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Seattle raises minimum wage to $15/hour (1 Viewer)

As other posters have referenced, a likely outcome is increased automation. At a certain point, the minimum wage will force business owners to replace some of the low skilled employees with machines to save costs and improve efficiency. It happens in every industry. Expect to see more self-serve, order taking kiosks soon in Seattle.
there already are kiosks in most grocery stores and wages have been pretty stagnant for those workers.

 
As other posters have referenced, a likely outcome is increased automation. At a certain point, the minimum wage will force business owners to replace some of the low skilled employees with machines to save costs and improve efficiency. It happens in every industry. Expect to see more self-serve, order taking kiosks soon in Seattle.
there already are kiosks in most grocery stores and wages have been pretty stagnant for those workers.
Until the kiosk union gets involved, buddy.

 
Some comparisons:

1. This is a 60.9% wage hike over 11 years. ($9.32 to $15)

2. The federal minimum wage increased 53% over a period of a little more than 7 years from March 31st, 1990 to September 1st, 1997 ($3.35 to $5.15).

3. The federal minimum wage increased 40.8% over a period of 2 years from July 24th, 2007-2009 ($5.15 to $7.25).

The 40% hike over 2 years is a bit surprising, especially considering the timing as it came right during the Great Recession. Critics of minimum wage hikes say they discourage companies from hiring and job growth was extremely sluggish coming out of the recession. Were the critics of a minimum wage hike correct? Did that federal hike from 2007-2009 help kill job growth? I don't know if anyone even bothered to look to see if there is a correlation or not.

Maurile is excited to collect data from the $15 Seattle experiment. Maybe he has data on the 40% hike in the middle of a recession experiment from 07-09?

 
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These minimum wage increases were all over the US, thus should have had a larger inflationary effect than the proposed raise in SEA. How has the US inflation fared since 2007?

 
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Until the automation truly kicks in ...

Seems like if I'm the proprietor of a McDonalds or a Starbucks or something like that, I absolutely NEED to have a staff made up of pretty much all superstars. Superstars are the ones that can do the work of three slackers without missing a beat. They've always existed in the service industry, and now they'll be coveted more than ever. I wonder if competition for superstar service-industry folks might lead to their real-life wages settling in at something like minimum + 10-20%.

Not that I exactly feel ... sorry ... for them or anything like that. But I wonder what this minmum wage increase does to the lousiest of minimum-wage workers? A lot of times these days, if an operation is big enough (not huge, 8-10 employees on the floor at one can be enough), there's room for a slacker to skate by, buoyed by the efforts of others. Those slackers have to be squeezed out now, right?

 
msommer said:
How has the US inflation fared since 2007?
Go here: http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

I've typed in "2007" and "2014'. It calculates that an item purchased for $20.00 in 2007 would cost approximately $22.87 today.

For "2005" and "2009" (more tightly focused around the Great Recession and the minimum-wage jump), it calculated that an item purchased for $20.00 in 2005 cost approximately $21.97 in 2009.

 
BigSteelThrill said:
Mark Davis said:
BigSteelThrill said:
Maurile Tremblay said:
John Bender said:
Now that we've cleared up the semantic aspect of what inflation is, is whatever Seattle is doing detrimental to the/their economy irrespective of how you want to classify it?
I suspect it will cause increased unemployment among the least-skilled workers,
Short term.
Why short term? You made this comment way back in the DC thread where Wal Mart was going to abandon building plans when DC wanted to make big box retailers pay a higher minimum wage. Where exactly is the replacement to those jobs in an economic sense?
More money at the local area on people who spend it. Long term it is a corrective measure of many of our ongoing economic issues.
There isn't more money though. At least in any econ class I ever took. Some people will get more, others will lose their jobs and have less. I run a small business that occasionally I may hire someone at minimum wage during my busier time. It's not always for tasks I can't do, sometimes it's merely to free up personal time. I may hire someone who it takes them an hour to what I could do in 20 minutes due to experience, but it's worth it to me for the freed up time. However, I wouldn't do so at $15. Sure, I'd still hire who I had to have in order to get everything done. But the reality is I would hire fewer hours and someone isn't going to be working who otherwise would have. So the people who I keep will get more dollars, but others lose their job entirely. My business isn't going away and isn't ceding any share of it's market to make that change, There isn't some other company coming into my market to hire these people. That's just one example.

