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>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 mo

>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.

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.