Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

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USN_Hokie
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Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by USN_Hokie »

Who could have foreseen this?

Seattle's $15 minimum wage experiment might already be crashing and burning

The findings show that low-wage employees actually lost an average of $125 a month under the new model, or about $1,500 a year, due to employers' reduced payrolls and hours.

https://theweek.com/speedreads/708264/s ... ng-burning
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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by nolanvt »

Yup. Minimum wage laws are counterproductive. I would favor eliminating them.


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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by miles »

As previously observed anecdotally, water is wet.
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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by cwtcr hokie »

nolanvt wrote:Yup. Minimum wage laws are counterproductive. I would favor eliminating them.


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a reasonable min. wage is fine, $15/hr for a burger flipper is nuts. Interestingly the market will usually set the rate, in most cities people are paid more than min. wage to get and keep employees.
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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by Hokie CPA »

cwtcr hokie wrote:
nolanvt wrote:Yup. Minimum wage laws are counterproductive. I would favor eliminating them.


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a reasonable min. wage is fine, $15/hr for a burger flipper is nuts. Interestingly the market will usually set the rate, in most cities people are paid more than min. wage to get and keep employees.
The minimum wage is unnecessary since, as you pointed out, the market will set rate. For example, in Hampton Roads, while I'm sure there are those who make the literal minimum wage (typically they are young and have no work experience), but they do not stay at the minimum for long. Most of your entry level retail jobs around here are starting out at $8 to $9 per hour. And you don't have to keep the same job for too long before you're bumped up to around $10 per hour, even though the official minimum is $7.25 per hour. Almost nobody works for that. Employers can't keep employees for that. If they put in three or four months and aren't earning more than $7.50 per hour, they're looking for another job.
I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican... if you refuse to consider alternatives to the two parties, you support the Status Quo and you are a major part of the problem.

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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by cwtcr hokie »

Hokie CPA wrote:
cwtcr hokie wrote:
nolanvt wrote:Yup. Minimum wage laws are counterproductive. I would favor eliminating them.


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a reasonable min. wage is fine, $15/hr for a burger flipper is nuts. Interestingly the market will usually set the rate, in most cities people are paid more than min. wage to get and keep employees.
The minimum wage is unnecessary since, as you pointed out, the market will set rate. For example, in Hampton Roads, while I'm sure there are those who make the literal minimum wage (typically they are young and have no work experience), but they do not stay at the minimum for long. Most of your entry level retail jobs around here are starting out at $8 to $9 per hour. And you don't have to keep the same job for too long before you're bumped up to around $10 per hour, even though the official minimum is $7.25 per hour. Almost nobody works for that. Employers can't keep employees for that. If they put in three or four months and aren't earning more than $7.50 per hour, they're looking for another job.
the less populated rural areas it is not a bad idea for a reasonable min., what we have works fine tho
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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by BigDave »

I made minimum wage when I was in high school working at Roses and haven't made it since. I also worked at K-Mart and their minimum pay was 5 cents over minimum wage. Why was it more than minimum wage? Because they wanted to attract a better caliber of employee.
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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by ip_law-hokie »

cwtcr hokie wrote:
Hokie CPA wrote:
cwtcr hokie wrote:
nolanvt wrote:Yup. Minimum wage laws are counterproductive. I would favor eliminating them.


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a reasonable min. wage is fine, $15/hr for a burger flipper is nuts. Interestingly the market will usually set the rate, in most cities people are paid more than min. wage to get and keep employees.
The minimum wage is unnecessary since, as you pointed out, the market will set rate. For example, in Hampton Roads, while I'm sure there are those who make the literal minimum wage (typically they are young and have no work experience), but they do not stay at the minimum for long. Most of your entry level retail jobs around here are starting out at $8 to $9 per hour. And you don't have to keep the same job for too long before you're bumped up to around $10 per hour, even though the official minimum is $7.25 per hour. Almost nobody works for that. Employers can't keep employees for that. If they put in three or four months and aren't earning more than $7.50 per hour, they're looking for another job.
the less populated rural areas it is not a bad idea for a reasonable min., what we have works fine tho

Stuff is cheap there. Minimum wage in the sticks is above what the market says these people should make. If they want higher paying jobs, they should get out of the sticks.


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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by nolanvt »

As CPA pointed out, cost of living/doing business considerations wouldn't set a "fair" wage even then. Market forces should dictate compensation.


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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by Hokie CPA »

I would simply add that if burger flipping doesn't pay enough, they should learn a skill that will pay more. Go to a plumber and offer to work for him for $8 per hour... and then pay attention. Learn. Develop their own skills in plumbing. Eventually they can go into business for themselves. The world will always need plumbers. And when people have sh*t backing up into their house, those almost no limit to what they'll pay to get the plumbing fixed.

