Minimum Wage Study - MW Does Not Kill Jobs

[Toni]

It was instituted to keep blacks out of most jobs. Very easy to find on Google:

The Racist History of Minimum Wage Laws | Mises Institute

Historically, minimum wage laws have done a lot to stifle employment among African-Americans. The trend continues today.

mises.org

Just look at the unemployment rate for teens in the inner city, it's still doing it's job of keeping the black man down.

Offering lower wages to blacks is racist and even more effective at keeping the black man down.

What you're missing is that minimum wage is about chopping off the bottom runs of the ladder of success. Make sure those at the bottom have no way out. The Republicans are frequently (and quite correctly) accused of this but the left also comes up with ways because the only true route they have to raise wages is to reduce the labor pool.

You posted an apologetic for allowing lower wages based on race and now you're saying I'm missing something? Here's what you're missing. Don't post your racist crap at me and expect I won't call you on your racism.

Don't be a racist.

And then I won't call you out on it.

Where did I say anything about wanting a lower minimum wage based on race?! I'm simply pointing to the people that are the biggest victims--showing that it's not just a minor harm. The issue is actually the inner cities, not race, it's just the inner cities are mostly black so that's where the biggest effect falls.

Strikes me as concern trolling, the sort of argument that its advocates would dismiss as "woke" just about anywhere else.

Not to mention the convenient conflation of ‘black,’ ‘ inner city’ and ‘minimum wage.’ and the complete ignorance of rural and small town poverty.

 

[Gospel]

How can job opportunities disappear when institutions like the Federal Reserve, through measures such as loan provisions, asset purchases, and interest rate reductions, and the government, with mechanisms like unemployment benefits, tax incentives, and direct job creation, constantly intervene? They seem to balance each other on opposite ends of our economic seesaw.

I can't wait for the day when the curtain is drawn and the Lion, Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Dorothy realize that they don't need no stank ass Wizard to get what they need.

 

[Jarhyn]

How can job opportunities disappear when institutions like the Federal Reserve, through measures such as loan provisions, asset purchases, and interest rate reductions, and the government, with mechanisms like unemployment benefits, tax incentives, and direct job creation, constantly intervene? They seem to balance each other on opposite ends of our economic seesaw.

I can't wait for the day when the curtain is drawn and the Lion, Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Dorothy realize that they don't need no stank ass Wizard to get what they need.

Hey now...

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I simplified it a bit but you're not rebutting me.

Increase the price, decrease the demand. People go unemployed.

Repetition of ignorance is neither a rebuttal or a justification of the ignorance.

In your partial equilibrium analysis of a general equilibrium situation, that reduction in the amount of labor used does not restrict the labor pool as you claimed because the amount of labor available to use has not fallen.

But it does change--workers who will not raise the bottom line by at least their cost go unemployed. You simply handwave away the existence of such workers but that doesn't make them go away.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And the reality is that it's not likely to end up in offshore accounts or the like--the restaurant business is low margin and with a high rate of failure. The owners aren't raking it in like you think.

McDonalds March Quarter net profit margin was 30.56%.

The owners are over 70% institutional investors.

If you paid their cooks an extra $10/week, that $10 would immediately create additional demand in the locality of the store.

If you don't, the "saving" is unlikely to create much demand at all, unless you're hoping to boost the economy in the Cayman Islands or Liechtenstein.

McDonalds is a bad example because many of their stores are franchises--it's financials do not describe the restaurant business.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Not to mention the convenient conflation of ‘black,’ ‘ inner city’ and ‘minimum wage.’ and the complete ignorance of rural and small town poverty.

I brought up the inner city case because that's the one I was aware of. I know there is rural poverty but I haven't seen reasonable data on what's happening and thus can't address it.

 

[Toni]

Loren, there's this thing called Google. Yes, you need to check what sources are cited but government sites are indicated by .gov.

Here are a few:

USDA ERS - Rural Poverty & Well-Being

ERS research in this topic area focuses on the economic, social, spatial, temporal, and demographic factors that affect the poverty status of rural residents.

www.ers.usda.gov

Poverty in Rural America Then & Now

Feature May | No. 4-2020 The economic fallout from the pandemic is not yet known, but many fear that it will be especially severe in rural America, where people were already struggling before the health …

www.irp.wisc.edu

The ‘rural-urban divide’ furthers myths about race and poverty—concealing effective policy solutions

This piece presents two societies so fundamentally opposed they barely belong to the same world, framing urban America as diverse, educated, and economically productive and rural America as white, dependent on dying industries, and characterized by stagnation, decline, and despair.

www.brookings.edu

Note: At best, I've skimmed these articles. I'm on the fly today and will be traveling for the next couple of weeks so I probably won't be participating in further discussion.

