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How will $15 an hour attract businesses to Seattle? Why locate in Seattle when you can hire cheaper workers in surrounding towns and other parts of the state?
Not all jobs are cheap labor jobs. And service industry jobs follow the high paying jobs.
Why don't all the unemployed move to Seattle where they will get $15 an hour? No one needs to complain anymore about minimum wage -- if they want more money they can head to Seattle.
Why don't all the unemployed move to Seattle where they will get $15 an hour? No one needs to complain anymore about minimum wage -- if they want more money they can head to Seattle.
I see you ran out of excuses and have resorted to strawman statements. Why don't people do that now? There are already states that pay more minimum wage than others.
Seattle.....is incredibly expensive to live there. $15 is reasonable....for Seattle. $10.10 is reasonable for the united states.
Seattle is not incredibly expensive. Seattle is exactly as expensive as it should be for the type of city that it is. Cities that are less "expensive", generally, offer a worse quality of life and cities that are more expensive offer a better QOL.
However, speaking of a city as merely "expensive" or "cheap" is too broad to accurately describe what you are attempting to convey. Measures like average income to housing cost ratios are better. If you feel that Seattle is too expensive, then what you mean to say is that it is too expensive for you. The obvious implication is that it is incumbent upon you to find a city that you can better afford. It is not incumbent upon Seattle to make itself affordable for anyone who would like to live there. Often, "expensive" cities offer better middle class wages to make up for the expense. Lower class wages adjust as is required to keep people in the city working as your barista at all, but that doesn't give the the lower class a "right" to any minimum wage other than what will keep them coming into work. If the wages are too low, then they shouldn't work there and should move to a place where the COL is better suited to the wage. This mechanism keeps the wages at the exact natural point that is healthy for the economy and quality of life in the city in general. This economic tinkering, to such an extreme level, is going to cause unnatural economic aberrations in the city whose consequences will likely be further reaching than intended.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyTexan
You're right. Those businesses that can't absorb it will just close.
They will. Then you will have less services in the city, which means less jobs as well as less of what makes Seattle attractive to high skill workers. Competition for high skill workers is fierce and they tend to put a high premium on the QOL offered by any one city. If Seattle can't compete, they will go elsewhere and the top end of the economy will also suffer. Large businesses will go elsewhere to attract better workers as well as because of other certain-to-be negative ramifications from this law. If Seattle's real GDP decreases as a result of this, the law's proponents are going to have egg on their face as the upper and middle class leaves the region for more sane waters.
Quote:
Originally Posted by urbanlife78
If a minimum wage increase over 3-7 years forces a business to close, then they were already on the brink of failing.
Apparently, you're out of touch with the reality of business as well as urban planning. You likely think that the margins in most small businesses are large.
Quote:
Originally Posted by armourereric
Let's be progressive and bus all the poor in Los Angeles to Seattle so their lot in life can improve.
Exactly. Seattle is going to see some strange migration patterns due to this law. They're going to see a simultaneous gradual influx of starry eyed low skill workers and a reduction in low skilled jobs. So, the low skill labor pool will increase but those with actual jobs will decrease. Eventually the migrants will again migrate out (unless Seattle insists on supporting them with welfare), but the intermittent increase in the low end labor pool, which may last years, will be an interesting new lead weight on Seattle's social welfare system.
It should also be noted that this type of extreme liberalism lives at the luxury of the business that made Seattle what it is. It's almost like a pathology that results from excess and then tries to kill the very host that gives it life. You won't find this type of nonsense in cities that are struggling to lure business. People there know not to mess with the natural economy for fear of making it worse. Seattle's liberals take these risks because they are spoiled due to the wealth created by those who this law stands to hurt. They likely think that they are the cause of Seattle's success. That's a fool's paradise that they will be certain to evacuate in the future. Remember, this experiment is being conducted in a city with one of the least diverse economies in the country for a city its size. This is like throwing a delicate sculpture in the air to see if it will be improved when it hits the ground.
Quote:
Originally Posted by greywar
Actually several states have higher then federal minimum wages. Oregon and Washington both do. It really hasnt made businesses run to or from them.
