and then say inflation will skyrocket. These are not compatible claims.

In the long run the cost of labor is the entire cost of production. Anything that's not labor is actually buying somebody else's labor.

So, when commodity prices crash or explode, that is labor related?

What you're missing is time--money is stored labor. It's possible for things to be temporarily out of balance.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don’t know the rules with respect to using part of your home as a work space but I can state that some recent reforms in the federal tax codes have eliminated deductions for some expenditures we used to be able to deduct. In the past, I know that office space within a home could be used as a deduction but I don’t think that ever made sense for us. Here, some types of deductions are useful at certain levels of income and not so useful at others. I’m not as conversant with tax laws as hubby typically files out joint income tax. Some of his colleagues are accountants, which has been useful.

Schedule C deductions still exist pretty much unchanged. Individual tax deductions have been so severely nerfed that itemizing doesn't make sense for most people.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Minimum wage started out racist--because they wanted to restrict the labor pool by keeping blacks out of it.

It's still about restricting the labor pool although it's not deliberately racist anymore.

You're busted posting and agreeing with a deliberately racist policy of promoting the suppression of wages for blacks. This is objectively true. This is objectively racist.

Don't be a racist.

And don't think you can weasel out of it by making baseless counter-accusations. The principal effect of minimum wage legislation is ... wait for it ... raising the minimum wage. That's an objective fact, too.

Continuing to call it racist doesn't make it so. Things change over time.

It started out a bad, racist idea. It's now simply a bad idea.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

More nonsense. A minimum wage does not restrict the labor pool. Employers are free to hire anyone they wish as long as they pay the legal minimum wage. Employers may opt to only hire those who they believe to add to their profits, but that is true at any wage, legal minimum or free market wage.

Economics 101: Raise the price and demand will drop.

You still haven't explained why this doesn't apply to labor.

 

[Toni]

I understand what a null hypothesis is. I have a background in science.

You are only looking at a single instance with one employer leaving because of minimum wage. You are ignoring the decades of data that show that poverty decreased after a minimum wage was instituted. You are also ignoring the high rate of poverty for those in occupations that do not have a minimum wage: agriculture workers, undocumented workers in food service and food processing: those who have no better options.

Then you should also understand that correlation doesn't prove causation.

Of course, a viable option would be for the employers to take a somewhat less enormous profit and pay their workers a decent wage.

And everyone above minimum wage demands wage increases, also--you end up with inflation but no lasting gain.

I think you are the one who is confusing correlation with causation.

Why do you think that paying workers a decent wage harms the economy? When I hear people say things like that, I think what they are really saying is that the eco y that best benefits them, personally, is an economy that relies in a permanent underclass, wh o might be some small step above actual slaves but who don’t actually deserve more than to do the difficult, dirty, dangerous work at less compensation than will allow them to securely maintain a roof over their head, food and necessities. People who think that seem to believe that only some people deserve a good education, good health care, a good neighborhood, safety. The ones who can afford it. Who won’t bring down the home values in THEIR neighborhood.