Not all of them will be fired but some certainly will be. The places where it's big enough percent of the total employment market that we can see the effects show considerable unemployment.
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Ontario raising minimum wage to $15
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Not all of them will be fired but some certainly will be. The places where it's big enough percent of the total employment market that we can see the effects show considerable unemployment.
laughing dog
Contributor
No, I showed your claim about "leftists" was wrong. I know this because you typically characterize me as a leftist, but I have always argued that whether an increase in the minimum wage is beneficial or not is an empirical question.
If you bothered to read posts with care and comprehension, you'd have seen that Bomb #20 makes the same argument. It boils down to the relative benefits and costs. That is both an empirical question (as to the estimates of the benefits and costs) and a social/philosophical question (the relative importance of the various quantifiable benefits and costs, as well as to the relative importance of the unquantifiable benefits and costs).
For example, suppose that at 23% increase in the minimum wage caused a 10% reduction in hours worked by those affected (some combination of job loss and reduction in hours for those with jobs). That means total income earned by those affected must increase (by about 13%). Some people might view that as a net benefit due to the increase incomes for some workers, while others might view it as a net cost due to the joblessness.
Crazy Eddie
Veteran Member
To which I responded to Bomb and I will repeat again: "The minimum wage is too high" is not a reason anyone has ever been fired.
"We can't afford to pay some of you because our revenues are too low" is a more common reason. That has little to do with the minimum wage and everything to do with those businesses falling on hard times.
"You're incompetent, a terrible worker, insubordinate, and not actually qualified to do the job I gave you" is the most common reason of all, ESPECIALLY for those earning minimum wage.
You've been asked to back that up with data before, and to this day you've never been able to do it. The closest you came to delivering was in the minimum wage increase in Seattle where you directly implied that unemployment HAD gone up but the numbers just didn't reflect it because Reasons.
You also never explained why employers wouldn't respond to the wage hike by simply cutting their existing worker's hours to make up the difference (which, I have just been reminded, is exactly what WE do every year during the slow months).
You seem to believe that only one thing can possibly happen as a result of the wage increase, and it's the one thing that never happens in the real world. Why is that? Could it be that you have no actual experience in the real world that supports your assumptions?
The real reason it will cost a little more is because it will not allow as many to fall through the cracks. The savings with the current system are due to the people being left out in the cold.
That's great. Then you've already got a mechanism in place that you can adapt into being actual UBI.
First, more of them would be filing, since they know they are getting money back for it. Second, it is something the IRS should do, as it will help them find both those cheating the system and those in need but unable for whatever reason to file a return. The latter is one of the cracks I'm speaking of with the current system. People shouldn't have to jump through hoops they may not be able to or know how to, just so they can get their UBI. It needs to be automatic and universal to work properly. To keep the incentive up for them to file if they are able, you'd have a credit for the filing or debit for not.
So change that.
"means testing" is just an excuse to create more cracks for people to fall through. It is also a way to demoralize people.
I maintain the view that low end wages under UBI system will be relatively high given employers having to operate and negotiate without worker's being dependent on them for survival. I see no reason why higher end wages would change at all under UBI.
Nobody is whining. Nor are we uneducated. Please don't become one of those people full of pointless personal potshots. You haven't been that way so far.
If you drove up minimum wage way up to to beyond what employers will or can pay then yes, more people will go on basic as jobs stop being available to them. Seems a rather ill conceived and expensive proposition though. Perhaps under THAT system you may need to tax the rich at the 99% you spoke of earlier.
So change. I have no time for arguments that go something like "It can't be done because we refuse to do it". Your arguing against it is part of that refusing to do it.
And don't give up on America just yet. You are making some progress. Bernie Sanders was an improvement and had more support than Howard Dean did during his primary (back when he was a progressive).
You could. You've got the wealth. You've got the democracy (well quasi-democracy). You've even got parts of the system you'll need in place already as you noted above. All you are lacking is the will, and your arguing against UBI here works against that rather than for it. So change yourself, and then your country.
UBI would make wage slavery an obsolete concept.
Employers SHOULD be held responsible, equally with all others, to make sure that people in their society have enough to get by on. But they should NOT be forced to take on an unfairly large part of this load just because they contracted with somebody to buy labour. Cost of living is extraneous to the worth of a person's labour, as is health care need.
Again, the problem is people being unable to meet the cost of living. Employment doesn't cause that problem, and it need not be and sometimes should not be the complete solution to it.
