Bush Supports Raising Minimum Wage...

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Here's what I'd do:

1 Get the US out of all international trade/globalization agreements besides NAFTA. Usa CIA intervention to do the same for MExico. Basically restore trade protection and put Mexico inside the US Tarriff wall. This would be to eventually boost mexico's standards of living and give the US easy access to oil in mexico.
2 Mkae the minimum wage be $7.50 per hour after taxes with a minimum "living wage" of $15.00 per hour after taxes.
3 Put in national healthcare but make a better plan for those who work( as in all plans cover emergencies but the national healthcare plan would cover more stuff for those who work)
4 Cut welfare to the bone for people who don't work but are physically able to but expand the welfare system out to help out those who need help but are working. Basically a focus on helping the working poor instead of the urban unemployed

[Silent Hunter]

It's just best for everyone that the Dems do something Bush won't veto. A Dem President from 2009 isn't guaranteed. A Dem Congress is more likely, but there's still a possibility that that could go in 2008.

Best get a raise while there's still a chance.

[Deano963]

The only effect raising the min. wage from (I believe) 5.15 an hour to 7.25, or higher, is to throw the current lowest-wage physical-labor workers into unemployment -- and replaced with a newer cadre of illegal immigrants who will work for 4 dollars an hour.

As mentioned before, the lowest-paid service workers will just be automated out of a job.

I believe Oregon's minimum wage is already $7.25/hr, and as far as I know, all of the low-skilled workers have not been automated out of their jobs.

All of this talk that an increase in the min wage will just put people out of jobs is silly. I'm sorry, but you guys know nothing of economics. Nothing like that has happened in states that already have higher minimum wages. Paying the lowest skilled workers more money will only stimulate more economic growth because you have millions of workers spending more, increase the tax base and decrease the money that government spends on social services just as it did in the 90's the last time the minimum wage was increased by Bill Clinton and the Republican congress. None of these doomsday scenarios that I always hear conservatives talking about like small businesses going under or illegals filling up the jobs have actually happened in states that already have their min wage set at or above $7.

[JSojourner]

What's truly hilarious about this is that Bush for some reason thinks he even HAS bargaining power in respect to the coming minimum wage increase.

Bargaining powers?  Hell, he has a MANDATE.  ;-)

[Storebought]

The only effect raising the min. wage from (I believe) 5.15 an hour to 7.25, or higher, is to throw the current lowest-wage physical-labor workers into unemployment -- and replaced with a newer cadre of illegal immigrants who will work for 4 dollars an hour.

As mentioned before, the lowest-paid service workers will just be automated out of a job.

I believe Oregon's minimum wage is already $7.25/hr, and as far as I know, all of the low-skilled workers have not been automated out of their jobs.

All of this talk that an increase in the min wage will just put people out of jobs is silly. I'm sorry, but you guys know nothing of economics. Nothing like that has happened in states that already have higher minimum wages. Paying the lowest skilled workers more money will only stimulate more economic growth because you have millions of workers spending more, increase the tax base and decrease the money that government spends on social services just as it did in the 90's the last time the minimum wage was increased by Bill Clinton and the Republican congress. None of these doomsday scenarios that I always hear conservatives talking about like small businesses going under or illegals filling up the jobs have actually happened in states that already have their min wage set at or above $7.

Oregon has the second-highest unemployment rate of all the West Coast (behind oil-and-gas Alaska), and it doesn't have the excuse of being a high-income state like CA or HI.

And have you paid attention to the two pages of previous posts about the replacement of supermarket cashiers by do-it-yourself counters? Sales clerks are among the lowest paid of service workers as per the

Furthermore, service jobs that can't be automated are simply moved overseas, ex. telemarketing jobs to India.

Source:  http://www.bls.gov/lau/

And, lastly, the very lowest of the low, namely agriculture and "hospitality" work, undocumented immigrants working sub-miminum wage have all but forced out Americans who work at minimum wage from those jobs http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5303325

The second paragraph is just unsubstantiated drivel.

[TomC]

Would raising the minimum wage impact the deficit, especially if it causes inflation? Would it mean more revenue collection, both general and for social security?

