States That Raised Minimum Wage See No Slow-Down In Job Growth

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States That Raised Minimum Wage See No Slow-Down In Job Growth

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday July 20, 2014 @12:30AM from the all-about-the-benjamins dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. Department of Labor has released data that some proponents of raising minimum wage are touting as evidence that higher minimum wage promotes job growth. While the data doesn't actually establish cause and effect, it does "run counter to a Congressional Budget Office report in February that said raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, as the White House supports, would cost 500,000 jobs." The data shows that the 13 states that raised their minimum wages in January added jobs at a faster rate than those that didn't. Other factors likely contributed to this outcome, but some economists are simply relieved that the higher wage factor didn't have a dramatically negative effect in general.

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Local testing works? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-20 00:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

So the federal government staying out of the way lets local laws be different and we can see if the changes are good or not? Then people can go to where the laws are how they like them instead of having bad ones forced on them at a federal level.
Its almost as if the whole system was set up like this so only the obvious non-controversial laws should be at the federal level and everything else should be local.
Screw that, its too hard to force your views on others in every location, they should just force eveything on a federal level without Congress so those people who don't agree with me don't get a say.
1. Re:Local testing works? by BlueMonk · 2014-07-20 00:44 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Moving to the state whose laws work best for you may work for people who can move, but I expect the people affected by these laws are pretty closely representative of the set of people who can't move.
2. Re:Local testing works? by CRCulver · 2014-07-20 00:54 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Then people can go to where the laws are how they like them instead of having bad ones forced on them at a federal level.
  
  For one, not everyone wants to move. Many of the people who call for a hands-off federal government would be quick to emphasize the value of family and stable local communities. Conservatives everywhere deplore the brain-drain and family disruption that comes with people migrating away from an area for better work elsewhere.
  But even when people want to move, there's a general expectation that things work more or less the same everywhere. Sure, there are still some cultural differences between large regions, but the US isn't 13 distinct colonies any more. If the American Revolution happened today in our hyper-connected world, there definitely wouldn't be the same call for devolution and autonomy as in the days of the Founding Fathers.
3. Re:Local testing works? by Ol+Olsoc · 2014-07-20 01:11 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Show me an area with a high minimum wage and I'll show you an area with a large illegal labor force making less.
  I travel all around the country and that's a very constant result. If you want to increase wages then 1) invest in education, and 2) change Free Trade to Fair Trade.
  Actually, why don't you show us? Give us the stats, man, or you're just one more trickle downer refusing to accept the idea that people who make some money, spend some money.
  
  --
  The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
4. Re:Local testing works? by volmtech · 2014-07-20 03:02 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I grew up in a farming area in the 1950's. Before welfare blacks and poor whites picked the produce. They were the migrants, working South to North. After harvesting apples and potatoes in Maine and Vermont they went back to south Florida for the winter. After welfare they didn't need to do that so the growers who had depended on them made agreements with work crew leaders to bring in illegals.
5. Re:Local testing works? by The+Evil+Atheist · 2014-07-20 03:08 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  A strict libertarian would expect infrastructure to be paid for by user fees.
  Which is what we call TAXES. That's why the GP is right to call it a fantasy. It is a fantasy to think individual user fees would be an efficient way of paying for widely used necessities.
  
  a libertarian would be extremely opposed to slavery.
  Libertarians that oppose the notion of a fair minimum wage is using slavery.
  
  I used to be very libertarian. I'm not anymore because a healthy libertarian society requires people to be intelligent and rational,
  And intelligent and rationality requires education on mass, which libertarians also don't want to pay for, making libertarianism a self-defeating system.
  
