# Minimum wage **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 29, 2013, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503 "2013-08-29T15:44:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/41 "2013-08-30T01:05:06Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > If they raise the minimum rate 50% to 100% to $15 per hour, then the jobs currently paying $15 will be forced to pay $22 to $30 per hour. The jobs paying $22 will increase to $33 or $44, etc, etc, etc. > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > No, they won’t. I really don’t get why this is even a debate. This isn’t the first time ever that the minimum wage might be raised. What happened last time? And the time before that? And the time before that? We’ve got years and years and multiple minimum wage raises to look at, so why are we arguing theory when we can look at what happens in reality? I don’t know what happened, mind you. But someone does. It’s a simple question of correlation, to start. Then if there is one, we can argue about causation until the cows come home… ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/42 "2013-08-30T01:09:03Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > A wage is simply a price. In a free economy, all prices are (and should be) determined by supply and demand. For non-government jobs, there should be no minimum or maximum wage. An employer should have the liberty to pay a wage of $0.10/hour, $1M/hour, or whatever the market will bear. > > This assumes, of course, there is free competition in the market. Negotiations between buyer and seller assume roughly equal power. That is not the case in an economy with 8% unemployment for a generic job. Don’t pretend that a negotiation between someone with water and someone dying of thirst is equal. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/43 "2013-08-30T01:12:40Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > That’s funny. When an industry rests atop a Jenga tower of regulations, it’s rather silly to yank out one block and scream about the evils of a free market as everything crashes to the ground. You think a totally unregulated banking system would be a good thing? Remember the savings and loan crisis during the HW Bush era? Do you like runs on banks? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/44 "2013-08-30T01:15:07Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Don’t pretend that a negotiation between someone with water and someone dying of thirst is equal. One drink, one bar of gold. That’s the going rate today, Mr. Farwell. It may change tomorrow; I haven’t checked the market. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/45 "2013-08-30T01:27:52Z")
> [@Crumbled\_Bumble](#): > > Wage increases would cause inflation. If a McDonald’s worker is making $15, the price for a happy meal would increase. > > Funny thing is that people already making 15$+/hour will have the same wage. > > Inflation is not a good thing! The economy won’t be able to handle it right now. > > We are given a front-row ticket to the freak show, and all we can do is watch. At walmart every extra $4000 a year in extra wages and benefits would drive up prices by 1%, so if workers got an extra $8000 a year in wages and benefits a $2 loaf of bread would cost $2.04. Plus companies could pay for higher wages via various means. They can cut spending in other areas for example, the idea that 100% of the revenue to cover higher wages will come from higher prices is something that would need to be consistently proven in the real world. The real problem is lowering income inequality. If you raise wages/benefits at fast food restaurants and mcdonalds, that is great and all but the top 1% don’t shop there. People who shop there are in the lower and middle classes, so you are just moving money away from them to distribute it to the poor. Another positive of rising wages, from what I can see, is it increases the motivation to move to automation. Higher wages makes innovation to increase worker productivity seem more desirable, and worker productivity increases is what drives up our standard of living. If China can offer tons of factory workers at $1/hr, there is no incentive to invest in robotics or other labor saving devices. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/46 "2013-08-30T01:38:25Z")
As someone who has worked in fast food as a manager and employee, there’s one sure way to handle wage increases: you use less people. That’s how we absorbed two minimum wage increases. Another observation: when labor is abundant, you get higher quality people. When labor is scarce, you get lower quality. Since our wages were pretty much the same all the time, that just meant that during recessions we could hire laid off executives and college educated professionals, while in good economic times we were literally recruiting at prisons. Wages also increase or reduce demand for your openings. If we were offering $15/hr, I could throw lots of applications right in the trash, whereas at near minimum wage, I had to hire anyone who could correctly fill one out most of the time. The point is that most of these striking workers would be out of work if they got what they wanted. The average fast food employee is not worth $15/hr. However, there are a lot of unemployed or just retired professionals with a long history of reliability and work experience who you could lure into those positions at that pay rate. Not to mention homemakers who are hard workers but for whom it’s not worth leaving the house for a low wage, and professionals who would like a second job to supplement their income. In other words, students and longtime minimum wage workers need no longer apply. They would be unneeded. At $15/hr, you get more jobseekers, and the lesser qualified ones don’t get considered. ---