[Deano963]

Oregon has the second-highest unemployment rate of all the West Coast (behind oil-and-gas Alaska), and it doesn't have the excuse of being a high-income state like CA or HI.

LOL. The second-highest unemployment on the West Coast huh? Wow - the second-highest unemployment rate out of what, five states, and that's if you include Hawaii and Alaska.

And have you paid attention to the two pages of previous posts about the replacement of supermarket cashiers by do-it-yourself counters? Sales clerks are among the lowest paid of service workers as per the

Yes, I read those and they are crap. I don't know if you have actually been to a supermarket in a few years, but there are about 4 do-it--yourself counters to every 20 real cashiers at the big grocery or retail stores. And if you haven't noticed, they STILL have people attendants. Hardly evidence of people being layed off.

Also, neither you or anybody else has shown that the do-it-yourself counters are in ANY way related to workers being laid off due to increases in the minimum wage. If that were the case, would you please explain to me why there have been do-it-yourself counters here in Ohio for at least six years and we just this year approved an amendment to increase our min wage?

Furthermore, service jobs that can't be automated are simply moved overseas, ex. telemarketing jobs to India.
Source:  http://www.bls.gov/lau/

You're even dumber than I originally thought if you think that telemarketing jobs pay minimum wage in the first place and that they are moved overseas b/c of the minimum wage in this country.


Source:  http://www.bls.gov/lau/

And, lastly, the very lowest of the low, namely agriculture and "hospitality" work, undocumented immigrants working sub-miminum wage have all but forced out Americans who work at minimum wage from those jobs http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5303325

Well then, it would seem the solution to that problem would be to actually enforce the laws against employing illegal immigrants and actually enforce minimum wage laws. If these employers who are paying illegal immigrants sub-minimum wage were faced with heavy fines and/or jail time, this would cease to be a problem.

The second paragraph is just unsubstantiated drivel.

Translation: You have nothing intelligent to say to refute those facts.

Oh - and your entire response was drivel.

[Gabu]

Oregon has the second-highest unemployment rate of all the West Coast (behind oil-and-gas Alaska), and it doesn't have the excuse of being a high-income state like CA or HI.

And have you paid attention to the two pages of previous posts about the replacement of supermarket cashiers by do-it-yourself counters? Sales clerks are among the lowest paid of service workers as per the

Furthermore, service jobs that can't be automated are simply moved overseas, ex. telemarketing jobs to India.

Source:  http://www.bls.gov/lau/

And, lastly, the very lowest of the low, namely agriculture and "hospitality" work, undocumented immigrants working sub-miminum wage have all but forced out Americans who work at minimum wage from those jobs http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5303325

The second paragraph is just unsubstantiated drivel.

I was actually quite curious regarding how strong the relationship is between a higher minimum wage and a higher unemployment, so I decided to do some basic statistical analysis of the data.  Unemployment rates were taken from here, and minimum wage laws were taken from here.

The graph looks like this:



I didn't think that it'd be a 1-to-1 relationship, but I didn't actually think there'd be that little of a relation.

If you calculate the correlation coefficient (a measurement of how much two quantities are related based on a set of pairs of data), it comes out to 0.116.  This coefficient can be between 0 (no correlation whatsoever) and +/- 1 (perfect linear or inverse correlation).  A value of 0.116 indicates almost no correlation whatsoever.

Since the correlation coefficient is nonetheless greater than 0, this indicates that there may be a slight contribution to unemployment rates from a higher minimum wage, but it's slight, at best, and there would be many much stronger factors contributing to unemployment.

[Deano963]

By the way, Hawaii has the lowest unemployment rate of all of the "West Coast" states and as of Jan 1st, it's minimum wage will increase from $6.75 to $7.25.

In fact, Hawaii has the lowest unemployment rate in the entire country.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

By the way, Hawaii has the lowest unemployment rate of all of the "West Coast" states and as of Jan 1st, it's minimum wage will increase from $6.75 to $7.25.

In fact, Hawaii has the lowest unemployment rate in the entire country.