Don2 (Don1 Revised)
Contributor
A demand curve shows the relationship between two variables. It doesn't consider other variables. So, for example, if Advertising comes along and recasts the product as Chevaz Regal the demand curve becomes a different curve.
coloradoatheist
Veteran Member
Except we don't need a demand curve to understand the consequences. It's simple you have entities that have costs increasing, how do they respond? How does a family respond when a major item that they spend on suddenly goes up in price, what do they do?
Elixir
Made in America
Right - we have empirical examples.
So far, the Seattle minimum-wage increase is doing what it’s supposed to do
laughing dog
Contributor
If you are interested in estimating the actual effects, then you do.
coloradoatheist
Veteran Member
Except we are seeing the other predictions too. Both San Diego and Seattle are experience job loss after increasing the minimum wage.
LordKiran
Veteran Member
Source?
coloradoatheist
Veteran Member
coloradoatheist
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That article sounded more like "Hah hah, I was right! Stupid liberals!" When the conclusion is much less solid.
"In a region where all low-wage workers, including those in Seattle, have enjoyed access to more jobs and more hours, Seattle’s low-wage workers show some preliminary signs of lagging behind similar workers in comparison regions.
The minimum wage appears to have slightly reduced the employment rate of low-wage workers by about one percentage point. It appears that the Minimum Wage Ordinance modestly held back Seattle’s employment of low-wage workers relative to the level we could have expected.
Hours worked among low-wage Seattle workers have lagged behind regional trends, by roughly four hours per quarter, on average.*
Low-wage individuals working in Seattle when the ordinance passed transitioned to jobs outside Seattle at an elevated rate compared to historical patterns."
What proponents of minimum wage say has nothing to do with the differing definitions of harm that I was pointing out. Thus you continue with your off-topic reply.
Repeating something doesn't make it true.
The best example is American Samoa.
Certainly a possibility but note that in general this means they'll end up with less than before the hike. And while cutting hours is a normal response to a slow time if the change is permanent it makes more sense to actually lay off some--employees have training and payroll costs independent of the hours they work.
Showing that it's not the only possible path doesn't show that it doesn't sometimes happen--and all I'm saying is that it sometimes happens.
article said:
In other words, some leftists pulled down their pants and shat on a keyboard.
laughing dog
Contributor
Your different definitions of harm are the straw men. Hence you continue to your MO of straw man bs.
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Since when did you start self-identifying as a "leftist"?
DBT
Contributor
It's a pity that there are people willing to work for practically nothing. This often being driven by a degree of desperation, the attitude that ''any money coming in is better than none'' Which allows businesses capitalize on regardless of their ability to offer decent wages.
Crazy Eddie
Veteran Member
Well, no. "Means testing" is a way of making sure a limited supply of funds is actually getting to the people who need it. The welfare system here is a pain in the ass, but those cracks aren't wide enough for people to "fall through" them the way you're implying. People get stuck on waiting lists or stuck in administrative holding patterns and various forms of bureaucratic limbo, but it's not like we have a huge population of poor people who CAN'T earn welfare because of some sort of technicality.
The system is inefficient, but it is not overly selective.
There is no precedent in any country in the world of low-wage workers EVER being in a position to negotiate wages with an employer. I'll believe this dream of yours when you can cite an example of this ever actually being the case.
You might as well be suggesting that dollar stores keep their prices very low by allowing customers to haggle with the cashiers.
I agree, universal basic income is indeed an ill-conceived and expensive proposition, especially in the absence of a minimum wage.
Brilliant.
Me: "I'm from the country full of people who refuse to embrace change even when their lives are literally depending on it. Many of them would rather die than accept even the most trivial and beneficent changes."
You: "So... why don't you change that?"
You can't "refuse" something that has no chance of happening in the first place, so that's a red herring. I'm arguing against what is, as you just admitted, an ill-conceived and expensive proposition that doesn't actually solve the problem of declining wages for the working class except in the odd fantasyland where high school dropouts can demand a higher salary for a job that their employer knows they don't actually need.
To put it bluntly: the majority of people making less than six figures have NO POWER to negotiate wages before they're actually hired and aren't even in a position to make a salary request unless they are HIGHLY qualified in their field (or else risk coming off as arrogant and presumptuous). That you believe unemployed, untrained, unqualified workers with no unique skills or work experience would EVER be in a position to do this is, frankly, laughable.
... and wasn't even allowed to make it past the primaries.
Let that sink in for a minute. We can't even RUN a candidate who might think UBI is a good idea. You really expect your half-baked fantasyland version of it to pass a Republican filibuster?