 

[bilby]

workers who will not raise the bottom line by at least their cost go unemployed. You simply handwave away the existence of such workers but that doesn't make them go away.

So what? I don't think you're right, but if you were, why would it be a major problem?

Unemployment is perfectly OK. We consider it to be the default status for most children, most elderly people, the wives of traditionalist men, etc., etc., so why is it suddenly a showstopper if it's also the default status of people who are utterly incapable of doing useful work?

Just provide for those who can't work, and the "problem" disappears.

 

[bilby]

And the reality is that it's not likely to end up in offshore accounts or the like--the restaurant business is low margin and with a high rate of failure. The owners aren't raking it in like you think.

McDonalds March Quarter net profit margin was 30.56%.

The owners are over 70% institutional investors.

If you paid their cooks an extra $10/week, that $10 would immediately create additional demand in the locality of the store.

If you don't, the "saving" is unlikely to create much demand at all, unless you're hoping to boost the economy in the Cayman Islands or Liechtenstein.

McDonalds is a bad example because many of their stores are franchises--it's financials do not describe the restaurant business.

...therefore it's employees don't exist, or don't matter.

 

[laughing dog]

I simplified it a bit but you're not rebutting me.

Increase the price, decrease the demand. People go unemployed.

Repetition of ignorance is neither a rebuttal or a justification of the ignorance.

In your partial equilibrium analysis of a general equilibrium situation, that reduction in the amount of labor used does not restrict the labor pool as you claimed because the amount of labor available to use has not fallen.

But it does change--workers who will not raise the bottom line by at least their cost go unemployed. You simply handwave away the existence of such workers but that doesn't make them go away.

Being unemployed is not a restriction of the labor pool as you claimed.

As to the rest of your response, it is clear you are incapable of delineating between a partial equilibrium ( your static demand and supply analysis where all other influences are constant) and a general equilibrium ( where no other influence is constant).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

workers who will not raise the bottom line by at least their cost go unemployed. You simply handwave away the existence of such workers but that doesn't make them go away.

So what? I don't think you're right, but if you were, why would it be a major problem?

Unemployment is perfectly OK. We consider it to be the default status for most children, most elderly people, the wives of traditionalist men, etc., etc., so why is it suddenly a showstopper if it's also the default status of people who are utterly incapable of doing useful work?

Just provide for those who can't work, and the "problem" disappears.

You'll get a degenerating spiral where fewer and fewer work. It's going to crash.

 

[Elixir]

You'll get a degenerating spiral where fewer and fewer work. It's going to crash.

No, that’s not what happens. Subsistence level support enables people to work.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And the reality is that it's not likely to end up in offshore accounts or the like--the restaurant business is low margin and with a high rate of failure. The owners aren't raking it in like you think.

McDonalds March Quarter net profit margin was 30.56%.

The owners are over 70% institutional investors.

If you paid their cooks an extra $10/week, that $10 would immediately create additional demand in the locality of the store.

If you don't, the "saving" is unlikely to create much demand at all, unless you're hoping to boost the economy in the Cayman Islands or Liechtenstein.

McDonalds is a bad example because many of their stores are franchises--it's financials do not describe the restaurant business.

...therefore it's employees don't exist, or don't matter.

The point is they aren't really in the restaurant business in the first place, thus they do not represent how restaurants fare. They're basically in the brand business.

 

[bilby]

workers who will not raise the bottom line by at least their cost go unemployed. You simply handwave away the existence of such workers but that doesn't make them go away.

So what? I don't think you're right, but if you were, why would it be a major problem?

Unemployment is perfectly OK. We consider it to be the default status for most children, most elderly people, the wives of traditionalist men, etc., etc., so why is it suddenly a showstopper if it's also the default status of people who are utterly incapable of doing useful work?

Just provide for those who can't work, and the "problem" disappears.

You'll get a degenerating spiral where fewer and fewer work. It's going to crash.

Do you? Is that what happened to all the women with jobs, that they realised that they could get out of work by marrying traditionalist men?

It's vaguely possible that you're not wrong, but I am going to need more than your word for it before I will believe it.

If people don't need to work in order not to starve, most of them end up working anyway, if they can.

The entire women's liberation movement started when two world wars demonstrated to a large pool of unemployed people that employment was an option for them.

The degenerating spiral is what happens when people are taking lower and lower pay, until they're both poor and overworked. Then they crash.

 

[laughing dog]

And the reality is that it's not likely to end up in offshore accounts or the like--the restaurant business is low margin and with a high rate of failure. The owners aren't raking it in like you think.

