Ontario raising minimum wage to $15

[Crazy Eddie]

Just like YOU didn't answer me when I pointed out that the lower-hour situation is not a permanent business condition, because permanent conditions do not exist in business.

Although I kind of overlooked the fact that you have now shifted the goalposts from "employers everywhere will lay off low-skill workers" to "employees at companies that were paying some of their workers minimum wage will not be replaced as quickly as they might have otherwise been if/when they quit."

You are the kung fu master of goalpost jitsu, but this is impressive even for you.

I'm not moving the goalposts at all.

I have been saying the end result is fewer workers employed. Whether this is by layoffs or attrition doesn't really matter.

It matters quite a bit, when you consider that "attrition" isn't caused by increases in the minimum wage (you claimed the minimum wage would reduce the number of jobs) nor is the rate of hiring directly affected by it (you claimed employers would higher fewer workers when the minimum wage was high).

Moving the goalposts in order to make your original point less wrong is just an admission that you were wrong.

You are saying they'll go to lower hours--but that's an unstable state that will soon convert into fewer workers because workers that leave won't be replaced until they actually need more workers.

And being under-staffed is ALSO an unstable condition since employers do not have the surplus of labor they will need during peak business periods (either daily or periodically). There, again, is the fact that there is no such thing as a "permanent" condition in business. You create mechanisms to prepare for all possible business conditions over a given time period and implement them as appropriate.

Unless, of course, you're a moron and are running your business incompetently.

You are asserting that the employer will do something that doesn't make sense--hire a worker when he doesn't need a worker, thus increasing his costs for no gain.

That's just it: the employer already knows he needs that worker, because all of the work being done by the guy who left is now being done by other people who have taken on his hours and responsibilities.

The only reason he DOESN'T need that worker is if this turns out not to be a problem at all and some of his other employees are really stepping up their game and filling his shoes completely. But in THAT case, the net result is the johnny-on-the-spot employees are now making all of the money that the absent employee was making, and the boss is paying the same amount of payroll that he was before, just to fewer employees.

This isn't what USUALLY happens, though. Under normal circumstances, the ability of other employees to fill the gaps is temporary at best, since most people won't actually want to (or even be able to) work much longer hours than they already are. You end up needing to replace the missing employee sooner or later anyway.

 

[dismal]

McDonald's hits all-time high as Wall Street cheers replacement of cashiers with kiosks

Cowen says McDonald's will upgrade 2,500 restaurants to its "Experience of the Future" technology by year-end, which includes digital ordering kiosks.
The firm raises its rating on McDonald's to outperform from market perform and price target for the shares to $180 from $142.
Same store sales estimate for 2018 raised to 3 percent from 2 percent.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/20/mcdo...eers-replacement-of-cashiers-with-kiosks.html

It's a good thing I learned here that the number of minimum wage jobs are not a function of their cost because before I would have guessed this would be more common as the cost of labor went up.

Of course, I also learned here that millenials killed McDonalds.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Apparently you can't read a quote as that makes it very clear who I'm responding to.

You are asserting that the employer will do something that doesn't make sense--hire a worker when he doesn't need a worker, thus increasing his costs for no gain.

Please produce the quote from one of my posts where you believe I made such an assertion.

Once again, an attempt to derail any line of discussion you don't like.

You continue to deny that there would be job loss, you figure it would all be loss of hours.

Explain why an employer who had reduced hours would hire a replacement when someone left when the workload could be covered by simply returning the hours to what they were before.

 

[laughing dog]

Please produce the quote from one of my posts where you believe I made such an assertion.

Once again, an attempt to derail any line of discussion you don't like.

You continue to deny that there would be job loss, you figure it would all be loss of hours.

I never wrote that.

Explain why an employer who had reduced hours would hire a replacement when someone left when the workload could be covered by simply returning the hours to what they were before.

It is possible that having more people makes it easier to come up with a schedule.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm not moving the goalposts at all.

I have been saying the end result is fewer workers employed. Whether this is by layoffs or attrition doesn't really matter.

It matters quite a bit, when you consider that "attrition" isn't caused by increases in the minimum wage (you claimed the minimum wage would reduce the number of jobs) nor is the rate of hiring directly affected by it (you claimed employers would higher fewer workers when the minimum wage was high).

