# Green New Deal: "Economic security for those unwilling to work"

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/green-new-deal-economic-security-for-those-unwilling-to-work/829189
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [February 8, 2019, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/green-new-deal-economic-security-for-those-unwilling-to-work/829189 "2019-02-08T17:53:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 171

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### Author: ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2019, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/green-new-deal-economic-security-for-those-unwilling-to-work/829189/171 "2019-02-18T02:40:04Z")

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> [@Sam\_Stone](#):
>
> To the extent that minimum wage increases actually affect real-world wages, the evidence is that some people who were working under the old minimum get raises, at the expense of others who are laid off. The other effect of high minimum wages is to shrink certain industries (restaurants, fast food, etc), reduce service (bigger lines at grocery stores) and accelerate investment into labor reducing automation. McDonald’s, for example, has responded to the increasing costs of their labor force by accelerating the rollout of automated ordering kiosks.

> [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#):
>
> Could I get a cite for this?
> 
> This is not what happened when Seattle went to $15/hr minimum wage. In Seattle, increasing the minimum wage increased employment, increased the number of hours worked and had “near zero” impact on restaurant employment. One reason given for the increases, which might be non-intuitive, is that people used their increased wages to put back into those industries.

Yeah, there’s a enormous quantity of literature showing that minimum wage increases haven’t increased unemployment by any measurable amount. You’d have to do some pretty selective reading to miss it.

[Here’s](https://www.bradford-delong.com/2018/12/would-small-minimum-wage-increases-raise-or-have-no-effect-on-employment.html) Brad DeLong’s summary, of which the most relevant bit is: “The majority of economists believe that raising the minimum wage from its current level would significantly boost the incomes of the working poor and have little adverse effect on employment. A large minority of economists believe that raising the minimum wage would actually increase employment…There’s no debate on whether minimum wages at their current level are discouraging employment. They don’t.”

As a general rule of thumb, anyone who makes claims about the negative effects of minimum wages on employment, without even mentioning the fact that the majority of economists disagree with that claim, probably isn’t worth listening to. They’re selling a political fantasy, not a scientific belief.

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