I have taken a position with respect to the "min wage". And I am more than countering the bullshit I see from jem implying that a rise in the minimum wage would cause net job loss and business loss. FYI... from https://www.americanprogress.org/is...-reduce-taxpayer-subsidization-low-wage-work/ "... Phasing in a minimum wage increase between 2021 and 2025 would boost consumer spending and economic growth as the country recovers from the public health and economic crises. Different methodological approaches predict varying aggregate effects of minimum wage increases. However, calculations uniformly point toward wage increases begetting stimulus, especially wage increases for low-wage workers: The Federal Reserve of Chicago determined that low-wage worker households spent an additional $2,800 in the year after a $1-per-hour increase to the minimum wage. The most recent analysis from the Economic Policy Institute found that increasing the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 would generate $107 billion in higher wages. Their earlier analysis indicates that an increase from $7.25 to $9.80 per hour between 2012 and 2014 would have generated “approximately 100,000 new jobs.” The Institute for Policy Studies calculates that for every extra dollar going into the wallet of a low-wage worker, about $1.21 is added to the overall economy. Broad consensus in the academic research over the past 30 years has debunked the idea that raising the minimum wage causes employers to employ fewer people. Economists found that a $15 minimum wage would not reduce employment even in areas that currently have the lowest wages. Dozens of careful studies have explored how minimum wage laws affect earnings and employment, influenced by the seminal 1994 work of David Card and Alan Krueger. In spring 2019, prominent economists in the US and the UK published an analysis of 138 state-level minimum wage changes since 1979, finding that the overall number of low-wage jobs remained unchanged after the increase and that low-wage workers who were already earning above the minimum also saw modest wage increases. In fact, in 2014, the 13 states that raised their minimum wages added jobs at a faster rate than the states that did not, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. New analysis from CAP Distinguished Senior Fellow Austan Goolsbee shows that individual consumer choices driven by fear of COVID-19 infection—not legal closures or stay-at-home orders—largely drove changes in consumer traffic and spending. This indicates that once vaccination rates increase and fear of exposure decreases, consumer spending patterns will readjust if consumers have sufficient funds to spend. The post-pandemic economy will provide a strategic moment to ensure that those in low-income households (who are more likely to spend each additional dollar they receive in pay than higher-income people) will be able to increase their consumption as needed. New research demonstrates that minimum wage increases have a particularly strong effect on households’ real spending on food, particularly food prepared away from home. This category of increased spending would be particularly beneficial to a recovering restaurant sector. Ensure that taxpayers aren’t subsidizing corporations for workers’ low pay Paltry pay with ever-decreasing purchasing power ensures that many people who work full-time for minimum wage pay rely on programs such as SNAP and Medicaid to provide food and health care for their families. This effectively means that the federal government is subsidizing low-wage employers for their labor costs while their workers barely scrape by. CAP has a body of work demonstrating how minimum wage workers use SNAP to keep food on the table for their families—requiring taxpayers to subsidize corporations who underpay their workers. A groundbreaking 2014 CAP report by University of California, Berkeley economist Michael Reich and Rachel West found that a contemporaneous proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour would reduce SNAP enrollments by 3.1 to 3.6 million people, resulting in an annual decrease in program expenditures of nearly $4.6 billion. Rachel West then updated these figures in a 2015 CAP piece for proposals to increase the minimum wage to $12 per hour. West found that SNAP spending would fall by an estimated $5.3 billion each year in today’s dollars, saving taxpayers more than 7 percent in overall SNAP expenditures. When fully implemented, West also found that savings would total $52.7 billion over the following decade. In this piece, CAP highlighted a subsequent University of California, Berkeley study that estimated U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for $152.8 billion in government assistance programs for low-wage workers each year in lieu of their employers paying adequate living wages and benefits. In a 2019 piece, economist Arindrajit Dube examined the impacts of minimum wage hikes on workers in the bottom 30 percent of income, finding that increases confer significant income gains to these workers. Dube also observed that when accounting for the effects of government assistance programs (noncash transfers, including SNAP, school lunches, and housing subsidies) and tax credits (EITC and child tax credits), those income gains were only two-thirds as large. The offset represents a significant reduction in taxpayer expenditures, effectively