Minimum Wage Increase Kills Jobs, Increases Petty Crime?

Thikn2velvet1

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Opinion | Hidden Costs in the ‘Fight for $15’


Democrats in the House advanced a bill last month to more than double the nationwide minimum wage to $15 in 2024 from $7.25 today. It would be indexed thereafter to overall wages. Yet the evidence continues to show that trying to increase low-skilled pay by political fiat isn’t a free lunch.

New York City’s minimum wage rose again on Dec. 31. Businesses with 11 or more workers must pay $15 an hour, up from $13 last year and $11 in 2017. Employees who earn tips can be paid a lower rate, now set at $10 an hour for waiters, provided their total pay exceeds $15.



Is it merely a coincidence that the city’s full-service restaurants have fallen into a jobs recession? Employment in January dropped 3.7% year over year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the start of 2018, the Big Apple’s sit-down restaurants had 167,900 employees. This January, after the wage bump, it fell to 161,700, a three-year low. The preliminary February number is 161,000, even as overall city employment is up around 2% year over year.

The monthly jobs data can be noisy, but the trend fits what restaurateurs are saying. The New York City Hospitality Alliance surveyed 324 full-service eateries late last year. Nearly half, 47%, planned to eliminate jobs in 2019 to deal with higher labor costs. Three-fourths expected to cut employee hours, and 87% said they would raise menu prices.

Meanwhile, in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper posted last month, three economists examined whether minimum-wage increases had any effect on crime from 1998 to 2016. “We find robust evidence,” they write, “that minimum wage hikes increase property crime arrests among teenagers and young adults ages 16-to-24, a population for whom minimum wages are likely to bind.”


When Politicians Set WagesNew York City jobs in full-service restaurantsSource: Bureau of Labor Statistics
.thousand2013’14’15’16’17’18’19130135140145150155160165170175180
When politicians arbitrarily set the price of labor, young workers without skills can be locked out of the job market. That’s the finding in studies of Seattle’s wage mandate by a team at the University of Washington. The new wrinkle in the NBER paper is that some of these young people turn to petty crime.

What does this say about the Democrats’ idea for a nationwide $15 mandate? “Our estimates suggest,” the economists write, “that this minimum wage hike would generate over 410,000 additional property crimes and $2.4 billion per year in additional crime costs.” That’s perhaps extrapolating past the horizon. Yet the basic point holds. Democrats talk about a $15 minimum wage with little thought to unintended consequences.

Over its long history, the federal minimum wage has never been higher, adjusted for inflation, than it was in 1968: about $11.50 in 2018 dollars. In the past three decades, it has averaged around $7.50 in 2018 dollars, not far from where it is today.


How did Democrats settle on a goal of $15 anyway? An organizer with the Service Employees International Union, which is behind the public campaign, joked in 2014 that “it was a pretty scientific process: $10 was too low and $20 was too high, so we landed at $15.” The House bill would eliminate the separate lower wage for tipped workers, guaranteeing economic ructions in the restaurant business.

Don’t forget there’s no adjustment for the cost of living. A bunch of Democratic politicians, mostly lawyers, want to say that a cashier in New York, Texas (population nine) cannot be paid a dime less than the $15 an hour due in New York City. How could this not create unintended harm?
 
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Opinion | Hidden Costs in the ‘Fight for $15’


Democrats in the House advanced a bill last month to more than double the nationwide minimum wage to $15 in 2024 from $7.25 today. It would be indexed thereafter to overall wages. Yet the evidence continues to show that trying to increase low-skilled pay by political fiat isn’t a free lunch.

New York City’s minimum wage rose again on Dec. 31. Businesses with 11 or more workers must pay $15 an hour, up from $13 last year and $11 in 2017. Employees who earn tips can be paid a lower rate, now set at $10 an hour for waiters, provided their total pay exceeds $15.



Is it merely a coincidence that the city’s full-service restaurants have fallen into a jobs recession? Employment in January dropped 3.7% year over year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the start of 2018, the Big Apple’s sit-down restaurants had 167,900 employees. This January, after the wage bump, it fell to 161,700, a three-year low. The preliminary February number is 161,000, even as overall city employment is up around 2% year over year.

The monthly jobs data can be noisy, but the trend fits what restaurateurs are saying. The New York City Hospitality Alliance surveyed 324 full-service eateries late last year. Nearly half, 47%, planned to eliminate jobs in 2019 to deal with higher labor costs. Three-fourths expected to cut employee hours, and 87% said they would raise menu prices.

Meanwhile, in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper posted last month, three economists examined whether minimum-wage increases had any effect on crime from 1998 to 2016. “We find robust evidence,” they write, “that minimum wage hikes increase property crime arrests among teenagers and young adults ages 16-to-24, a population for whom minimum wages are likely to bind.”


When Politicians Set WagesNew York City jobs in full-service restaurantsSource: Bureau of Labor Statistics
.thousand2013’14’15’16’17’18’19130135140145150155160165170175180
When politicians arbitrarily set the price of labor, young workers without skills can be locked out of the job market. That’s the finding in studies of Seattle’s wage mandate by a team at the University of Washington. The new wrinkle in the NBER paper is that some of these young people turn to petty crime.