It comes down to would you rather have those that keep their jobs make more, and in trade for that you put X number of people out of their jobs. It's a fair debate to have to say I want this and am willing to trade some losing their jobs for it. A minor increase means not that many would lose their jobs, but the more you increase the minimum wage, the more jobs that are lost. It's fine to want people to make more, but when you change the minimum wage it's not being intellectually honest to ignore that it comes at a cost of added unemployment. And not short term, it is permanent as those jobs are lost at that rate on a permanent basis. Those people are going to have to go find other jobs that will have to be created by some other means.

 
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msommer said:
These minimum wage increases were all over the US, thus should have had a larger inflationary effect than the proposed raise in SEA. How has the US inflation fared since 2007?
Historically low

 
Max Power said:
$15 an hour seems like a pretty aggressive bump. Prices will definitely be going up or jobs cut. I think this is going to be a tough one for Seattle. Could even drive some businesses out of the area.
There will be some movement to the suburbs I suspect.

 
Max Power said:
$15 an hour seems like a pretty aggressive bump. Prices will definitely be going up or jobs cut. I think this is going to be a tough one for Seattle. Could even drive some businesses out of the area.
There will be some movement to the suburbs I suspect.
or the suburbs will need to raise what they pay to compete for the labor.

 
Max Power said:
$15 an hour seems like a pretty aggressive bump. Prices will definitely be going up or jobs cut. I think this is going to be a tough one for Seattle. Could even drive some businesses out of the area.
There will be some movement to the suburbs I suspect.
or the suburbs will need to raise what they pay to compete for the labor.
I don't see it unless you anticipate job creation occurring. There's only so many burger-flipping jobs to be had..

 
msommer said:
How has the US inflation fared since 2007?
Go here: http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

I've typed in "2007" and "2014'. It calculates that an item purchased for $20.00 in 2007 would cost approximately $22.87 today.

For "2005" and "2009" (more tightly focused around the Great Recession and the minimum-wage jump), it calculated that an item purchased for $20.00 in 2005 cost approximately $21.97 in 2009.
Thanks, at least we cannot see that minimum wage increases, even nationwide, mean much for prices overall.Thus it would seem that for the 2007-2009 increase minimum wage increase has indeed given minimum wage earners more money to spend, hopefully increasing the velocity of money.

Concerning unemployment effects we have no answers as yet as I understand it

 
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Riversco said:
Some comparisons:

1. This is a 60.9% wage hike over 11 years. ($9.32 to $15)

2. The federal minimum wage increased 53% over a period of a little more than 7 years from March 31st, 1990 to September 1st, 1997 ($3.35 to $5.15).

3. The federal minimum wage increased 40.8% over a period of 2 years from July 24th, 2007-2009 ($5.15 to $7.25).

The 40% hike over 2 years is a bit surprising, especially considering the timing as it came right during the Great Recession. Critics of minimum wage hikes say they discourage companies from hiring and job growth was extremely sluggish coming out of the recession. Were the critics of a minimum wage hike correct? Did that federal hike from 2007-2009 help kill job growth? I don't know if anyone even bothered to look to see if there is a correlation or not.

Maurile is excited to collect data from the $15 Seattle experiment. Maybe he has data on the 40% hike in the middle of a recession experiment from 07-09?
The problem with this is if it is nationwide there is no control group to measure against.

I remember there was a big thing when New Jersey raised the minimum wage and they compared it to the states around it. There were some issues with the research but something like that seems more useful.

It will be interesting to see what happens in Seattle.

 
Max Power said:
$15 an hour seems like a pretty aggressive bump. Prices will definitely be going up or jobs cut. I think this is going to be a tough one for Seattle. Could even drive some businesses out of the area.
There will be some movement to the suburbs I suspect.
or the suburbs will need to raise what they pay to compete for the labor.
I don't see it unless you anticipate job creation occurring. There's only so many burger-flipping jobs to be had..
Presumably the best food talent may want to make $15/hr instead of $10/hr in the suburbs.