substituting work-based earnings for public assistance. Dube also observes that a “reduction in public benefits like SNAP can be efficiency enhancing, since in principle these programs are funded using taxation that can have deadweight losses.” Reducing inequality will lead to higher, more sustainable growth Over the past decade, CAP research and policy recommendations have documented how inequality slows growth, with a particular focus on economic inequality that stems from structural racism and sexism. Decreasing income inequality and working toward the elimination of the wealth gap (another disparity that stymies overall growth) requires targeted policies to build economic security. Raising the minimum wage is one tool for combatting this inequality—and therefore stimulating growth. Women (and women of color in particular) are overrepresented in minimum wage work, and CAP research demonstrates that this is especially true in occupations in which people receive tips but are paid as little as $2.13 per hour by their employer. The National Women’s Law Center calculates that “for women working full time in states with a minimum wage of $10 per hour or more, the wage gap is 34 percent smaller” than the wealth gap in states with a $7.25 minimum. CAP research shows that 64 percent of women were the sole or primary breadwinner for their family in 2017, and women account for most consumer spending in the economy. Nearly 59 percent of workers who are paid the federal minimum wage are women. Therefore, increasing the minimum wage is particularly likely to stimulate consumer spending. Black and Latino workers are disproportionately represented in occupations with the lowest wages. Nearly one-third of all Black workers and one-quarter of all Latino workers would get a raise under a $15 minimum wage. Decreased income inequality would lead to an increase in overall economic growth, as economic growth in the United States is constrained by income inequality. Conclusion Rather than continuing to subsidize corporations that pay paltry wages to workers—which means that those workers must find necessary support in the social safety net—a higher minimum wage would boost millions of families out of poverty and further stimulate the economy. As we move toward a post-pandemic economic recovery, increased money to families who are the most likely to spend any marginal dollar will have an outsize effect on consumer spending. A minimum wage increase would give an overdue raise to workers and would be well-timed for an economic recovery. Lily Roberts is the managing director of the Economic Policy Team at the Center for American Progress. Ben Olinsky is the senior vice president for policy and strategy at the Center.
I did not comment about consumer spending or govt revenues... What I said was... . ECONOMY Raising minimum wage to $15 would cost 1.4 million jobs, CBO says https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/08/rai...would-cost-1point4-million-jobs-cbo-says.html
And... if you were really concerned about inequality we would cease taxing anyone but the top .2 percent. The idea of income taxes on the middle class and lower upper class to combat inequality is insane. And if you were really concerned about jobs... our politicians would cease importing about a million potential workers a year and let our citizens wages and standard of living go up for a decade or two.
This chart makes perfect sense when you add the dates when a new minimum wage was adopted. What is does show is that any disruption from going to 15/hr over 4 years will be virtually non-existent, since most workers are already well above 7.25 and many are already at 15 or higher. The overall economic benefits of going to 15 minimum are such that we would be absolute idiots not to mandate this wage increase over the next four years. As things are now, under paying all these low wage workers is a real drag on the demand side of our economy. And that's before any moral consideration of paying people starvation wages so they have to depend on food stamps to get by...!
That's the headline to grab your far-right-wing-conspiracy-loving attention. Now read the full report and look at the assumptions and you'll quickly draw a different conclusion if you have even one foot on the ground.
How does this wage hike help the greater economy. Only 2% of the workforce is there now.If you look at people over 30 then number drops by half All it does is push up all the higher pay levels I would rather exempt all minimum wage earners from paying any taxes
Oops, I think you may have answered your own question. (assuming you are right of course)! The effect comes from the pay boost and greater prosperity in Romney's 47%, and that is way more than 2 %!!!! This is a case where a rising tide lifts all the little boats and leaves the big yachts untouched (they're either moored in deep water or sailing the high seas, whereas the little guys are currently high and dry on sand bars.) This is demand side stuff we are talking about; not supply-side stuff that is the darling of every red blooded Republican, but unfortunately trickles down too little to float even the smallest of boats.
You've lost your train of thought. We are talking the economy and the moral issue here. (mostly.) Inequality is a social issue that has serious negative repercussions for some democracies, particularly ours. Perhaps you should start a new thread.