# Should the Minimum Wage Be Increased to $15? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 28, 2021, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945 "2021-02-28T14:26:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/201 "2021-03-06T21:59:12Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#): > > A mounting body of research in recent years suggests that labor markets don’t work in practice the way they do in some economic models. Employees often have less information about their worth than employers, or face greater risks to changing jobs, or can’t readily move between employers the way a pure market assumes. Are there actually “economists” who fail to grasp these factors when creating labor models? Is it really only in “recent years” that we have been able to do sophisticated enough research to understand that there is risk when changing jobs? ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/202 "2021-03-06T22:57:27Z")
It really does seem pretty self-evident, doesn’t it. I think I highlighted that part of the article mostly to poke another participant in this thread … in a GD-friendly manner 😉 ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/203 "2021-03-06T23:07:12Z")
This is kinda the point I was trying to make (not so eloquently or cogently, I admit) in the union thread. If you’re going to push for change, start with the big boys first. I don’t demonize Wal-Mart or Amazon - they employ people and they have a place in the economy. But I do demonize some of their business practices and they need to be fought from time to time, and that means we all gotta get our uniforms dirty every now and again. I wish unions and minimum wages weren’t needed but they are and I support them when the wage proposals and the people making them are reasonable. ---
**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:** [March 6, 2021, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/204 "2021-03-06T23:19:24Z")
Yet, what pushed wages up was classic supply and demand. Furthermore, Amazon is not going to employ the whole nation so, no, people can’t just show up at Amazon and make $15 plus benefits. Answer this, if minimum wage works so well why have we outsourced 10s of millions of jobs? Why aren’t all these manufacturing jobs still in the US? Why does Detroit of today look like Hiroshima of 1945? Socialist policies are more powerful than an atomic bomb. And most folks in the US that have a wage make more than minimum wage. How does that happen if labor isn’t impacted, like any other commodity, by the laws of supply and demand? ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/205 "2021-03-06T23:26:24Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Answer this, if minimum wage works so well why have we outsourced 10s of millions of jobs? Because the capitalists _could,_ as I’ve mentioned upthread. > [@octopus](#): > > And most folks in the US that have a wage make more than minimum wage. How does that happen if labor isn’t impacted, like any other commodity, by the laws of supply and demand? What we’re talking about is the lowest-earning workers, who – pretty much by definition – have the least amount of bargaining power when it comes to wages. I have neighbors who live in mansions, but the topic is the other neighbor who lives in a barely habitable hovel. ---
**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:** [March 6, 2021, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/206 "2021-03-06T23:28:40Z")
I suppose making $0 domestically is better than making something. The labor is still employed somewhere. It’s just out of reach of your feel good policy. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/207 "2021-03-06T23:33:01Z")
So on one hand you point out that minimum wages lead to the outsourcing of jobs; on the other you seem to argue that wages are above minimum wage and therefore don’t need minimum wages. Which is it? ---
**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:** [March 6, 2021, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/208 "2021-03-06T23:37:33Z")
Labor is not homogeneous. ---
**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:** [March 7, 2021, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/209 "2021-03-07T06:35:36Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Are there actually “economists” who fail to grasp these factors when creating labor models? Is it really only in “recent years” that we have been able to do sophisticated enough research to understand that there is risk when changing jobs? Absolutely. The behavioral economics revolution was all about showing that economic actors were not necessarily rational - which was a great shock to traditional economists. The New Yorker had an article where they interviewed University of Chicago economists during the great recession, half of whom pretty much said what happened couldn’t happen because their models would be wrong. The last interviewee was Thaler at the Business School, who laughed his head off at them. > [@octopus](#): > > Yet, what pushed wages up was classic supply and demand. Furthermore, Amazon is not going to employ the whole nation so, no, people can’t just show up at Amazon and make $15 plus benefits. And here we have an example. How does supply and demand explain the big gap in wages shown in the article. Amazon can’t employ the entire nation, but it seems to hire and expand like crazy, the small business owner is going to find that their best most aggressive employees jump to go to a place that pays them $5 an hour more. And they’ll be left with the losers, who Amazon wouldn’t hire anyway. Pay $15 and you get to keep the good people - and maybe steal other good people from your competitors But it isn’t happening - the business owner just whines about how Amazon is unfair. > [@octopus](#): > > Answer this, if minimum wage works so well why have we outsourced 10s of millions of jobs? Why aren’t all these manufacturing jobs still in the US? Why does Detroit of today look like Hiroshima of 1945? You do remember that we were at full employment before the pandemic, don’t you? Manufacturing in the US has increased while manufacturing jobs have not - for the same reason people don’t mine coal by hand any more. Cut wages low enough and it might be cheaper to mine coal by hand than use machines. Is that where you want to go? ---
**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:** [March 7, 2021, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/210 "2021-03-07T06:42:27Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Labor is not homogeneous. Nor is it perfectly fluid. There are barriers to changing jobs, mentioned in the linked article, and anyone with any business experience knows them. A company that underpays will not immediately lose all their workers. They accept a certain amount of attrition to save money on salaries. Of course since workers at the same supposed level are not identical, they lose the best ones. And go under, and wonder why. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2021, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/211 "2021-03-08T02:17:07Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Therefore, wage floors just shift the location of low cost labor. They do not eliminate it. The majority of jobs affected by a minimum wage are not easily exported. Restaurant workers, cleaners, carers, security guards etc. > [@octopus](#): > > Answer this, if minimum wage works so well why have we outsourced 10s of millions of jobs? Why aren’t all these manufacturing jobs still in the US? Why does Detroit of today look like Hiroshima of 1945? They’ll always be winners and losers in a globally shifting economy, but overall US unemployment has just wobbled around between 4 and 10 percent for the last 150 years (events like the great depression being temporary). The narrative of “All our jobs are going to China, and we need to pay people a pittance to compete!” is based on a faulty premise. It’s also interesting that you say things like there being nothing “wrong” with paying people a low wage. I think that’s quite telling, as the implication is that there’s something wrong with asking employers to pay their full time staff a living wage. Some people only deserve X, it’s wrong to give them more. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2021, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/212 "2021-03-08T02:27:50Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > The narrative of “All our jobs are going to China, and we need to pay people a pittance to compete!” is based on a faulty premise. (missed edit window) To expand on this, if there has been a steady long-term trend, it has been the widening gap between productivity and wages. The idea of outsourcing being the problem here is the “Look, squirrel!” of labor economics. ---
**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:** [March 8, 2021, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/213 "2021-03-08T02:28:21Z")
Arguing against a wholly invented implication is not convincing. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2021, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/214 "2021-03-08T02:32:15Z")
Well go ahead and clarify what you meant then. And perhaps respond to the other points. ---
**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:** [March 8, 2021, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/215 "2021-03-08T04:28:10Z")
Perhaps **octopus** wants to import the old Soviet Union “you pretend to pay me, I pretend to work” model into the US. Before WalMart increased wages it seemed that a lot of their employees hung out in the stock room and did as little work as possible. Seemed that way to me the one or two times a year I went to one. ---
**Author:** ![etasyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9f8e36/32.png) [@etasyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etasyde)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2021, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/216 "2021-03-08T05:36:31Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > “you pretend to pay me, I pretend to work” Oh, it’s already here. People think that problem was unique to Communism because there’s a hell of a lot more pro-capitalist propaganda in the world’s nexus of capitalism (huh, imagine that), but few employees ever maximize their own productivity. Why the heck would they, it wont remotely effect them positively. The old yarn about hard work leading to promotions might be true for management positions and small businesses, but the guy in a huge corporation who has the authority to promote or set wages for a minimum wage worker usually never sees them, has no metrics by which to rate their performance, and wouldn’t care to promote them even if they did - after all, _cutting_ wages reflects better on him than raising them does. _His_ metrics are entirely based on cost cutting! ---
**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:** [March 8, 2021, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/217 "2021-03-08T05:44:19Z")
The old cliche about the guy working his way from the mail room to the executive suite is only true if he entered the mail room with a degree from Harvard. Workers are not as dumb as some people think. If they are getting paid shit, they’ll effectively increase their hourly wage by goofing off as much as they can. Just before I retired, my company had a policy of giving raises to the top 15% or so and nothing to everyone else. That worked fine during the recession, but when other companies started jacking up their pay, not so much. And we were an order of magnitude above the MW. Then sent out a shocked announcement that they found that people were no longer coming early and staying late, as measured by the number of cars in the parking lot. My boss was told to read this to his staff. To his credit, he could hardly keep from cracking up. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/218 "2021-03-15T14:43:25Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Absolutely. The behavioral economics revolution was all about showing that economic actors were not necessarily rational - which was a great shock to traditional economists. The New Yorker had an article where they interviewed University of Chicago economists during the great recession, half of whom pretty much said what happened couldn’t happen because their models would be wrong. The last interviewee was Thaler at the Business School, who laughed his head off at them. Right. Also remember the whole phenomenon of Freakonomics? The book was titled that by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner because Levitt’s work on incentives and socioeconomics was considered somewhat out of the mainstream (freak economics). Though Levitt did stick to the idea that economic actors were rational - just that they were responding to far more inputs than what was assumed by mainstream economics. And that sociological factors had a massive influence on economic actors. I remember when I was getting my economics degree (undergrad) that a lot was focused on these abstract models which really made a lot of, IMO, silly assumptions about rationality. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/219 "2021-03-15T14:48:03Z")
When I studied Econ, there was an acronym for this kind of thinking: Observational Conceptual Theoretical Orientations Perhaps Unusually Simplistic 🐙 ---
**Author:** ![Quintas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945/220 "2021-03-15T15:30:21Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > His waitstaff makes about $80 an hour just on tips. What part of the country is this $166,400 per year waitstaff job? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-minimum-wage-be-increased-to-15/933945.md?page=12)