That's not an argument. That's a relative statement that chooses not to be specific for fear of it not holding up. If we made the minimum wage $100 per hour, would your relative argument still be rational? The number is everything, not just the argument that the wage was raised and held up. This specific argument is whether or not the specific number of $15 per hour is too high for the economy to support without penalties that are too high.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goinback2011
Those who are already making $15 will demand higher wages. Wage demands will increase across the board. Prices will increase to compensate: goods, services and rents will all increase by the same percentage as the minimum wage. Any goods exported to other states or abroad will see a decrease in sales.
Who wins here? The government, which will take in more taxes on incomes and local sales.
Exactly. Raising the minimum wage will be a wash for the lower class. People tend to ignore small increases in product prices (food, coffee, etc.) but they will notice a significant rise in rent. Also, the rise on product prices, given the extreme nature of this wage hike, might not be so small. At the least, we can say that the lower class will not be helped nor hurt assuming that they don't bus in from poor exurban enclaves (I predict that most of the $15 earners will bus in if they aren't married). If the wage earners are bussing in, then Seattle is inappropriately catering to non-residents at the expense of its residents.
Who this wage increase will hurt is the middle class and the businesses for whom they work (due to a lesser talent pool). Middle wages are not likely to rise, QOL may go down, and rent will go up. The middle class job pool also stands to decrease if businesses start leaving Seattle.
Furthermore, this will breed middle class resentment. The average resident of Seattle makes about $60k. How many years of school and how much tuition do you think they sacrificed to make that paltry $60k? This salary is the equivalent of $30 per hour. All spending power is only relative to the local economy, meaning its only as good as the economy is cheap relative to income. Why would you or anyone else go to school for 4-6 years and spend a high 5-6 figures just to make $15 dollars an hour more than a no-skill worker? Beyond issues of economic fairness that are being violated by this law, it will reduce incentive to pursue higher education within the Seattle economic region and it is a terrible insult to high skill workers. The fact is that the services that a Barista performs are NOT worth half of what a Nurse performs. If Socialism says as much than Socialism is wrong and unjust.
Quote:
Originally Posted by camaro69
Really no way to prove it, except that the unions will now come back and want higher wages for their members. That pretty much I will gurantee will happen.
Right. And then companies will seek lower wage cities if they can.
Quote:
Originally Posted by urbanlife78
It is an easy prediction that raising the minimum wage isn't going to destroy Seattle or make unemployment rampant or even high.
Your assertions about "easy" predictions are baseless. You have no idea what this will do because you don't possess the context (born of an education in economics) necessary to properly analyze the possible ramifications.
Quote:
Originally Posted by greywar
I get more than a little ticked off when people expect "fairness" from businesses. They are a self-serving crime syndicate. Why expect anything but worst-case-scenarios from them? This is why we have the government mandating wages.
There. Fixed that for ya!
Yep. The local diner, plumbing business, car rental shop, and mechanic are all mafia. I love this quote of yours because it pretty much encapsulates the quality of thought indicative of the modern liberal thesis across all issues.
Quote:
Originally Posted by VTHokieFan
I've already showed you the impact of a higher minimum wage on youth unemployment in San Jose. You refused to acknowledge it. You can't legislate people out of poverty, sorry.
They wouldn't frame it like that. They would say that they are legislating people out of "income inequality". What they men to say is that they don't like that skilled people make much more than no-skill people, and real world deep ramifications or deep-dive analysis be damned - they're going to force people to pay more than no-skill work is worth in the real world.
No so-called equality imbalances can ever be legislated away.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkatt
Several things.
1. When you raise the minimum wage to 15$ an hour, what happens to the person making 16$ already, and THEIR pay doesn't go up.
2. When their pay doesn't go up, but the cost of goods and services DO go up, in direct proportion to the increase in Minimum wage, how do you explain do everyone who's pay didn't go up, that their wages have been deflated, too bad so sad?
3. Once the wages go into effect, and ALL those people lose their jobs, AND all the prices for goods and services go up, what happens to those you tried to help?
All of this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by urbanlife78
Most youths don't.
Most poor youth want to work ASAP. I did. That hasn't changed. You're out-of-touch.