 
What are the implications of this? Am I better off moving to Seattle to get ahead or is the cost of living going to compensate against the raise in price?

How does this effect people with jobs making $20+ an hour? Surely if they don't see a raise, their standard of living will decrease, no?

 
Riversco said:
Some comparisons:

1. This is a 60.9% wage hike over 11 years. ($9.32 to $15)

2. The federal minimum wage increased 53% over a period of a little more than 7 years from March 31st, 1990 to September 1st, 1997 ($3.35 to $5.15).

3. The federal minimum wage increased 40.8% over a period of 2 years from July 24th, 2007-2009 ($5.15 to $7.25).

The 40% hike over 2 years is a bit surprising, especially considering the timing as it came right during the Great Recession. Critics of minimum wage hikes say they discourage companies from hiring and job growth was extremely sluggish coming out of the recession. Were the critics of a minimum wage hike correct? Did that federal hike from 2007-2009 help kill job growth? I don't know if anyone even bothered to look to see if there is a correlation or not.

Maurile is excited to collect data from the $15 Seattle experiment. Maybe he has data on the 40% hike in the middle of a recession experiment from 07-09?
The problem with this is if it is nationwide there is no control group to measure against.

I remember there was a big thing when New Jersey raised the minimum wage and they compared it to the states around it. There were some issues with the research but something like that seems more useful.

It will be interesting to see what happens in Seattle.
I think part of the above is that the interest/excitement in seeing what happens in Seattle due to having that control group is diminished, because the 60% hike over 11 years isn't very likely to distinguish it in any meaningful way from the expected hikes (by historical standards) that will probably happen with the Federal minwage.

Put in that light, I'm a little less jazzed about the social experiment.

 
BigSteelThrill said:
Mark Davis said:
BigSteelThrill said:
Maurile Tremblay said:
John Bender said:
Now that we've cleared up the semantic aspect of what inflation is, is whatever Seattle is doing detrimental to the/their economy irrespective of how you want to classify it?
I suspect it will cause increased unemployment among the least-skilled workers,
Short term.
Why short term? You made this comment way back in the DC thread where Wal Mart was going to abandon building plans when DC wanted to make big box retailers pay a higher minimum wage. Where exactly is the replacement to those jobs in an economic sense?
More money at the local area on people who spend it. Long term it is a corrective measure of many of our ongoing economic issues.
There isn't more money though. At least in any econ class I ever took. Some people will get more, others will lose their jobs and have less. I run a small business that occasionally I may hire someone at minimum wage during my busier time. It's not always for tasks I can't do, sometimes it's merely to free up personal time. I may hire someone who it takes them an hour to what I could do in 20 minutes due to experience, but it's worth it to me for the freed up time. However, I wouldn't do so at $15. Sure, I'd still hire who I had to have in order to get everything done. But the reality is I would hire fewer hours and someone isn't going to be working who otherwise would have. So the people who I keep will get more dollars, but others lose their job entirely. My business isn't going away and isn't ceding any share of it's market to make that change, There isn't some other company coming into my market to hire these people. That's just one example.

It comes down to would you rather have those that keep their jobs make more, and in trade for that you put X number of people out of their jobs. It's a fair debate to have to say I want this and am willing to trade some losing their jobs for it. A minor increase means not that many would lose their jobs, but the more you increase the minimum wage, the more jobs that are lost. It's fine to want people to make more, but when you change the minimum wage it's not being intellectually honest to ignore that it comes at a cost of added unemployment. And not short term, it is permanent as those jobs are lost at that rate on a permanent basis. Those people are going to have to go find other jobs that will have to be created by some other means.
1) The econ classes are wrong.

2) My anecdotal story is similar to yours. I hire young college kids to do graphics and pay them a few bucks over minimum wage but not 15 (typically 10-12). But I am trying to maximize my end game over everything else. It will take an adjustment to my business model (however small) or it will be filled buy another company and other workers. The buyers wont disappear, even if it has an uptick in their cost. The difference however, is I am perfectly fine with taking steps I find to be corrective with our nations overall economic issues. Its what needs to happen.

