wateroverfire posted:

I would say Buffet knows what he's talking about more than, e.g, you.

archangelwar posted:

Tell me more about how homosexuality is a choice, Ben Carson.

wateroverfire posted:

Buffet is talking about a raise to $15 / hour (around the 45th percentile for wages), which would almost certainly have both large price and employment effects. All the research studies small changes in the minimum wage because those changes are all there have been.

quote:

But even in that data the results are mixed - some studies show effects, others don't. There are no studies that can shed empirical light on the question of whether raising the minimum wage to almost the median wage will cause problems but dude stop and think a moment O.o.

wateroverfire posted:

Mostly it's going to mean a bunch of inflation, and at the end of that a higher price level with maybe less activity. The increase in consumption is the red herring.

wateroverfire posted:

If you're looking for moral support I'd try E/N.

wateroverfire posted:

:growingironicat.gif:

This thread is a shitposting mobius strip. A serpent shoving its head up its own rear end.

wateroverfire posted:

If you're looking for moral support I'd try E/N.

QuarkJets posted:

archangelwar posted:

Do I have to explain this to you, or is it your unironic belief because holy hell do you people need to be spoonfed literally everything?

Ardennes posted:

Well he is wrong on the employment angle, it is probably been the most talked about issue of this thread. It doesn't really seem to.

The issue with the EITC is that it comes out of the budget, and therefore some way needs to fund it without crowding out all other types of spending. The EITC at this point is quite small (especially for individuals) compared to the gains from a higher minimum wags and you are going to have to find a lot of money somewhere to get people up to the equivalent of $15 a hour much less $10. More or less, it shifts the burden of taking care of employees from the company that employs them to the government. It also increases the likelihood that part of the money going to fund it comes from either budget cuts on other services and/or regressive taxes.

Finally, a higher minimum wage is generally a good thing budget wise, it brings more revenue in to the government, which if anything produces the potential for a larger net good.

Basically, the EITC is fine as long as you can find a way to dramatically increase federal revenue to pay for it. (You can deficit spend, but usually in the US that means other programs will get the shaft.)

wateroverfire posted:

Phase-in only matters if inflation is allowed to eat away at the value of the wage floor. So if $15 is phased in over 10 years or whatever and it ends up being $9 in 2015 dollars it's going to have less effect, sure. That's more or less what has been happening except even more slowly so that the minimum wage hasn't tracked inflation - which is one reason large employment effects aren't apparant. $9-10 in 2016 would probably not be that big a deal.

QuarkJets posted:

It's going to eat away at the value of the wage floor no matter what we do. So we agree that we should start raising the minimum wage now.

Phase-in also lets you study the effects in smaller increments in order to appease dumb babies who are scared that a larger increment will bring about a financial apocalypse. If the effects to unemployment and prices are going to be noticeable, surely they should be noticeable within 1-2 years; it's not like employers are going to hypothetically drown for that long and not do something about it. So let's raise the minimum wage right now by $2.50/hour and raise it an additional $2.50/hour every 2 years for the next 10 years. We'll have an actual minimum wage of $22.25/hour, effectively about $18/hour in 2015 dollars. If we notice real changes in unemployment or prices then we can halt the process and assess our options.

You support a small minimum wage increase, correct?

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Buffett' s proposal sounds decent to me but inherently inferior to a GMI. It does nothing to address the issue of those who want to work but can't.

Zeitgueist posted:

Going back a bunch of pages I'm loving the idea that $15 minimum is going to hurt the poorer neighborhoods and is only appropriate in the rich areas.

Up is down, etc.

quote:

Setting the state and local minimum wages close to half the median full-time wage is a well-balanced policy option. Such a target is close to both U.S. experiences during the 1960s and 1970s and to current practice in advanced industrialized countries. While it pushes the minimum wage beyond the experience over the recent period in this country, it does so in a measured fashion. In addition, states and localities should consider the local cost of living when setting minimum wage policy and should index wage levels for inflation. Incorporating all of these criteria into minimum wage laws would lead to substantially higher wage floors in a subset of states: based on a half-median wage standard, fourteen states would have a minimum exceeding $10.00 per hour, while based on cost-of living considerations, ten states would do so.

