Raising the minimum wage is good for the economy.

That's what the article says. You think you know better than economists?

 

Who the heck decides what a "living wage" is anyways?

 

Here's more:

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/economy/seattles-minimum-wage-the-plot-thickens/

Jon Talton / Columnist
Seattle’s minimum wage: The plot thickens
Originally published June 27, 2017 at 10:25 am Updated June 27, 2017 at 9:11 pm

On the surface, new studies on the pay increase appear to conflict. That's not necessarily so — and neither is the end of the debate.
First came a study from the University of California, Berkeley, indicating that Seattle’s step-up to a $15 minimum wage had given the lowest-wage workers fatter paychecks without affecting jobs. But not so fast. A new study released this week by researchers at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington indicates many workers intended to be helped by the law have actually been hurt.

Partisans can make of them what they will, but the rest of us can unpack this with as open minds as we mammals can allow.

Each study has its limitations. Berkeley only looked at the restaurant sector, which is heavy in low-wage jobs. The UW analysis, although a much broader and deeper dig, relies on a model comparing the city with a “control group” — which didn’t implement the steep wage hike — being a synthesis of several other places in Washington. But no other city in the state has Seattle’s astonishing boom at its back or its size and economic diversity. UW also didn’t count businesses with multiple locations. The progressive Economic Policy Institute lays out other criticisms here.

Importantly, neither study has been peer reviewed yet. The UW paper was released via the National Bureau of Economic Research, the outfit that “calls” the start and end of recessions, as well as being a clearinghouse for economic research. Economists will now pick over both studies with rigor. Even this won’t “answer” all questions — economics is not a hard science — but we will learn more.
In their way, the studies are in line with existing knowledge. Most economists have long agreed that, within historic bounds, minimum wage increases have little if any effect on jobs. Seattle’s hike goes beyond those previous increases in size and speed, thus putting in place incentives for employers to reduce hours (which the UW study picks up), as well as to look into automation and be much more selective in hiring even low-wage workers.

Automation is an especially big unknown. It could leave millions unemployed in the near future — and few of our political leaders nationally are even discussing it.

In 2014, I wrote that the $15 minimum wage was an experiment that a city as prosperous as Seattle could try, but the outcomes were uncertain. The City Council’s efforts were also an understandable reaction to narrowing economic opportunity, rising inequality and stagnant wages for most. “Unfortunately, the causes of the collapse of the middle class are national and international in scope. They have been decades in the making.”

I’m still sticking by this. It’s an experiment and the hard evidence is only now beginning to come in. It doesn’t care whether your sympathies are blue or red.

Even if the Seattle wage “works” for many low-wage employees, and is profitable politics here, it is no substitute for progressive taxation, strong unions, public investments to create jobs, abundant quality education and job training. No substitute for a national consensus that frowns on imperial executive compensation, stripping companies for parts, and treating workers like commodities to be shed.

 

How can you be for opportunity and growth while also advocating for punishing the rich?

Or have you now changed your story?

And what does "taking back our lost industry" mean. You mean cutting business taxes and capital gains taxes so we can compete on the global stage for jobs?

"Wealth distribution" is *NOT* the same thing as "wealth REdistributon".

 

Why wouldn't you just choose to write in nicely spaced paragraphs instead? Would you prefer that what you write isn't read?

 

Who says *I* won't spend the dollar?

As I said, far too many of these economists make a simplifying assumption that the dollar in my pocket won't get spent unless the government takes it away from me and gives it to someone else.

 

This is close but public investments do not create jobs. Most public "investments" are built by existing private firms who do not typically hire new workers, they just work it into the schedule for the existing workers. That's why so many "public work projects" take so long to complete!

 

I have absolutely no idea how or why that would come to mind.

It's about both. Why would you think they are mutually exclusive? It's about how to grow wealth; how to foster an economic environment which maximizes upward mobility in those who participate in the economy.

It's about not doing (unintentional) harm pursuing good intentions. Mind you, I'm of the opinion that many who push the canard of MW increases know it does the opposite; know it increases dependence upon Government.

