Seattle’s Minimum Wage Hike May Have Gone Too Far

[Machismo]

This is the opposite of holding out...

Nobody is suggesting that low-wage workers should stand pat, but somebody has to work the jobs, and they still need to provide for themselves until they can get something better.

And the people who opt to be complacent and settle, will get exactly what they are worth.

[Gestopft]

Since they seem to focus on tracking jobs, but not the workers themselves, who may have moved on to better paying opportunities.

This aspect could potentially get thrashed in peer review. In a good market with unemployment well below the national average, workers will move up to better jobs.

[Machismo]

This aspect could potentially get thrashed in peer review. In a good market with unemployment well below the national average, workers will move up to better jobs.

If that's the case, then there wouldn't be a need to raise the minimum wage in the first place. They could have done it all along.

[Vash The Stampede]

By all means, let's not stop now. Increase the minimal wage some more, so that the people in low-skill job can actually afford having a life. I mean, it's not likely at all that they will die of starvation once their employer goes under.

No employer will go under due to wage increases. But then again, no company will tell you the truth like how nobody today buys music CDs, or that millennial's don't eat out as much case they're broke.

[Manabomb]

By all means, let's not stop now. Increase the minimal wage some more, so that the people in low-skill job can actually afford having a life. I mean, it's not likely at all that they will die of starvation once their employer goes under.

Sounds like that employer needs to do a better job at selling his service/product to afford his employees. Maintaining profitability despite regulatory response is pretty much the entire game of business.

[Mittens]

This is on par with having one study that counters climate change despite there being dozens of others that confirm it. I'll have to read into more the study and how everything was conducted, I just enjoy everyone who was opposed to it jumping on this study but they dismissed all the other studies that didn't fit their viewpoint.

It's not similar though and accepting this study is not equivalent of rejecting others. As the article points out, there is a limit on how big the hike can be before stops being "good" and begins being "bad". The study is saying that Seattle reached that limit.

[Krigaren]

Retail is on decline in general, and there are tons of low-wage jobs in the retail sector.

That's more or less the point I'm making. Retail has been declining steadily since the recession started nearly 10 years ago, and there's been increases in automation, so having a paper that looks at that trend and blames it on an increase in the minimum wage seems dangerously disingenuous.

[Manabomb]

It's not similar though and accepting this study is not equivalent of rejecting others. As the article points out, there is a limit on how big the hike can be before stops being "good" and begins being "bad". The study is saying that Seattle reached that limit.

And frankly I'm not sure how they got to that conclusion based off their data, limited in scope as it may be.

Admit it, this entire study is pretty much the perfect example at cherry picking data points to prove a narrative.

Edit: They literally admit in the article that even if this study holds up to peer review, its hardly a "nail in the coffin" scenario, as it calls for more extensive studying of how the minimum wage regulations will affect business' across the entire spectrum.

The most fascinating thing is just how unsure the paper is worded, but how for-sure the article is worded.

[Heladys]

Boo fucking hoo, higher labor costs challenge business owners' god given rights to obscene profit-taking, let's all riot.

I know you guys worship at the alter of unrestrained lessaiz-faire capitalism, but there's a time to not give so much a fuck about high profits.

[Kellhound]

And it is interesting to note the average cost of a 1 bedroom apartment in Seattle increased by 2% in the 6 months before the wage hike and then increased by 10% in the 6 months after the minimum wage hike. After that it settled down to a 2% increase in the 11 months since then (which is in line with inflation over the same period).

[WoWGoneBad]

-Supermarkets now have self service registers
-CVS, Rite Aid Walgreens now have self service registers
-Wal-Mart, Target now have Self Service Registers
-Home Depot, Lowes now has Self Service Registers
-McDonalds now has Self Service registers

Know what all these Big Major Corporations all have in common........ Minimum wage WORKERS....... Why should a Major Corporation pay "none skilled" employees what most ENTRY LEVEL Professional careers(2-4 year college/University) and 2 year Trade schools get when they start. You want a living wage.... fine LEARN A Professional SKILL or TRADE and then work for that industry......

I am tired of seeing Corporate Professional job offers for 11-15 an hour for entry level when I could go get a MinWage job at Target or CVS and earn that much. The idiots in Corporate Government(cuz we all know politicians from both sides work for corporations not the People)fail to see that they are burning the American Candle from both ends and what happens when the wax runs out........

Now I am in no way a Big Corporation lover. I believe there should be STRONG rigid Regulation and Oversight of corporations in this Country. I can see a CEO getting 750k a year + Company perks/stock for their jobs. But when they are making MILLIONS a year while the lower skilled are getting bupkiss... that only inflates this countries continued climb into the poverty levels.

Think how much 1Million dollars can go in terms of production, transportation and stock of merchandise to stores. Lower costs for said products... THAT will increase spending in this country which in turn will = more GDP which in turn MA help this country get back on top of the world where we once were.

