Effects of minimum wage on the poor and on society?

[CarlV]

Lynn ThompsonBy Lynn Thompson
Seattle Times staff reporter

Ten years ago, San Francisco raised its minimum wage from $6.75 to $8.50 an hour, a 26 percent increase. Since then, it has gone up at regular intervals to its current $10.74 an hour, the highest big-city starting wage in the country.

The city has slapped other mandates on businesses, including paid sick leave and a requirement to provide health-care coverage or pay into a pool for uninsured residents.

What have the effects been on employment?

Almost none, according to economists at the University of California, Berkeley, who have studied San Francisco, eight other cities that raised their minimum wages in the past decade, and 21 states with higher base pay than the federal minimum.


Businesses absorbed the costs through lower turnover, small price increases at restaurants, which have a high concentration of low-wage workers, and higher worker productivity, the researchers found.

The average increase among cities raising the minimum wage was 40 percent. The average step increase for a phased-in pay hike was 17 percent.

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Carl

[JCricket]

Originally Posted by Boreas

The politer, less dismissive reply to your post is that each time the minimum wage is raised the dire predictions you've listed are made and they never come to pass. What does happen is that the increased spending ability of the people making minimum wage stimulates the economy. People at the bottom spend every cent they earn. Increase their wages and they'll spend that too.

The constitutional amendment part is another matter. We get them all the time out here on California. Since voters rarely do enough due diligence to truly understand the implications, often far reaching, of the initiatives they're asked to vote on, the chances of enshrining serious errors in judgment into the state constitution are very high. So, as a matter of principle, I'm against the practice of amending constitutions by a simple majority vote of the "rabble".

Thank you for an intelligent and courteous post. In the bolded portion above, I do not mean to make it a prediction. Rather, I see it is the way it is. I FEEL that the minimum wage worker already lives in the environment I stated. I think the increase in minimum wage really does little to improve their situation. I don't mean to say we should leave it and not give it to them. That is not what I am saying. In fact, I would say having a minimum wage and law to govern it is good, and if it couple to inflation that is good to. It will keep the poor from going down the drain. My point is, it does little to actually improve their situation. And it has a negative affect on those who are living on a fixed income.

My mother would be a good example. She became disabled at 60 years of age. She is now 73. She can no longer afford rents in denver. At the time she became disable, she could live. She did not have a lot of money, but she could survive. Two years ago we had a population explosion in Colorado. That clearly plays apart in those dynamics. Even so, she was barely hanging on then. Now she lives with my sister(god bless her)..

[JCricket]

Maybe I am incorrectly drawing a correlation between minimum wage and the cost of living.

[Boreas]

Oregon has already passed a bill similar to the one proposed for Colorado Amendment 70, phasing in an increase to $13.50 ($14.75 in the Portland metro) by 2022. The first increase, already in effect, raises the minimum wage to $9.75 statewide.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by JCricket

Thank you for an intelligent and courteous post. In the bolded portion above, I do not mean to make it a prediction. Rather, I see it is the way it is. I FEEL that the minimum wage worker already lives in the environment I stated. I think the increase in minimum wage really does little to improve their situation. I don't mean to say we should leave it and not give it to them. That is not what I am saying. In fact, I would say having a minimum wage and law to govern it is good, and if it couple to inflation that is good to. It will keep the poor from going down the drain. My point is, it does little to actually improve their situation. And it has a negative affect on those who are living on a fixed income.

My mother would be a good example. She became disabled at 60 years of age. She is now 73. She can no longer afford rents in denver. At the time she became disable, she could live. She did not have a lot of money, but she could survive. Two years ago we had a population explosion in Colorado. That clearly plays apart in those dynamics. Even so, she was barely hanging on then. Now she lives with my sister(god bless her)..

Did the rent increases in Denver coincide with an increase in the minimum wage there?

What has happened is that rents everywhere have increased astronomically everywhere since the housing foreclosure crisis, particularly in metro areas like Denver. The people who lost their homes during that time were forced into the rental market. Similarly, young people just starting out in life ended up in the rental market for a number of reasons like being already over-burdened with student debt and under-employed due to the recession. So, this massive influx of people into the rental market significantly reduced the supply of available rentals and thereby created a "sellers market" in rental housing. Some of the most profoundly effected by this are people on fixed incomes, especially since it came in a period of little to no COLA increases.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by JCricket

Maybe I am incorrectly drawing a correlation between minimum wage and the cost of living.

I think the major flaw is in correlating increases in minimum wage with increased housing costs. Too simplistic.

[icenine]

Originally Posted by JCricket

Maybe I am incorrectly drawing a correlation between minimum wage and the cost of living.

Here is the thing:

You come out and start a thread about a very controversial subject the minimum wage.
Then you make the same standard arguments conservatives have made since Moses was born. Then you sort of couch your language in a warm and sort of philosophical armchair by the fireside manner and diffidently hedge your points by saying you are really concerned about the poor (you seem sincere) and that the real issue are people on fixed incomes i.e. SS and pensions ( as if the latter is still an option for most workers).
The minimum wage is not about retirees or your relatives on fixed incomes. It is about workers in our society being given dignity of the hard work they do. It is about fairness.

I told you what I felt and what probably many who hear arguments like this immediately think in their minds.

My wife would never, ever have gotten to 12 bucks an hour if Jerry Brown had not raised the minimum wage. The people who she works for are like most employers in our service economy: they only care about the bottom line.

So your nice and polite post is indeed warm but the message between the lines still is a very bad one ok. The outcome for your philosophy no matter how nice your language is still the same: Americans getting screwed. It may not be your intention but the result is the same. Nice corporations who give their workers across the board raises do not really exist. That is why we have government.

You know most progressives want the minimum wage to be increased. So do most Zo************************ts, those in the mold of Sanders and Western European Democracies anyway.

[JCricket]

Originally Posted by icenine

Here is the thing:

You come out and start a thread about a very controversial subject the minimum wage.
Then you make the same standard arguments conservatives have made since Moses was born. Then you sort of couch your language in a warm and sort of philosophical armchair by the fireside manner and diffidently hedge your points by saying you are really concerned about the poor (you seem sincere) and that the real issue are people on fixed incomes i.e. SS and pensions ( as if those are still an option for most workers).
The minimum wage is not about retirees or your relatives on fixed incomes. It is about workers in our society being given dignity of the hard work they do. It is about fairness.

I told you what I felt and what probably many who hear arguments like this immediately think in their minds.

My wife would never, ever have gotten to 12 bucks an hour if Jerry Brown had not raised the minimum wage. The people who she works for are like most employers in our service economy: they only care about the bottom line.

So your nice and polite post is indeed warm but the message between the lines still is a very bad one ok. The outcome for your philosophy no matter how nice your language is still the same: Americans getting screwed. It may not be your intention but the result is the same. Nice corporations who give their workers across the board raises do not really exist. That is why we have government.

You know most progressives want the minimum wage to be increased. So do most Zo************************ts, those in the mold of Sanders and Western European Democracies anyway.

That is an excellent and considerate post. Thank you!

yes I am sincere, and not as politically versed as many of the members.

[nailer]

A fellow library internet pirate/user is looking for a new place due to the rent increases going on around here. Rent and housing prices are all about supply and demand.

[icenine]

Originally Posted by JCricket

That is an excellent and considerate post. Thank you!

yes I am sincere, and not as politically versed as many of the members.

I know I may seem like an asshole, and most likely I am. I am not the same icenine when I came here 5 years ago so my apologies.