  --
  Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
6. Re:Local testing works? by Albanach · 2014-07-20 03:12 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Allow me to take these blinders off of you and show you the entire industry that is hiring illegals to pick your produce. In fact, do a search for "H2 workers" and be amazed by the wonders of our legal system.
  You seem thoroughly confused. You talk about an industry of illegals and then suggest we look at those legally here on H2B visas as an example.
  Are you suggesting that there's a huge amount of US workers just waiting to pick fruit and plant pine trees? And the only thing holding them back is that the minimum wage is too high?
7. Re:Local testing works? by BarC0d3z · 2014-07-20 03:21 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The outlook that states the pie is only so large - if I get rich someone else has to get poorer - is a fallacy perpetuated by progressives to justify redistribution. It's simply not how our economy works. But it is an economic reality that increasing the minimum wage decreases profits which increases costs to the consumer. That being said, if we are going to have a minimum wage at all, it should be reasonable with adjustments for inflation.
  
  I have no idea how you came up with the number 80% of Wal-Mart employees are on government assistance, but a report Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story, by Jason Furman - Obama's own advisor, states that the number of employees on public assistance is "in line" with other companies of its size.
  
  During the depression there was a continual migration of low-income workers as they looked for work. My grandfather in any given week was a hard-laborer, shoe repairman, piano tuner, and musician at night traveling around the Midwest, gone for weeks at a time. He'd go where he could find work. Choosing to live in places with insane home prices or property / sales taxes when you're out of work should be motivation to relocate to a place that can support you and work is plentiful.
  
  As an aside, there's plenty of above-minimum-wage jobs out there if you know where to look. The mikeroweWORKS foundation is a wonderful organization that promotes scholarships and training for those willing to work in skilled trades that are hurting for people.
8. Re:Local testing works? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-20 03:24 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  in their [conservative] "we will only be wealthy when you are as poor as possible" outlook,
  The idea that economics is a zero sum game where one person can only get rich if they make others poor is a Marxist viewpoint, not a conservative viewpoint. Economic conservatives recognize that the surest way to increase the wealth of as many individuals as possible is to promote wealth creation by maximizing economic freedom through low taxes, low regulation and strong protection of private property rights.
  Why would you accuse conservatives of having Marxist economic views?
  
  giving any employee any raise immediately causes the economy to fail,
  Conservatives don't oppose giving employees raises. They oppose govt mandates that force businesses to pay employees above labor market rates.
  
  and causes employers to throuw up their hands in defeat, and close their food stand, and we all starve to death.
  Spare us your histrionics. Forcing businesses to pay employees a wage determined by politics will either 1) be irrelevant because the the minimum wage is set below labor market rates or 2) cost jobs and, if the minimum wage is set very high, cause businesses to close.
  If you don't believe 2), then consider what would happen if the govt required all McDonald's employees to be paid at least $300/hr. How much would fries and a burger cost at McD's if every one of their employees were paid that much? Would you buy a McD's burger if it cost > $15? Of course, you wouldn't and no one else would either and so a $300/hr. minimum wage would kill businesses and jobs. A less extreme minimum wage would have the same effect although the magnitude would be smaller.
  
  But then there's that little thing of places like McDonald's giving employees directions on how to apply for food stamps and other Government assistance. ... Sounds kind of like business based socialism to me.
  The usual terms for this are "corporatism" and "crony capitalism", but, yes, you seem to have recognized a problem, although you have drawn the wrong conclusions. Govt creates the problem by setting up all kinds of handout programs and then taxes the snot out of companies in order to pay for the programs. Then you come along and complain that the same companies that are getting shafted with taxes and burdensome regulations shift some of their labor costs by paying their workers less and telling them to sign up for govt handouts. (Obamacare is by far the worst example of this, by the way, as everyone will see once it is fully in place and every company has dumped its employee health insurance plans.)
  In a world of greater economic freedom, the govt would dramatically decrease regulations and taxes and roll back handout programs, the economy would thrive, more companies would be created, jobs would be plentiful and wages would be bid upward as companies competed for workers by offering higher pay. Sadly, the statists have control of the political system and the country is getting f***ed up because of it.
  
  ... WalMart, ... WalMart ...
  