 
Max Power said:
$15 an hour seems like a pretty aggressive bump. Prices will definitely be going up or jobs cut. I think this is going to be a tough one for Seattle. Could even drive some businesses out of the area.
There will be some movement to the suburbs I suspect.
or the suburbs will need to raise what they pay to compete for the labor.
I don't see it unless you anticipate job creation occurring. There's only so many burger-flipping jobs to be had..
Presumably the best food talent may want to make $15/hr instead of $10/hr in the suburbs.
How does a $15/hr "Would you like fries with that?" sound different from a $10/hr "Would you like fries with that?"

 
Max Power said:
$15 an hour seems like a pretty aggressive bump. Prices will definitely be going up or jobs cut. I think this is going to be a tough one for Seattle. Could even drive some businesses out of the area.
There will be some movement to the suburbs I suspect.
or the suburbs will need to raise what they pay to compete for the labor.
I don't see it unless you anticipate job creation occurring. There's only so many burger-flipping jobs to be had..
Presumably the best food talent may want to make $15/hr instead of $10/hr in the suburbs.
How does a $15/hr "Would you like fries with that?" sound different from a $10/hr "Would you like fries with that?"
Locally, I know there are places where they seem to go out of their way to hire people who interview well and put them in customer service, just as I know there are places that seem to hire their cashiers from a pool of people who were dropped on their heads and children and subsequently told all their pain would go away if they developed meth habits.

If the extra $200 per paycheck lets some establishments be a little choosier in their personnel, maybe they'd choose the first group.

I know I prefer to visit the places that hire the former. :shrug:

Not sure if that'll be telling in the Seattle situation or not, but it's an answer.

 
1. This is a 60.9% wage hike over 11 years. ($9.32 to $15)
That's an average of 4.4%, not adjusted for inflation. Average inflation in the U.S. has been 3.3% so that's a 1-2% effective increase in the minimum wage.

 
What are the implications of this? Am I better off moving to Seattle to get ahead or is the cost of living going to compensate against the raise in price?
Probably depends on the level of inconvenience you're willing to put up with.

If you're willing to commute from someplace cheaper, like Tacoma, and willing to do it on public transportation instead of keeping a car fueled up, you could probably leverage that into more savings/disposable income than you could in other areas of the country.

On the flip side, this is still a much lower-leverage plan than acting aggressively to make yourself more valuable and marketable in your spare time, instead of using that time to commute to a slightly more lucrative crappy job..

 
Its not just cashiers.
No, but in 2012 food preparation and serving related jobs made up 44% of the minimum wage jobs in this country. Throw in data entry, janitors, home healthcare workers and these are the vast majority of job types we're talking about--zero skill labor.

 
Its not just cashiers.
No, but in 2012 food preparation and serving related jobs made up 44% of the minimum wage jobs in this country. Throw in data entry, janitors, home healthcare workers and these are the vast majority of job types we're talking about--zero skill labor.
Food. Electronic information. Cleanliness (disease control). Healthcare.

Sounds pretty damn essential, regardless of how you want to "zero-skill" label it.

 
Its not just cashiers.
No, but in 2012 food preparation and serving related jobs made up 44% of the minimum wage jobs in this country. Throw in data entry, janitors, home healthcare workers and these are the vast majority of job types we're talking about--zero skill labor.
Food. Electronic information. Cleanliness (disease control). Healthcare.

Sounds pretty damn essential, regardless of how you want to "zero-skill" label it.
:lmao:

 
Its not just cashiers.
No, but in 2012 food preparation and serving related jobs made up 44% of the minimum wage jobs in this country. Throw in data entry, janitors, home healthcare workers and these are the vast majority of job types we're talking about--zero skill labor.
The learned-skill level may be low, but there's still a difference in work ethic, ability to think on one's feet, etc. that indicates that not all minimm-wage workers are created equal.