In the big picture it makes no difference whether the loss of jobs is due to layoffs or attrition. Attrition simply transfers the harm from those who were laid off to those who can't find a job in the first place. It's still the same number of people.

The arguments I'm getting from your side on this sound like those of a creationist, trying to nitpick rather than address the actual issue.

You are saying they'll go to lower hours--but that's an unstable state that will soon convert into fewer workers because workers that leave won't be replaced until they actually need more workers.

And being under-staffed is ALSO an unstable condition since employers do not have the surplus of labor they will need during peak business periods (either daily or periodically). There, again, is the fact that there is no such thing as a "permanent" condition in business. You create mechanisms to prepare for all possible business conditions over a given time period and implement them as appropriate.

You continue to take as a matter of faith that raising the minimum wage doesn't decrease the number of jobs. That's not a sound basis for an argument. I'm saying the raise in the minimum wage reduces peak demand, thus your argument is irrelevant.

You are asserting that the employer will do something that doesn't make sense--hire a worker when he doesn't need a worker, thus increasing his costs for no gain.

That's just it: the employer already knows he needs that worker, because all of the work being done by the guy who left is now being done by other people who have taken on his hours and responsibilities.

Apparently you know that 2 + 2 = 5.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

In other words, you're doing exactly what the rest of us are doing, except you're doing it for UBI where the rest of us are setting our sights on single payer healthcare.

Are you though? Because I'm not seeing that from you, or from most of your fellows. All I'm seeing is whining about not having money and not having power and not being a senator so you've decided you can't make a difference. You actually made such a post.

If you really are for universal single payer health care, that's great. Make it happen. Get more of your fellows on board and retake the Democratic party or create a new party on the left.

Hillary Clinton wasn't for it (after she was decades ago). Bernie Sanders was dismissed as pipe dream not worth trying for. That is what your Democrat party has become, and you need to take it back instead of whining and crying that this or that can't happen. Such things don't happen because you fail to make them happen.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It matters quite a bit, when you consider that "attrition" isn't caused by increases in the minimum wage (you claimed the minimum wage would reduce the number of jobs) nor is the rate of hiring directly affected by it (you claimed employers would higher fewer workers when the minimum wage was high).

In the big picture it makes no difference whether the loss of jobs is due to layoffs or attrition. Attrition simply transfers the harm from those who were laid off to those who can't find a job in the first place.

No, it transfers the harm from those who were laid off to those who are stupid enough to quit their old jobs without having secured a new one. I would estimate the number of people who willfully place themselves in this position to be just a little better than 50%.

It's still the same number of people.

It's not even close. The attrition rate for low-skilled employees has no correlation with wages whatsoever and is more strongly associated with working conditions and the policies of their employers. If anything, the attrition rate would actually DROP slightly as those workers see their working conditions slightly improve (paychecks get bigger and/or hours are less).

You continue to take as a matter of faith that raising the minimum wage doesn't decrease the number of jobs.

You continue to take as a matter of faith that it DOES, and then keep on inventing ever more creative scenarios to justify this article of faith. Your original supporting reasons were fundamentally flawed and based on counter-factuals; your NEW reasoning isn't much better, but somehow leads to the same conclusion.

I'm saying the raise in the minimum wage reduces peak demand

And I'm saying it doesn't, because peak demand for labor is dependent on CUSTOMERS, not wages. The only way the minimum wage would actually affect peak demand for labor is in a business that serves a large customer base of minimum-wage earners, and in that case the rising wages would INCREASE demand, not decrease it.

The demand for labor is NOT dependent on wages. It's dependent on required net productivity, which can mean volume of sales, number of clients helped, number of orders filled, etc.

You are asserting that the employer will do something that doesn't make sense--hire a worker when he doesn't need a worker, thus increasing his costs for no gain.

That's just it: the employer already knows he needs that worker, because all of the work being done by the guy who left is now being done by other people who have taken on his hours and responsibilities.

Apparently you know that 2 + 2 = 5.