How dare you counter blind ideology with hard numbers and facts!

[bullmoose88]

By the way, Hawaii has the lowest unemployment rate of all of the "West Coast" states and as of Jan 1st, it's minimum wage will increase from $6.75 to $7.25.

In fact, Hawaii has the lowest unemployment rate in the entire country.

How dare you counter blind ideology with hard numbers and facts!

Well, think about it this way Don...

If Hawaii raised its minimum wage to $20 where could businesses relocate, but still reach those markets?

Kinda easy to do that when you're an island

[memphis]

There will never be a shortage of minimum wage jobs because the turnover rate at places like fast food, restaurants, and big box retailers is insanely high. These places are always hiring because their staff is constantly quitting. People are unemployed not because they can't find any work at all but because they see the lowest skilled/payed jobs as not being worth their time.

[bullmoose88]

There will never be a shortage of minimum wage jobs because the turnover rate at places like fast food, restaurants, and big box retailers is insanely high. These places are always hiring because their staff is constantly quitting. People are unemployed not because they can't find any work at all but because they see the lowest skilled/payed jobs as not being worth their time.

Assuming they can't automate.

Which means, the cost of labor has gone up...which means...the price of goods has gone up...and if you didn't get a raise...you just lost real income. Hopefully not to much to notice.

[Storebought]

Oregon has the second-highest unemployment rate of all the West Coast (behind oil-and-gas Alaska), and it doesn't have the excuse of being a high-income state like CA or HI.

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The Department of Labor itself divides the states into classes, one of which is in fact "Pacific Coast" -- a group containing some 47 million people.

Furthermore, didn't I point out that Hawaii is a high-income state, which would imply -- to an extent -- that it is currently at full employment?

As for Oregon, it is among the ten states with an unemployment rate statistically different from the US average:

 Table A.  States with unemployment rates significantly differ-
   ent from that of the U.S., November 2006, seasonally adjusted
   --------------------------------------------------------------
                 State          |           November 2006       
   -----------------------------|--------------------------------
   United States................|                  4.5           
                                |                               
   Alabama......................|                  3.2           
   Alaska.......................|                  6.4           
   Delaware.....................|                  3.6           
   District of Columbia.........|                  6.0           
   Florida......................|                  3.3           
   Hawaii.......................|                  2.3           
   Idaho........................|                  3.3           
   Iowa.........................|                  3.4           
   Kentucky.....................|                  5.5           
   Maryland.....................|                  3.9           
   Michigan.....................|                  6.9           
   Minnesota....................|                  3.9           
   Mississippi..................|                  7.5           
   Montana......................|                  2.8           
   Nebraska.....................|                  3.1           
   New Hampshire................|                  3.5           
   North Dakota.................|                  3.3           
   Ohio.........................|                  5.4           
   Oregon.......................|                  5.3           
   South Carolina...............|                  6.6           
   South Dakota.................|                  3.2           
   Utah.........................|                  2.6           
   Vermont......................|                  3.7           
   Virginia.....................|                  3.0           
   Wyoming......................|                  3.0           
   --------------------------------------------------------------

So, absolutely, yes, Oregon's (and Ohio's BTW) workers are overvalued -- raising the minimum wage to whichever will not change that fact.

And have you paid attention to the two pages of previous posts about the replacement of supermarket cashiers by do-it-yourself counters? Sales clerks are among the lowest paid of service workers as per the

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I guess you're not old enough to remember when people went to banks and asked human beings for withdrawals. The ATM has made that bank function all but obsolete (with exceptions such as inner city areas, etc.) People are still wary of depositing checks to ATMs, but even that will change as electronic recognition of signatures improves. 

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You ignorant idiot: the NPR show Marketplace
ran a report on just this very topic:

Greg Buzek is the president of IHL Consulting. He recently did a study on auto checkout lines in the grocery business.

 GREG BUZEK: Self checkout has typically gotten a bad rap. People have looked at it and said, 'Oh they're just trying to cut jobs with self checkout.' Actually it's quite the opposite and evidence of that is when is the last time you went into a supermarket and saw all 16 lanes setup and ready to take customers. They're simply aren't enough people to take those jobs.

