Raising the minimum wage is good for the economy.

So the state's that raised their minimum wages had higher average earnings? I don't see how that is possible. /sarcasm

 

That's a myth. No employer hires people simply because they are cheap, they hire who they need to do the job.
In fact, higher minimum wages tends to increase employment because minimum wage workers become more frequent consumers.

 

The OP needs to talk to the minimum wage workers in state that raised the min wage to $15. They are out of jobs, replaced by computer screens. Also look at the number of eating places that have been forced to close.

 

What I'm gonna say is that Democrats took over Congress in January 2007 with Pelosi as Speaker. Thus, the increase in unemployed workers. One of her missions was a 40% increase in the minimum wage which she failed to do on its own. She was able to get it done on May 24, 2007 by holding veterans and Katrina victims hostage. The increases took place on July 24, 2007 , July 24, 2008, and July 24, 2009. After she locked up credit and crashed an economy that was growing since the Bush tax cuts, Bush passed TARP and forced all the banks to take the money so there wouldn't be an unnecessary run on a bank that was solid. All of the Bush TARP money was paid back with interest, adding nothing to the debt. TARP isn't a conservative value but it turned the economy around starting on March 2, 2009 --- before Obama found the closet where Bubba did Monica. If anything, Obamacare and the Stimulus were pork barrel programs that enriched Obama's cronies and slowed the recovery.

 

More data is available here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/12/02/employment-situation-november[/QUOTE]
Utter nonsense, means fewer minimum wage jobs and increased costs of goods and services. Fewer startups, and fewer new jobs generally because of that. It does not help mom and dad a bit when junior gets a raise as an usher at the movie theater even assuming that Jr. isn't one of the ones that gets laid off.

 

It'd be hard to do. Since Seattle raised their minimum wage to $15 unemployment has dropped to under 3% and low wage employment has grown by 1% more than comparison cites.

 

Awesome, now we can eliminate welfare and the ACA. The economy is rocking

 

If in fact those jobs were replaced by computer screens, it has very little to do with raising the minimum wage.
That would have happened anyway. It's called automation. A company will introduce a system to reduce workforce,
then write off the system on their taxes, all the while increasing their profit margin.
They care about profit, not people.

I see many older Americans (66 to 70) working in fast food or on an assembly line for some temp agency.
They sure as hell aren't doing it for chits & giggles. They are working because they have to.

 

I'm not on the right, but more in the center. I don't have a problem with raising the minimum wage, but I don't think it needs to be nationally mandated because the cost of living varies so widely.

That being said, starting at the bottom is a place to start, but not where it will give us the biggest bang for the buck, so to speak. Where wages really need to be addressed in in the middle incomes. Demand drives the economy and the middle class is the economic engine that produces demand. The middle class has taken most of the hit of the economic downturn with stagnated wages, lost wealth, little incentive to save with near 0% interest rates, and lots of debt. The combination has killed demand, and kept the economy at an extremely low growth rate. If raising the minimum wage is a wave that will lift the middle class boat as well, then that's fine. If we don't get money back to the middle class, simply raising the minimum wage won't really impact the economy much.

 

I agree with what you said except that the idea of the minimum wage, historically, seems to have been to mandate the least increase to be desired in the lowest income market according not only to skill level, but geographic location as well. From there, states have the right and obligation to add to it and raise their required minimum wage by location so that the change is fair to all and beneficial as well, without any harm outweighing the benefits. Certainly some employers will be hurt, but that is what happens when the MW is allowed to fall so far behind for so long. Some employers who couldn't possibly make a profit while paying a reasonable wage find it possible to profit with the MW being so low. They take advantage of an unreasonably low wage and they will fail, and should fail, when the MW is raised. But overall, I think it only makes sense to raise the MW if there is a benefit on average.

 

I don't disagree with much of what you said. Mainly my point is if the minimum wage leads to higher wages for the middle class, only then will we see a real benefit to the economy. We have to start somewhere, and the minimum wages is certainly a place we can start. However, if employers don't move from that point to raising other salaries comparably, especially in the middle class, it won't help the economy much at all. It takes having disposable income in the hands of many more people to boost the economy.

 

That is like saying if you pay your babysitter a lot more, you and your wife will go out a lot more.

Like saying if your grocery store keeps increasing your prices, it is to your benefit.

There is no company that can pay above a particular wage set by the free market that can long last.