The masses of left in this country are those who are conditioned to be fooled by the promises of it.

The market has decided that they're worth it. The fact is: if people made $15/hr, and CEO's pay quintupled from this point, what CEO's make is absolutely immaterial to the plight of the low-wage worker, or anyone else.

Mark Zuckerberg didn't drive anyone else to the poor house when he became a multi-billionaire.

Then it's time to do what Reagan did in response, but you'll deny it because you'll continue to deny the evidence of the result.

Repeating yourself isn't debating. No one bought ANY iPods until Jobs made them. Demand couldn't be lower for them prior to Jobs offering them.

It worked in the short term, just as in my analogy. You can animate a nearly dead body, if you pump enough adrenaline into it. What 'worked' short term was fake, and added to overall debt.

Your solution continues to be more short term artificial stimulus.

I told you how. You weren't listening.

 

What would happen, do you think, if Government merely provided for everyone a $100,000/yr compensation package?

 

Worse

 

I often wonder if you're somewhat confused at times, I need not wonder anymore

 

This is the statistic I was eluding to. Companies stopped being loyal to their employees and instead tried to make money for their investors. As the middle class experiences a shrinking expendable income, they cannot afford to become one of the investors. So their shut-out is double: low income and low investments.

 

What is almost without dispute is that raising the minimum wage has NOT been the economic disaster that conservatives have claimed it would be...and unemployment has not increased.

In fact historically when minimum wages are increased...those things don't happen

 

"Punish"? How? By increasing taxes on huge incomes? If that's what you mean you might have just said it instead of wordsmithing a provocative phrase of "punishing the rich". That is an accusation and I don't appreciate it. One of the richest, Warren Buffet, has said the rich should pay much more in taxes. Is he advocating "punishing" himself? Why did the rich "punish" the workers by hogging most of the new income for the past 30 years? THAT is a far better case of "punishing". But your own class warfare causes you to only think of the poor rich guy.

What do you think?

Nope. I mean tax offshored bank accounts that hold money to avoid taxation, and tax the rich more, and increase the estate tax to a reasonable, effective level, and use the revenue to fund huge and numerous projects to create jobs, then develop legislation to incentivize the formation of worker co-ops.

Correct. Redistribution would correct an injustice created by unjust wealth distribution.

 

Well, well! Now you even oppose unemployment compensation?

 

Disaster.

 

Warren Buffet is the guy who pays himself a salary of about $115K per year so he won't get caught up in the highest brackets. He's not a very good representative for your cause.

It *is* an accusation. I meant it to be one!

Your class warfare just comes shining through in what you say! "Hogging most of the new income" *is* class warfare and highlights that you *do* want to punish the rich as retribution for a perceived immoral act.

I think you are still a Marxist.

1. The IRS gets notified of money transfers out of the US to insure taxes are paid on it.
2. You have *NO* moral right to any part of foreign earnings held in foreign accounts. The US provides no government services to the foreign people that money is collected from.
3. Tax the rich even more. Class warfare.
4. Taking money out of the estate of the dead won't make you or anyone else any richer. It's just another way to punish the rich.
5. You won't get enough money out of the estate tax to even fund a simple highway project. There simply aren't enough rich people that die each year!
6. Go buy some stock. Then you too can be part of a coop!

You think you can make paupers out of the rich? No matter how much you try there will continue to be those who are rich. Your economic policies are driven by jealousy, greed, and envy.

 

Where do you think unemployment compensation comes from? Do you somehow think it is an entitlement that lasts forever?

Unemployment compensation is meant as a bridge to another job. I don't have a problem with a temporary assistance program like this BUT if people would follow the simple tactic of having a six month emergency fund there wouldn't be nearly the need for unemployment insurance. It's all about personal responsibility not collective responsibility.

 

I don't think you understand my position yet. I'd be fine with business creating the jobs, as long as those jobs are the kind that pay people enough to live on without further government subsidies. However, at this time in our history, business either cannot or will not create enough jobs for our people that pay enough to live on. We have lots of lowe paying jobs, and thus lots of government supplementation. Since business either isn't or can't create those jobs now, then the government should. Once the economy is growing above 2%, then the government can scale back those jobs, as business becomes more able to provide them.