Apparently I know how to run a business and you don't. When you fire an employee or when someone quits, somebody else has to do his job. That someone else now has to be PAID to do that job. That means you're paying the same amount of money, just to fewer people. Those fewer people may not be as happy about this arrangement as they were before because now they have less time to spend with their families or on their personal lives. You either tell them to suck it up and deal with it (because you're a moron) or you hire another worker to take the pressure off your employees.

In the mean time, you're looking for ways to improve productivity. You're looking for ways to grow your business, attract new customers, sell more units, serve more customers. You are ALWAYS looking for this, and you are ALWAYS hoping to be in a position where you need to hire more workers, because if you can hire more workers, then business is good, and if business is good, you're succeeding.

"I don't want to hire more workers because wages are going up" is the ultimate dumbass manager's excuse for why his business is failing.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

In other words, you're doing exactly what the rest of us are doing, except you're doing it for UBI where the rest of us are setting our sights on single payer healthcare.

Are you though? Because I'm not seeing that from you

You can actually see me from way up in your ivory tower? How many fingers am I holding up? (Extra credit: Can you tell which one?)

You're the great and mighty progressive hero with all the answers, JP, clearly all of us stupid Americans are just pathetic little defeatists groveling at Hilary Clinton's feet for our supper. Please, PLEASE oh mighty penguin, come down from the mountain and show us how a True Progressive gets shit done!

I eagerly await your arrival, o mighty progressive hero!

 

[LordKiran]

McDonald's hits all-time high as Wall Street cheers replacement of cashiers with kiosks

Cowen says McDonald's will upgrade 2,500 restaurants to its "Experience of the Future" technology by year-end, which includes digital ordering kiosks.
The firm raises its rating on McDonald's to outperform from market perform and price target for the shares to $180 from $142.
Same store sales estimate for 2018 raised to 3 percent from 2 percent.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/20/mcdo...eers-replacement-of-cashiers-with-kiosks.html

It's a good thing I learned here that the number of minimum wage jobs are not a function of their cost because before I would have guessed this would be more common as the cost of labor went up.

Of course, I also learned here that millenials killed McDonalds.

Good, the faster we kill these shit jobs, the better. I say this fully realizing that there are people who depend on jobs like these to keep themselves out of complete poverty, but those few casualties are worth a future where I never get my order wrong, the workplace is always clean, my food is always on time, there's never spit in it, and the milkshake machine is never out of service.

Who knows? Maybe for once the food will actually look like the picture!

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Are you though? Because I'm not seeing that from you

You can actually see me from way up in your ivory tower? How many fingers am I holding up? (Extra credit: Can you tell which one?)

You're the great and mighty progressive hero with all the answers, JP, clearly all of us stupid Americans are just pathetic little defeatists groveling at Hilary Clinton's feet for our supper. Please, PLEASE oh mighty penguin, come down from the mountain and show us how a True Progressive gets shit done!

I eagerly await your arrival, o mighty progressive hero!

Is this your new excuse?

Or will you actually change things?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

You can actually see me from way up in your ivory tower? How many fingers am I holding up? (Extra credit: Can you tell which one?)

You're the great and mighty progressive hero with all the answers, JP, clearly all of us stupid Americans are just pathetic little defeatists groveling at Hilary Clinton's feet for our supper. Please, PLEASE oh mighty penguin, come down from the mountain and show us how a True Progressive gets shit done!

I eagerly await your arrival, o mighty progressive hero!

Is this your new excuse?

Or will you actually change things?

Of course we'll actually change things once the Great Jolly Penguin comes and shows us the way. Clearly our own efforts to change things aren't the work of True Progressives, so we need Your Greatness to come and save us from the error of our defeatist ways.

So what are you waiting for? Come on down and be an hero!

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Is this your new excuse?

.

So what are you waiting for? Come on down and be an hero!

So that's a yes then. At least this beats when you were whining that you can't make a difference because you are not a senator. This at least keeps you out of the way instead of actively standing against progress.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In the big picture it makes no difference whether the loss of jobs is due to layoffs or attrition. Attrition simply transfers the harm from those who were laid off to those who can't find a job in the first place.

No, it transfers the harm from those who were laid off to those who are stupid enough to quit their old jobs without having secured a new one. I would estimate the number of people who willfully place themselves in this position to be just a little better than 50%.

