5 ms·

> Facile example: as a middle class guy, I can pay $5 for a box of blueberries and just have them in the house. $10 pushes it to be a treat that I would buy ten

> Facile example: as a middle class guy, I can pay $5 for a box of blueberries and just have them in the house. $10 pushes it to be a treat that I would buy ten times less often. $20 makes it a luxury I buy once a year at most. Minimum wage is $7.25 so $15 would double the wage cost worst case. The price raising to $10 due to that makes two incorrect assumptions: 100% of the cost is labor and blueberry price is determined by the supply side cost. There is no world that doubling the minimum wage result results in quadrupling the blueberries to $20 in your example. In reality labor costs from the farm to the market are at most 10% (rice in 2018 was 3%) assuming no profit margin from there to purchasing from the store you could have at most a 5% increase in prices caused directly by this rise. And that assumes everyone is paid minimum wage. BTW a random search points to the average wage of a blueberry picker being $16 which is already over the $15 mark. > fight for people working illegally under the table for less than the minimum (which has to be part of the plan if you intend to have any honesty in your approach) I don't know why we have to mix the two, either can be done on their own. > If this pushes the cost of blueberries to the point where normal people won't buy them anymore, the business model becomes unsustainable. To reiterate the price of blueberries isn't based on their costs, it is based on how much people are willing to pay for blueberries. > As the wage rises You do realize that 75% of US workers make more than $15/hr right? And that the bottom 25% makes the smallest impact on the economy due to making the least right? > And yet, we'll survive it. But let's not kid ourselves: the standard of living for the poor isn't going to get any better by changing this number. Only in your weird economic world where you have decided that the cost of everything is decided purely on the minimum wage. You are predicting the outcome that was the start of your argument. "If everything goes up because minimum wage goes up there is no point in raising the minimum wage" however you totally failed to make any effort to prove your point beyond if people make more things cost more. While true in an absolute sense it is not at all a 1:1 relationship that you have decided it is with no references. > try calculating your salary as a function of the minimum wage - if you made 3x before, maybe you make 2.5x now; if you made 1.25x before, maybe you make 1x now.... So if we halved the minimum wage my cost of living will go down by half? > For brief periods of time while the market settles, those at the minimum wage line will have an advantage, but once the price of goods and services finishes rising to compensate, it's back to square one. You have put zero effort to show that this is a true statement yet you keep repeating it.

core-questions 7y ago
> To reiterate the price of blueberries isn't based on their costs, it is based on how much people are willing to pay for blueberries. The price of everything is based on its cost, in the sense that nobody is going to lose money in order to get them to you. > You do realize that 75% of US workers make more than $15/hr right? And that the bottom 25% makes the smallest impact on the economy due to making the least right? It's the group of people right above minimum wage who are harmed the most, because they won't see any proportional raise. Of course, even if they did, it'd just amplify the negative effects. If we did have some proportional wage adjustment mechanism, it'd almost be better to just scale it _down_, instead.... but a steady state at the very least allows natural price discovery to have a chance to adjust everything back to natural levels. The continual raising of the minimum wage (among other factors, of course) contributes to distortions in pricing that will eventually resolve themselves, but once they do, advocates will get right back out there and ask for $20, $25... > So if we halved the minimum wage my cost of living will go down by half? Obviously not, it's a nonlinear relationship, but just because it's not a simple or well defined function presently doesn't mean the relationship is not there. It's absolutely the case that some things would get cheaper for you, yes. Probably not luxury goods, but a lot of your staples would - and these are things that all of us need. > You have put zero effort to show that this is a true statement yet you keep repeating it. I've put in a lot of effort commenting all around this thread. No need to result to this kind of rhetoric. If you don't understand price discovery, that's fine; it's a natural phenomenon that happens whether you do anything or even believe in it or not.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  "Obviously not, it's a nonlinear relationship, but just because it's not a simple or well defined function presently doesn't mean the relationship is not there. It's absolutely the case that some things would get cheaper for you, yes. Probably not luxury goods, but a lot of your staples would - and these are things that all of us need." I feel this is a case where an intuitive feeling for Amdahl's law might be useful. Although maybe people in these threads aren't typical HN types.
- Guvante 7y ago
  > in the sense that nobody is going to lose money in order to get them to you And yet all of your rhetoric doesn't attempt to show how they would suddenly be losing money if minimum wage went up. You need to at least talk about profit margins, portions of costs that are wages as well as the relative impact of that wage cost based on how expensive they were before the minimum wage hike. For instance if someone is making $45/hour they aren't going to suddenly go to $90/hour because minimum wage doubled. Obviously everyone above gets bumped and anyone near it is going to go up as well but the overall amount doesn't double so your wage adjustment should include that. > It's the group of people right above minimum wage who are harmed the most, because they won't see any proportional raise. Only if you believe the cost of everything is based exclusively on the minimum wage. > The continual raising of the minimum wage (among other factors, of course) contributes to distortions in pricing Feel free to point to anything that shows this is true > but once they do, advocates will get right back out there and ask for $20, $25... Please stop presupposing your argument and going off on tangents. My point of contention is that you cannot say that prices will linearly go up with minimum wage. > Obviously not, it's a nonlinear relationship But yet everything you say very explicitly says it isn't just a non-linear relationship but a 1:1 relationship. > It's the group of people right above minimum wage who are harmed the most, because they won't see any proportional raise To reiterate your previous point which again says "all prices are a multiple of minimum wage" > If you don't understand price discovery I do understand macro economic effects including price discovery but you haven't brought up any actual macro economic effects beyond the cost of things. > No need to result to this kind of rhetoric. I will keep using it as long as you keep failing to support your central point. Heck the only time you even acknowledge you then contradict yourself on it. No one who is fighting for a minimum wage of $15 is saying that everyone who is making minimum wage is going to be twice as rich if we make the change. Obviously it will result in increased costs in certain areas. For instance anywhere that relies on 80% minimum wage labor and a 30% labor cost will see a price increase of approximately 24%. However that is no where near the effect you are claiming.

