Concerning raising the minimum wage...

[Fountain79]

I'm not an economist nor do I pretend to be. Often when there have been talks of raising the minimum wage it has been met with arguments that it does more harm than good. Some argue that it actually pushes people out of the job market. What evidence has been shown to the contrary?

[Redstone]

1. Evidence? Don't need it. If the MW is raised, do you REALLT think that

McDonald's will cut the number of people it employs at each outlet?

I don't think they would.

The jobs need to get done.

Redstone

[I_Make_Mistakes]

3. Or they could cut the pay of the overpaid corporate mgmt. Oh,

the horror that their CEO might only make 260 times (rather than 262 times more) than their hourly worker. They CEO's sold their soul to the corporate Satan 10-20 years ago when they started dramatically escalating their salaries. In todays vernacular, this has been accepted as common practice, but it has not been long enough to actually have any validity to it. In my book, it will never be valid as a sound business practice.

[Redstone]

11. That's such a revolting fact that even pro-business publications like

Fortune and Forbes magazines bitch about it.

But the CEOs continue to rake in the obscene bucks.

Redstone

[uppityperson]

2. Having more people able to afford the minimum is good.

What evidence do you have that it pushes people out of the job market? I would suggest doing a google search as well as asking here. Or maybe someone has easily accessible bookmarked links to pass on.

It is difficult enough to be able to rent a place and buy partially healthy food on minimum wage, raising it makes it a little less difficult and is good for the ecomony since more real money is spent and less welfare is needed.

[Fountain79]

5. Here's one study.....

http://www.epionline.org/study_detail.cfm?sid=91&group=mw

[acmejack]

8. About the Economic Policy Institute and their "Study"

The Employment Policies Institute is one of several front groups created by Berman & Co., a Washington, DC public affairs firm owned by Rick Berman, who lobbies for the restaurant, hotel, alcoholic beverage and tobacco industries. EPI, registered as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, has has been widely quoted in news stories regarding minimum wage issues, and although a few of those stories have correctly described it as a "think tank financed by business," most stories fail to provide any identification that would enable readers to identify the vested interests behind its pronouncements. Instead, it is usually described exactly the way it describes itself, as a "non-profit research organization dedicated to studying public policy issues surrounding employment growth" that "focuses on issues that affect entry-level employment." In reality, EPI's mission is to keep the minimum wage low so Berman's clients can continue to pay their workers as little as possible.

EPI also owns the internet domain names to MinimumWage.com and LivingWage.com, a website that attempts to portray the idea of a living wage for workers as some kind of insidious conspiracy. "Living wage activists want nothing less than a national living wage," it warns (as though there is something wrong with paying employees enough that they can afford to eat and pay rent).
snip>

EPI's IRS Form 990 for the year 2000 shows $1,163,248 in income for the year, most of which ($940,593) came from 17 anonymous donors. Of that amount, $717,812 went to Berman & Co. for "management services," and another $165,766 in salary and benefits went personally to Rick Berman. Comparable figures appear in EPI's Form 990 for previous years.

According to the Right Guide, funders of EPI have included the John M. Olin Foundation and the Claude R. Lamb Charitable Foundation.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Employment_Policies_Institute

[gaspee]

4. It's pretty straightforward

Raising the minimum wage puts more money into the hands of people who need to spend every penny they make to get by. That money is then in the ecomomy instead of in a bank account somewhere, or in the stock market.

The real reason for being against a minimum wage increase is that it puts more money (not a lot, mind you) into circulation, sometimes raising inflation, but always taking money from either a company's bottom line, or from the investors.

That said, the overall net effect of raising the minimum is actually positive because more goods are purchased, requiring more workers. That in turn leads to more profit, which brings us to...

Their biggest fear is inflation which makes their saved money worth less. Poor dearies, their 10 million might become only worth 9 million 9 hundred 50 thousand.

I think a lot of the right, including people who like to think of themselves as fiscal conservatives also believe minimum wage is socialism. capitalism, make that crony capitalism, is their religion and suggesting the workers should make more is blasphemy.

[Fountain79]

6. Is there research that supports this? n/t

[I_Make_Mistakes]

7. There was a conservative witch on Leher last night, that provided

this explanation. I first want to say, I disagree with her view and would like to know where she got here economics degree so I don't waste any money on tuition to such a deluded educational establishment (she made a big point about her degree).

It's the conservative supply/demand argument. She states that demand would drive up salaries to an approbate level based on the supply. It is the typical conservative free market argument sans the they manipulate the supply being illegal immigrants, (just another divide and conquer tactic).

The conservative economic view could be legitimately argued, if they weren't always manipulating the other variables. They always present the argument but never in it's entirety. If the US working population was fixed (US citizens only), then the definitive supply of workers would drive up the salaries as demand for workers rose. The conservatives alter this equation by allowing the influx of non citizen workers to skew the supply of workers and stagnate if not drive down wages. The conservatives always do this with their policies, they present 1/2 truths that sound legitimate as they manipulate the variables to alter the scientific principles they are invoking.

[acmejack]

9. Of course there is

Debunking Conservative Rhetoric: How Increasing the Minimum Wage Benefits All Americans

Hard working Americans who work forty hours a week and earn the minimum wage still find themselves living below the poverty line, yet America’s CEOs enjoy great wage prosperity. In fact, had workers’ wages increased at the same rate as CEO pay since 1990, the minimum wage would now be $23.03/hour and the average production worker would be making $110,126/year instead of $27,460. Furthermore, members of Congress own salaries have gone by $31,600 since the last time they voted to increase the minimum wage.

While progressives are fighting to change the injustice of such wage disparity, conservatives have abandoned the American worker. Conservatives argue that increasing the minimum wage harms the economy by: (1) negatively impacting small business; (2) forcing job loss; (3) creating inflated wages all while only benefiting teenagers. Here are the facts:

Raises in the minimum wage have neither been detrimental to small business nor resulted in job loss and inflated wages. Furthermore, the stereotype that minimum wage earners are teenagers fails to consider that 35 percent of workers who receive a minimum wage are their families’ sole earners with 61 percent of those being women and almost one-third of those women raising children.

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=1453117

edit: One from ULA: http://www.iir.ucla.edu/scl/pdf01/scl2001ch6.pdf

edit: One from Cornell: http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=institutes

edit: GWU: http://www.gwu.edu/~medusa/minimum.html

[gaspee]

10. It's called

Econ 101

I'm not being flippant. I mean it.

[Homer Wells]

12. Same Old Same Old

This tired propaganda surfaces every time the suggestion of a raise in the Minimum Wage is proposed.
In my first job, back in 1963, the minimum wage was $1.10 per hour. When they decided to raise it to $1.50, the howls of big business was deafening. There was talk of major business failures,and of lost jobs for those depending on the minimum wage. That raise was passed, and the world went spinning merrily on. Again and again, over the years, this same cycle is run, and each time nothing happens.
Business would prefer NO minimum wage, paying workers what ever they decide is fair. You can see this even now, with the workers coming over the border being paid starvation wages.
Like I said, nothing new here.