So it comes down to supermarkets either (1) hiring live cashiers at increasing wage (2) not hiring cashiers, but replacing them with machines. According to this article, figure which one is the more popular option.

As for Ohio, you can darn well find Ohio's regulatory statutes for yourself. Do your own homework.

Furthermore, service jobs that can't be automated are simply moved overseas, ex. telemarketing jobs to India.
Source:  http://www.bls.gov/lau/

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You can't be serious! Telemarketing is infamous for its minimal incomes and high turnover:

Reinforcing the economic tightrope many telemarketers face is the fact that the national mean hourly wage for sales occupations is $13.46 compared to the national mean hourly wage for teleservices representatives of $9.67, or $3.80 below what others make in the sales profession.

Still further:  their national mean annual wage of $20,285 compared to the national mean annual wage of other sales professionals, which is $ 31,535, and the national mean wage of all workers, which is $37,005.

Source: www.ftc.gov/os/comments/dncpapercomments/supplement/dmas.pdf

And this is true even after considering the biggest states have ~$7 minimum wages, or in the Northeast, unionized workers, already.

But their wages won't increase if you raise the federal min. wage, since they are already above them.

And, lastly, the very lowest of the low, namely agriculture and "hospitality" work, undocumented immigrants working sub-miminum wage have all but forced out Americans who work at minimum wage from those jobs http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5303325

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Finally, some sense. But even that has become standard rhetoric with little chance of implementation. The recent immigration sweep of a Swift meatpacking plant brought out the panjandorums of the Wall Street Journal.

The second paragraph is just unsubstantiated drivel.

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... from a guy who didn't post a single thing based on anything other than his own opinion

[opebo]

4 Cut welfare to the bone for people who don't work but are physically able to but expand the welfare system out to help out those who need help but are working. Basically a focus on helping the working poor instead of the urban unemployed

You poor sap, whether a person is employed or not is in no way under their individual control or 'responsibility'.

[Storebought]

Oregon has the second-highest unemployment rate of all the West Coast (behind oil-and-gas Alaska), and it doesn't have the excuse of being a high-income state like CA or HI.

And have you paid attention to the two pages of previous posts about the replacement of supermarket cashiers by do-it-yourself counters? Sales clerks are among the lowest paid of service workers as per the

Furthermore, service jobs that can't be automated are simply moved overseas, ex. telemarketing jobs to India.

Source:  http://www.bls.gov/lau/

And, lastly, the very lowest of the low, namely agriculture and "hospitality" work, undocumented immigrants working sub-miminum wage have all but forced out Americans who work at minimum wage from those jobs http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5303325

The second paragraph is just unsubstantiated drivel.

I was actually quite curious regarding how strong the relationship is between a higher minimum wage and a higher unemployment, so I decided to do some basic statistical analysis of the data.  Unemployment rates were taken from here, and minimum wage laws were taken from here.

The graph looks like this:



I didn't think that it'd be a 1-to-1 relationship, but I didn't actually think there'd be that little of a relation.

If you calculate the correlation coefficient (a measurement of how much two quantities are related based on a set of pairs of data), it comes out to 0.116.  This coefficient can be between 0 (no correlation whatsoever) and +/- 1 (perfect linear or inverse correlation).  A value of 0.116 indicates almost no correlation whatsoever.

Since the correlation coefficient is nonetheless greater than 0, this indicates that there may be a slight contribution to unemployment rates from a higher minimum wage, but it's slight, at best, and there would be many much stronger factors contributing to unemployment.

Considering that about a quarter of min wage workers are teenagers, and about half are under age 25, their numbers in the job market fluctuate, so yes, there is little correlation.

But among the full-time working poor, namely the hospitality and food-service workers I mentioned earlier, the relation between current workers employed at min. wage being displaced by immigrants who will work for even less is clearer.

[John Dibble]

I can't say I like this - I don't want to see a universal standard on this. Cost of living varies from state to state. In my state $7.25 would be too high for a minimum wage, IMHO. $6.00 to $6.25 would be appropriate here(most low end jobs pay at least this here anyways though), though I still wouldn't raise it.

