# Seattle Minimum Wage Under Fire **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 28, 2017, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042 "2017-06-28T08:43:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Hocus\_Pocus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/41988e/32.png) [@Hocus\_Pocus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hocus_Pocus)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2017, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/141 "2017-07-24T21:16:37Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > What happens to the people who don’t have the skills to make 21 dollars an hour? Are they permanently assigned to a lifetime of unemployment? That’s what repealing ACA is about. Sending them to the showers. ---
**Author:** ![Murph1111](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@Murph1111](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Murph1111)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/142 "2017-07-28T17:42:23Z")
Old people (like me) will remember when minimum wage was $1.25 per hour. Not coincidentally, I think, lunch was - wait for it - $1.25 Want a $15 Big Mac? Just raise the minimum wage to $15. Want to enjoy a $100 burger? Raise the minimum to $100. In two weeks or less, no burger cheaper than $100 will be available anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/143 "2017-07-28T19:22:20Z")
Raising the minimum wage to abolish poverty is chasing a mirage. All you’re doing in the long run is accelerating inflation. In the short run you’re risking an increase in unemployment as businesses hire fewer workers, move to where labor is cheaper, or shut down. A gradual increase in minimum wage to account for pre-existing inflation is reasonable but not what Seattle and similar jurisdictions are trying. They are literally trying to end poverty among workers. This isn’t the way to do that, and I doubt that’s even possible. The best you can hope for is to increase the general standard of living high enough that today’s poor have it better than those considered financially secure in the past. We’ve already been doing that for a long time. I say this as a person who used to work minimum wage jobs for years, lived in poverty, lived in slums and even briefly on the street. I’m not wealthy now and never had that silver spoon people talk about. (Mostly plastic sporks.) ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2017, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/144 "2017-07-29T02:25:48Z")
> [@Murph1111](#): > > Old people (like me) will remember when minimum wage was $1.25 per hour. > > Not coincidentally, I think, lunch was - wait for it - $1.25 > > Want a $15 Big Mac? Just raise the minimum wage to $15. > > Want to enjoy a $100 burger? Raise the minimum to $100. In two weeks or less, no burger cheaper than $100 will be available anywhere. I used to think this. But that’s missing the actual causes of inflation. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2017, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/145 "2017-07-29T17:21:03Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > What happens to the people who don’t have the skills to make 21 dollars an hour? Are they permanently assigned to a lifetime of unemployment? Basically. But advocating for higher minimum wage is virtue signaling and “compassionate.” ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2017, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/146 "2017-07-29T23:43:26Z")
> [@Murph1111](#): > > Old people (like me) will remember when minimum wage was $1.25 per hour. > > Not coincidentally, I think, lunch was - wait for it - $1.25 > > Want a $15 Big Mac? Just raise the minimum wage to $15. > > Want to enjoy a $100 burger? Raise the minimum to $100. In two weeks or less, no burger cheaper than $100 will be available anywhere. So all we have to do is chop the minimum wage down to $1.25 to massively lower prices? ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2017, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/147 "2017-07-30T00:08:06Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > There’s now been a study that shows that raising the minimum wage also increases (restaurant) hygiene violation scores. > > [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=2992783](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2992783) That paper completely ignores the other factors. As a resident, who has a significant number of friends who own restaurants, bars and coffee shops, their primary challenge has been attracting talent due to the rapidly increasing housing prices in the city. Just a handful of years ago you could rent an entire house for less than the cost of a current studio apartment. And due to the real-estate boom lots of older houses that use to have lower rent and multiple occupants have been destroyed to make room for $500K+ town homes. I live close to the u-haul center, and at least once a month someone who was on a fixed income is sitting on the road with the entirety of their world possessions on the sidewalk because they could no longer afford to rent the truck and couldn’t locate housing that would accept them or that they could afford. $2063 is the average rent for a studio/1bdrm in the city this month, and new opening rentals are far higher in cost. $15.00/h \* 2080 work hours in a year = $25,200 in pre-tax income, compared to $2063 \* 12 for $24,756 a year in rent. The complaints I have been hearing from my friends is that when their good, long term employees leases come up, they can’t afford it and move out of the city. When you have churn, or less employees you will have less time for side work. But to claim that this is due to the wage increase is a very very huge stretch. It is a good example on how correlation does not imply causation. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2017, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/148 "2017-07-30T00:34:41Z")
Genuine question: what is the point of a full time job that doesn’t pay enough to survive? Or a part time job that pays less than half of what is needed to survive at 20 hours a week? What benefit does that bring people in general, besides the business owner? ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2017, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/149 "2017-07-30T01:56:02Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > Genuine question: what is the point of a full time job that doesn’t pay enough to survive? Or a part time job that pays less than half of what is needed to survive at 20 hours a week? What benefit does that bring people in general, besides the business owner? Supplemental income. Experience. Skills. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2017, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/150 "2017-07-30T01:57:34Z")
And again, “enough to survive” is highly variable. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2017, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/151 "2017-07-30T02:07:32Z")
