Minimum Wage

The delusion that politicians know the big magic round number that fair for everyone, everywhere, at the same time. Minimum wage is the delusion that bureaucrats and politicos know more about what's fair than the laborer and the employer, and that there's a magic round number that fair for everyone, everywhere, at the same time. It hurts employment, increases automation and offshoring, and drives up prices. But other than that... ℹ️ Info           ~ Aristotle Sabouni Created: 2019-01-31

To the left, raising mnimum wage will help people: and they'll unemploy as many people as it takes, to get us to utopia. So I ask, if $15 helps, why not raise it to $1,000/hour and make everyone rich? Because raising the cost of something, reduces the demand -- so rising wages means more unemployment.

Alt-Economics

Left

Right

Minimum wage hasn’t kept up with inflation, and we can just raise the minimum wage to give a “living wage” to the millions of working poor, with no negative consequences, it’s only been the heartless and greedy conservatives that refuse to allow this (because the less the poor have, the more they have). If it wasn't for Democrats the Republicans would make everyone wage slaves because they're only out to help the rich.

Minimum wage did keep up with inflation, most minimum wage workers are teens and elderly or part-time supplemental jobs, and there’s no one wage that would be equally fair in NYC and rural Idaho at the same time. Economists know that raising the minimum wage is the same as increasing discrimination against the least skilled or experienced: increasing the costs to hire, will reduce hiring (increase automation, offshoring, etc) and increase the cost of goods. The people championing minimum wage are failing to point out that if you un-employ many, to help a few, and drive up the costs of goods and services by more than you help, then no one is really coming out ahead.

Minimum Wage • [8 items]

California fast food council
California can't manage anything well, so they created a Fast Food Council to try to regulate wages at some chains. And because it's California it's completely screwed up from the start.

Does minimum wage impact employment?
The problem is that minimum wage doesn't always immediately cause noticable unemployment (some exceptions). But as soon as you look deeper you find it suppresses growth, increases a decline. Sometimes people reacted knowing the increase was coming. It hits certain segments harder than others (teens, starting out, part time work, and so on).

Goldilocks and 3 wages
Minimum wage is like Goldilocks, there are three ways you can set minimum wage: too low, too high, and just right. Too low, means it's doing nothing of value. Too high means it's hurting employment and growth. And since just right can never apply to two different people, places or moments in time, there's really only one way to set minimum wage: and that's at the wrong level.

Livable Wage
Progressives often see the choice as: (a) A livable minimum wage (b) A lower minimum wage... But the reality is: (a) What the market will bear (b) Unemployment ($0/hour). So the choice isn't pulling people out of poverty or not, it's what value an opportunity is worth to an employer, before they automate, outsource, or just give up (skip the job) -- and the person is unemployed.

Minimum Wage Laws
The minimum wage and living wage warriors seem reluctant to accept the economic realities: price and wage controls never work. There are extremely rare cases where they can work (or do minimal damage) in one small location for short amounts of time, but there's no magic wage that's right for everywhere and everywhen at once. Thus wage controls start out bad and get worse over time.

Minimum Wage and Automation
Value (Money) is derived from the product of work (productivity/results), not based on what you paid for it. Thus the less you pay, the better off you are. Despite Social Justice Warriors (also known as economically illiterates) will tell you, minimum wage is not good, you can't lose more money on every transaction and make it up in volume.

Minimum Wage: Cost basis
I hear all the time, that McDonald’s can afford to pay a “livable wage” without raising costs, or "it’s just a few cents a burger", by people that don’t understand basic economics, or business. Doing the math? The avg McD's sees ≈$150K in profits, and this would rause costs by ≈$250K, putting them in the red by $100K. They will pass that $4.50/order on to customers.

Minimum Wage: Poverty
Poverty and who makes minimum wage is complex: 75% of it is due to underemployment (which is more insidious than unemployment), Most poverty is short term (<1 year), Most of the rest is due to under-education, immigration, fatherless families, and social program programs that hold people down. Explain how raising minimum wage helps with those things.

Conclusion

Of course both sides want to help people. The left just believes that the way to do it is through government. And the right understands that even if there was some benefit, it's only in the short term and for a few -- to help the most people, you need to help the economy. If you increase demand for labor (and supply goes down), then salaries will go up naturally -- and you don't increase demand for workers by putting a burden on hiring and allowing unfettered illegal immigration. Compassion is putting reality above your desires, and looking at what works better. Historically, that's never been the more socialist/government centric approach... at least not for long.

Videos

Who Does a $15 Minimum Wage Help?
PragerU

What's the Right Minimum Wage?
PragerU

How Does the Minimum Wage Work?
PragerU

How the Minimum Wage Hurts Young People?
PragerU

Minimum Wage Propaganda
Patrick Bet-David Video

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• https://fee.org/articles/restaurant-chain-announces-bankruptcy-says-minimum-wage-hike-to-blame/

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