Back to cashiers: from my experience (fast food, retail), one rock-star cashier is easily worth two trainees or even three I-don't-give-a-schmidt types. Some cashiers in the real world will be worth every penny of that $15/hr -- and likely even more.

 
Its not just cashiers.
No, but in 2012 food preparation and serving related jobs made up 44% of the minimum wage jobs in this country. Throw in data entry, janitors, home healthcare workers and these are the vast majority of job types we're talking about--zero skill labor.
The learned-skill level may be low, but there's still a difference in work ethic, ability to think on one's feet, etc. that indicates that not all minimm-wage workers are created equal.

Back to cashiers: from my experience (fast food, retail), one rock-star cashier is easily worth two trainees or even three I-don't-give-a-schmidt types. Some cashiers in the real world will be worth every penny of that $15/hr -- and likely even more.
Truth.

 
Its not just cashiers.
No, but in 2012 food preparation and serving related jobs made up 44% of the minimum wage jobs in this country. Throw in data entry, janitors, home healthcare workers and these are the vast majority of job types we're talking about--zero skill labor.
The learned-skill level may be low, but there's still a difference in work ethic, ability to think on one's feet, etc. that indicates that not all minimm-wage workers are created equal.

Back to cashiers: from my experience (fast food, retail), one rock-star cashier is easily worth two trainees or even three I-don't-give-a-schmidt types. Some cashiers in the real world will be worth every penny of that $15/hr -- and likely even more.
Truth.
Then give the rock star a raise, not everyone.

 
Its not just cashiers.
No, but in 2012 food preparation and serving related jobs made up 44% of the minimum wage jobs in this country. Throw in data entry, janitors, home healthcare workers and these are the vast majority of job types we're talking about--zero skill labor.
The learned-skill level may be low, but there's still a difference in work ethic, ability to think on one's feet, etc. that indicates that not all minimm-wage workers are created equal.

Back to cashiers: from my experience (fast food, retail), one rock-star cashier is easily worth two trainees or even three I-don't-give-a-schmidt types. Some cashiers in the real world will be worth every penny of that $15/hr -- and likely even more.
Truth.
Then give the rock star a raise, not everyone.
We are just getting min wage closer to todays reality of productivity and profits. Raises can still be given.

 
For 15.00 and hour would you rather be a landscaper busting your balls everyday? Or flip some burgers and fill some taco shells?
How many Seattle landscapers are on the books to begin with? Or even eligible to be so?
I think Da Guru's hypothetical is off, anyway. Around here, landscapers do very well -- it's a legit profession.

Secondy ... even if you're talking about being a college student (say) and cutting grass for beer money ... doing minimum-wage yard work beats the pants off of minimum-wage fast-food work. Speaking from experience here.

 
Its not just cashiers.
No, but in 2012 food preparation and serving related jobs made up 44% of the minimum wage jobs in this country. Throw in data entry, janitors, home healthcare workers and these are the vast majority of job types we're talking about--zero skill labor.
The learned-skill level may be low, but there's still a difference in work ethic, ability to think on one's feet, etc. that indicates that not all minimm-wage workers are created equal.

Back to cashiers: from my experience (fast food, retail), one rock-star cashier is easily worth two trainees or even three I-don't-give-a-schmidt types. Some cashiers in the real world will be worth every penny of that $15/hr -- and likely even more.
Truth.
Then give the rock star a raise, not everyone.
We are just getting min wage closer to todays reality of productivity and profits. Raises can still be given.
Someone who flips burgers is not worth $31,000 year.

 
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Its not just cashiers.
No, but in 2012 food preparation and serving related jobs made up 44% of the minimum wage jobs in this country. Throw in data entry, janitors, home healthcare workers and these are the vast majority of job types we're talking about--zero skill labor.
The learned-skill level may be low, but there's still a difference in work ethic, ability to think on one's feet, etc. that indicates that not all minimm-wage workers are created equal.