Don't want to learn plumbing? Got to a carpenter. Go to an electrician. Go to landscaper. I have a landscaper client who started out mowing lawns 15 years ago. He's now got over 20 employees, commercial landscaping contracts, and a janitorial service combining for a year-round business and a six-figure gross (and net, since his costs are so low). Settling for being a 30-something burger-flipper and being stuck at $10 per hour just doesn't make sense when there are so many opportunities available for anyone willing to work for a living.
I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican... if you refuse to consider alternatives to the two parties, you support the Status Quo and you are a major part of the problem.

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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by USN_Hokie »

Hokie CPA wrote:I would simply add that if burger flipping doesn't pay enough, they should learn a skill that will pay more. Go to a plumber and offer to work for him for $8 per hour... and then pay attention. Learn. Develop their own skills in plumbing. Eventually they can go into business for themselves. The world will always need plumbers. And when people have sh*t backing up into their house, those almost no limit to what they'll pay to get the plumbing fixed.

Don't want to learn plumbing? Got to a carpenter. Go to an electrician. Go to landscaper. I have a landscaper client who started out mowing lawns 15 years ago. He's now got over 20 employees, commercial landscaping contracts, and a janitorial service combining for a year-round business and a six-figure gross (and net, since his costs are so low). Settling for being a 30-something burger-flipper and being stuck at $10 per hour just doesn't make sense when there are so many opportunities available for anyone willing to work for a living.
It doesn't even need to require skill. I did back-breaking landscaping work for 11hrs a day during the summer in high school. Didn't require skill (though I did cut the pins and mow the greens before tournaments :ugeek:), but it was hard work in the sun all day that nobody but me, my friend, and a dozen Guatemalans would do. I was happy to make $6.75/hr as opposed to $5/hr (started at $3.75) as a cushy lifeguard hitting on chicks all day.
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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by VisorBoy »

USN_Hokie wrote:Who could have foreseen this?

Seattle's $15 minimum wage experiment might already be crashing and burning

The findings show that low-wage employees actually lost an average of $125 a month under the new model, or about $1,500 a year, due to employers' reduced payrolls and hours.

https://theweek.com/speedreads/708264/s ... ng-burning
Lots of people didn't foresee it. It has become a good data point for other states' policies.

Most alarmingly, "the paper's conclusions contradict years of research on the minimum wage," The Washington Post reports. "Many past studies, by contrast, have found that the benefits of increases for low-wage workers exceed the costs in terms of reduced employment — often by a factor of four or five to one."


Also, from the 538 link the story references:
Most — though by no means all — past research has found that modest increases to the minimum wage have little impact on employment, and that if employers do eliminate jobs or cut back hours, those losses are dwarfed by the income gains enjoyed by the majority of workers who keep their jobs.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/se ... e-too-far/
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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by USN_Hokie »

1. 538, lol.

2. $15/hr is not a modest increase.

3. Only liberals advancing liberal policy didn't (pretend to) see this.
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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by BigDave »

VisorBoy wrote:
USN_Hokie wrote:Who could have foreseen this?

Seattle's $15 minimum wage experiment might already be crashing and burning

The findings show that low-wage employees actually lost an average of $125 a month under the new model, or about $1,500 a year, due to employers' reduced payrolls and hours.

https://theweek.com/speedreads/708264/s ... ng-burning
Lots of people didn't foresee it. It has become a good data point for other states' policies.

Most alarmingly, "the paper's conclusions contradict years of research on the minimum wage," The Washington Post reports. "Many past studies, by contrast, have found that the benefits of increases for low-wage workers exceed the costs in terms of reduced employment — often by a factor of four or five to one."


Also, from the 538 link the story references:
Most — though by no means all — past research has found that modest increases to the minimum wage have little impact on employment, and that if employers do eliminate jobs or cut back hours, those losses are dwarfed by the income gains enjoyed by the majority of workers who keep their jobs.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/se ... e-too-far/

It was the most predictable thing ever.

Any business that was paying minimum wage and can relocate either did or will do so. Any business that can't relocate (restaurants, stores) is going to cut their number of employees and either make the remaining ones work harder or invest in technology to compensate.

Liberal orthodoxy is that the minimum wage increases in the 1960s didn't cost too many jobs (tell that to the people who lost their jobs) and so therefore it's a good thing. Well, even if that's true, in the 1960s, we didn't have nearly the level of technology that we do now. Minimum wage increases now just mean that companies invest in people-replacing technologies more quickly.

Any study from, say, before 2000, is probably not all that meaningful. You couldn't replace a burger-flipping high school kid with a computer in the 1960s, but you can now.
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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by Vienna_Hokie »

VisorBoy wrote:
USN_Hokie wrote:Who could have foreseen this?