No, "we" don't have any of those things. The small, closed circle of extremely wealthy and influential people who run this shit show have those things.
This isn't one of those countries where the people form a movement to decide what kind of policy we want and then we push our representatives to implement those policies. This is a place where a stubborn, dangerous, callous hulk of self-referential state policy shambles around like a drunken elephant and we all collectively try to nudge it in the general direction of "not entirely horrible" (we manage to succeed about a third of the time).
That's what makes the minimum wage an important element of ANY universal income system. Because under NO circumstances should it be assumed that the first attempt to implement it will be logical or beneficent. That system must be designed from day one to account for all of the shit that USUALLY goes wrong with our government, our economy, and our strangely codependent relationship with venture capitalism.
To wit: as you YOURSELF already pointed out, this is a country that still hasn't shaken its addiction to slave labor. This is ALSO a country in which, under some circumstances the removal of the minimum wage effectively re-legalized slavery (see "peonage/sharecropping"). The kind of benevolent and cooperative exchange between poor people and employers your dream depends on a utopian vision completely alien to reality; I don't even think it works that way in Canada.
Clearly you under-estimate the ingenuity of slavers.
I suppose you would be incredibly shocked and surprised if the advent of UBI resulted in "unpaid internship" to suddenly become the industry standard for entry-level employees. And how long would those internships be expected to last before those interns are able to petition their bosses for actual paying salaries? Six months? A year? Two years? Or maybe gradually but constantly increasing length of time such that the lowest-performing workers cling to their unpaid internships for years just on the possibility of getting paid some day, knowing that if they change jobs they're going to have to start all over again with somebody else' timetable? (In some parts of the country, this is called "graduate school.")
The minimum wage is a market regulation designed to offset the tendency of (a smaller number of) employers to be assholes. Do not under-estimate the amount of damage that a small number of assholes can do over a long enough timeframe.
There's nothing "unfairly large" about a minimum wage increase. The companies that depend on suppression of wages to keep their profit margins up are trying to maintain an unsustainable business model, one that is overall harmful to the labor market and detrimental to human progress. If they change their practices, they'll stay in business. If they don't, they'll join the Confederate States of America in the dustbin of history.
... because their wages haven't kept up with inflation DESPITE the fact that average productivity has increased to match it.
Which means long-term systematic wage suppression has actually devalued those workers' labor with respect to their overall productivity: they are effectively making less money for the same amount of work than they did 30 years ago.
That didn't happen because the Invisible Hand waved a magic wand. The aggregate of hiring decisions by thousands of employers year after year contributed to this. Every employer who thought he could squeeze a little bit more profit out of his team by offering a new hire a few cents less than an old one or by skimping on pay raises because he thought nobody would complain, contributed a little more to the problem. Because those managers and companies possess a greater share of the responsibility for the problem, they must shoulder a greater share of the responsibility for the solution.
It's free market economics, my friend: "You broke it, you bought it."
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Crazy Eddie
Veteran Member
Repeatedly ignoring it doesn't make it false.
Fewer HOURS. Not necessarily less money. As was also pointed out to you, giving those same workers more hours off the job gives them opportunities for retraining or reinvesting their time in their children's education and welbeing. That time might actually be worth more to them than the extra money would have been.
Consider a small business with 16 employees, 10 of whom are earning minimum wage of $10/hour
Minimum wage jumps to $15/hour one day, thus costing the company an additional $50/hour of labor costs, or $400 in a typical work day, or $20,000 of additional labor costs in the course of a year.
In order to recoup their labor costs, this company must do one of two things:
1) Fire a single worker
2) Cut one hour a day from five of the workers.
Here's why option 1 does NOT make more sense. It is because:
Which are costs you cannot actually recoup by firing them. Once you've trained the worker to do his job, his training is an asset for your company that you might as well use. A smart manager also knows that having a larger staff on the payroll means he can just as quickly ADD hours to their schedule if they get a boom in customer demand or if they suddenly have a need for more hours worked (because of a promotion, a new product, or something else unexpected that he can capitalize on).
In other words, in the REAL WORLD, given the choice between firing an expensive employee and simply sending him home a little bit early, managers will invariably choose the latter. It's easier to call an existing employee in for overtime hours than it is to hire and train a totally new employee just to deal with a temporary rush of customers.
Just about everything "sometimes happens."
However, "people sometimes get fired because their bosses are morons" isn't a solid argument against raising the minimum wage.