But if they’re only being paid what they’re worth, why would you give them a raise?
Are you currently paying them less than they’re worth to you?
I was speaking of the additional costs passed on to the consumer. And it’s still a cost, not a tax. From the employer point of view it’s a cost. From the employee point of view it’s just pay. No minimum wage employee feels like they’re taxing their employer.
I don’t think we’re arguing about anything but the semantics of tax and cost here. Which is silly 
And how would we accomplish the same goal otherwise? Tax some people and give it (as pay) to the worker. Quack, quack!
I guess it can be both a floor wax and a dessert toping.
Understood. I’m not saying I support a rise to $10. I’m just saying that many of these arguments were made when we went from ~$5 to ~$7 and very few of them have come to pass. There wasn’t rampant inflation and there wasn’t a crowding out of low-wage workers (although I’ll happy listen to arguments that there was). Maybe you can pass along some information about how it worked for your company last time? Did it have to lay off a bunch of people or was the prevailing wage higher than the new minimum?
The minimum wage in 1979 was $2.90. In 2012 dollars it would be ~$9.20 if it kept up with the CPI.
ETA: In 1956 it was $1.00. That’s about $8.50 today.
We do that now with EIC. Which may get worse or better with a MW increase. I don’t know the details.
Who is talking about “rampant inflation” and how would you know what jobs were being “crowded out”? Unemployment is very high right now. Do you really want to do something that will likely make it higher? And, of course, this wage hike will only go into effect after the election. Wonder why these Dems didn’t propose something last year that would have gone into effect this year?
Well, at least one presidential candidate was calling for minimum wage increases 4 months ago: Romney supports automatic hikes in minimum wage | Fox News
Obama promised to raise it to $9.50 by now, and failed miserably.
I guess I really don’t see how a $2/hour hike for 5% of 60% of the country’s workers could have much effect on unemployment, but I’m not an economist.
I think I personally am a fan of the Romney plan. No more big jumps, no more political footballs, just take the current rate and bump it by the CPI as needed.
Whether this is empty grandstanding or a meaningful gesture probably depends on which Congressgit is voting. I can see a Blue Dog Dem shoring up his lefty credentials voting for it, knowing its going nowhere. And a sincere progressive could also vote for it, to set down a marker.
Minimum wage increases have two effects; the overlooked effect is that the extra income earned by low-income workers results in more demand for products, which would increase employment. In fact, I can think of a couple of full-blown peer-reviewed economics studies that showed either a positive increase in employment or no negative impact in employment from increases in minimum wages.
In fact, given that we’re in a recession (insert caveat here), increasing minimum wages would probably one of the best things we could do to help the economiy recover. Better than paying people to dig ditches and fill them in again (which would also help the economy, due to the current unusual circumstances).
Anyway, my point is, when you say “Unemployment is very high right now. Do you really want to do something that will likely make it higher?” you should probably come up with some sort of cite for your claim that it will make unemployment higher. I’ll let you know right now that you’ll have a damn hard time finding one.
Depends on the increase, and this is a pretty big one. I think the burden of proof is on those making the suggestion. Show me the economic models that predict no increase in the unemployment rate if we raise the national MW to $10.
AFAIK, there have been no studies on the national level of what such a raise would do, but I would expect there to be some economic models we could use.
And surely you are not going to suggest that any arbitrary increase in the MW will not adversely affect the unemployment rate. Are you?
Could you cite one of those studies? Do they simply assume all MW employees will get the increase without any layoffs or reduction in hours?
Please link them.
Hereyou go. Now, you could probably raise some objections to this study, but now the onus is on you–find a national level study showing decreases in employment from increases in minimum wage.
You’re asking for a lot of specifics here.
In real terms this isn’t a big increase; remember, the minimum wage has been eroded by inflation, and has been close to $10 (in real terms) before. So what you’re asking is “show me that bringing the minimum wage back to where it used to be wouldn’t increase unemployment.”
But no, I can’t show you a study showing specifically that increasing the minimum wage to $10 wouldn’t decrease employment.
Don’t know, you tell me; did I say that? Are we going to have an excluded middle argument here?
Here’s the classic, read by every labor economist who graduated in the last 20 years.
Krueger and Card did a half-dozen of these studies. They later amended their results to show no impact on unemployment from the increases in minimum wage (down from the decreases in unemployment shown in the initial study), but this is still a classic.
Actually, it took me about 20 seconds. If you want to get into a dueling cites contest, I’ll let you know.
We can do that. Hell, I can find you a list. But you’d better read them damn carefully, cause I bet I can find better studies showing the opposite of every study you list.
In fact I can find plenty of studies showing no impact. And if no impact was the actual result, then don’t you think you’d have some studies finding small statistical negative impact, some showing small statistical positive impact, and some showing no impact?
Ummmm…you haven’t linked to a peer-reviewed study, you’ve linked to a book.If you want to get into a cite war you’re going to have to try harder. Here, I’ll go for you: Eat this EE!
OK, now you go for me.
As a matter of policy, I think the proposal is a bad idea and dead on arrival in the House. Nothing of any consequence is likely to become law before the election.
As a matter of political strategy, I think it is probably a good move on the part of Dems. The country is hurting. This measure would ease some of that pain, and is likely to be popular with the masses. It could be an effective campaign weapon against the GoP in some districts, and may lead to a smaller increase in the minimum wage after the election.
By the way, the minimum wage in Washington is$9.04, and it’s tied to the CPI, and its 8.1% unemployment rate is better than 15 other states with lower minimum wages.