Back to cashiers: from my experience (fast food, retail), one rock-star cashier is easily worth two trainees or even three I-don't-give-a-schmidt types. Some cashiers in the real world will be worth every penny of that $15/hr -- and likely even more.
Truth.
Then give the rock star a raise, not everyone.
We are just getting min wage closer to todays reality of productivity and profits. Raises can still be given.
Someone who flips burgers is not worth $31,000 year.
Someone who work full time and is productive enough to remain employed is indeed worth 21,000 a year take home.

 
Its not just cashiers.
No, but in 2012 food preparation and serving related jobs made up 44% of the minimum wage jobs in this country. Throw in data entry, janitors, home healthcare workers and these are the vast majority of job types we're talking about--zero skill labor.
The learned-skill level may be low, but there's still a difference in work ethic, ability to think on one's feet, etc. that indicates that not all minimm-wage workers are created equal.

Back to cashiers: from my experience (fast food, retail), one rock-star cashier is easily worth two trainees or even three I-don't-give-a-schmidt types. Some cashiers in the real world will be worth every penny of that $15/hr -- and likely even more.
Truth.
Then give the rock star a raise, not everyone.
We are just getting min wage closer to todays reality of productivity and profits. Raises can still be given.
Someone who flips burgers is not worth $31,000 year.
Someone who work full time and is productive enough to remain employed is indeed worth 21,000 a year take home.
First, they wouldn't just take home $21,000. Second, I disagree.

 
Someone who flips burgers is not worth $31,000 year.
If they work 2,000 hrs/yr, why not?

The boats are floating on the rising tide ... 31k isn't some swank salary in 2014, especially on the West Coast. I remember my buddies and I, in Louisiana, get jazzed up about earning 25k out of college in the early 1990s (min wage x 2000 hrs was $7,700/yr then) . But those days are long gone, along with $1/gal gas and $2.50 matinee movie tickets.

 
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Its not just cashiers.
No, but in 2012 food preparation and serving related jobs made up 44% of the minimum wage jobs in this country. Throw in data entry, janitors, home healthcare workers and these are the vast majority of job types we're talking about--zero skill labor.
The learned-skill level may be low, but there's still a difference in work ethic, ability to think on one's feet, etc. that indicates that not all minimm-wage workers are created equal.

Back to cashiers: from my experience (fast food, retail), one rock-star cashier is easily worth two trainees or even three I-don't-give-a-schmidt types. Some cashiers in the real world will be worth every penny of that $15/hr -- and likely even more.
Truth.
Then give the rock star a raise, not everyone.
We are just getting min wage closer to todays reality of productivity and profits. Raises can still be given.
Someone who flips burgers is not worth $31,000 year.
If we're going to start challenging people's salaries based on whether or not they're "worth it" in random Internet guys' opinions, a whole lot of people are in for a paycut.

 
Its not just cashiers.
No, but in 2012 food preparation and serving related jobs made up 44% of the minimum wage jobs in this country. Throw in data entry, janitors, home healthcare workers and these are the vast majority of job types we're talking about--zero skill labor.
The learned-skill level may be low, but there's still a difference in work ethic, ability to think on one's feet, etc. that indicates that not all minimm-wage workers are created equal.

Back to cashiers: from my experience (fast food, retail), one rock-star cashier is easily worth two trainees or even three I-don't-give-a-schmidt types. Some cashiers in the real world will be worth every penny of that $15/hr -- and likely even more.
Truth.
Then give the rock star a raise, not everyone.
We are just getting min wage closer to todays reality of productivity and profits. Raises can still be given.
Someone who flips burgers is not worth $31,000 year.
Someone who work full time and is productive enough to remain employed is indeed worth 21,000 a year take home.
First, they wouldn't just take home $21,000. Second, I disagree.
That's about 24% Fed and 6% State.

How about 18% and 5%? $23,900.

 
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Second, I disagree.
Your basis for what the burger-flipper is worth is necesarily arbitrary. If you base it on your life experience to this point ... yeah, sure it seems high. You remember when minimum wage per hour was south of $4, and when there was lots of hump-busting white collar workers out there kicking butt for $20,000/yr.

But you can't compare those times to the here and now.