[Dug]

I read it earlier, you see there is this thing called news websites and they tend to post stories before MMO champion posters do (*gasp*), just because I don't post every article I read doesn't mean I haven't already read it when someone else posted it.

Nice deductive reasoning Sherlock.

And yet your smug shit reply implies otherwise since had you read it you would know this isn't the "hurr told you so" you thought it was. Stay woke my dude

[stabetha]

this is about as stupid a thought as a person can have.

so you think a 16 year old kid needs a "living wage"?

[Vash The Stampede]

It's not similar though and accepting this study is not equivalent of rejecting others. As the article points out, there is a limit on how big the hike can be before stops being "good" and begins being "bad". The study is saying that Seattle reached that limit.

And yet the article links another study that says the wage hike did nothing to the available jobs. And like many articles, this one is click bait.

Like it or not, increasing the minimum wage is a good thing. It's very likely that companies can't just leave Seattle, and those that do will just move those jobs to other areas, thus increasing employment. It's not like they can just move these jobs to China, as there's a limit in what jobs can be done outside of USA. Companies that can't operate in Seattle will be replaced by those that can.

This is just a whole bunch of bitching to convince the general public that they shouldn't increase the minimum wage.

[Manabomb]

so you think a 16 year old kid needs a "living wage"?

I think a 24 year old does, and a 37 year old, at a 60 year old deserves a living wage.

I could give a shit about what a 16 year old that can only work after school and weekends part time makes.

[PhantasmagoriaX]

As a person who lives 15 mins from Seattle I saw this on the news this morning but theres one thing that the report left out

But there’s already a new study out Monday discounting the UW report.

The Economic Policy Institute says researchers used limited data and their analysis is biased

Source :http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/is-s...jobs/541311978

[Manabomb]

As a person who lives 15 mins from Seattle I saw this on the news this morning but theres one thing that the report left out



Source :http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/is-s...jobs/541311978

So basically this entire thread can be choked up to the classic

FAKE NEWS!111!!11one!1111

[WoWGoneBad]

Did your read it? Seems a lot of holes in the data and questions. One specific industry. Left out larger companies/corporations/chains.

Seems like they did a half ass job and excluded half the market or more.




https://www.washingtonpost.com/ampht...helps-workers/




-The paper does not, for example, address whether displaced workers might have found jobs in other cities or with companies such as Uber that are not included in their data.

- The paper’s findings are preliminary and have not yet been subjected to peer review

- Experts cautioned that the effects of the minimum wage may vary according to the industries dominant in the cities where they are implemented along with*overall economic conditions in the country as a whole.

- In particular, to avoid confusing establishments that were subject to the minimum with those that were not, the authors did not include large employers with locations both inside and outside of Seattle in their calculations. Skeptics argued that omission could explain the unusual results.

- There could be another explanation for the results, however: the fact that large employers are not included. It could be that even if employers with only a single location cut payrolls, large firms expanded at the same time, giving low-wage workers other opportunities to earn money.

-Vigdor said that*restaurateurs in Seattle -- along with other*employers -- responded to the minimum wage by hiring more skilled and experienced workers, who might be able to*produce more*revenue for their firms in the same amount of time.

-One way of explaining the disagreement could be that small businesses in Seattle have been forced to downsize in response to the increased minimum wage, while larger firms have expanded.

-There's another explanation for the growth in high-paid jobs and the decrease in lower-paid ones. The authors of the study argue that that's occurring because employers are focusing on high-paid workers and leaving low-paid workers out, but it's possible that something far more positive is happening.
Seattle's economy is booming, and in a booming economy, more workers are likely to get raises or find jobs that pay better, and it may be that phenomenon -- of workers getting raises, promotions or better paying jobs -- that explains the shifts in the labor market the researchers see in*Seattle.

etc
etc
etc
etc


based on this logic, 40+ years of national min wage increases, there should be no jobs left......but....but....

This report is EXACTLY what you would call and unethical sample of Statistics to suit your own conclusion. With only one Min Wage industry tested there is NO WAY that you would be able to see a quantifiable impact on the Min Wage as a WHOLE.

[EliWallach]

It's a 60/40 type of thing. Some are better off, some are worse off. Is it 90/10 better/worse? Not likely. Is it 10/90? No. It's more likely 60/40 one way of the other. So as long as you're not one of the 40 it's all good. I would speculate that the ones with more experience at the top of the income spectrum benefited more than the ones at the bottom so basically it's a money transfer from the poorest levels to the next poorest levels.

[WoWGoneBad]

Given this information I think it is probably wise to wait until this information is peer reviewed before forming an opinion.

You forgot to add

One reason for the muted impact: In high-cost Seattle, not many workers earned less than $11 an hour even before the law took effect.

Of course there was no impact since at the time most were already getting $11 per hour. It was when they hit $13 taht they saw results