But I thought one of the arguments against raising the minimum wage was that any job at that level was low skilled grunt work that anyone could do, and thus not worthy of being paid more? ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2017, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/152 "2017-07-30T02:31:30Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > But I thought one of the arguments against raising the minimum wage was that any job at that level was low skilled grunt work that anyone could do, and thus not worthy of being paid more? I’m not sure what that has to do with what I wrote. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2017, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/153 "2017-07-30T02:36:42Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > I’m not sure what that has to do with what I wrote. Ah, I was referring to the “skills and experience” suggestion. Jobs that are described as being one that any brain dead teenager could do don’t seem to me to offer much in the way of useful skills or useful experience. Plus, I doubt that the senior citizen I see working at Burger King is in need of what it offers in either of those regards. Heck, by my understanding, which could be mistaken, minimum wage jobs are predominantly taken by adults and seniors these days. As for “supplemental income,” actually, again I doubt that people take a full time job at minimum wage because they want a little more money for that new boat, in which case I’m not sure I’d call it “supplemental.” But that may be more my personal connotation. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2017, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/154 "2017-07-30T03:13:11Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > Ah, I was referring to the “skills and experience” suggestion. Jobs that are described as being one that any brain dead teenager could do don’t seem to me to offer much in the way of useful skills or useful experience. Plus, I doubt that the senior citizen I see working at Burger King is in need of what it offers in either of those regards. Heck, by my understanding, which could be mistaken, minimum wage jobs are predominantly taken by adults and seniors these days. Last I checked the median age is 24. The mode is 19. A 19 year old with a brain dead job turns into a 22 year old with customer service experience and an ability to show up on time. Most people are not earning MW long-term. They can’t be, given the age distribution. > [@Leaper](#): > > As for “supplemental income,” actually, again I doubt that people take a full time job at minimum wage because they want a little more money for that new boat, in which case I’m not sure I’d call it “supplemental.” But that may be more my personal connotation. It’s supplemental income for the household. Household income for MW earners is, on average, over $50k. And remember, the most common age is 19. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2017, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/155 "2017-07-30T23:17:27Z")
If you work a minimum wage, low-skill job for a couple of years, do your job adequately, keep out of trouble, show up when you need to and demonstrate that you are a reliable worker, that’s valuable job experience that can open doors later. I speak from my own experience. That reference and/or resume entry is valuable. And you can sometimes benefit from “networking”, where someone you work for or with will later hire you or refer you to a higher-paying job. Also, many of my coworkers back then either still lived at home or were married and did the job to supplement what was already a decent household income and/or have something worthwhile to do. I was one of the few people living in poverty and struggling to get by every day on my own. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2017, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/156 "2017-07-30T23:40:05Z")
Except that the idea that these are entry level jobs only held by kids is a myth. > **[Characteristics of minimum wage workers, 2016 : BLS Reports: U.S. Bureau of...](https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm)** > > In 2016, 78.2 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates, representing 58.5 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 870,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage... Look especially at tables 1 and 8. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2017, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/157 "2017-07-31T00:45:36Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Except that the idea that these are entry level jobs only held by kids is a myth. > > [https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm](https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm) > > Look especially at tables 1 and 8. “Kids” who are counted by BLS are 16 and 17, unless you’re using a looser definition. So no, they’re not kids. But no one has used that word in the last handful of posts, so who exactly are you responding to? BLS, already referenced multiple times in this thread, shows that MW are young and don’t stay MW earners for long. From that very page: > [@](#): > > Minimum wage workers tend to be young. Although workers under age 25 represented only about one-fifth of hourly paid workers, they made up about half of those paid the federal minimum wage or less. Among employed teenagers (ages 16 to 19) paid by the hour, about 10 percent earned the minimum wage or less, compared with about 2 percent of workers age 25 and older. BLS does not tell us whether the jobs are entry level or not, but it does tell us that two-thirds are the sorts of jobs that [can pay below minimum wage](http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/right-minimum-wage-32961.html), and that over half of MW earners are in the “Food preparation and serving related occupations,” both indications of entry-level jobs. The next three largest categories are “Sales and related occupations” (9%), “Office and administrative support occupations” (7%), and “Transportation and material moving occupations” (7%). So please let us know what we’re supposed to be seeing in these tables about the level of work. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2017, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/158 "2017-07-31T00:59:27Z")
The person immediately before me? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2017, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/159 "2017-07-31T01:50:23Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > The person immediately before me? :dubious: Who neither mentioned kids nor entry-level, the “myth” you tried to dispel with data that show young people working what sure look like entry-level jobs. Gotcha. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2017, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042/160 "2017-07-31T01:52:59Z")
Lighten up, Francis. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seattle-minimum-wage-under-fire/790042.md?page=7)