[vgoh1]

Typical WSJ rubbish. Focus on anecdotes, like the guy who sacks over half of his staff because of a < 15% increase in minimum wage.

Having grown up solidly in the class of the "working poor", I can tell you a side of the story that is not often told - there is not enough difference in quality of life between "working poor" and just being on public assistance and unemployed. When you are unemployed, you get government benefits, and most people either have a side hustle (odd jobs under the table, or sometimes something blatantly illegal), or commit some type of fraud like claiming to live on their own when in fact they split rent between many people. I'm not judging here, it's just what happens.

So you get these people who make minimum wage, they aren't really living substantially better than those who don't work, yet they have to work 40 hours a week for some ahole with a Nepolean complex, and we wonder why so many people choose not to work?

The right-wing position is that we should slash benefits because of the lazy ones taking advantage of the system. The left-wing position is that all the poor are just misunderstood. My position is that, from experience, yes there are able-bodied people who are choosing not to work, it is a problem, and the proper way to deal with it is to make sure there are substantial benefits to having a job.

Yes, raising minimum wage will make a minor increase in unemployment, and will make a bit of hardship for a very small number of restaurant owners, those are valid points, that in my opinion are not terrible enough to keep the minimum wage low.

[CapricornNoble]

>>>Yes, raising minimum wage will make a minor increase in unemployment, and will make a bit of hardship for a very small number of restaurant owners, those are valid points, that in my opinion are not terrible enough to keep the minimum wage low.

Whats your plan for handling the resulting inflation, and the 2nd-order impact that rising prices has on both people on fixed incomes (retirees) as well as savers (destroying the long-term economic power of frugal citizens).

Also, below is a paper from 2014 that studied OECD economies and concluded minimum wage hikes cause unemployment, with their model predicting $10->$15 hike would result in a 3% unemployment increase. But hey, studies can manipulate the data to prove what they want. Check out the 2nd link to the SF Federal Reserve, which comes to similar conclusions.

[1]https://www.lifescienceglobal.com/pms/index.php/jrge/article... [2]https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economi...

[toomuchtodo]

Retirees and savers are not entitled to below market labor rates (nor interest rates high enough to live off of savings and investments [1] [2]). Save more and/or get a job.

Unemployment is at its lowest in 50 years [3]. This would be the ideal time to implement minimum wage increases, so any workers let go are reabsorbed into businesses that can pay the new minimum wage (while those that can’t go out of business). "Creative destruction" and all that jazz. The more disposable income minimum wage earners have, the more mobility they'll have, and with it the ability to move to locales with better housing affordability.

The Fed can’t generate a small bit of inflation with trillions in quantitive easing and holding interest rates down (and as a side note, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis has even said "Pay more" to attract the workers needed [4]); raising the minimum wage is unlikely to cause inflation any appreciable fashion (compared to existing housing and healthcare market dysfunction).

Previous HN thread 15 days ago [5], with WSJ article showing the federal minimum wage bump to $15/hr can be implemented with little downside, along with the CBO report the article is based on [6].

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-23/a-decade-...

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-27/intere...

[3] https://www.npr.org/2018/10/05/654417887/u-s-unemployment-ra...

[4] https://www.economist.com/united-states/2019/07/20/low-infla...

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20385740

[6] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/55410

[bryanlarsen]

In a well functioning market, inflation is purely a monetary phenomenon, raising the minimum wage should not affect it.

But you're right, rising rents are likely to capture much of the gain in the lower class. But that's because the rental market is not a well functioning market.

Rising rents should encourage more apartments to be built, stabilizing prices. Instead, NIMBY rules prevent them from being built, allowing rents to soak up all the gains.

Fix the root cause, don't use it as an excuse.

[anovikov]

How do you fix it, except dismantling democracy, simply sending unhappy locals NIMBYsts to gulags, or dismantling the capitalism, making the Valley just as unattractive as any other place? We had both of these in the Soviet Union and it didn't look nice.

[bryanlarsen]

Nope, it's just rules and bureaucracy. They were created by the state and can be removed by the state.

[anovikov]

But they are created at the will of the people, who live in those cities. They can't afford these rules to be broken - they will literally lose their life savings, their retirement, everything, if the housing cost drops. They would vote for everyone who promises to do exactly one thing: prevent any new residential construction around, and prevent (meaningful) mass transit from being built. Because both things depress their home values.

No other way around it except destroying democracy (or hollowing it out, when you vote but it doesn't matter, Putinist style), or destroying capitalism.

These things are just healthy signs that both capitalism and democracy actually work in your place, and are not fakes.

[brandmeyer]

> there is not enough difference in quality of life between "working poor" and just being on public assistance and unemployed.

> My position is that, from experience, yes there are able-bodied people who are choosing not to work, it is a problem, and the proper way to deal with it is to make sure there are substantial benefits to having a job.

This is the fundamental appeal of the UBI to me as a replacement for means-tested benefits. If the benefit is truly universal, then every bump in income actually does give you an increase in your personal revenue. Some people will choose not to work and just live on UBI. But I don't actually care all that much about them. UBI isn't enough to make anyone rich, and realistic proposals are still pretty minimal. The fraction of people who will take advantage of it to live a better life are the ones I care about.