Thomas Piketty posted:

On the basis of these studies, it seems likely that the increase in minimum wage of nearly 25% (from $7.25 to $9 an hour) currently envisaged by the Obama administration will have little or no effect on the number of jobs. Obviously, raising the minimum wage cannot continue indefinitely: as the minimum wage increases, the negative effects on the level of employment eventually win out. If the minimum wage were doubled or tripled, it would be surprising if the negative impact were not dominant.

Minimum Wages and Poverty: Will a $9.50 Federal Minimum Wage Really Help the Working Poor? Joseph J. Sabia1 and Richard V. Burkhauser2,*1 JAN 2010 posted:

Using data drawn from the March Current Population Survey, we find that state and federal minimum wage increases between 2003 and 2007 had no effect on state poverty rates. When we then simulate the effects of a proposed federal minimum wage increase from $7.25 to $9.50 per hour, we find that such an increase will be even more poorly targeted to the working poor than was the last federal increase from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour. Assuming no negative employment effects, only 11.3% of workers who will gain live in poor households, compared to 15.8% from the last increase. When we allow for negative employment effects, we find that the working poor face a disproportionate share of the job losses. Our results suggest that raising the federal minimum wage continues to be an inadequate way to help the working poor.

http://econweb.tamu.edu/jmeer/Meer_West_Minimum_Wage.pdf posted:

The voluminous literature on minimum wages offers little consensus on the extent to which a wage floor impacts employment. We argue that the minimum wage will impact employment over time, through changes in growth rather than an immediate drop in relative employment levels. We conduct simulations showing that commonly used specifications in this literature, especially those that include state-specific time trends, will not accurately capture these effects. Using three separate state panels of administrative employment data, we find that the minimum wage reduces job growth over a period of several years. These effects are most pronounced for younger workers and in industries with a higher proportion of low-wage workers.

Zeitgueist posted:

Going back a bunch of pages I'm loving the idea that $15 minimum is going to hurt the poorer neighborhoods and is only appropriate in the rich areas.

Up is down, etc.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-los-angeles-minimum-wage-unions-20150526-story.html posted:

But Rusty Hicks, who heads the county Federation of Labor and helps lead the Raise the Wage coalition, said Tuesday night that companies with workers represented by unions should have leeway to negotiate a wage below that mandated by the law.

"With a collective bargaining agreement, a business owner and the employees negotiate an agreement that works for them both. The agreement allows each party to prioritize what is important to them," Hicks said in a statement. "This provision gives the parties the option, the freedom, to negotiate that agreement. And that is a good thing."

JeffersonClay posted:

Is it a coincidence that the posters who are willing to use bigoted language against people with disabilities are the same ones who dismiss concerns that the minimum wage would harm people with disabilities who do not collect wage income? I get it, you don't think they're truly human and in fact relish the chance to cull some of the untermenschen.

JeffersonClay posted:

If all those words aren’t convincing, I made a picture.
This is from Downtown Los Angeles, the lowest per-capita-income neighborhood in LA, and where I live. Who in this picture is likely to benefit from a significant minimum wage hike?

JeffersonClay posted:

I would also be happy if this thread were focused on the level of minimum wage which maximizes benefits to the poor. It's what I've been arguing for all along. Plenty of posters here seem to think there's no upper bound.

quote:

Yes, people with disabilities receive government support. No, it is not sufficient. An insufficient payment, indexed to inflation, becomes even more insufficient when inflation occurs.

quote:

Piketty's quite liberal for an orthodox economist. He wrote the most important book on inequality in a long time and advocates a global wealth tax. If he doubts a 15 dollar minimum wage would help the poor, it's not due to ideology.

JeffersonClay posted:

I would also be happy if this thread were focused on the level of minimum wage which maximizes benefits to the poor. It's what I've been arguing for all along. Plenty of posters here seem to think there's no upper bound.

quote:

An insufficient payment, indexed to inflation, becomes even more insufficient when inflation occurs.