Seattle's $15 minimum wage experiment might already be crashing and burning

The findings show that low-wage employees actually lost an average of $125 a month under the new model, or about $1,500 a year, due to employers' reduced payrolls and hours.

https://theweek.com/speedreads/708264/s ... ng-burning
Lots of people didn't foresee it. It has become a good data point for other states' policies.

Most alarmingly, "the paper's conclusions contradict years of research on the minimum wage," The Washington Post reports. "Many past studies, by contrast, have found that the benefits of increases for low-wage workers exceed the costs in terms of reduced employment — often by a factor of four or five to one."


Also, from the 538 link the story references:
Most — though by no means all — past research has found that modest increases to the minimum wage have little impact on employment, and that if employers do eliminate jobs or cut back hours, those losses are dwarfed by the income gains enjoyed by the majority of workers who keep their jobs.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/se ... e-too-far/
No, everyone foresaw it, the left simply chooses to ignore the facts because it panders to a group of uneducated voters who would rather be told they are owed something and blame those evil rich people for their situation than do something to improve their lives. No educated person believed that this wasn't going to happen.
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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by cwtcr hokie »

ip_law-hokie wrote:
cwtcr hokie wrote:
Hokie CPA wrote:
cwtcr hokie wrote:
nolanvt wrote:Yup. Minimum wage laws are counterproductive. I would favor eliminating them.


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a reasonable min. wage is fine, $15/hr for a burger flipper is nuts. Interestingly the market will usually set the rate, in most cities people are paid more than min. wage to get and keep employees.
The minimum wage is unnecessary since, as you pointed out, the market will set rate. For example, in Hampton Roads, while I'm sure there are those who make the literal minimum wage (typically they are young and have no work experience), but they do not stay at the minimum for long. Most of your entry level retail jobs around here are starting out at $8 to $9 per hour. And you don't have to keep the same job for too long before you're bumped up to around $10 per hour, even though the official minimum is $7.25 per hour. Almost nobody works for that. Employers can't keep employees for that. If they put in three or four months and aren't earning more than $7.50 per hour, they're looking for another job.
the less populated rural areas it is not a bad idea for a reasonable min., what we have works fine tho

Stuff is cheap there. Minimum wage in the sticks is above what the market says these people should make. If they want higher paying jobs, they should get out of the sticks.


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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by ip_law-hokie »

cwtcr hokie wrote:
ip_law-hokie wrote:
cwtcr hokie wrote:
Hokie CPA wrote:
cwtcr hokie wrote:
nolanvt wrote:Yup. Minimum wage laws are counterproductive. I would favor eliminating them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
a reasonable min. wage is fine, $15/hr for a burger flipper is nuts. Interestingly the market will usually set the rate, in most cities people are paid more than min. wage to get and keep employees.
The minimum wage is unnecessary since, as you pointed out, the market will set rate. For example, in Hampton Roads, while I'm sure there are those who make the literal minimum wage (typically they are young and have no work experience), but they do not stay at the minimum for long. Most of your entry level retail jobs around here are starting out at $8 to $9 per hour. And you don't have to keep the same job for too long before you're bumped up to around $10 per hour, even though the official minimum is $7.25 per hour. Almost nobody works for that. Employers can't keep employees for that. If they put in three or four months and aren't earning more than $7.50 per hour, they're looking for another job.
the less populated rural areas it is not a bad idea for a reasonable min., what we have works fine tho

Stuff is cheap there. Minimum wage in the sticks is above what the market says these people should make. If they want higher paying jobs, they should get out of the sticks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
you are clueless but it is ok
what is wrong about what I typed? it's the rural areas that need the hand-out of a federal minimum wage.
With their Cap’n and Chief Intelligence Officer having deserted them, River, Ham and Joe valiantly continue their whataboutismistic last stand of the DJT apology tour.
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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by ip_law-hokie »

nolanvt wrote:Yup. Minimum wage laws are counterproductive. I would favor eliminating them.


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I've decided that I'm OK with removing the federal minimum wage, so long as localities and/or states are allowed to institute their own as they best see fit.
With their Cap’n and Chief Intelligence Officer having deserted them, River, Ham and Joe valiantly continue their whataboutismistic last stand of the DJT apology tour.
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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by USN_Hokie »

ip_law-hokie wrote:
nolanvt wrote:Yup. Minimum wage laws are counterproductive. I would favor eliminating them.