McDonalds March Quarter net profit margin was 30.56%.

The owners are over 70% institutional investors.

If you paid their cooks an extra $10/week, that $10 would immediately create additional demand in the locality of the store.

If you don't, the "saving" is unlikely to create much demand at all, unless you're hoping to boost the economy in the Cayman Islands or Liechtenstein.

McDonalds is a bad example because many of their stores are franchises--it's financials do not describe the restaurant business.

...therefore it's employees don't exist, or don't matter.

The point is they aren't really in the restaurant business in the first place, thus they do not represent how restaurants fare. They're basically in the brand business.

Whether you like it or not, any franchised business established to serve food to customers is a restaurant. According to you, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Perkins, IHOP and Olive Garden are not restaurants.

 

[Elixir]

According to you, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Perkins, IHOP and Olive Garden are not restaurants.

Never been to Ruth's Chris, but I'd have to agree that the others are only marginally restaurants, if at all.

Seriously though... reporting McDonalds' profitability has to do with the success (or not) of the franchising operation, which may mirror the performance of the restaurants, but not directly. There are other stats for the performance of the actual restaurants.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

According to you, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Perkins, IHOP and Olive Garden are not restaurants.

Never been to Ruth's Chris, but I'd have to agree that the others are only marginally restaurants, if at all.

Seriously though... reporting McDonalds' profitability has to do with the success (or not) of the franchising operation, which may mirror the performance of the restaurants, but not directly. There are other stats for the performance of the actual restaurants.

It doesn't need to even mirror the performance of the restaurants. Franchisees pay a fee for the right to use the name to deliver products of a known quality and nature. The customer knows what they're getting which provides a value. So long as the franchise fee is less than the profit from the customers it brings the franchisees will come, this is completely separate from the profit margin for the restaurant.

 

[Toni]

workers who will not raise the bottom line by at least their cost go unemployed. You simply handwave away the existence of such workers but that doesn't make them go away.

So what? I don't think you're right, but if you were, why would it be a major problem?

Unemployment is perfectly OK. We consider it to be the default status for most children, most elderly people, the wives of traditionalist men, etc., etc., so why is it suddenly a showstopper if it's also the default status of people who are utterly incapable of doing useful work?

Just provide for those who can't work, and the "problem" disappears.

You'll get a degenerating spiral where fewer and fewer work. It's going to crash.

Do you? Is that what happened to all the women with jobs, that they realised that they could get out of work by marrying traditionalist men?

It's vaguely possible that you're not wrong, but I am going to need more than your word for it before I will believe it.

If people don't need to work in order not to starve, most of them end up working anyway, if they can.

The entire women's liberation movement started when two world wars demonstrated to a large pool of unemployed people that employment was an option for them.

The degenerating spiral is what happens when people are taking lower and lower pay, until they're both poor and overworked. Then they crash.

Da fuck you say: women ‘got out of work’ by marrying ‘traditional men.’ I’ve known exactly one woman who quit work when she got married, ‘to keep house.’

Women of my grandmother’s generation sometimes got to quit ‘work’ in the sense that they no longer had a full time or se real part time jobs in addition to keeping house( a lot of manual labor in those days) and raising kids—still a lot of work. Women of my generation mostly just took time off to raise their kids to school age, if they could afford it. Daycare was too scarce, unless you were high income enough to afford a nanny.

Women these days barely get time off to recover from childbirth abd fork over the equivalent of college tuition for decent child care—if they can afford it. Sure, the men can make dinner occasionally and load a dishwasher, and even change diapers, if you’re lucky. I am the only woman of my age I can think of whose husband did diapers, abd that’s because I was working full time and we could not afford full time daycare.

Back on topic: in economics, the unemployed numbers include only those seeking employment and not finding g it. It does not include those who choose or are unsuited to employment or those who have given up looking.

Economists still fail to count the unpaid labor of women as labor.

 

[Elixir]

So long as the franchise fee is less than the profit from the customers it brings the franchisees will come, this is completely separate from the profit margin for the restaurant.

I can't make head nor tail of that sentence. But it doesn't sound right no matter how I parse it.

 

[bilby]

Back on topic: in economics, the unemployed numbers include only those seeking employment and not finding g it

True, but arbitrary.

In an economy, the people who don't earn any money, whether or not they are looking for work, must be fed, clothed, and housed by means other than their own earnings.

That's no less true of a twenty five year old who has just been replaced by a machine, than it is of a two year old orphan; Yet society declares that as the first could hypothetically support themselves, they should not be assisted to do so (even in an environment where there is a large percentage of unemployed people, so the practical ability to find a new job is completely lacking).