  WalMart is a great company and its employees are generally satisfied working there. Why the hate?
9. Re:Local testing works? by ShanghaiBill · 2014-07-20 04:21 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  JAIL TIME for those that hire the undocumented.
  Jailing non-violent people is idiotic. America already imprisons more people than any other country. The solution to illegal immigration is to deal with the fundamental causes. Mexico is no longer a net source of immigration (as many Mexicans return home as arrive). The biggest net sources are Central American countries experiencing extreme drug gang violence, such as Honduras and El Salvador. Ending the drug violence will allow these countries to stabilize and create local jobs for their people. And the best way to do that is broad legalization, which is already successfully happening in Colorado and Washington. Other states will hold referendums on legalization this November. We should be jailing a lot less people, not more.
10. Re:Local testing works? by The+Evil+Atheist · 2014-07-20 04:53 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  typical socialist mind-rot.
  Gotta love libertarian logically fallacious reasoning. Calling something a name constitutes an argument, apparently.
  
  Here's the test - can you decline to pay the fee, and therefore to use the service? No? It's a tax.
  Can you decline to use the service? Can you decline to use the economic benefits from having interstate highways? Can you decline to benefit from having clean water and safe food? Can you decline to benefit economically from a nationally enforced currency and social stability from a commonly applied law?
  
  Actually, yes you can. You decline to use the service by leaving society. Don't like it? Tough. You can actually leave, and you won't pay taxes. So by your very own definition, they are just as much fees as any other fee.
  
  Quality of life is not an entitlement and is only possible through joint investment from every member of society.
  
  What is fair can only be determined by consensual transactions arrived at in a competitive environment.
  Circular reasoning. By whose rules do you say that is the only possible definition of fair? Only if you buy into libertarianism do I accept those rules. I don't, so I don't.
  
  Furthermore, what constitutes a "consensual transaction"? Under contract law, consent does not exist if made under duress. Someone who accepts a job way below minimum living standards because they are pressed to do so is under duress, yet that is what libertarians like you like to take advantage of. Or do you mean to restrict consent to the consent of the employer, and not the employee? Only consent matters for the poor put-upon employer?
  
  Education is critically important, yes, which is exactly why we need a competitive market for it
  A non-sequitur if there ever was one, and also a tautology because, again, you'd need to assume libertarianism to accept your conclusion. Why do Americans continually ignore the examples of Scandinavian and German public education, as though other people have not already figured out how to make schools valuable without introducing social darwinist forces into education?
  
  You know the models of other countries are ALSO competition in principle, and your ilk's ideological and puritanical approach has failed compared to the competition. Like I said, your ilk's systems are self-defeating.
  
  --
  Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
11. Re:Local testing works? by Captain+Segfault · 2014-07-20 05:00 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  There's a large gap between the economy not being zero sum and an infinite pie.
12. Re:Local testing works? by guises · 2014-07-20 05:55 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Namely, our native poor aren't as desperate as they used to be.
13. Re:Local testing works? by Rob+Y. · 2014-07-20 06:47 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  This whole attempt to steer the discussion to one of illegal immigration is a cute trick, but it skirts the real issue. The minimum wage (which hasn't been adjusted for inflation in decades) isn't enough for someone working 40 hours a week (whether picking fruit or stocking aisles at WalMart, etc) to live on without some form of public assistance. So either:
  1) Accept this - and lobby for public assistance to make up the difference instead of against it.
  or
  2) Accept that the wage needs to be raised, because it's more important to the American ideal for a full time worker to be able to support themselves - if not themselves plus their children, than it is for employers to be able to squeeze every last bit of profit from their labor.
  or
  3) Admit that you're okay with America not being a place where all people who work can afford food, shelter and health care (i.e., perhaps not The Greatest Country On Earth (tm)).
  But the point of the article is that the argument that 'raising the minimum wage will kill jobs' has been disproved. To continue to scream it is to lie. But many of those are the same ones still touting that 'lower tax rates raise revenue' - despite the fact that that's not really what the Laffer curve says - and experience shows that we're on the part of the curve where that's not true anyway. In other words, it's a lie, based on a fantasy and/or propaganda - in the face of actual experience that demonstrates the opposite. That letting gays marry will destroy marriage and hurt children. I could go on...
  
