5 ms·

"Inflation-adjusted minimum wage imposed to all businesses/states. If they can't afford, they can go bust, like with any other cost of doing business." I have

"Inflation-adjusted minimum wage imposed to all businesses/states. If they can't afford, they can go bust, like with any other cost of doing business." I have no problem with a higher minimum wage, but that's rather like giving someone who has lost a lot of blood, a blood transfusion. It's good, but it's a stopgap measure that is ignoring a more fundamental problem, and if you're not stitching up the wound you're not doing much good. If jobs can be exported overseas to places with much lower wages (and lax/nonexistent environmental laws), then all a higher minimum wage (here) does is put more people out of a job. Higher minimum wage, ok, but it can't be done in isolation or you've replaced "low wages" with "no wages".

cool_dude85 5y ago
>If jobs can be exported overseas to places with much lower wages (and lax/nonexistent environmental laws), then all a higher minimum wage (here) does is put more people out of a job. As far as I know, the economic literature is pretty clear that this is not the case in the US. Even regional changes, where an employer can reasonably relocate outside the e.g. city boundary without much difficulty, don't show job losses.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  A lot of manufacturing left the USA along time ago due so I’m not sure why the economics literature says it doesn’t matter? Yes, the service jobs that now dominate in the USA are largely unaffected, but that’s more due to survivor bias than any underlying economic mechanism. Automation and self service (like in European cafeterias) is largely the response when services become too uneconomical to be done manually. Those elevator operators aren’t coming back to the USA.
  - cool_dude85 5y ago
    But there's no evidence I'm aware of suggesting that minimum wages were the cause of deindustrialization in the US. I suspect most of those factory jobs were far above the minimum wage. And people often wave the automation threat around - but why hasn't it happened yet? In concrete studies of minimum wage increases that actually occurred, we do not find job losses.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      Minimum wage in the USA has always been paltry, and increasingly irrelevant over time: very few work for it now. Labor costs rise because people at the low end get better options, not because of a gov mandated increase. But this is just the government being conservative, actual significant increases that affect more than one percent of the population will have an affect.
    - rossdavidh 5y ago
      Minimum wage is, sure, not the cause of deindustrialization. Rather, it's what people tend to advocate as a cure for a large underclass stuck in poverty, but it's not addressing the core issue. We have a larger underclass stuck in poverty, because the kinds of jobs that historically allowed them a way out of it were sent to places with even poorer people, and the change that allowed that was a change in government policy (tariffs, etc.). So a minimum wage, like a blood transfusion, might help out for a bit, but it's not addressing the underlying issue, which was a (major, sustained) change in government policy.
ddingus 5y ago
A ton of minimum wage jobs simply cannot be exported or automated at this time.
- pydry 5y ago
  Basically all jobs left. Your McDonalds Big Mac isnt getting grilled in the Phillipines.
  - ddingus 5y ago
    Exactly! And tons of those jobs are paying less than it costs laborers to work them too. That is a raw subsidy, and it's US paying so big players get a bigger profit. We should not pay a dime, and they make a smaller one, but they also earned it fair and square too, not mooching on the public dime.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    There definitely are experiments with robotic cooks [0]. Not widespread yet, but neither were cars nor computers in their early days. The ratio of robots to humans in kitchens is likely to grow in the future. From its current very low value to something more meaningful. [0] https://singularityhub.com/2020/11/06/flippy-the-fast-food-robot-just-went-commercial-and-its-selling-like-crazy/ https://singularityhub.com/2020/11/06/flippy-the-fast-food-r...
    - ddingus 5y ago
      It will be a long while. Besides, nothing about that automation actually changes the funding labor problem. I have always found it tough to sell a robot a good meal too. There will be basic labors we need doing and a lot of people doing them for the foreseeable future.
      - bumby 5y ago
        Wouldn't an automation tax change the funding labor problem?

cool_dude85 5y ago

>If jobs can be exported overseas to places with much lower wages (and lax/nonexistent environmental laws), then all a higher minimum wage (here) does is put more people out of a job. As far as I know, the economic literature is pretty clear that this is not the case in the US. Even regional changes, where an employer can reasonably relocate outside the e.g. city boundary without much difficulty, don't show job losses.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
A lot of manufacturing left the USA along time ago due so I’m not sure why the economics literature says it doesn’t matter? Yes, the service jobs that now dominate in the USA are largely unaffected, but that’s more due to survivor bias than any underlying economic mechanism. Automation and self service (like in European cafeterias) is largely the response when services become too uneconomical to be done manually. Those elevator operators aren’t coming back to the USA.
- cool_dude85 5y ago
  But there's no evidence I'm aware of suggesting that minimum wages were the cause of deindustrialization in the US. I suspect most of those factory jobs were far above the minimum wage. And people often wave the automation threat around - but why hasn't it happened yet? In concrete studies of minimum wage increases that actually occurred, we do not find job losses.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    Minimum wage in the USA has always been paltry, and increasingly irrelevant over time: very few work for it now. Labor costs rise because people at the low end get better options, not because of a gov mandated increase. But this is just the government being conservative, actual significant increases that affect more than one percent of the population will have an affect.
  - rossdavidh 5y ago
    Minimum wage is, sure, not the cause of deindustrialization. Rather, it's what people tend to advocate as a cure for a large underclass stuck in poverty, but it's not addressing the core issue. We have a larger underclass stuck in poverty, because the kinds of jobs that historically allowed them a way out of it were sent to places with even poorer people, and the change that allowed that was a change in government policy (tariffs, etc.). So a minimum wage, like a blood transfusion, might help out for a bit, but it's not addressing the underlying issue, which was a (major, sustained) change in government policy.

ddingus 5y ago

A ton of minimum wage jobs simply cannot be exported or automated at this time.

pydry 5y ago
Basically all jobs left. Your McDonalds Big Mac isnt getting grilled in the Phillipines.
- ddingus 5y ago
  Exactly! And tons of those jobs are paying less than it costs laborers to work them too. That is a raw subsidy, and it's US paying so big players get a bigger profit. We should not pay a dime, and they make a smaller one, but they also earned it fair and square too, not mooching on the public dime.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  There definitely are experiments with robotic cooks [0]. Not widespread yet, but neither were cars nor computers in their early days. The ratio of robots to humans in kitchens is likely to grow in the future. From its current very low value to something more meaningful. [0] https://singularityhub.com/2020/11/06/flippy-the-fast-food-robot-just-went-commercial-and-its-selling-like-crazy/ https://singularityhub.com/2020/11/06/flippy-the-fast-food-r...
  - ddingus 5y ago
    It will be a long while. Besides, nothing about that automation actually changes the funding labor problem. I have always found it tough to sell a robot a good meal too. There will be basic labors we need doing and a lot of people doing them for the foreseeable future.
    - bumby 5y ago
      Wouldn't an automation tax change the funding labor problem?