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I've decided that I'm OK with removing the federal minimum wage, so long as localities and/or states are allowed to institute their own as they best see fit.
Laws are always best made at the lowest, most local level possible.
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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by Hokie CPA »

USN_Hokie wrote:
ip_law-hokie wrote:
nolanvt wrote:Yup. Minimum wage laws are counterproductive. I would favor eliminating them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I've decided that I'm OK with removing the federal minimum wage, so long as localities and/or states are allowed to institute their own as they best see fit.
Laws are always best made at the lowest, most local level possible.
Agreed... let the states and localities set any minimum wage they desire. It doesn't need to be a federal act.
I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican... if you refuse to consider alternatives to the two parties, you support the Status Quo and you are a major part of the problem.

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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by VisorBoy »

BigDave wrote:
VisorBoy wrote:
USN_Hokie wrote:Who could have foreseen this?

Seattle's $15 minimum wage experiment might already be crashing and burning

The findings show that low-wage employees actually lost an average of $125 a month under the new model, or about $1,500 a year, due to employers' reduced payrolls and hours.

https://theweek.com/speedreads/708264/s ... ng-burning
Lots of people didn't foresee it. It has become a good data point for other states' policies.

Most alarmingly, "the paper's conclusions contradict years of research on the minimum wage," The Washington Post reports. "Many past studies, by contrast, have found that the benefits of increases for low-wage workers exceed the costs in terms of reduced employment — often by a factor of four or five to one."


Also, from the 538 link the story references:
Most — though by no means all — past research has found that modest increases to the minimum wage have little impact on employment, and that if employers do eliminate jobs or cut back hours, those losses are dwarfed by the income gains enjoyed by the majority of workers who keep their jobs.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/se ... e-too-far/

It was the most predictable thing ever.

Any business that was paying minimum wage and can relocate either did or will do so. Any business that can't relocate (restaurants, stores) is going to cut their number of employees and either make the remaining ones work harder or invest in technology to compensate.

Liberal orthodoxy is that the minimum wage increases in the 1960s didn't cost too many jobs (tell that to the people who lost their jobs) and so therefore it's a good thing. Well, even if that's true, in the 1960s, we didn't have nearly the level of technology that we do now. Minimum wage increases now just mean that companies invest in people-replacing technologies more quickly.

Any study from, say, before 2000, is probably not all that meaningful. You couldn't replace a burger-flipping high school kid with a computer in the 1960s, but you can now.
That's the theoretical interpretation, sure. But the data has provided evidence in support of both positions. As I said, this study gives a boundary data point - i.e. increasing the min. wage too quickly or too high can leave lower wage workers as a group worse off.
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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by ip_law-hokie »

Hokie CPA wrote:
USN_Hokie wrote:
ip_law-hokie wrote:
nolanvt wrote:Yup. Minimum wage laws are counterproductive. I would favor eliminating them.


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I've decided that I'm OK with removing the federal minimum wage, so long as localities and/or states are allowed to institute their own as they best see fit.
Laws are always best made at the lowest, most local level possible.
Agreed... let the states and localities set any minimum wage they desire. It doesn't need to be a federal act.
The necks can eat pork rinds, which I think are still 1.00 per bag.
With their Cap’n and Chief Intelligence Officer having deserted them, River, Ham and Joe valiantly continue their whataboutismistic last stand of the DJT apology tour.
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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by Hokie CPA »

ip_law-hokie wrote:
Hokie CPA wrote:
USN_Hokie wrote:
ip_law-hokie wrote:
nolanvt wrote:Yup. Minimum wage laws are counterproductive. I would favor eliminating them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I've decided that I'm OK with removing the federal minimum wage, so long as localities and/or states are allowed to institute their own as they best see fit.
Laws are always best made at the lowest, most local level possible.
Agreed... let the states and localities set any minimum wage they desire. It doesn't need to be a federal act.
The necks can eat pork rinds, which I think are still 1.00 per bag.
I wouldn't know. Those things are disgusting. :P
I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican... if you refuse to consider alternatives to the two parties, you support the Status Quo and you are a major part of the problem.

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Re: Study: WA employees lost $ under new min wage law

Post by ip_law-hokie »

Hokie CPA wrote:
ip_law-hokie wrote:
Hokie CPA wrote:
USN_Hokie wrote:
ip_law-hokie wrote:
nolanvt wrote:Yup. Minimum wage laws are counterproductive. I would favor eliminating them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I've decided that I'm OK with removing the federal minimum wage, so long as localities and/or states are allowed to institute their own as they best see fit.
Laws are always best made at the lowest, most local level possible.
Agreed... let the states and localities set any minimum wage they desire. It doesn't need to be a federal act.
The necks can eat pork rinds, which I think are still 1.00 per bag.
I wouldn't know. Those things are disgusting. :P
They are big down in Charlotte.


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With their Cap’n and Chief Intelligence Officer having deserted them, River, Ham and Joe valiantly continue their whataboutismistic last stand of the DJT apology tour.
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