That's not the only way to end up unemployed.

1) New entrants to the labor market find it harder to get that first job.

2) People are laid off.

3) People are fired, sometimes without reason. (Gal I went to high school with. They called her up on her day off--waking her up so she was half asleep--and asked if she could come in today. She said yes. She came in at her normal time, they meant now. Fired.)

It's still the same number of people.

It's not even close. The attrition rate for low-skilled employees has no correlation with wages whatsoever and is more strongly associated with working conditions and the policies of their employers. If anything, the attrition rate would actually DROP slightly as those workers see their working conditions slightly improve (paychecks get bigger and/or hours are less).

You misunderstand--the attrition rate is only relevant for how fast what I'm talking about happens.

You continue to take as a matter of faith that raising the minimum wage doesn't decrease the number of jobs.

You continue to take as a matter of faith that it DOES, and then keep on inventing ever more creative scenarios to justify this article of faith. Your original supporting reasons were fundamentally flawed and based on counter-factuals; your NEW reasoning isn't much better, but somehow leads to the same conclusion.

Supply and demand, the attempts to rebut it are full of gaping holes.

I'm saying the raise in the minimum wage reduces peak demand

And I'm saying it doesn't, because peak demand for labor is dependent on CUSTOMERS, not wages. The only way the minimum wage would actually affect peak demand for labor is in a business that serves a large customer base of minimum-wage earners, and in that case the rising wages would INCREASE demand, not decrease it.

Higher wages = higher prices = lowered demand. Once again you need that infinite pool of profits to avoid the harm.

The demand for labor is NOT dependent on wages. It's dependent on required net productivity, which can mean volume of sales, number of clients helped, number of orders filled, etc.

Minimum wage = $10k/hr. Are you saying employment stays the same?!?!

Apparently I know how to run a business and you don't. When you fire an employee or when someone quits, somebody else has to do his job.

But if the employer previously reduced hours he doesn't need to hire, just increase hours.

In the mean time, you're looking for ways to improve productivity. You're looking for ways to grow your business, attract new customers, sell more units, serve more customers. You are ALWAYS looking for this, and you are ALWAYS hoping to be in a position where you need to hire more workers, because if you can hire more workers, then business is good, and if business is good, you're succeeding.

You've got the cart before the horse here--workers follow increased business, they don't lead it.

"I don't want to hire more workers because wages are going up" is the ultimate dumbass manager's excuse for why his business is failing.

You're assuming sales increased. That's not a valid assumption--when you are trying to look at the effect of X you keep everything else constant unless X specifically causes other changes.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/20/mcdo...eers-replacement-of-cashiers-with-kiosks.html

It's a good thing I learned here that the number of minimum wage jobs are not a function of their cost because before I would have guessed this would be more common as the cost of labor went up.

Of course, I also learned here that millenials killed McDonalds.

Good, the faster we kill these shit jobs, the better. I say this fully realizing that there are people who depend on jobs like these to keep themselves out of complete poverty, but those few casualties are worth a future where I never get my order wrong, the workplace is always clean, my food is always on time, there's never spit in it, and the milkshake machine is never out of service.

Who knows? Maybe for once the food will actually look like the picture!

And I suppose you agree with "we had to burn the village down to save it".

Because that's what you're saying here--throwing them into complete poverty is superior to working a shit job. It's not like they'll get a better one--the existence of the shit jobs proves there aren't enough non-shit jobs.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

.

So what are you waiting for? Come on down and be an hero!

So that's a yes then.

So that's a a request that you come down and show us how easy it really is, since every time I point out to you the nature of the challenges we battle against every day you continue to insist that it's not actually that hard and we're just feeling sorry for ourselves.

Clearly you know something we don't. So come on down here and show us how it's done since you're so awesome at this.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Good, the faster we kill these shit jobs, the better. I say this fully realizing that there are people who depend on jobs like these to keep themselves out of complete poverty, but those few casualties are worth a future where I never get my order wrong, the workplace is always clean, my food is always on time, there's never spit in it, and the milkshake machine is never out of service.

Who knows? Maybe for once the food will actually look like the picture!

And I suppose you agree with "we had to burn the village down to save it".