Besides, we're (if the proprietor is wise) not talking about the slacker burger flipper who shows up 45 minute late to every shift, has to be watched like a hawk or else he takes three smoke breaks an hour, etc. We're talking about a kick-butt productive cog in a well-oiled machine ... someone central to putting out what is the primary product for a burger joint.

 
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Its not just cashiers.
No, but in 2012 food preparation and serving related jobs made up 44% of the minimum wage jobs in this country. Throw in data entry, janitors, home healthcare workers and these are the vast majority of job types we're talking about--zero skill labor.
The learned-skill level may be low, but there's still a difference in work ethic, ability to think on one's feet, etc. that indicates that not all minimm-wage workers are created equal.

Back to cashiers: from my experience (fast food, retail), one rock-star cashier is easily worth two trainees or even three I-don't-give-a-schmidt types. Some cashiers in the real world will be worth every penny of that $15/hr -- and likely even more.
Truth.
Then give the rock star a raise, not everyone.
We are just getting min wage closer to todays reality of productivity and profits. Raises can still be given.
Someone who flips burgers is not worth $31,000 year.
If we're going to start challenging people's salaries based on whether or not they're "worth it" in random Internet guys' opinions, a whole lot of people are in for a paycut.
The government doesn't mandate most salaries. If you make what you make simply because the government says so, I'm going to put in my :2cents:

 
Second, I disagree.
Your basis for what the burger-flipper is worth is necesarily arbitrary.
No its not, the reason there is a artificial price floor is because your job would actually be paid less than minimum wage except for legislation.

By definition if you are are making minimum wage you are being over paid for the value of the service you are providing. (unless your performance would be paid exactly min wage in a free market)

 
Second, I disagree.
Your basis for what the burger-flipper is worth is necesarily arbitrary.
No its not, the reason there is a artificial price floor is because your job would actually be paid less than minimum wage except for legislation.

By definition if you are are making minimum wage you are being over paid for the value of the service you are providing. (unless your performance would be paid exactly min wage in a free market)
Ya, if you allowed they would utilize slave labor and children. We know this.

 
Second, I disagree.
Your basis for what the burger-flipper is worth is necesarily arbitrary.
No its not, the reason there is a artificial price floor is because your job would actually be paid less than minimum wage except for legislation.

By definition if you are are making minimum wage you are being over paid for the value of the service you are providing. (unless your performance would be paid exactly min wage in a free market)
Ya, if you allowed they would utilize slave labor and children. We know this.
I utilize child labor every day for a quarter a day. You know why? because that is how much getting toys off my floor is worth.

 
Second, I disagree.
Your basis for what the burger-flipper is worth is necesarily arbitrary.
No its not, the reason there is a artificial price floor is because your job would actually be paid less than minimum wage except for legislation.

By definition if you are are making minimum wage you are being over paid for the value of the service you are providing. (unless your performance would be paid exactly min wage in a free market)
I think you're speaking to a different point. Christo can't pin down exactly what a burger-flipper is worth -- he can't say whether it's a penny an hour, $14.99/hr, or somewhere in between. The existence of a minimum wage is kind of a side point.

 
Second, I disagree.
Your basis for what the burger-flipper is worth is necesarily arbitrary.
No its not, the reason there is a artificial price floor is because your job would actually be paid less than minimum wage except for legislation.

By definition if you are are making minimum wage you are being over paid for the value of the service you are providing. (unless your performance would be paid exactly min wage in a free market)
I think you're speaking to a different point. Christo can't pin down exactly what a burger-flipper is worth -- he can't say whether it's a penny an hour, $14.99/hr, or somewhere in between. The existence of a minimum wage is kind of a side point.
WTF are you talking about? A burger flipper is worth what someone is willing to pay him to flip burgers. If he was worth $15.00/hr the government wouldn't have to force an employer to pay him $15.00/hr.

 
1. This is a 60.9% wage hike over 11 years. ($9.32 to $15)
That's an average of 4.4%, not adjusted for inflation. Average inflation in the U.S. has been 3.3% so that's a 1-2% effective increase in the minimum wage.
Which is a lot better than the 3.3% effective reduction per year without the increase.
 

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