[quote=livinincali][quote=CA renter]
And in places where they’ve raised the minimum wage, often to some of the highest levels in the country…the calamity predicted by all of the right-wing economists didn’t happen.
I read the article and it seems fairly inconclusive to me. Only 1,600 people received wages and it’s a small community. Just because a hotel tries to expand to make up for the increased expense doesn’t necessarily mean it will work out. It could work but it’s too early to know. I think different parts of the country can withstand higher minimums and other parts might not. Seattle’s a fairly wealth place it might be able to withstand $15/hr, or maybe not I’m not really sure but I’d like to see the results. And not the results 6 months into it, more like 3 or 4 years.
It’s easy to say let’s help those poor workers with higher wages but ignore the possible unintended consequences. I want to understand those consequences. There’s definitely numerous factors in play fore any economy. Tax rates, natural resources, number of established businesses, weather/living conditions, wage rates, quality of talent etc. Opening a venture capital software company might not makes a lot of financial sense in the bay area due to tax laws, but it might make sense for other reasons. It hard to account for all that other stuff when looking at one input factor like minimum wage.
The only thing that really matters with minimum wage policy is can you shrink profit margin of the business paying minimum wage, without causing business closure and a loss of jobs.[/quote]
Agree that we need more time in order to see exactly what will happen, but most of the opponents of minimum wage claim that failure will come early on, since businesses don’t have time to adjust, and the additional purchasing power provided by minimum wage (if they’re even willing to admit that it exists…most min-wage opponents completely ignore it) will take awhile to circulate through the system, and businesses won’t be able to hold on while they wait for the increased revenues.
The point of this article is that none of it happened.
For the record, I think that minimum wage laws should be local, for the most part, but that the Federal govt can set a floor that wouldn’t harm the poorest communities in the country. Yes, different areas would be able to support different minimum wages due to all of the reasons you’ve stated above (resources, population density/wealth/income, proximity to high-wage job centers, local industry sectors, etc., etc.).
Personally, I favor allowing businesses to choose between either a minimum wage, OR a ratio of highest employee/owner compensation to lowest employee compensation — maybe 3X? — so that very small businesses who perhaps have one employee can choose the second option. In most small companies that I’ve worked for, the owners made only slightly more than the lowest-paid worker. In some cases, the owner made even less. I can see the need to protect these smaller companies from having to pay all of their employees a rather high (minimum) wage when they *honestly* cannot afford it.
For corporations, I think that profits should always be split in a more equitable way among ALL stakeholders, and that would include employees. Since most employers seem to be completely unwilling to do this on their own, minimum wage (or similar) laws are needed to compel them to do so.