  --
  Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
14. Re: Local testing works? by guspasho · 2014-07-20 10:48 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  It's called basic human dignity, and if you think working a full-time job should not by itself be enough to support oneself, you clearly do not believe in it.
Crazy by drsmithy · 2014-07-20 00:38 · Score: 5, Insightful

Economic activity is increased by more people having more money to spend ?
Inconceivable !
1. Re:Crazy by Mr+D+from+63 · 2014-07-20 00:51 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  States with the healthiest job situations were the first to increase minimum wage.
  
  Inconceivable.
2. Re:Crazy by drsmithy · 2014-07-20 01:38 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Nonsense and propaganda. You cannot state anything until those increases actually kick in and are in effect for some time.
  Actually I feel pretty confident stating that if more people have more money, economic activity will increase.
  Minimum wage is actually minimum ability.
  No, minimum wage is setting a floor on living standards.
  It cannot extract non-existing money from small business, but it can prevent people with abilities that are below minimum wage from finding jobs.
  If a business can't employ someone for minimum wage, then their business model is broken. They are basically saying that their product or service is of such little value, that people will not pay enough for it such that the workers involved in delivering that product or service can live a bare existence lifestyle.
3. Re:Crazy by Ichijo · 2014-07-20 02:02 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Economic activity is increased when wealth is transferred from people who "hoard" money to people who put it right back into the economy as soon as they receive it.
  
  --
  Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
4. Re:Crazy by nctritech · 2014-07-20 03:38 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Unemployed college age kids appreciate your benevolence and your prevention of them becoming "gas station slaves." They are happy that you have made the choice for them to remain unemployed and "free," and they certainly will not read your comment and think "being paid something is better than being paid nothing and going nowhere in life." /heapsofsarcasm
5. Re:Crazy by drinkypoo · 2014-07-20 04:03 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  So if you want to compare the trend of job growth increasing or decreasing, it looks like raising the minimum wage does hurt significantly.
  What kind of jobs are being created? Are they minimum-wage jobs that you can't actually live on?
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
6. Re:Crazy by sjames · 2014-07-20 08:27 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  One huge beneficiary of food stamps is WalMart. Without food stamps, their workers would be half dead from malnutrition and would frequently die right there in the store (bad for business). That would force them to raise pay. Thanks to food stamps keeping their worker units alive for them, they don't have to pay so much.
  So since WalMart isn't real commerce (being a huge welfare recipient), we should jettison it. Fortunately, by raising the minimum wage, we may yet salvage it as an actual contributor to commerce.
  As for the comment about cleaners, good luck selling food in a filthy restaurant that gets closed by the health inspector. The fact is, you would be forced to stop mooching off of the food stamp program and actually paying a living wage if you want to stay in business.
Duh by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-20 00:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

That is because the additional money goes back into the local economy and not into an offshore account.
Was there really an increase? by tomhath · 2014-07-20 00:51 · Score: 4, Insightful

Nine of the 13 states increased their minimum wages automatically in line with inflation
In other words, in most states there was no increase. The minimum wage wage boost followed the economic growth.
Re:10.10 per hour by rmdingler · 2014-07-20 01:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

Believe it or not, there exist poor people who are too proud to take the welfare. Imagine having to work two minimum wage jobs to make ends meet.
I am not supporting a hand out as much as a hand up, but if a person shows up to work everyday and does the job well enough to keep it,
he or she shouldn't have to apply for assistance to enjoy the basics of survival.

--
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Re:Short-Lived? by Bengie · 2014-07-20 01:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

When it pays more to be unemployed, just having jobs isn't enough, you need jobs that pay a livable wage.