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This has been studied over and over and always with the same results. The economy isn’t hampered, jobs aren’t replaced by machines and overseas workers, the cost of goods doesn’t go up, and factories don’t close. The main impact is that quality of life increases, health spending increases (now that people can afford to take their kids to the doctor), and corporate profits decrease very slightly.
Especially in this economy of runaway corporate greed, we need a meaningful increase in wages
corporate profits decrease very slightly
This is the thing that people will reflexively point to, but this:
quality of life increases
This is the real issue. If quality of life increases, workers are less desperate, and are less willing to put up with their employers BS. Moreover, if other jobs are also paying a living wage, it’s much easier to quit.
We have seen, over and over, that businesses are willing to spend money to exert control over workers. They’ll do it even if it means a decline in profits, or even in revenue. Because at the end of the day, if you have your needs met, any money left over is just power, and power is meant to be used to control others.
Especially in this economy of runaway corporate greed, we need a meaningful
increase in wagesrevolution to eliminate those corporations and the systemic rewarding of greed.The fact that they could increase wages and still make money while improving society but don’t, is why they don’t deserve any more benefit of the doubt, or room to continue hoarding wealth and power as they are, because a system that craves constant growth at any cost will never stop on its own (nor provide paths for reform).
Oh jobs are replaced by machines, it just has almost nothing to do with minimum wage. Machines cost pennies on the dollar for production value compared to humans. The human wage is pretty meaningless at that point, even forced labor is less profitable.
But, the line must go up…
All of those things do happen, they just happen irregardless of minimum wage being raised. Like, the machines are coming for all jobs eventually, that’s not a reason to not raise the wage for living workers.
IrregardlessregardlessLike it or not, it’s in the dictionary. =p
It’s also in Mean Girls 🤭
Remember that a definition is not an endorsement of a word’s use.
What’s your point? Because it sounds like you are saying people don’t deserve a living wage.
That’s not at all what I said. Everyone deserves a living wage and the US min wage is insultingly low.
So again, what’s your point.
I was agreeing with the person I was replying to, but reframing it. Automated jobs and outsourced jobs are not caused by increases to minimum wage.
Where I live, Washington, the minimum wage is $16.28 p/hour. Across the border in Idaho, the federal minimum applies — $7.25.
Businesses on the higher-wage side of the border are doing fine, and Spokaners do not drive across the border into Coeur d’Alene for cheaper groceries or a half-price Big Mac.
Spokaners do not drive across the border into Coeur d’Alene for cheaper groceries or a half-price Big Mac.
I actively boycott any and all ID businesses, because of the state’s shitty labor and reproductive-rights laws and its nurture of Christofascism. They can Gilead all they want but it won’t be with my financial support.
They just come into WA for the medical center and clog up the system. ID residents should be banned from receiving medical care in WA.
They should not, but they should pay “out of state” fees if they make over a certain amount.
I think Idaho should have to cover those fees as a penalty for not providing healthcare. Spokane’s hospital is over capacity pretty often, and a good portion of them are from Idaho.
ID residents should be banned from receiving medical care in WA.
But I think accelerationist policies often hurt vulnerable people…
They can go to their own hospitals instead of placing the burden on Washington
Sure. But this is kinda just accelerationism/xenophobia, no? For example, replace “Idaho” with “Mexico” in your argument, and it gets pretty ugly pretty fast IMHO.
Mexicans are sick and tired of Americans and their medical tourism coming down to Mexico for affordable health and dental care
Are they? They seem to be happy to take our money.
Does it? I think Canadians have hospitals and they can use those. Not seeing the ugly.
I’m seeing you being slapped in the face with their point and just refusing to acknowledge it. Cringe AF.
And what, die? I think keeping people alive and preventing unnecessary deaths should be the priority first and foremost. Idaho should be made to improve their healthcare infrastructure, and then we can force them to stay in their state.
But as of right now, the idea of turning someone down at the hospital because their ID says a different state does not sit well with me.
Idaho needs to help Idahoans, and not push them onto another state.
So… Nobody should work across state lines… In the “United” states… Doesn’t sound very United.
Yeah. I live in Seattle and had to travel a lot for work. Going out to eat was about the same price everywhere. The only thing that was really cheaper I could see was gas.
California recently increased minimum wage, and despite this, people still live there.
More than that, California (last I checked) had the fifth largest economy in the world when comparing to entire countries.
I think they’ll do just fine.
Economic models keep most numbers fixed to simplify their math. They call it ceteris paribus.
So when economists claim that increasing wages will reduce the amount of jobs, they came to that conclusion by keeping corporate profits fixed while doing their math. So any business expense is paid for by reducing workers or wages.
In the real world corporate profits are not fixed and have grown faster than wages for decades.