 

What makes you think the community they live in can assist them without federal help? Couldn't they be doing that now, if they had the means? One of the reasons the federal government has had to step in and supplement is because charity didn't fill the gap.

 

You've offered no solution to our economic issues. You simply repeat the prattle of trickle down and pretend that Reagan's tax cuts solved everything, completely discounting the massive federal spending Reagan also put in place… just like FDR did after the Great Depression.

We need an injection of money into the middle and working class, and not just as a temporary stimulus. Thus we need higher wages overall for those people to sustain some economic growth and get out of the doldrums we are presently in and will be in for the foreseeable future, unless something is done about it.

 

There is one big problem with democracy ------------------ and that is the people come to realize that if they vote for some people, they will give them money. In other words vote for most any democrat, and he will hand out welfare for your vote.

 

If the majority of the community have homes and adequate food, then they can support the minority that can't support themselves

 

He's worth about $45 billion!

Ah! But the act of hogging all that new money in the first place and government allowing and protecting it isn't class warfare, eh?

Who said I wasn't?

1. Yes. So?
2. American companies pay income taxes. Laws govern it. Moral "rights" have absolutely nothing to do with the question.
3. Funnel taxpayer money upward to the rich. Class warfare requiring a response.
4. You have zero understanding of estate taxes. Interesting how the right like to spin it into "you want that money".
5. This is a big one due to your lack of basic knowledge of it. The perpetuation of the accumulation of inherited property is absurd. Think about it.

North Carolina's 1784 statute explained that by keeping large estates together for succeeding generations, the old system had served "only to raise the wealth and importance of particular families and individuals, giving them an unequal and undue influence in a republic" and promoting "contention and injustice." Abolishing aristocratic forms of inheritance would by contrast "tend to promote that equality of property which is of the spirit and principle of a genuine republic." - http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2010/10/estate_tax_and_founding_fathers

“Eliminating Estate Tax on Inherited Wealth Would Increase Deficits and Inequality”

From CBPP:
“5. The Largest Estates Consist Mostly of “Unrealized” Capital Gains That Have Never Been Taxed”

“6. The Estate Tax Is a Significant Revenue Source”
“While the estate tax will generate less than 1 percent of federal revenue over the next decade, it is significantly more than the federal government will spend on the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Environmental Protection Agency combined.”

“9. The United States Taxes Estates More Lightly Than Comparable Countries”

http://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/ten-facts-you-should-know-about-the-federal-estate-tax

Revenue from estate taxes is only 53% of what it was in 2001 due to loopholes that have been added.

And finally, your #6 reveals your lack of knowledge of co-ops and what I've said, though you pretend to attack what I've said. Your silly idea of buying stock to be part of a co-op is ludicrous but I leave you to figure it out.

You are clueless. I'm worth over a million myself, so jealousy, greed, and envy????? That's just an empty, cheap personal attack. I guess you have nothing better.

 

Just because the community might be able to support someone that can't support themselves, there's no reason to believe they will. It's not happening now. How is that person ever to be able to support themselves? It takes a job paying a living wage to do that. Unless the community is willing to give that person a job, the problem isn't solved. How long before such a community is tired of supporting people without jobs?

The answer is a job that pays enough for independent living, without supplementation by the federal government or local charities. We're not talking about people that don't want to work. These are people that work hard, some two or three part-time jobs, and still don't make enough money to live on without supplementation. Our economy is stagnant at 1-2% growth. It's not going to come out of it without lots of people spending money, and the disposable income of the working and middle class has dwindled to the point the economy is stalled. At the same time, CEO salaries are 260% of workers, profits and productivity are high, and the Stock Market is at record highs. Business can afford to pay workers more and need to do so. If that still doesn't produce enough jobs for Americans, the government needs to step in and provide jobs. Goodness knows we need infrastructure repairs and updates.