core-questions 7y ago

> To reiterate the price of blueberries isn't based on their costs, it is based on how much people are willing to pay for blueberries. The price of everything is based on its cost, in the sense that nobody is going to lose money in order to get them to you. > You do realize that 75% of US workers make more than $15/hr right? And that the bottom 25% makes the smallest impact on the economy due to making the least right? It's the group of people right above minimum wage who are harmed the most, because they won't see any proportional raise. Of course, even if they did, it'd just amplify the negative effects. If we did have some proportional wage adjustment mechanism, it'd almost be better to just scale it _down_, instead.... but a steady state at the very least allows natural price discovery to have a chance to adjust everything back to natural levels. The continual raising of the minimum wage (among other factors, of course) contributes to distortions in pricing that will eventually resolve themselves, but once they do, advocates will get right back out there and ask for $20, $25... > So if we halved the minimum wage my cost of living will go down by half? Obviously not, it's a nonlinear relationship, but just because it's not a simple or well defined function presently doesn't mean the relationship is not there. It's absolutely the case that some things would get cheaper for you, yes. Probably not luxury goods, but a lot of your staples would - and these are things that all of us need. > You have put zero effort to show that this is a true statement yet you keep repeating it. I've put in a lot of effort commenting all around this thread. No need to result to this kind of rhetoric. If you don't understand price discovery, that's fine; it's a natural phenomenon that happens whether you do anything or even believe in it or not.

perl4ever 7y ago
"Obviously not, it's a nonlinear relationship, but just because it's not a simple or well defined function presently doesn't mean the relationship is not there. It's absolutely the case that some things would get cheaper for you, yes. Probably not luxury goods, but a lot of your staples would - and these are things that all of us need." I feel this is a case where an intuitive feeling for Amdahl's law might be useful. Although maybe people in these threads aren't typical HN types.
Guvante 7y ago
> in the sense that nobody is going to lose money in order to get them to you And yet all of your rhetoric doesn't attempt to show how they would suddenly be losing money if minimum wage went up. You need to at least talk about profit margins, portions of costs that are wages as well as the relative impact of that wage cost based on how expensive they were before the minimum wage hike. For instance if someone is making $45/hour they aren't going to suddenly go to $90/hour because minimum wage doubled. Obviously everyone above gets bumped and anyone near it is going to go up as well but the overall amount doesn't double so your wage adjustment should include that. > It's the group of people right above minimum wage who are harmed the most, because they won't see any proportional raise. Only if you believe the cost of everything is based exclusively on the minimum wage. > The continual raising of the minimum wage (among other factors, of course) contributes to distortions in pricing Feel free to point to anything that shows this is true > but once they do, advocates will get right back out there and ask for $20, $25... Please stop presupposing your argument and going off on tangents. My point of contention is that you cannot say that prices will linearly go up with minimum wage. > Obviously not, it's a nonlinear relationship But yet everything you say very explicitly says it isn't just a non-linear relationship but a 1:1 relationship. > It's the group of people right above minimum wage who are harmed the most, because they won't see any proportional raise To reiterate your previous point which again says "all prices are a multiple of minimum wage" > If you don't understand price discovery I do understand macro economic effects including price discovery but you haven't brought up any actual macro economic effects beyond the cost of things. > No need to result to this kind of rhetoric. I will keep using it as long as you keep failing to support your central point. Heck the only time you even acknowledge you then contradict yourself on it. No one who is fighting for a minimum wage of $15 is saying that everyone who is making minimum wage is going to be twice as rich if we make the change. Obviously it will result in increased costs in certain areas. For instance anywhere that relies on 80% minimum wage labor and a 30% labor cost will see a price increase of approximately 24%. However that is no where near the effect you are claiming.