Keep that in mind if an economist ever tries to claim increasing wages will reduce the quantity of jobs.
Right. The problem is, CEOs maintain that as “responsibility to their shareholders” to ensure their Q4 earnings reports prove continuous growth. So prices will inevitably increase, or overhead will be reduced to maintain those margins.
Profits can go down slightly as long as it’s expected. The stock market is weird and the thing nobody likes is unexpected falling numbers. Stocks can maintain or even increase in value if the report matches the predictions and expectations. Even if that prediction is a slight lowering in profits.
Because people make money on businesses doing poorly as well by short selling
Well that’s a different case. That’s when the stock price goes down. Not necessarily when profits go down.
The price of progress is oppression, and the outcome of progress is that those who oppress get to enrich their own descendants so they can continue to oppress.
The price of progress is not oppression as oppression is the opposite of progress.
You are confusing corporate profit with progress.
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Nah, fuck all that.
Economists are also very aware of what they choose to keep fixed and what they choose to allow as a variable. It’s a science that’s incredibly easy to corrupt the results in. Which is why people really need to pay attention to who it’s giving the results.
None of the people uttering that lie will care about this news.
Increasing minimum wage puts more money in the economy which people will spend which puts more money in businesses so they can pay their people more putting more money in the economy.
The only reason the wealthy don’t like this is because their money passes through the hands of the unclean masses instead of going directly into their offshore tax haven accounts.
Yep.
Give a rich man a dollar and all you’ve done societally is remove a dollar from the economy. If you instead make him give that money to his employees things change, but cause poor people actually need money and will spend it.
You give a poor person that dollar through increased minimum wage and they spend it at a business. That business now makes more money, which is passed on to its employees through the increased minimum wage, and they spend that dollar again.
And again.
And again.
That dollar you took from the rich and gave to the poor drove a lot more than a dollar’s economic activity.
OH - and it’s also taxed every time it changes hands, so it also brings in more than its initial value in tax revenue.
The dollars are soiled by passing through the hands of the poor, though.
Have we not known this for years?
I’ve always used it as an example of when oversimplified chalkboard economics don’t match experimental reality.
Are the “oversimplified chalkboard economics” basically the businesses winging about having to pay people more?
What follows is incorrect
It’s a price floor, which creates a deadweight loss.
Since we’re also consumers, it’s a net loss.
If its a real business and not a grift or privtization of gains/socialization of losses, they will pay closer to the right wage to have the right people fill the chair
The only thing increasing minimum wage must do is take money out of the wealthiest pockets.
And that’s why wages stay stagnant.
Every other argument is a red herring.
Card and Kreuger found this out when they did a large study back in the 90s when each state could finally set its own minimum wage.
From the abstract of the actual study
We find that most studies to date suggest a fairly modest impact of minimum wages on jobs: the median OWE estimate of 72 studies published in academic journals is -0.13, which suggests that only around 13 percent of the potential earnings gains from minimum wage increases are offset due to associated job losses. Estimates published since 2010 tend to be closer to zero.
Raise minimum wage? No, tax cuts for only certain low wage jobs instead. What are you gonna do, vote for the other parties we’ve forced off the ballots?
That “Adobe Stock” photo from the article is just some generic AI crap.
The door is wide open for a stock photo business right now, I guess.
Isn’t that kinda what AI images should be used for? Meaningless stock images? Like, if the article was about a specific person, or an interesting activity or place, then yea that’s not for AI. But a generic article about “jobs” seems fine.
Hop on Adobe stock right now and search for something. Half of the results will be AI-generated. There’s a search filter that can exclude them.
The study is talking about overall numbers of jobs, not specific companies. Get fired from McDonalds closing a location, get a job with higher pay somewhere else that’s paying the new minimum wage, is a net zero result.
McDonalds is gutted that their 2024 earnings are on track for only a 5% increase over 2023, which saw a 10% gross profit increase for the year.
Remember when there was a “shoplifting crime wave” that it turned out was just profits were down so they had to blame something?
Ff is down because they got greedy and raised prices so that their food wasn’t exceptionally cheaper than the other options anymore which is the main reason people eat there. If people can’t afford the food anymore, that’s not the employee compensation, that’s bad business decisions. There was plenty of profit to cover the wage increases and still have huge profits if sales had stayed the same.
Fast food realized humans could be replaced by screens so the worker reduction trend was there long ago.
We’ve been having fewer and fewer cashiers at McD in my country for the past 5-10 years. Minimum wage HAS been increasing, but McD costs about the same as a real meal at a real restaurant anyway, and they’re constantly full.
Who even gets paid minimum wage? My kids started at fast food for several dollars above minimum, to where I’m not even sure what the point is.
I got paid minimum wage when I was a supermarket cashier.
You’re observing a snapshot period and confusing it for the whole.
