Comments for Charles Lane Doesn't Like the Minimum Wage (see addendum) at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 28 out of 20 comments http://www.cepr.net Thu, 23 May 2013 02:24:02 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22104 @JP I didn't vote your comment down either. I really was trying to be helpful. I've seen a lot of nonsense comments all over the web, of course, but none quite as comprehensive as Kat's satire (nor as well written ha ha). Anyway, I'm still convinced that someone with those sentiments for real wouldn't use the word "selflessly". Though mostly because of my bias in thinking that they wouldn't know the meaning of the word, and so wouldn't use it. ;o) Maybe that's my bad. - watermelonpunch Thu, 21 Feb 2013 18:50:55 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22097 JP, I didn't take offense (nor did I vote your comment down.) - Kat Thu, 21 Feb 2013 08:07:57 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22095 Me. Thank you watermelonpunch and Kat. I needed clarification because I have heard Kat's words "for real". Now I try to hang out with a better crowd, and they can be hard to find. - JP Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:13:03 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22091 @ elboku Your number on median wage is low. The latest from the BLS is $775/wk. www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf - SqueakyRat Wed, 20 Feb 2013 08:22:08 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22088 Watermelonpunch-- thanks! I was going to respond to both of those posts. I'm all in favor of universal preschool, but why do we insist on such rube goldbergesque schemes to provide for a more equitable distribution of wealth. I loved the title of this post by the publisher of [i]The American Conservative[/i] http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/raising-american-wages-by-raising-american-wages/ (he wants a higher minimum than the ones Obama proposed in 2008 and 2012) There are nations that do not have government mandated minimum wages, but have far more equitable distributions of wealth-- I'm thinking of Scandinavian countries. What they do have is a lot more protections of the rights of workers to collectively bargain. - Kat Wed, 20 Feb 2013 03:41:04 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22086 There is a new group of 5 brief op-ed's in the NYT opinion section, called Room For Debate, where experts opine on how to prevent more bond rating fiascoes. None of the five mention Dodd Frank's Franken amendment: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/02/19/how-to-prevent-more-bond-rating-fiascoes You already pointed this out concerning NYT and WAPO this week: http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/nyt-and-wapo-cant-find-out-about-franken-amendment-on-bond-rating-agencies I guess if you can't defund Dodd-Frank away, or litigate it away, you can always just ignore it? - JaaaaayCeeeee Tue, 19 Feb 2013 22:47:42 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22084 I am not even going to comment on the "grease the lube" hypothesis. This idea that inflation that lubricates the employment market never sat well with me. How is inflation supposed to lube the job market, especially when corporations are sitting on a hoard of cash flows? Good by classical economics.... - Antiderivative Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:28:58 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22083 Yeah@Senator-Elect https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRx4vpNiq11qr05YH9A9LiN1RkxDS0ojevzZeL9YZbAg5dj1IlYGw This is a charade, right. - Antiderivative Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:57:39 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22082 @ JP I thought the last line rather gave it away, no? [i]"are so willing to selflessly share their profits"[/i] Would a real extremist defending "job creators" really say that? I'm really asking this as a question, not a snide remark. I can't judge the Poe's Law angle here, because I'm quite sure, based on other comments by Kat, that the term "job creators" wouldn't be used in seriousness. @ Antiderivative You have FALLEN into the trap???? For pity's sake, how is universal pre-school opportunities going to help the 40 year old childless person working a minimum wage job? Educational opportunities are all well & good. But to say that's all we need is to say that the men who collect your garbage so you don't have to live in filth, are not worthy of a living wage. The end result of this trap is to make moral and righteous the idea that as long as everyone has the opportunity not to be doing "underclass jobs" (that are vital to civilization), those who do (or must do) those jobs, can morally & righteously treated as little better than slaves. What's more, I think this is backward strategy thinking. If our janitors, garbage collectors, ditch diggers, and cafeteria servers were paid a fair living wage, the economic & educational opportunities would almost take care of themselves, for them, and their children. We need the people working in the hospital laundry & in institutional kitchens, people cleaning public bathrooms and working at the landfills. Or do you want to have to take grandma's soiled sheets home to launder them when she breaks her hip & needs to stay in the hospital? The idea that the solution to poverty is to make sure everyone has a "fair shot" at college is either: snobbish & arrogant, myopic & unthinkingly out of touch with their fellow humans, or just plain selfish & nasty. (Or, and I hope not, maybe all of the above.) - watermelonpunch Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:47:43 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22081 Thanks for these arguments. Very interesting. I was curious about whether a minimum wage increase is even better policy while the economy is in recession. Wage inflation is what we need in this situation, right? Thanks for your ongoing great work! - Senator-Elect Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:40:59 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22079 "Second off, there are better ways to help minimum wage workers besides lowering their wage." It should read."Second off, there are better ways to help minimum wage workers besides [u][b]INCREASING[/b][/u] their wage. Sorry, I can't edit comments, which works against me. I never get the English right in the first try. It is a constant struggle. However, I needed to correct this egregious mistake. - Antiderivative Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:39:40 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22078 I hardly know nothing about these minimum wars, and I am not the brightest economist in the room. I just started to delve into this topic less than a week ago. However, I feel it is something that we should discuss and I hope I can offer fresh eyes this debate. First off, from my understanding, Nuemark made his career off opposing the seminal work done by Card and Krueger. Card also lost "friends" due to his seminal work. "I've subsequently stayed away from the minimum wage literature for a number of reasons. First, it cost me a lot of friends. People that I had known for many years, for instance, some of the ones I met at my first job at the University of Chicago, became very angry or disappointed." http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_display.cfm?id=3190 Second off, there