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by culturalzero 3278 days ago
Ha,I am actually one of those people who were being studied. I was a minimum wage worker in Seattle through both of these wage hikes. There are a lot of assumptions being made here that don't reflect reality. The biggest though is that every single person is a rational economic played that is looking to maximize their income. The reality is that a huge number of people living on minimum wage here are depressed, and many don't want to maximize their income. They want to do as little work as they can to pay the bills month to month. They are prioritizing time NOT working over whatever pay they get. A susprising number of these people are actually great job candidates with great degrees and intelligence who are in a period of their lives where they are seeking out things other than immediate career goals or money.
2 comments
hammock 3278 days ago
So they don't want to maximize their income, rather, they want to minimize the hours needed to work to cover their bills. In both scenarios, the laborer is still chasing a higher wage (assuming hourly work). So not sure you're making sense.
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culturalzero 3278 days ago
Actually, how many low cognitive load, high paying jobs will allow people to work a casual 20 hour work week, and take days off or call in sick with little repercussions? Most middle class jobs, such as the one I have now will require a full time commitment, along with a higher cognitive load and responsility. Oh, and so those people who want to pay their bills and nothing more? When their wages went up, they had the leisure to work less.(I have no clue where UW got their mere 3% raise claim, I experienced a much larger bump) While cost of living has gone up in Seattle, there are countless ways to navigate that, as those familiar with living on less know.
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chris_va 3278 days ago
How was your experience in the study? Do you feel like the UW study missed any important questions or aspects of your life that would potentially alter their conclusions?

As for depression, from what I can tell of skimming the UW paper (hopefully I did not miss anything): they did not segment by education or earnings potential, and provide no insight into This seems fairly flawed, given that you would expect different subpopulations to respond very differently to a reduction in available hours.

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