New study indicates caution needed on large minimum wage increases

politically speaking, which items from the list would be more likely to be implemented.  The ubi would probably be most effective in producing the desired outcomes, but the EITC is a lot easier politically.

Gilgul said:

ml1 said:

maybe I'm being unfair, but I think it's callous to tell people to get a second job, work more hours, get a roommate as the solution to the fact that the federal minimum wage, adjusted for inflation is now equal to what it was in the '50s (chart below).

There are solutions to this if we have the will to implement them.  On MOL there was this discussion of universal basic income.  That's pretty radical and not likely to happen any time soon. But some combination of the following for working people could do a lot.  And let's remember we're talking about people working full time, not "takers" or freeloaders.

• Increased minimum wage
• Further expansion of Medicaid
• Expansion of SNAP
• Expansion of EITC
• Laws that better support union organizing in all workplaces
• Free college for low-income families
• Universal basic income

Those seem to me to be better solutions than telling people to lower their expectations for the American Dream, or work a second job.

I would much rather see a single ubi with streamlined administration than a further expansion of the laundry list of separate government programs.

Gilgul said:

South_Mountaineer said:

Back to the topic - article in today's NY Times about two recent studies with different conclusions.  The OP started and entitled this thread by mentioning only one of the two studies.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...

Three years ago, Seattle became one of the first jurisdictions in the nation to embrace a $15-an-hour minimum wage, to be phased in over several years.

Over the past week, two studies have purported to demonstrate the effects of the first stages of that increase — but with starkly diverging results.

Believe it or not I titled this thread "New study indicates caution needed on large minimum wage increases" on purpose and for a very specific reason. 

There were two studies.  If you decided in your "expert opinion" to give weight to one and not the other, you didn't even note the other one.  So, that was an incomplete representation of what was available to review.

ml1 said:

politically speaking, which items from the list would be more likely to be implemented.  The ubi would probably be most effective in producing the desired outcomes, but the EITC is a lot easier politically.

Gilgul said:

ml1 said:

maybe I'm being unfair, but I think it's callous to tell people to get a second job, work more hours, get a roommate as the solution to the fact that the federal minimum wage, adjusted for inflation is now equal to what it was in the '50s (chart below).

There are solutions to this if we have the will to implement them.  On MOL there was this discussion of universal basic income.  That's pretty radical and not likely to happen any time soon. But some combination of the following for working people could do a lot.  And let's remember we're talking about people working full time, not "takers" or freeloaders.

• Increased minimum wage
• Further expansion of Medicaid
• Expansion of SNAP
• Expansion of EITC
• Laws that better support union organizing in all workplaces
• Free college for low-income families
• Universal basic income

Those seem to me to be better solutions than telling people to lower their expectations for the American Dream, or work a second job.

I would much rather see a single ubi with streamlined administration than a further expansion of the laundry list of separate government programs.

I think it is possible if approached in a cooperative manner that conservatives could be convinced on ubi if it results in a smaller bureaucracy. But EITC could be a pathway to morphing it into a ubi by expanding it and letting it be payable in advance and at regular intervals.

hey, we agree on something!

Gilgul said:

I think it is possible if approached in a cooperative manner that conservatives could be convinced on ubi if it results in a smaller bureaucracy. But EITC could be a pathway to morphing it into a ubi by expanding it and letting it be payable in advance and at regular intervals.

Coming to the defense of Gilgul here.  He posts an article that is principally about one recent study.  His opening sentence makes clear that there are different results out there.  He posts a link.  Everyone can read the full article.  No one should be shocked that are conflicting academic studies out there about pretty much any subject  If there weren't, this wouldn't even be newsworthy.

Unlike some of his posts, with the snarky "the left" subject lines, I don't think there was anything  wrong, nasty or even dishonest about how it was framed.    You can disagree, cite other studies etc, without getting personal or emotional.        

bub said:

Coming to the defense of Gilgul here.  He posts an article that is principally about one recent study.  His opening sentence makes clear that there are different results out there.  He posts a link.  Everyone can read the full article.  No one should be shocked that are conflicting academic studies out there about pretty much any subject  If there weren't, this wouldn't even be newsworthy.

Unlike some of his posts, with the snarky "the left" subject lines, I don't think there was anything  wrong, nasty or even dishonest about how it was framed.    You can disagree, cite other studies etc, without getting personal or emotional.        

Thank you.

dave said:

Here's the local (NJ) angle from the study (PDF).

They found that restaurants in New Jersey had, in fact, added more workers to their payrolls more than restaurants in neighboring Pennsylvania, where the minimum wage remained constant.

This is a well-known study, but the magnitude of NJ's minimum wage increase then is nowhere near the $15 per hour that is now being considered.

When NJ had a $5.05 minimum and PA had a $4.25 minimum, NJ's minimum wage was 18% higher.

If NJ has a $15 minimum and PA has a $7.25 minimum (which is PA's now), our minimum wage would be 106% higher. 

PA's legislature has a large Republican majority.  They are not going to pass a significant minimum wage increase anytime soon.

