4 ms·

Sure you can. That's unassailable logic. Every person earning minimum wage is a datapoint that you can use as evidence. How many people do you suppose are earni

by amalcon 16y ago

Sure you can. That's unassailable logic. Every person earning minimum wage is a datapoint that you can use as evidence. How many people do you suppose are earning minimum wage right now? Technically, to demonstrate that, you'd need to demonstrate that the minimum wage level is an outlier in the overall wage distribution. That should be very easy to see if we had a histogram of how many people earn a given wage, but my Google-fu is failing me on that point. There are two things an employer can do when considering an employee who they would prefer to pay less than minimum wage: either pay minumum wage, or don't have that employee. There's some cutoff as to which choice the employer makes. You can guess one way, as you do, and most minimum wage earners would be substantially harmed by the removal of the minimum wage. You can guess the other way, as grandalf does, and most current minimum wage earners would be either entirely or near entirely unaffected. Without numbers, either one is still a guess.

jacquesm 16y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_... specifically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Income-curve-$10k.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Income-curve-$10k.png http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032005/hhinc/new06_000.htm http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032005/hhinc/new06_000.htm Keep in mind that in increase or decrease of the minimum wage will affect all wages higher than minimum wage, with a more pronounced effect on the lower end of the scale. Minimum wage is 2% of the workforce for full-time employees, a much larger percentage when looking at part-time employees. Minimum wage is also usually found to be associated with either the young, the old or the uneducated, in other words, those that have a bad negotiation position.
- amalcon 16y ago
  It's a good start, but it's based on total income. So, someone with two minimum-wage jobs adding up to (say) 60 hours per week will appear above someone with a job paying twice minimum wage who only works 20 hours a week. That's not what we're looking for if we want evidence that minimum wage is increasing the wages of many on the low end of the scale. Unfortunately, this happens to be what the census bureau tabulates, which makes it hard to find the data we're actually looking for.

by amalcon 16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_... specifically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Income-curve-$10k.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Income-curve-$10k.png http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032005/hhinc/new06_000.htm http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032005/hhinc/new06_000.htm Keep in mind that in increase or decrease of the minimum wage will affect all wages higher than minimum wage, with a more pronounced effect on the lower end of the scale. Minimum wage is 2% of the workforce for full-time employees, a much larger percentage when looking at part-time employees. Minimum wage is also usually found to be associated with either the young, the old or the uneducated, in other words, those that have a bad negotiation position.

amalcon 16y ago
It's a good start, but it's based on total income. So, someone with two minimum-wage jobs adding up to (say) 60 hours per week will appear above someone with a job paying twice minimum wage who only works 20 hours a week. That's not what we're looking for if we want evidence that minimum wage is increasing the wages of many on the low end of the scale. Unfortunately, this happens to be what the census bureau tabulates, which makes it hard to find the data we're actually looking for.