**Author:** ![Crumbled\_Bumble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ac91a4/32.png) [@Crumbled\_Bumble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crumbled_Bumble)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/47 "2013-08-30T01:43:44Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > False. Prices are determined by the what the market will pay, not by what it costs to produce. Production costs only determine whether the product is profitable and worth selling at all. Increasing production costs does not automatically lead to price increases. If a hamburger costs $1 to make, and I sell 1000 of them for $2, I make $1000. If my production cost goes up to 1.25, I cannot just raise prices .25 cents and expect to stil make the same profit on 1000 hamburgers, because fewer people will buy my hamburgers at the higher price. I can either settle for a smaller profit, or decide not to sell hamburgers any more. Prices are not endlessly elastic. Gosh, what was I thinking? Well, I’ve been proven wrong… By the way, nope. ---
**Author:** ![Crumbled\_Bumble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ac91a4/32.png) [@Crumbled\_Bumble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crumbled_Bumble)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/48 "2013-08-30T01:49:17Z")
> [@Penny](#): > > I admit I skipped a lot of posts. Pardon me if I repeat. > > Many studies have been done on the effects of minimum wage increases. It has little effect on inflation IIRC. No cite, no dice. That’s all well and good… studies say this… studies say that… so, where is this study or studies? ---
**Author:** ![shimmery](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@shimmery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shimmery)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/49 "2013-08-30T01:49:59Z")
To the OP’s actual question about what’s an appropriate minimum wage, MIT’s [Living Wage calculator](http://livingwage.mit.edu/), which takes into account differences in rent, food, transportation, etc. costs in every county and many cities (“places”) in the U.S., is a handy tool. According the calculator, [the living wage in Seattle city is $9.64 for a single adult, or $20.53 for an adult with one child](http://livingwage.mit.edu/places/5303363000). If you go to results page, you can see MIT’s estimate of average costs for different basic expenses in each geography. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/50 "2013-08-30T01:56:36Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > Consider: If the high school dropouts at McDonalds > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Only 16% of fast-food workers are teenagers. Which doesn’t invalidate what he’s saying. Statistically many more high school dropouts \*have \*to be older than 19 than 16-19. ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/51 "2013-08-30T02:02:19Z")
> [@Macca26](#): > > Wait, **yellowjacketcoder** and **bump** > > Do you really not think there are people with bachelor’s, master’s, even phd’s in food service jobs? I can tell you for a fact there are a lot of well-educated people in these jobs. I know one. She has a master’s in microbiology. Now, are you telling me that because the market screwed over all these people, they don’t deserve to have a job that lets them eat without government subsidies, and that they’re too stupid and don’t bring enough to the job to deserve more? These people didn’t choose food service jobs aside from it was either that or go homeless. > > Regardless of the fact that we do have well-skilled workers in these low-skill fields (often paying student loans, to boot): > Why don’t all food service workers deserve even the basic dignity of a living wage? Why should we allow anyone to have less than is required to live? Is there any good reason to simply look at the bottom 10% of people and say “Sorry, looks like you’ll have to be homeless and go hungry because even though we’re a first-world country, I don’t think you’re good enough to have your basic living needs covered.” > > Of course, we deny them a living wage and disparage them when they have to turn to the government for help. There’s literally no winning for these people in society. And the companies make record profits. A - I am quite aware there are people with degrees, even advanced degrees, in food-service jobs. That does not conflict with my earlier statement - they need skills that someone is willing to pay them for. Having a degree does not necessarily confer upon you skills worth diddly squat - A PhD in Sumerian Literature is probably quite difficult to get, but is a fairly useless degree in the job market. I don’t mean to be harsh, but frankly if your friend with a master’s in microbiology can’t do better than minimum wage, I would suggest she is lacking the soft skills needed to pursue a career outside of biology. Or, and again this will sound rough but needs to be said, her skills are enough to get her a degree but having a career requires much more. I have a master’s in CS, and I graduated with people I would never let near a compiler. The fact that they went into debt to get skills that did not turn into a career is unfortunate, but that’s honestly their problem. I can’t go to my boss and say “hey boss, I want a raise because my mortgage is expensive” - I need to go to him and say “hey boss, I want a raise because my skills as an employee are worth more to you than you’re currently paying for, and if you don’t give me that raise I will go work somewhere else”. Note, my personal debt/expenses has zero effect on whether I deserve a raise. And simply put, no, just because you are able to breathe does not immediately entitle you to free money. Not all jobs should pay a living wage because not all jobs are WORTH a living wage. There was an segment on NPR where they interviewed some locals that were joining the protest for higher wages. One person complained he’d been working fast food for a decade and it wasn’t enough to support his children. While quite heart-wrenching, if he’s gone a decade and not picked up any skills that will get him a wage in the double digits, he has only himself to blame. And I have not and will not say nobody deserves help from the government, so I resent that implication. I’m a guy that thinks the tax code is not progressive enough, and I would support a simple negative income tax over the frankly confusing and denigrating mishmash of “welfare” that exists now. ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/52 "2013-08-30T02:06:00Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > You think a totally unregulated banking system would be a good thing? Remember the savings and loan crisis during the HW Bush era? Do you like runs on banks? I think you are misreading him. The regulations were removed and things got bad. Why aren’t you blaming congress for removing the regulation? ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/53 "2013-08-30T02:24:49Z")
I lived on $10/40 hours per week for years, but it was tight. I can’t imagine trying to raise kids alone on that. But many people do on less… ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/54 "2013-08-30T02:34:03Z")
I am not sure if I believe in a minimum wage at all. I have an alternate theory that a minimum wage just offers price collusion for employers that employee minimum wage workers. In other words, they can just point to a government chart to justify why they are paying what they are rather than setting their own wages and competing up to the best price even for those with few skills. I don’t stand by that theory wholeheartedly but it is something I have wondered about. We may never know. My main question is why they suggest $15 an hour and not $12, $20 or even $50. I would want to see some rational explanation for it with detailed and economic theory as to why $15 is the correct number but the people that promote such ideas the strongest don’t tend to have the best grasp of economics to say the least. I worked in a supermarket in high school in 1990 for $3.35 an hour and busted my ass for it and I was happy to get it. Even adjusted for inflation and geography, that is less than people on minimum wage are making now. I didn’t need to support a family or buy a house however. That was the whole point. I was in high school and used the money to buy my own car, food and clothes. I would not have been happy if someone took that opportunity away just because well intended legislation priced people like me back then out of the low skilled job market and left us with no job opportunities at all. Do you really want to make it illegal to employee anyone that doesn’t have specialized skills or is willing and capable of doing work worthy of $15 an hour. That is all is this will accomplish if it goes through. You will see a rash of young people that can’t get any (legal) employment at all. ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/55 "2013-08-30T03:28:05Z")
I lived on $10/40 hours per week for years, but it was tight. I can’t imagine trying to raise kids alone on that. But many people do on less… ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/56 "2013-08-30T04:06:31Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Negotiations between buyer and seller assume roughly equal power. That is not the case in an economy with 8% unemployment for a generic job. > Don’t pretend that a negotiation between someone with water and someone dying of thirst is equal. That’s true, and it’s why I support minimum wage laws. But the poster’s point still stands. Wages are merely a price. Labor is not special, it’s just another thing people sell. It gets special treatment politically because nearly everyone sells labor. but that doesn’t mean that labor has different economics from other goods and services. The varying laws governing labor are an attempt to protect labor from those market forces, often unsuccessfully. ---
**Author:** ![Penny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@Penny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penny)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/57 "2013-08-30T05:08:27Z")
> [@Crumbled\_Bumble](#): > > No cite, no dice. > > That’s all well and good… studies say this… studies say that… so, where is this study or studies? Fair enough. I was being lazy because its a pain to read, cut and paste on my iPod. I will happily hunt you down some studies when I return to my desk. If you are really chomping at the bit, you can Google it :). But I will happily put up. ---
**Author:** ![panaccione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/58 "2013-08-30T05:36:08Z")
> [@shimmery](#): > > To the OP’s actual question about what’s an appropriate minimum wage, MIT’s [Living Wage calculator](http://livingwage.mit.edu/), which takes into account differences in rent, food, transportation, etc. costs in every county and many cities (“places”) in the U.S., is a handy tool. That is a pretty handy tool. Thanks for sharing. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/59 "2013-08-30T05:44:06Z")
In 1996/97 Bill Clinton raised the minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.15, more than 21%. My impression is that caused none of the dire effects on inflation and unemployment so often feared, quite the opposite in fact. Is there any reason to think those things would happen this time? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503/60 "2013-08-30T05:56:23Z")
Depends on how high it’s raised. Going from $7.25 to $10 is steeper than 21%. $7.25 to $9 is more reasonable. It also matters what the employment outlook looks like. If employers aren’t hiring now, they won’t start hiring because it got more expensive. Plus they already have a health care mandate to deal with. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minimum-wage/667503.md?page=4)