When GM artificially increased wages and benefits, it ended up bankrupt.

 

You *really* need to read this recent study.

http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication Files/MW_Exit_7a89f82f-b2fa-42f2-9a0e-f8a61e95b679.pdf

It shows that the minimum wage increase in San Francisco had a significant impact on restaurants exiting the market, which meant that a *lot* of minimum wage workers lost their jobs.

The fact that many of the workers disappear into the depths of "not in the workforce" it is no surprise that unemployment figures don't show anything.

The San Diego Union Tribune reported ""Evidence has emerged of an economic dark side to San Diego's decision last year to vault over the state minimum wage -- it may have already destroyed thousands of jobs for low-wage workers even as higher pay helps tens of thousands of others."

I always thought the Marxist Democrats were for the little people. Apparently they aren't. I suspect the people are finally figuring that out and it's a big reason why Trump won!

 

It's why the labor force participation rate for those 65-up has been increasing all through the past eight years while the lfpr for the 25-44 age cohort as dropped precipitously.

 

Why do you keep pushing this idea. You've been shown how wrong your ideas are in other threads.

Higher minimum wages limit employment thus *hurting* the ability to help the middle class and higher minimum wages hurt business, again limiting employment which simply doesn't help the middle class.

Equalizing outcomes is the road to economic perdition. The proof is legion. The globe is littered with the remains of nations that have tried to do this.

If you want to help the middle class then offer solutions that helps business grow and offer more jobs.

 

With all due respect, your opinion does not prove my opinion to be wrong. Trickle down does not work in the long run. It produces booms and bursts, and the last burst hit the middle class harder than anyone else. Trickle down is not sustainable, and simply moves money to the top, where it has not been reinvested into the economy, but was instead moved into off shore accounts to avoid taxes, hurting the middle class more, as they had to make up the difference.

Is business not doing well in the US? Is the stock market not at record levels? Why is the middle class struggling then, if business can solve this problem?

 

Well, historically incomes bump upward when the MW is raised due to pressure. We won't have a person who earned $7.25/hr and gets boosted to $10.50/hr while a person working with him who earned $11/hr remains there. Similarly, and contributing to the upward pressure, if everyone who was earning from $7.25/hr to $10.45/hr all get boosted to $10.50/hr, people will strongly object. Employers know that would be unfair and so they historically give all pay levels a boost. It doesn't all happen in a month. It historically takes about 3 years to "trickle up" but it always does because it always must.

 

That has never happened, except briefly right after the MW is raised. Then it begins to improve for the long term.

 

Yes, that's a good explanation of the rationale of raising the minimum wage. How long it takes for it to actually impact the middle class is the problem. It needed to trickle up 20 years ago and continue trickling, so we are in a deep hole with the economy that will take a longer time to recover.

 

Good, let the FED die along with the zombie wall street banks, and we can get back to real economics

 

Yes, it has been neglected too long. It should have been tied to inflation or upgraded on a regular, prescribed basis. But it seems the damage that could result from catching up might be mitigated by undertaking huge infrastructure and renewable energy projects funded by taxing that income that has been funneled from the middle class upward to the rich, plus taxing offshored accounts. Then soon such projects would generate more revenue to help pay for themselves.

 

We both know that is never going to happen.

 

Exactly! What those that claim Reagan's trickle down efforts work always neglect is Reagan also increased government spending massively. THAT is what got the economy back on track, not the trickle down tax cuts. Government spending also is what let the economy recover following the Great Depression.

Not only will such projects generate revenue, it created trained workers that can move from the public sector to the private sector and remove that government expense eventually.

 

Had you read the "working paper" ie still in progress with no firm conclusions, you would find that they claim that increased minimum wages accelerated closings in some restaurants by less than 1/2 of 1%. Using Yelp for ratings the effect on high rated restaurants' closing was 0%. Hardly "significant" and it only measures restaurant closings and has no data whatsoever on new ones opening to replace them so no, it doesn't mean a "*lot* of minimum wage workers lost their jobs". This theory simply states that poor quality restaurants were slightly more likely to close after an increase in minimum wages. As far as we know poor quality restaurants were replaced by better quality ones because minimum wage workers had the money to eat at better quality places. Overall, San Francisco has had continuous restaurant sales growth and overall it's unemployment has remained continuously below the national average.
The report doesn't necessarily lie to you but it is so narrow in focus as to give an incomplete picture.

 

It always seems to work out that way