are better ways to help minimum wage workers besides lowering their wage. We could increase educational opportunities, or enact universal preschool. (I am not going to dig up the studies right now since you limit me to one link per comment...and plus I am lazy). However, the research points in the direction that universal preschool makes parents (especially working mothers) more productive and allows better opportunities. There are definitely better ways to boost opportunities for the poor/struggling besides raising the minimum wage. Honestly, I don't even seeing the minimum wage as a policy solution to any of our problems. Don't get me wrong I support it (I see more benefits coming from it than doing nothing), but I am largely ambivalent about it, unless you can prove it to be a stimulative measure. Just like most studies, raising the minimum wage will have negligible results. Bush raised the minimum wage by 24% during his tenure and the sky never collapsed. Obama proposes another 24% increase and this will hardly effect the economy. Much hullabaloo about nothing. - Antiderivative Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:34:23 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22077 "But the higher paid workers are revenue creators and the lower wage workers are just costs. Really, they're lucky they even have a job. Employers could do away with them altogether to really fatten their bottom line. Fortunately, we live in a society where the job creators are so willing to selflessly share their profits." I honestly do not know if you are making a joke or actually ascribe to the sentiments that would create those sentiments. Please clarify and set me straight. Thanks - JP Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:32:51 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22074 [quote]because to compete for talent a premium over the minimum for higher-level jobs is necessary[/quote] I was assuming that too. I imagine the cascading would only go so far up, with diminishing effects the higher the pay. But surely there would be a lifting of wages noticeable at the lower end. That's one thing i notice when people talk about the minimum wage. They say things like - but most minimum wage workers are young, part time, and yadda yadda. Well, maybe that's true (I don't know). But what about all the people working for $8.50/hr? Obviously a job that right now pays $8.50/hour, does so because they cannot pay minimum wage and fill the positions. Right? So if the minimum wage was $8.50/hr - those jobs would be forced into offering more too. That said, I hardly think raising the minimum wage would cascade up to CEO pay. ha ha ha. But I doubt anyone thinks they need a raise. - watermelonpunch Tue, 19 Feb 2013 12:00:56 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22072 ". . . yes the higher pay for minimum wage workers comes mostly out of other workers' pockets." Is there any empirical evidence for this at all? I doubt it. If there is any competition at all, employers have to compete for talent. It is far more likely that a minimum wage increase pushes wages up generally in a reverse cascade effect, because to compete for talent a premium over the minimum for higher-level jobs is necessary. The impact on the employer is moderated if not eliminated by (1) the fact that for most employers their competitive position will not be affected at all, since it applies to all their competitors as well (who most likely have a similar level of dependence on low-wage labor); (2) morale and productivity will improve at the bottom of the scale, with turnover and training costs reduced and benefiting the employer; and (3) the people with the highest marginal propensity to spend (and the least propensity to spend it outside the country on ski trips to Saint Moritz and condos in Nice) will have more money to spend, thereby increasing demand for many of the employers' goods and services. Applying Econ 101 analysis to the complex effects of requiring all employers who use low-wage labor to pay them more than a race-to-the-bottom wage is simple-minded in the extreme. - urban legend Tue, 19 Feb 2013 10:11:42 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22071 [quote]As for residential, unfortunately, the effect would work against helping the working poor---the more money working poor have to spend on housing, the higher they'll bid up the price of housing.[/quote] That happened without working poor having a living wage though. ??? - watermelonpunch Tue, 19 Feb 2013 08:11:35 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22070 Conservative critics of the minimum wage have referred to the EITC as a better way to deliver the same effect. That's disingenuous at best since conservatives would balk at the kind of tax increases necessary to provide more funding for the EITC. Lane simply inserts his preference for the EITC as a straw man to deflect attention from his basic ideology that labor should be as cheap as possible. - Mark Jamison Tue, 19 Feb 2013 07:14:52 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22069 [b]watermelonpunch[/b], [quote]Where is this addressed?[/quote] I think it comes from the very heart of the Ricardian analysis of land rent, "the margin of production." But I'm not sure, and I don't have time to read/think about the economics. [quote]And my first reaction to that was to wonder - But will it cause rentals to increase??[/quote] Whose rental? The effect I'm referring to is that it would come out of the rent of [i]commercial[/i] landowners (IIRC). As for residential, unfortunately, the effect would work against helping the working poor---the more money working poor have to spend on housing, the higher they'll bid up the price of housing. And in terms of the [i]land[/i] component (but not the component for improvements (buildings etc), that would all go to the landlord. Of course, the Georgist solution is to get rid of things like sales taxes and replace them with an ad valorem tax on land, perhaps combined with an ethic of decreasing housing prices by getting rid of zoning laws whose main effect is to constrain the supply of housing and thus increase its price. - liberal Tue, 19 Feb 2013 06:54:31 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22068 @ liberal [quote]Actually, IIRC I've seen a Georgist type claim that an increase in the minimum wage would mainly come out of landowners' pockets.[/quote] Where is this addressed? Because it's along the lines of what I thought when I first saw some "average people" worried about what effects a minimum wage increase would bring. The idea I saw most commonly expressed is the idea that if you raise the minimum wage, the cost of things you buy will rise up. And my first reaction to that was to wonder - [i]But will it cause rentals to increase??[/i] The reason this occurred to me is because, while I don't know if that would be the case or not, and I don't know of any polls regarding this... I have a strong suspicion that most wouldn't mind paying a bit more for stuff like milk, trash removal, and television sets, if they didn't have to pay 40-50% of their income for their basic housing expense. Anyone have any info on this idea? - watermelonpunch Tue, 19 Feb 2013 06:43:36 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-doesnt-like-the-minimum-wage#comment-22067 that should be 'our' and not 'are'- was typing 2 thoughts at once...darn multiple personalities... - elboku Tue, 19 Feb 2013 06:14:47 +0100