[quaquaqua1]

In a perfect world, subsidies and welfare wouldn't exist because cost of living isn't artifically inflated by supply-favored laws. The reason college, houses, and health care are expensive are because of the laws preventing competition and increase of supply.

We don't live in a perfect world however, and I absolutely do not have the answer for what is the correct balance of subsidy and hard work.

[knightofmars]

As an addition, certain domains are also expensive because they are a natural monopoly and do not lend themselves to competition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

[dexen]

>anecdotes >guy who sacks over half of his staff

The real question is what the competitors will do.

Every change in economic policy, and in market situation, causes some participants to benefit, and others to be hindered [1].

When a business fires some of the staff, it may either end up improving efficiency (good for the business and the customers), or may open up a part of the market for competitors (good for the competitors and the customers). Watch the trend: if the competitors step up, build out, service more customers, perhaps even hire more staff, then the increase of minimum wage was good for the economy as whole. It would indicate the change closed up an existing inefficiency - people's effort, money, resources was being used suboptimally.

However if you notice the trend of the competitors not expanding out, or perhaps even undergoing the same contraction, then you read it as a signal of the economy being hindered by the change. It would indicate the change increased inefficiency - people's effort, money, resources starts being wasted.

I'm gonna preemptively note that the later scenario[2] would be consistent with the theory of several competing schools of economy.

--

[1] Obviously it's not a zero-sum game, but there is always a degree of give-and-take.

[2] It gets even more complex when businesses skirt the legally mandated minimum wage. Some work lines are partially exempt, like waiters. Some businesses hire undocumented workers, exploiting their aversion towards going to authorities.

[the_seraphim]

some jobs just don't need to be done, as in some companies shouldn't be operating.

a chicken shop in a town of vegans should be allowed to close

[dsfyu404ed]

>So you get these people who make minimum wage, they aren't really living substantially better than those who don't work,

Supporting yourself (by basically selling your labor) instead of relying on the government is worth something (non-tangible value, obviously) to a lot of people (though I suspect there are few of those people on HN). It makes you feel good (less bad) about your situation and frankly having your existence be dependent on some entity you have nearly zero control over sucks and is stressful.

Obviously on some level it comes down to personal preference but clearly a large subset of the population feels that minimum wage or nearly minimum wage jobs are a good enough deal relative to government benefits that they do them.

The people who I'd personally want to hire are the one's who are gaming the system by getting benefits and working under the table or having a side gig because they clearly know how to optimize for a given set of constraints. Unfortunately those are the ones that aren't in the job market.

[glenneroo]

I think you should indicate somehow that you've edited your comment (e.g. customary "EDIT" following your original comment), granted in your case, you changed your original comment entirely (after the apparent backlash at your disagreement with GP's comment), which is IMO somewhat disingenuous.

[dsfyu404ed]

I added two paragraphs. I didn't feel saying it was edited was warranted since it was an expansion rather than a change of meaning.

Also I agree with the GP comment, I was just expanding on the point about the people who aren't working and don't want to. I thought it was worth noting that that is not something many people can rationalize.

[icebraining]

> having your existence be dependent on some entity you have nearly zero control over sucks and is stressful.

Like your employer? Yes, it does suck, but there aren't enough well-paid freelance gigs.

[quaquaqua1]

This can be done with a hobby.

There is no reason to crucify ourselves in a stupid job if we could make the same amount of money with more freedom and less effort elsewhere.

[0027]

I'd bet everyone that plays the lottery, gambles, or wants a 4hr work week feels otherwise.

[asark]

Working for a petty autocratic bureaucracy is so inherently and intensely fulfilling, it's no surprise that so many rich people do it, even though they don't need to. /s

[lettergram]

Having worked with people on social welfare. 80% to 90% can do some form of work, but don’t. Personally, I think most people find it appalling.

An easy solution is to cut the benefits.

My personal thought is that we should lower minimum wage, but combine people who work under an income level benefits. With only full social welfare being allocated to people who can’t work.

Essentially, a minimum wage, but it’s a differential made up for after all options are exhausted.

[radcon]

> My personal thought is that we should lower minimum wage, but combine people who work under an income level benefits.

Huh?

It sounds like you're saying the government should subsidize even more shitty, low-paying jobs, but I can't be understanding that right...

[wycy]

No, an easy solution is to make it worthwhile to work by increasing the minimum wage.

The bottom has been so eroded that full time at minimum wage works out to $14,790/yr--and you seriously want to lower minimum wage? Less than $15k for an entire year of someone's life is less than how much my salary has increased in the past 3 years (w/o a job change). The idea that people still want to cut minimum wage and cut benefits is disgusting.

[lettergram]

Having lived in sub $15k a year, it’s pretty easily doable. That being said, they also rarely make just $15k, most have multiple jobs. Finally, you assume they should be making more or have a better quality of life. Unskilled labor really doesn’t have anything to bargain with, because they don’t provide much value. Arguing in relation to your salary is silly, because your skills have value (and from the sounds of it are growing in value). We can’t make up value, that’s why other people go from $15k a year to $0 a year when we take away their job by increasing minimum wage

[knightofmars]

> Having lived in sub $15k a year, it’s pretty easily doable.

Where?

Did you have any support networks (family, friends, etc)?

Were you on your parent's insurance at the time?

[icebraining]

I think the argument is that the wage paid by the employer would be added to some government subsidy.