A Year Later: Seattle Min. Wage Increases =/= Price Hikes

i don't care how the american economy is defined. i'm interested as to how a higher national wage would affect the people who work in farming/manufacturing jobs. which is why i brought up my point asking if this would just promote more importing goods from out of the country. so to answer your original question...yes, it does matter if this promotes retailers getting there products from non-US manufacturers because it will also put many americans out of jobs.

so, does a higher national minimum wage encourage retailers to get more products from out of the country where the price different will be even greater to american made/grown products?

Arent most imports already cheaper than domestic items anyways? Any domestic producer already has their handful trying to price compete against countries with no labor laws, or unions, or are virtual slave economies with or without a minimum wage hike.

If we want to protect them, then we should but not by lowering our labor standards to match some third world.
 
Minimum wage hikes are an incredibly horrible idea, and will impact the working poor in a worse fashion than any other class of society, by far.

Can someone tell me why on earth basic Economics isn't taught as part of standard High School curriculum in the USA? This absurd notion, alongside the astonishingly simplistic idea of manufacturing being a solution to employment and growth, are akin to suggesting a biblical Ark-theory of biology ... no one with any degree of education can take them seriously, and yet they persist in popularity among the general population.

MBA with distinction and i support minimum wage for the reasons outlined in my post above.
 
Employment is actually up in the areas outside Seattle, which likely means people that were canned in the city now have to take jobs with an added huge commute to the places outside the city that can afford to hire them.

Of course it is the MW jobs that have been cut, but it wouldn't matter if it wasn't. If someone has put in a few years of work to get up to $15 already, you now have to pay them more as well because they aren't going to burn several years of raises and promotions just to be making the same as some new hire with no work experience, but what usually happens is they just clip out the bottom people and add duties to the existing workers.

You mention employment right outside the city. But people are not going to hire you just because they can. There has to be demand, or an increase in business requiring that extra help.

Just speculating, and too lazy to really look this up, but maybe the workers in Seattle that are making more now live out in the outskirts of city. They have more spending cash. Again just speculating.
 
Guess we'll have to add a living wage to the list of things that would kill Business that didn't.

"$15 an hour by January 2018–prices at most stores haven’t gone up."

They will go u when that happens, but go cry victory before the second quarter even starts.
 
Arent most imports already cheaper than domestic items anyways? Any domestic producer already has their handful trying to price compete against countries with no labor laws, or unions, or are virtual slave economies with or without a minimum wage hike.

If we want to protect them, then we should but not by lowering our labor standards to match some third world.
yes, exactly. so raising the national minimum wage will make it even harder to compete. which means alot of them will be put out of business and a lot of people put out of jobs
 
yes, exactly. so raising the national minimum wage will make it even harder to compete. which means alot of them will be put out of business and a lot of people put out of jobs

Keeping the minimum wage the same is probably not enough. There is no telling what these sneaky and cutthroat foreigners are willing to do to take even more of the market share here. We just have to give ourselves some kind of trade protection.

And if once we do, I dont see the harm in raising the minimum wage accordingly. Or we can get rid of minimum, and maybe even more labor standards so owners can reap even more profit and be able to compete with foreign competition.

If that is the real fear, then the solution is not to leave minimum wage the same, but to lower it and even all our other standards because that is the only way we compete.
 
i don't care how the american economy is defined. i'm interested as to how a higher national wage would affect the people who work in farming/manufacturing jobs. which is why i brought up my point asking if this would just promote more importing goods from out of the country. so to answer your original question...yes, it does matter if this promotes retailers getting there products from non-US manufacturers because it will also put many americans out of jobs.

so, does a higher national minimum wage encourage retailers to get more products from out of the country where the price different will be even greater to american made/grown products?

Seems to me that would be a trade policy issue, not a issue of higher prices being driven by wages.

Fyi, I would prefer to address our wage problem through trade and immigration reform.(supply and demand of labor) That seems near impossible with our corrupt government, so the next best option seems to be MW.
 
You mention employment right outside the city. But people are not going to hire you just because they can. There has to be demand, or an increase in business requiring that extra help.

Just speculating, and too lazy to really look this up, but maybe the workers in Seattle that are making more now live out in the outskirts of city. They have more spending cash. Again just speculating.
Not specifically, but it amounts to the same thing. Wanting more help =/= absolutely needing more help. Having more help means things run easier, so if you can afford it, you hire more help to take the pressure off yourself and the other employees. There is also expansion, where people must be hired to expand a business long before there is any profit at all. Walmart has bloody greeters and receipt checkers ffs, which is hardly a necessity. If you can't afford to hire as many people as you'd like to, you can either make fewer workers cover more duties, you can downsize or not expand, you can charge more and pass the added cost onto the customers, or go out of business.

MW hike advocates will tell you all about how unemployment is down in Seattle, but they conveniently forget to mention that unemployment is down nation-wide and that low wage employment in Seattle is down a full percentage point.

And living outside the city is cheaper than living in the city.
 
Not specifically, but it amounts to the same thing. Wanting more help =/= absolutely needing more help. Having more help means things run easier, so if you can afford it, you hire more help to take the pressure off yourself and the other employees. There is also expansion, where people must be hired to expand a business long before there is any profit at all. Walmart has bloody greeters and receipt checkers ffs, which is hardly a necessity. If you can't afford to hire as many people as you'd like to, you can either make fewer workers cover more duties, you can downsize or not expand, you can charge more and pass the added cost onto the customers, or go out of business.

MW hike advocates will tell you all about how unemployment is down in Seattle, but they conveniently forget to mention that unemployment is down nation-wide and that low wage employment in Seattle is down a full percentage point.