One other point about posting entire articles here, even without respect to copyright laws, if even one person quotes the post with the full article, iphone readers then have to spend an eon scrolling past what they've already read, sometimes many times over, to read what's new in the post. After a few of these -- and this is most prevalent in posts featuring, without mentioning names but it rhymes with "small neurowell" -- where iphone readers are subjected to having to re-read the entire article one letter at a time because they can't trim a frigging post, one tends to find a link and 3 short grafs refreshing.

ml1 said:

I thought LOST was making a joke, not making an argument.

Often a joke is the best argument.

But I thank RFA for his lesson in Economics. It was actually a refresher for what I learned in High School. However I have learned much since then and probably have learned more from just living than I learned from reading Paul Samuelson, Milton Friedman and Karl Marx.  

I don't think anyone got emotional.  But it wasn't that conflicting studies exist.  It was that the conflicting results were cited in the article being linked to. If I link to an article that cites two competing results, I wouldn't mention only one study in my post. 

bub said:

Coming to the defense of Gilgul here.  He posts an article that is principally about one recent study.  His opening sentence makes clear that there are different results out there.  He posts a link.  Everyone can read the full article.  No one should be shocked that are conflicting academic studies out there about pretty much any subject  If there weren't, this wouldn't even be newsworthy.

Unlike some of his posts, with the snarky "the left" subject lines, I don't think there was anything  wrong, nasty or even dishonest about how it was framed.    You can disagree, cite other studies etc, without getting personal or emotional.        

First, the headline speaks for itself as to the author's thrust.  The article is not presented as a survey of academic studies on the subject. Maybe the WaPo journalist needs to be upbraided.  Second, the fact that the article speaks of competing studies makes the post more honest, not less.  I'm sure one can dig up an article about this study from a right leaning media source that doesn't present competing conclusions.  If the OP did that, you would be more aggrieved, not less.   

ml1 said:

I don't think anyone got emotional.  But it wasn't that conflicting studies exist.  It was that the conflicting results were cited in the article being linked to. If I link to an article that cites two competing results, I wouldn't mention only one study in my post. 

bub said:

Coming to the defense of Gilgul here.  He posts an article that is principally about one recent study.  His opening sentence makes clear that there are different results out there.  He posts a link.  Everyone can read the full article.  No one should be shocked that are conflicting academic studies out there about pretty much any subject  If there weren't, this wouldn't even be newsworthy.

Unlike some of his posts, with the snarky "the left" subject lines, I don't think there was anything  wrong, nasty or even dishonest about how it was framed.    You can disagree, cite other studies etc, without getting personal or emotional.        

Actually I was going to bring up the headline writer (often not the writer of the article).  It was not really reflective of the contents of the article in my opinion 

bub said:

First, the headline speaks for itself as to the author's thrust.  The article is not presented as a survey of academic studies on the subject. Maybe the WaPo journalist needs to be upbraided.  Second, the fact that the article speaks of competing studies makes the post more honest, not less.  I'm sure one can dig up an article about this study from a right leaning media source that doesn't present competing conclusions.  If the OP did that, you would be more aggrieved, not less.   

Increasing the minimum wage obviously helps the workers who earn that wage. What's not so obvious is that increasing the minimum wage can have unintended consequences that hurt lower-earning workers. When information comes out to support the arguably counter-intuitive side of things, it's perfectly reasonable to highlight only that part of the debate.   

ml1 said:

I don't think anyone got emotional.  But it wasn't that conflicting studies exist.  It was that the conflicting results were cited in the article being linked to. If I link to an article that cites two competing results, I wouldn't mention only one study in my post. 

bub said:

Coming to the defense of Gilgul here.  He posts an article that is principally about one recent study.  His opening sentence makes clear that there are different results out there.  He posts a link.  Everyone can read the full article.  No one should be shocked that are conflicting academic studies out there about pretty much any subject  If there weren't, this wouldn't even be newsworthy.

Unlike some of his posts, with the snarky "the left" subject lines, I don't think there was anything  wrong, nasty or even dishonest about how it was framed.    You can disagree, cite other studies etc, without getting personal or emotional.        

This is the key factoid in the article, IMO:

"On the whole, the study estimates, the average low-wage worker in the city lost $125 a month because of the hike in the minimum."

That's fully consistent with the headline.

I don't agree. The NYT had a story today on the same topic with the same sources and wrote a more balanced story with this neutral headline: "How a Rising Minimum Wage Affects Jobs in Seattle"

The Bezos-owned Post, IMHO was too quick to hype the conclusion that  minimum wage hikes are negative 

Fair enough, we'll have to agree to disagree.

WaPo is a trusted news source that's perceived as pretty liberal-leaning. It would be really, really unfortunate if it turns out that Bezos is influencing editorial to boost Amazon's profit margins, as you suggest. 

I'm not saying I know 100% that is not happening, but that is a very cynical view. 

I think the story was inappropriately slanted, given the inconclusive nature of the research thus far. Maybe it has nothing to do with Bezos, but I think it displayed a pretty obvious bias. 

Regardless of any hidden agenda of WAPO or Bezos, I think most reasonable people would agree that there are many factors and policies that would attract companies and good jobs including low taxes, supportive regulation, an educated and skilled workforce, low energy costs, etc.  When you push too far on one (minimum wages) without other things (skilled workforce) it can have a negative effect such as a business moving outside the city.   Different outcomes for different cities.