Quote:
Originally Posted by I'm Retired Now
Once the pay goes up to $15, the quality of the candidates they can get for lower skilled jobs will increase so the customer service you will get in retail and restaurants in Seattle will go up significantly.
You're serious with this statement? What a joke. The fact that lowered skilled jobs are lowered skilled means that, by definition, "quality" candidates aren't needed. I don't need to see someone's lawnmower skills before I hire them to mow my lawn nor do I need to see that someone can fill my soda at a higher "quality" skill level than I already get. I'm fine with the current level of service quality and so is most of Seattle. Also, anyone who has ever worked a low skill job for any length of time will tell you that people with unacceptable "skill" levels are routinely weeded out and that most low skill jobs are done to a high level of skill required for any specific job. No one wants or needs to pay more for supposedly better low-skill job service, and the fact is that you won't get better service anyway. If this argument is indicative of what is required to justify the wage increase, then the wage increase is a complete sham.
Quote:
Originally Posted by urbanlife78
Exactly, the COL has nothing to do with minimum wage.
The only thing that I know "exactly" from reading your posts is that you make a lot of statements that refer to economics, none of which carry any depth or reside in any factual foundation.
Why don't all the unemployed move to Seattle where they will get $15 an hour? No one needs to complain anymore about minimum wage -- if they want more money they can head to Seattle.
??? Why wouldn't employers THINK, give hiring priority to LOCALS, and ignore the opportunists who just arrived?
Seattle is not incredibly expensive. Seattle is exactly as expensive as it should be for the type of city that it is. Cities that are less "expensive", generally, offer a worse quality of life and cities that are more expensive offer a better QOL.
However, speaking of a city as merely "expensive" or "cheap" is too broad to accurately describe what you are attempting to convey. Measures like average income to housing cost ratios are better. If you feel that Seattle is too expensive, then what you mean to say is that it is too expensive for you. The obvious implication is that it is incumbent upon you to find a city that you can better afford. It is not incumbent upon Seattle to make itself affordable for anyone who would like to live there. Often, "expensive" cities offer better middle class wages to make up for the expense. Lower class wages adjust as is required to keep people in the city working as your barista at all, but that doesn't give the the lower class a "right" to any minimum wage other than what will keep them coming into work. If the wages are too low, then they shouldn't work there and should move to a place where the COL is better suited to the wage. This mechanism keeps the wages at the exact natural point that is healthy for the economy and quality of life in the city in general. This economic tinkering, to such an extreme level, is going to cause unnatural economic aberrations in the city whose consequences will likely be further reaching than intended.
They will. Then you will have less services in the city, which means less jobs as well as less of what makes Seattle attractive to high skill workers. Competition for high skill workers is fierce and they tend to put a high premium on the QOL offered by any one city. If Seattle can't compete, they will go elsewhere and the top end of the economy will also suffer. Large businesses will go elsewhere to attract better workers as well as because of other certain-to-be negative ramifications from this law. If Seattle's real GDP decreases as a result of this, the law's proponents are going to have egg on their face as the upper and middle class leaves the region for more sane waters.
Apparently, you're out of touch with the reality of business as well as urban planning. You likely think that the margins in most small businesses are large.
Exactly. Seattle is going to see some strange migration patterns due to this law. They're going to see a simultaneous gradual influx of starry eyed low skill workers and a reduction in low skilled jobs. So, the low skill labor pool will increase but those with actual jobs will decrease. Eventually the migrants will again migrate out (unless Seattle insists on supporting them with welfare), but the intermittent increase in the low end labor pool, which may last years, will be an interesting new lead weight on Seattle's social welfare system.
It should also be noted that this type of extreme liberalism lives at the luxury of the business that made Seattle what it is. It's almost like a pathology that results from excess and then tries to kill the very host that gives it life. You won't find this type of nonsense in cities that are struggling to lure business. People there know not to mess with the natural economy for fear of making it worse. Seattle's liberals take these risks because they are spoiled due to the wealth created by those who this law stands to hurt. They likely think that they are the cause of Seattle's success. That's a fool's paradise that they will be certain to evacuate in the future. Remember, this experiment is being conducted in a city with one of the least diverse economies in the country for a city its size. This is like throwing a delicate sculpture in the air to see if it will be improved when it hits the ground.