Geriatric Pirate posted:

Good effortpost. But lol if you think Zeitgueist has ever actually been in a poor neighborhood. Just let him continue to imagine that most poor people are single mothers working at McDonald's and everyone else is covered by inflation indexation.

JeffersonClay posted:

I would also be happy if this thread were focused on the level of minimum wage which maximizes benefits to the poor.

Nevvy Z posted:

Name one. Every poster I've read supporting a higher minimum wage agrees that there is a reasonable cutoff and that we should get as close to it as we can.

VitalSigns posted:

Studies of past minimum wage increases have shown the unemployment effects to be right around zero, so I wouldn't worry if I were you, just enjoy your new cash

computer parts posted:

Companies determine labor needs from what their system design calls for, not by how much labor costs.

If your labor costs rise 5% but your next best solution costs 10% more, you eat the 5%.

wheez the roux posted:

lol hell yeah lets design mincome to be below or almost approaching bare subsistence level for where you live, so no one can ever have savings and/or move

$20 natl mincome motherf*cker make it so

Paradoxish posted:

The point is that a policy isn't bad just because it causes unemployment, and policies shouldn't really be focused around creating jobs just for the sake of having them. The minimum wage as it stands is preventing some number of jobs from existing, but that's okay because we don't want people working for $5/hour anyway. A $15/hour minimum wage will probably cost us some number of jobs too, but that's also okay because we shouldn't want people to have to work full time for less than a living wage.

The only question is whether it's going to cost us so many jobs that it creates an unemployment crisis, but I'd argue that if that's the case then we're already in the midst of a wage crisis anyway.

Helsing posted:

The idea that the minimum wage will significantly raise unemployment just isn't born out in the available data.

QuarkJets posted:

That's pretty disingenuous of you when all of the historical evidence points to minimum wage increases having overwhelmingly positive impacts with almost no negative side effects. The worst-case evidence-based scenario was a 3% price increase, standing on top of a pile of other studies suggesting price increases as low as -1% (yes, in some cases prices actually went down a tiny bit, but with a large measurement uncertainty). The only people hurt by a 3% price increase are people who already made more than the new minimum wage, but they're hurt negligibly. All of the talk about unemployment effects has been based foremost on speculation with evidence pointing to the effect actually being insignificant.

down with slavery posted:

Let me save you some time, I don't care if unemployment goes up as a result of increasing the minimum wage. It will only force us to deal with a problem we're already not dealing with (the unemployable). Feel free to concern troll.

asdf32 posted:

That is an actual poor neighborhood in our country. I.E. a place policy aimed at the poor would ideally address.

Ardennes posted:

Which seems somewhere probably around $12-15 dollars, depending on regional indexing? That is pretty different than $7.25.

quote:

You know you wrote nonsense right?

quote:

A neoclassist will see things a certain way even if he is liberal, his book is actual very very limited in methodology.

JeffersonClay posted:

Cost of living adjustments would mitigate some of the harm here, but not nearly all of it. Things like social security, ssi, ssdi, don't actually provide enough for a person to live comfortably right now. So even if they're indexed to inflation, people on these programs will still be worse off. Imagine a person who gets 10,000 a year from ssi, but who needs to purchase 20,000 dollars of stuff to live comfortably for a year, a $10,000 deficit. If inflation is 10%, the next year the person needs to purchase 22,000 worth of goods and their ssi payment will increase to 11,000, a deficit of $11,000.

JeffersonClay posted:

I think you baselessly asserted I was advocating a 7.25 minimum a ways back.

quote:

Cost of living adjustments would mitigate some of the harm here, but not nearly all of it. Things like social security, ssi, ssdi, don't actually provide enough for a person to live comfortably right now. So even if they're indexed to inflation, people on these programs will still be worse off. Imagine a person who gets 10,000 a year from ssi, but who needs to purchase 20,000 dollars of stuff to live comfortably for a year, a $10,000 deficit. If inflation is 10%, the next year the person needs to purchase 22,000 worth of goods and their ssi payment will increase to 11,000, a deficit of $11,000.

quote:

It's pretty convenient that you credit orthodox economists when their studies show small employment effects from a minimum wage but not when they disagree.