What does this say about the Democrats’ idea for a nationwide $15 mandate? “Our estimates suggest,” the economists write, “that this minimum wage hike would generate over 410,000 additional property crimes and $2.4 billion per year in additional crime costs.” That’s perhaps extrapolating past the horizon. Yet the basic point holds. Democrats talk about a $15 minimum wage with little thought to unintended consequences.

Over its long history, the federal minimum wage has never been higher, adjusted for inflation, than it was in 1968: about $11.50 in 2018 dollars. In the past three decades, it has averaged around $7.50 in 2018 dollars, not far from where it is today.


How did Democrats settle on a goal of $15 anyway? An organizer with the Service Employees International Union, which is behind the public campaign, joked in 2014 that “it was a pretty scientific process: $10 was too low and $20 was too high, so we landed at $15.” The House bill would eliminate the separate lower wage for tipped workers, guaranteeing economic ructions in the restaurant business.

Don’t forget there’s no adjustment for the cost of living. A bunch of Democratic politicians, mostly lawyers, want to say that a cashier in New York, Texas (population nine) cannot be paid a dime less than the $15 an hour due in New York City. How could this not create unintended harm?

Virtually all registered voters, Democrat and Republican alike, think that a Federal minimum wage is a good thing and want the value increased from its current $7.25 an hour which hasn't been increased in over ten years.

I think $15/hour is too high for a federal minimum wage, but people are left with a choice of a GOP who will do nothing (not even a small increase despite overwhelming public support for it) and Dems who are aiming too high.

*shrug*

Until the GOP takes its thumb out of its ass and puts forward legislation for at least a small increase they don't have much room to criticize.
 

Thikn2velvet1

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Virtually all registered voters, Democrat and Republican alike, think that a Federal minimum wage is a good thing and want the value increased from its current $7.25 an hour which hasn't been increased in over ten years.

I think $15/hour is too high for a federal minimum wage, but people are left with a choice of a GOP who will do nothing (not even a small increase despite overwhelming public support for it) and Dems who are aiming too high.

*shrug*

Until the GOP takes its thumb out of its ass and puts forward legislation for at least a small increase they don't have much room to criticize.

Voters thinking something is good doesn’t mean in consequence it will be good. Anytime one makes something more expensive, one always gets less of it. Always. This is a fact.

Right now the economy is ripping so I doubt many people are being employed at the Federal MW. I retain small share of ownership in 4 of the businesses I started, and we cannot get anyone to work the lowest position at less than $13.50 and that is simply to answer phones.
 

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What happens when you give poor people more money? They spend ALL OF IT, which boosts the economy. What happens when you give billionaires tax cuts? Their bank account grows, and the economy stagnates.

They don't create more jobs just to spend more of their money, they try to keep as much as they can without hiring more people in the first place.

Raising the minimum wage only helps the economy, it doesn't rip it apart.
 

Thikn2velvet1

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What happens when you give poor people more money? They spend ALL OF IT, which boosts the economy. What happens when you give billionaires tax cuts? Their bank account grows, and the economy stagnates.

They don't create more jobs just to spend more of their money, they try to keep as much as they can without hiring more people in the first place.

Raising the minimum wage only helps the economy, it doesn't rip it apart.

This makes no sense. What do tax cuts have to do with MW? And BTW if we forced the top 500 CEOs of the top 500 corporations to give up their entire salaries and bonuses, workers incomes would rise by 12c. $8 to $8.12. Look it up.

MW increases are borne mostly by small businesses. It is sad that YOU simply have no real understanding of how economics functions. You want to “ stick it to Mr Moneybags, but very few “ Mr Moneybags” employ people at minimum wage. You are sticking it to “ Mom and Pop.”

And there is no evidence that MW increases boost the economy.

Employment Policies Institute | New Study: Minimum Wage Increases Do Not Boost the Economy

And YOU CERTAINLY DID NOT READ THE ARTICLE I posted, did you?
 

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This makes no sense. What do tax cuts have to do with MW? And BTW if we forced the top 500 CEOs of the top 500 corporations to give up their entire salaries and bonuses, workers incomes would rise by 12c. $8 to $8.12. Look it up.

MW increases are borne mostly by small businesses. It is sad that YOU simply have no real understanding of how economics functions. You want to “ stick it to Mr Moneybags, but very few “ Mr Moneybags” employ people at minimum wage. You are sticking it to “ Mom and Pop.”

And there is no evidence that MW increases boost the economy.

Employment Policies Institute | New Study: Minimum Wage Increases Do Not Boost the Economy

And YOU CERTAINLY DID NOT READ THE ARTICLE I posted, did you?
Your original post was not an article, it was a opinion piece from the WSJ Editorial Board and really deserves no comment at all.
 