About as familiar as you are with "The Palestinians are suffering because of their own poor choice of leaders."

 

[Bomb#20]

That's a great analogy.

Nah. The welfare cheque isn't reducing the grocer's operating costs, and the grocer isn't claiming he'd go out of business without that reduction in operating costs. It's barely analogous.

I take it you mean to imply that the welfare check is reducing the employer's operating costs. What's your evidence for that hypothesis?

I don't need any - it ain't me objecting that a load of businesses would go bust if they had to pay employees enough to live on.

It ain't me making that objection either. It is you objecting that the welfare check isn't reducing the grocer's operating costs. If you don't need any evidence, does that mean you're withdrawing your objection to JP's contention that I made a great analogy?

No.

So, you're saying I made a bad analogy because of a difference between the two cases that you don't need any evidence for? Sounds like it's time for us to agree to disagree.

I expect if there were a mass political movement trying to order grocers to supply poor people's food needs at grocers' expense, a typical grocer would start claiming he'd go out of business if that burden were assigned to him.

Indeed, which puts grocers in the position of tax payers with respect to unlivable wages. The mass political movement is effectively saying that it is not the responsibility of consumers to bear the full cost of groceries.

I lost you. Which mass movement is effectively saying this? The "living wage" movement?

No, your hypothetical "mass political movement trying to order grocers to supply poor people's food needs at grocers' expense"

Oh, I see. Okay. So what was your point? As far as I can see, pretty much everyone agrees it's not the responsibility of consumers to bear the full cost of groceries. Nobody's saying a poor consumer should starve. So somebody other than the consumer is going to be picking up part of the cost of her groceries. Who? Pretty much everyone who isn't a UBI proponent would rather it be somebody other than himself. We have a hypothetical movement saying it should be grocers, and an actual movement saying it should be employers, each movement trying to put its selected minority group in the position of tax payers.

I.e., she should hire a different worker. I.e., you choose option two. I.e., the first worker should be stuck with a $30000 problem instead of a $10000 problem. I.e. you grabs his duds and his picks as well, and you hurls 'em down the pit of hell.

If hiring an individual means hurling everyone else down the pit of hell, you place a huge burden on employers.

I lost you again. How does it place a huge burden on employers if hiring an individual means hurling everyone else down the pit of hell? Did you perhaps mean "place a huge burden on employees"?

No, I meant employers. How does it not place a huge burden on employers if hiring an individual means hurling everyone else down the pit of hell?

Okay, then I've failed to understand your metaphor. I was using an incident from the miners' song -- keeping union miners' pay up by throwing a blackleg's tools down into a hard-to-get-to part of a mine shaft to stop him from competing for work -- as a metaphor for stopping a guy from competing for work by getting the government to order employers to choose between not hiring him and taking a loss on him. You're using a different metaphor, since you spoke of throwing people rather than tools down the pit of hell. So can you explain your metaphor? What does "If hiring an individual means hurling everyone else down the pit of hell" refer to?

Since getting unskilled workers the monopoly price for labor requires reducing the total amount of unskilled labor, reducing it enough to jack the marginal revenue product of the labor up to the monopoly price, why not share the reduction in that total amount equally among all the unskilled workers, instead of inflicting the whole reduction on an unlucky few who are rendered jobless?

Because that assumes so-called 'perfect competition' where, absent MW/unions, "it's rational for employers to hire all the unskilled laborers willing to work for them." Real firms overwhelmingly stop producing/hiring before that point because they're constrained by demand for the product of labour (in turn constrained by ..wait for it.. wages).

They're constrained by a lot of things; but if not for the minimum wage or the union contract, they could relax the constraint of demand for their product, by lowering prices, which they could do if they lowered wages, which would in turn make fewer unskilled laborers be willing to work for them. I.e., we appear to be agreed that it's the obstacles to competition that make it rational for employers to turn away some of the people willing to work at the price they're paying. But I don't agree that demand is limited by the wages of unskilled labor. Most companies aren't in the business of selling solely to unskilled people. If the unskilled aren't buying much, because they don't have much money, companies can make stuff that skilled people will buy.

Given which, the non-union guys are not trying to join the workforce by entreating the union guys to share wages, they're trying to replace the union guys by offering wages back to the employer. That is why union miners fought blacklegs.