JeffersonClay posted:

This is just from the last 10 pages.

JeffersonClay posted:

I think you baselessly asserted I was advocating a 7.25 minimum a ways back.

JeffersonClay posted:

Plenty of posters here seem to think there's no upper bound.

JeffersonClay posted:

This is just from the last 10 pages.

QuarkJets posted:

Not once has anyone in the thread said this. Come on dude, the least that you can do is not post outright lies

Also count me in as one of the many posters who would be happy with a minimum wage that's up to $11-12/hour and pegged to inflation. That sounds stupendous, I am glad that you're proposing a totally reasonable policy that will help millions

Ardennes posted:

You said 7.25 indexed to inflation. If you want to change your answer go ahead, I am glad if you are more realistic.

quote:

Of course, you don't say where they are making up the deficit from in the first place (they may be on another program, get money from an indexed private fund, from a relative working a near minimum wage job). Hell, even if they pulling from savings, the fed very well could raise interest rates. Ultimately, the system is designed cushion the blow for most of their needs, and very unlikely that inflation is going to seriously effected. If anything you have to look for an edge case to make it sound like an issue when we might be already about .3-1% inflation if that, low-end wages are only going to be so much of the economy.

quote:

Most of them are Neo-Keynesians and saltwater types, there are different types of orthodox economists.

ElCondemn posted:

Kind of how you baselessly asserted that everyone arguing for raising the minimum wage wants infinite minimum wage, isn't it weird that nobody said "there is no cut off" in all of your quotes? the only one you could even argue feels this way is the guy who said "I don't care if unemployment goes up as a result of increasing the minimum wage" and me (but only because I haven't seen any numbers that look like they'd ruin the country at higher levels), but instead you're going to pretend because they didn't give an upper bound they mean "infinite increase".

JeffersonClay posted:

If all those words aren’t convincing, I made a picture.
This is from Downtown Los Angeles, the lowest per-capita-income neighborhood in LA, and where I live. Who in this picture is likely to benefit from a significant minimum wage hike?

JeffersonClay posted:

No, I did not. Please quote.

quote:

Progress! You will at least admit the theoretical possibility that price increases will hurt people on fixed incomes. Indeed they will. And price increases will also magnify the gap between the amount of government assistance and a living income.

quote:

New Keynesian and neo-keynesian aren't the same thing, I think you mean new Keynesian here. Piketty is certainly working from a new Keynesian framework.

JeffersonClay posted:

Cost of living adjustments would mitigate some of the harm here, but not nearly all of it. Things like social security, ssi, ssdi, don't actually provide enough for a person to live comfortably right now. So even if they're indexed to inflation, people on these programs will still be worse off. Imagine a person who gets 10,000 a year from ssi, but who needs to purchase 20,000 dollars of stuff to live comfortably for a year, a $10,000 deficit. If inflation is 10%, the next year the person needs to purchase 22,000 worth of goods and their ssi payment will increase to 11,000, a deficit of $11,000.

Geriatric Pirate posted:

Good effortpost. But lol if you think Zeitgueist has ever actually been in a poor neighborhood. Just let him continue to imagine that most poor people are single mothers working at McDonald's and everyone else is covered by inflation indexation.

GhostofJohnMuir posted:

If you live near Skid Row then you should already know that a lot of the homeless population wasn't driven into the streets by artificially high wages, the majority are suffering from substance abuse and mental health issues, you colossal idiot fucker.

GhostofJohnMuir posted:

If you live near Skid Row then you should already know that a lot of the homeless population wasn't driven into the streets by artificially high wages, the majority are suffering from substance abuse and mental health issues, you colossal idiot fucker.

archangelwar posted:

This is like arguing that (infinity + 1) > infinity. The person you are describing is 100% hosed either way.