That's not an argument. That's a relative statement that chooses not to be specific for fear of it not holding up. If we made the minimum wage $100 per hour, would your relative argument still be rational? The number is everything, not just the argument that the wage was raised and held up. This specific argument is whether or not the specific number of $15 per hour is too high for the economy to support without penalties that are too high.
Exactly. Raising the minimum wage will be a wash for the lower class. People tend to ignore small increases in product prices (food, coffee, etc.) but they will notice a significant rise in rent. Also, the rise on product prices, given the extreme nature of this wage hike, might not be so small. At the least, we can say that the lower class will not be helped nor hurt assuming that they don't bus in from poor exurban enclaves (I predict that most of the $15 earners will bus in if they aren't married). If the wage earners are bussing in, then Seattle is inappropriately catering to non-residents at the expense of its residents.
Who this wage increase will hurt is the middle class and the businesses for whom they work (due to a lesser talent pool). Middle wages are not likely to rise, QOL may go down, and rent will go up. The middle class job pool also stands to decrease if businesses start leaving Seattle.
Furthermore, this will breed middle class resentment. The average resident of Seattle makes about $60k. How many years of school and how much tuition do you think they sacrificed to make that paltry $60k? This salary is the equivalent of $30 per hour. All spending power is only relative to the local economy, meaning its only as good as the economy is cheap relative to income. Why would you or anyone else go to school for 4-6 years and spend a high 5-6 figures just to make $15 dollars an hour more than a no-skill worker? Beyond issues of economic fairness that are being violated by this law, it will reduce incentive to pursue higher education within the Seattle economic region and it is a terrible insult to high skill workers. The fact is that the services that a Barista performs are NOT worth half of what a Nurse performs. If Socialism says as much than Socialism is wrong and unjust.
Right. And then companies will seek lower wage cities if they can.
Your assertions about "easy" predictions are baseless. You have no idea what this will do because you don't possess the context (born of an education in economics) necessary to properly analyze the possible ramifications.
Yep. The local diner, plumbing business, car rental shop, and mechanic are all mafia. I love this quote of yours because it pretty much encapsulates the quality of thought indicative of the modern liberal thesis across all issues.
They wouldn't frame it like that. They would say that they are legislating people out of "income inequality". What they men to say is that they don't like that skilled people make much more than no-skill people, and real world deep ramifications or deep-dive analysis be damned - they're going to force people to pay more than no-skill work is worth in the real world.
No so-called equality imbalances can ever be legislated away.
All of this.
Most poor youth want to work ASAP. I did. That hasn't changed. You're out-of-touch.
You're serious with this statement? What a joke. The fact that lowered skilled jobs are lowered skilled means that, by definition, "quality" candidates aren't needed. I don't need to see someone's lawnmower skills before I hire them to mow my lawn nor do I need to see that someone can fill my soda at a higher "quality" skill level than I already get. I'm fine with the current level of service quality and so is most of Seattle. Also, anyone who has ever worked a low skill job for any length of time will tell you that people with unacceptable "skill" levels are routinely weeded out and that most low skill jobs are done to a high level of skill required for any specific job. No one wants or needs to pay more for supposedly better low-skill job service, and the fact is that you won't get better service anyway. If this argument is indicative of what is required to justify the wage increase, then the wage increase is a complete sham.
The only thing that I know "exactly" from reading your posts is that you make a lot of statements that refer to economics, none of which carry any depth or reside in any factual foundation.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,551 posts, read 81,085,957 times
Reputation: 57739
Quote:
Originally Posted by Driller1
I am sure that would be some kind of discriminant behavior........
No, it's called hiring the best qualified person for the job. If an employer has to pay more than any employee is worth they will be a lot more picky about who they hire, regardless of where they are from.
All of the college graduates that can't find a good job and have debt to pay off are going to start working fast food for the $15.
No, it's called hiring the best qualified person for the job. If an employer has to pay more than any employee is worth they will be a lot more picky about who they hire, regardless of where they are from.
All of the college graduates that can't find a good job and have debt to pay off are going to start working fast food for the $15.
How much is a fast food worker's worth?
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