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This makes no sense. What do tax cuts have to do with MW? And BTW if we forced the top 500 CEOs of the top 500 corporations to give up their entire salaries and bonuses, workers incomes would rise by 12c. $8 to $8.12. Look it up.

MW increases are borne mostly by small businesses. It is sad that YOU simply have no real understanding of how economics functions. You want to “ stick it to Mr Moneybags, but very few “ Mr Moneybags” employ people at minimum wage. You are sticking it to “ Mom and Pop.”

And there is no evidence that MW increases boost the economy.

Employment Policies Institute | New Study: Minimum Wage Increases Do Not Boost the Economy

And YOU CERTAINLY DID NOT READ THE ARTICLE I posted, did you?

I didn't read the article, because it started with "opinion".

I can read other articles that aren't already giving opinions and come to with my own.
 

Thikn2velvet1

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What happens when you give poor people more money? They spend ALL OF IT, which boosts the economy. What happens when you give billionaires tax cuts? Their bank account grows, and the economy stagnates.

They don't create more jobs just to spend more of their money, they try to keep as much as they can without hiring more people in the first place.

Raising the minimum wage only helps the economy, it doesn't rip it apart.

A government report on MW workers.

Only 540000 now work at MW. 1.3 million work below MW but those are tipped workers and by law they must be paid above MW.

Walmart, the liberal’s boogeyman, has a nationwide MW of $11. Amazon MW is $15. I am a tiny part owner in a couple McDonalds stores, and we have no employee under $9.50 and the stores are no cash cows at all, the major owners do OK but they arent killing it, for sure.
 

Thikn2velvet1

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I make 15/hr.

I live in one of the lowest cost of living states in the country.

I am still *barely* getting by.

Take that for what it's worth.

It isn’t worth much since I don’t know your skills and education level.

From a distance, having read your posts and syntax, and as an employer, I would struggle to find a spot for you in front of customers, honestly. Behind the front counter, you might be great, but you would have to be a skills achiever. My behind the scenes employees, the ones that were constantly looking to learn, make $22-30 hr.

I pointedly ask peoples salaries as a rule everywhere, and for you to stuck at $15 makes no sense unless you are sabotaging yourself somehow.
 

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Your original post was not an article, it was a opinion piece from the WSJ Editorial Board and really deserves no comment at all.

No wonder you are frustrated by life, you are illiterate. The editorial was based around economist’s factual studies, not opinions.

This site is difficult to navigate using only picture book and comic book format, as you are clearly used to. You can still get “Dick and Jane” and McGuffey primers thru the net. I suggest you order them.
 

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I pointedly ask peoples salaries as a rule everywhere, and for you to stuck at $15 makes no sense unless you are sabotaging yourself somehow.

That's incredibly rude.

Your privilege is showing.
 

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No wonder you are frustrated by life, you are illiterate. The editorial was based around economist’s factual studies, not opinions.

This site is difficult to navigate using only picture book and comic book format, as you are clearly used to. You can still get “Dick and Jane” and McGuffey primers thru the net. I suggest you order them.
I'm afraid that you are confused. Editorials are by their very nature, opinions. The Editorial Board was giving their Opinion of an empirical study. Correlation does not equal causation.
 

Thikn2velvet1

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That's incredibly rude.

Your privilege is showing.

Rude but honest. Every job has a value limit. As an employer I want you to get better at your job so you can advance and get paid more. If you aren’t advancing you are doing something wrong. You are hurting your chances in some way. I guarantee it.

At a hospital, the lowliest paid are likely the cleaning staff and cafeteria workers. A cafeteria worker is never going to be paid like a med surg RN, and a Med Surg won’t be paid like an OR RN or ICU RN. Bump up the cafeteria worker and it will ripple thru the building and medical care will cost more.

I bet you and industrial didnt watch that vid.
 
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Rude but honest. Every job has a value limit. As an employer I want you to get better at your job so you can advance and get paid more. If you aren’t advancing you are doing something wrong. You are hurting your chances in some way. I guarantee it.

At a hospital, the lowliest paid are likely the cleaning staff and cafeteria workers. A cafeteria worker is never going to be paid like a med surg RN, and a Med Surg won’t be paid like an OR RN or ICU RN. Bump up the cafeteria worker and it will ripple thru the building and medical care will cost more.

I bet you and industrial didnt watch that vid.

Oh get the fuck over yourself.
 

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And you blame life for your deficiencies instead of yourself. You will always be stuck at $15/hr. Quit blaming others for your weaknesses.

Assuming so goddamn much about me, so fucking incredibly rude.

And YOU wonder why I take nothing your say seriously. Entitled as fuck is what you are buddy.
 
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No wonder you are frustrated by life, you are illiterate. The editorial was based around economist’s factual studies, not opinions.

This site is difficult to navigate using only picture book and comic book format, as you are clearly used to. You can still get “Dick and Jane” and McGuffey primers thru the net. I suggest you order them.
And you seem to habitually underestimate people. Good luck hiring people of genuine worth, with your mediocre level of insight.

I suggest you fuck off.