And living outside the city is cheaper than living in the city.

I don't think it is a fair measure of evaluating raising the MW policy by a utopian standard.

The question shouldn't be whether raising the MW would have any negative impact, but whether in our current economic situation, if our economy would benefit from consumption stimulus through raising wages?

The fact is that in high end industries, labor makes up 30% of costs. If raising wages has a greater economic impact through consumption, then the negative impacts of raising the wage, this will decide if it is good economic policy. I have rarely found someone willing to have this specific debate. Maybe you can convince me that our economy isn't starving for consumption, and that we aren't in a demand crisis for consumption. That the need to address this, doesn't outweigh the risk of unintended consequences.
 
We need a law that prevents foreign investment in residential real estate.

hell no.. this is the shit that prevents me from buying in Vancouver.. and although sales have slowed down.. the prices are still going up in BC
 
I don't think it is a fair measure of evaluating raising the MW policy by a utopian standard.

The question shouldn't be whether raising the MW would have any negative impact, but whether in our current economic situation, if our economy would benefit from consumption stimulus through raising wages?

The fact is that in high end industries, labor makes up 30% of costs. If raising wages has a greater economic impact through consumption, then the negative impacts of raising the wage, this will decide if it is good economic policy. I have rarely found someone willing to have this specific debate. Maybe you can convince me that our economy isn't starving for consumption, and that we aren't in a demand crisis for consumption. That the need to address this, doesn't outweigh the risk of unintended consequences.
I've honestly never even heard anyone argue that there is a lack of consumption here. This is probably the most decadent and frivolous society that's ever existed, and I believe we spend the most on entertainment and luxuries of any country in history. The startup and growth of more companies and competition for business and innovation are what lead to more positions higher than MW rather than having fewer companies having more MW positions. I don't think needing more consumption is even in the top 20 things to be considered.
 
I've honestly never even heard anyone argue that there is a lack of consumption here. This is probably the most decadent and frivolous society that's ever existed, and I believe we spend the most on entertainment and luxuries of any country in history. The startup and growth of more companies and competition for business and innovation are what lead to more positions higher than MW rather than having fewer companies having more MW positions. I don't think needing more consumption is even in the top 20 things to be considered.

We consume a lot. We lack growth because of a lack of expanding consumption.

Are you really happy with wage, or labor participation trends?
 
CEO's wages have gone up 1000% which hasn't been a great thing for our economy.

When have people ever demanded such a drastic jump in minimum wage? It's like $10 here, if it jumped to $15 how would that not raise prices? That's a 50% increase. People don't deserve 15 and hour to flip burgers I'm sorry.
 
Isn't it phasing in still? I thought it's 15 by 2019 and it's only risen $1 at this point? I would wait until it's actually hit 15 to see the affect.

Edit- 501+ employee companies with no health benefits went into effect 2017
 
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That argument has been made before the minimum wage went into effect and before each increase...and it has never panned out.

I've never believed that because that isn't how pricing works. ABC company sells widgets for $3. If they can get $3.25 they raise their price. This has nothing to do with expenses. Now, obviously the net income/ net loss depends on revenue and expenses. If they cannot cover expenses selling at whatever price, then there is a problem. Wage increases reduce the entities profit or increase its loss. Most businesses sell at a multiple of net income so wage increases indirectly impact the market value of the business. However, back to the main point, the company gets the maximum amount for its product regardless of its expenses.
 
I've never believed that because that isn't how pricing works. ABC company sells widgets for $3. If they can get $3.25 they raise their price. This has nothing to do with expenses. Now, obviously the net income/ net loss depends on revenue and expenses. If they cannot cover expenses selling at whatever price, then there is a problem. Wage increases reduce the entities profit or increase its loss. Most businesses sell at a multiple of net income so wage increases indirectly impact the market value of the business. However, back to the main point, the company gets the maximum amount for its product regardless of its expenses.

As you said, a company gets that maximum amount it can for it's product. Well that is regardless of cost. If cost go up, but raising prices end up in reduced sales that business end up with less profits.

In the end what you believe does not matter, the facts show us over and over that raising the minimum wages does not raises prices.
 
A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news for liberals

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-really-helps-workers/?utm_term=.3fd3cc37a797



When Seattle officials voted three years ago to incrementally boost the city's minimum wage up to $15 an hour, they'd hoped to improve the lives of low-income workers. Yet according to a major new study that could force economists to reassess past research on the issue, the hike has had the opposite effect.

The city is gradually increasing the hourly minimum to $15 over several years. Already, though, some employers have not been able to afford the increased minimums. They've cut their payrolls, putting off new hiring, reducing hours or letting their workers go, the study found.

The costs to low-wage workers in Seattle outweighed the benefits by a ratio of three to one, according to the study, conducted by a group of economists at the University of Washington who were commissioned by the city. The study, published as a working paper Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, has not yet been peer reviewed.


On the whole, the study estimates, the average low-wage worker in the city lost $125 a month because of the hike in the minimum.

The paper's conclusions contradict years of research on the minimum wage. Many past studies, by contrast, have found that the benefits of increases for low-wage workers exceed the costs in terms of reduced employment -- often by a factor of four or five to one.



@luckyshot
 
I don't see how anyone can live in that city on anything under $20 an hour that doesn't look like some projects set from The Wire.
 
https://www.fastcompany.com/3059118...s-new-minimum-wage-hasnt-raised-retail-prices

Guess we'll have to add a living wage to the list of things that would kill Business that didn't.

A_Brief_History_of_Corporate_Whining.png

12.50 to 15 isn't much change. 7.50 to 15 is
 

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