They're certainly trying to join the workforce. If they're trying to do it by replacing the union guys, that's because the union made it irrational for the company to hire everyone willing to work. If they aren't trying to do it by entreating the union guys to share wages, it's because their entreaties would fail. The union guys won't share. Sure, the union guys will pretend to themselves that they'll share. They'll even write a line into their song about it: "So join the union while you may, don't wait till your dying day, cause that may not be far away, you dirty blackleg miner." But letting the guy into their union won't magically increase the number of workers it's rational for the company to hire at the price the union negotiated. It won't get him a job. So when you imply the blackleg deserves what happens to him for the sin of trying to replace the union guys, you're blaming the victim. You're talking as though a person who already has a job automatically has more right to a job than a guy who's pounding the streets looking for one.

Also, I don't accept that getting unskilled workers the monopoly price for labor necessarily requires reducing the total amount of unskilled labor. Income effect, velocity of money etc, variables not depicted.

Income effect, meaning the higher paid workers will buy more? But minimum wage workers are only a small fraction of the work force. Paying them 30% more isn't going to increase sales by 30%. And if you think raising the minimum wage will increase the velocity of money, show your work. The only realistic ways unskilled workers can get the monopoly price for labor without reducing the total amount of unskilled labor is if the demand for unskilled labor is perfectly inelastic -- and that would require extraordinary evidence -- or if employers are compelled to buy more unskilled labor than they benefit from, or if the government commits to hiring everyone who can't find a private-sector job.

The simpler solution is to just make the best of the reduction in the size of the market for unskilled labor. If you're going to force everyone to join a de facto union, get the guys who wanted the compulsory union -- because they already had jobs and didn't expect to be the ones who'd lose theirs -- to share wages. Reduce each worker's hours in proportion, in order that everyone willing to work can get a job. Some real unions already do this -- it's pretty much how a merchant marine hiring hall works -- but that mechanism only works well for limited duration gigs. If you want people with permanent jobs to share, you need to shorten the work week.

 

[DBT]

I think that it's clear that we need a whole new economic system and a revolution in the way we see the world and relate to each other.....

 

[dismal]

Hmmm, maybe this theory that the demand for unskilled labor will go up as the price goes up because unskilled laborers will have more money to spend is off in some important way:

In January 2016, Seattle’s minimum wage jumped from $11 an hour to $13 for large employers, the second big increase in less than a year. New research released Monday by a team of economists at the University of Washington suggests the wage hike may have come at a significant cost: The increase led to steep declines in employment for low-wage workers, and a drop in hours for those who kept their jobs. Crucially, the negative impact of lost jobs and hours more than offset the benefits of higher wages — on average, low-wage workers earned $125 per month less because of the higher wage, a small but significant decline.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/seattles-minimum-wage-hike-may-have-gone-too-far/

Of course, the other way it is off is that this money does not appear as if manna from heaven. It comes from someone else's pocket. More specifically, it comes from the pocket of either people who frequent establishments where low income customers work (in the form of higher prices) or people who tend to hire low income people (in the form of lower profits.) Taking money from these people's pockets seems like a pretty sure way to lower demand for unskilled workers.

 

[LordKiran]

Good, the faster we kill these shit jobs, the better. I say this fully realizing that there are people who depend on jobs like these to keep themselves out of complete poverty, but those few casualties are worth a future where I never get my order wrong, the workplace is always clean, my food is always on time, there's never spit in it, and the milkshake machine is never out of service.

Who knows? Maybe for once the food will actually look like the picture!

And I suppose you agree with "we had to burn the village down to save it".

Because that's what you're saying here--throwing them into complete poverty is superior to working a shit job. It's not like they'll get a better one--the existence of the shit jobs proves there aren't enough non-shit jobs.

What I'm saying is that the removal of jobs like these is a net positive for consumers who don't want their food made by someone who hates the place they work at. Anything else you choose to attribute to my post beyond that is all you, babe.

Anywho, wether or not these jobs going away is a good or bad thing doesn't matter. What matters is that they're going away and you can't stop it. We can only adapt to the changing paradigm. So spare me your crocodile tears for the working lower-class.