[memphis]

There will never be a shortage of minimum wage jobs because the turnover rate at places like fast food, restaurants, and big box retailers is insanely high. These places are always hiring because their staff is constantly quitting. People are unemployed not because they can't find any work at all but because they see the lowest skilled/payed jobs as not being worth their time.

Assuming they can't automate.

Which means, the cost of labor has gone up...which means...the price of goods has gone up...and if you didn't get a raise...you just lost real income. Hopefully not to much to notice.

There's not really any way to automate most of these jobs. If there were, companies would do it whether the going wage was five or seven dollars because it would save money either way. Minimum wage doesn't have a whole lot to do with it.

[TheresNoMoney]

I support raising the minimum wage to $7.25 in increments over 2-3 years. The ideologues on the right believe that this will hurt the economy, but in the states in which is there is a higher min. wage than at the federal level, this has not been the case.

Also, the federal miminimum wage increase in 1997 helped the economy.

[bullmoose88]

I support raising the minimum wage to $7.25 in increments over 2-3 years. The ideologues on the right believe that this will hurt the economy, but in the states in which is there is a higher min. wage than at the federal level, this has not been the case.

Ideologues on the right? Cute debate-labeling tactic, useless, but cute.

That aside, I want to bring up some anecdotal evidence, such that is, that Dazzleman raised earlier about how the type of jobs that would see a boost in wages from a minimum wage increase already have to pay more than what CT has set as the minimum wage in its state.

Why do you (the general, royal you) think that is?

Because in the particular county Dazzleman lives in, I think the daddy warbucks of all CT counties, Fairfield?, the market price for those types of jobs (S=D) already exceeds the national and even CT minimum wage.  Market forces (What I imagine to be the high cost of living and competing employers willing to pay...etc) have already established a market clearing price.

So, if the min wage is raised to 7.25/hr nationally, what will the effect be in Dazzleman's Connecticut?

If 7.25 is still lower than CT's wage? None.
If 7.25 is lower than the market price for the low paying jobs? None.

That goes for any place where market forces are already paying more than the state minimum wage.

But in places where the market wage is equal to, or less than the minimum wage, any increase in the minimum wage will create the condition or exacerbate the condition of S > D (Supply of Labor > Demand for labor) which is unemployment (Those seeking employment but cannot find any).

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Do you have any proof of a direct relationship where the wage increase helped, or are you making a baseless statement?

Because I can think of other possibilities here
a) The minimum wage actually hurt/dampened the economy but because the economy in the late 1990s was so strong (tech boom, competent leadership in the White House and in Congress) it didn't matter all too much.

b) The minimum wage prior to 1997 was so low that the market price for your walmart/low end job in most areas was already near 5.15/hr resulting in little if any loss of employment.
               1) Given that the late 1990s saw unprecedented boom and expansion with the rate of unemployment nationwide so low that economists thought that the natural rate of unemployment (5%) needed to be revised since inflation could be kept in check at unemployment rates of 4%...companies probably had to pay higher wages for employees to attract and keep workers.

or as you claim

C) The increase of the minimum wage at the very least was a correlation if not a causation of the strong late 1990s economy


Since you give me very little data or proof to go by...I can't possibly accept your assertion...find me some and I'll look at it.


But in summary...in all places where the market rate is close to, equal to, or higher than the proposed 7.25/hr for low level jobs, you will see little to no negative effect on unemployment...then again you won't see much "improvement" either since S is already roughly equal to D.

But in all places where the market rate is lower than 7.25, you will see unemployment which will vary depending on how close the local market rate (determined by cost of living, etc) is to the new price floor...the closer it is, the smaller the increase in unemployment will be...

In many cases its hard to determine what the market rate is, but here's a hint, if you say...live in a state that has a min wage of 5.15, the 1997 floor, but Sam Walton's stinking corpse pays that cashier/greeter, 6.50 or whatever, then it seems the market price would be higher than minimum wage (perhaps 6.50, but I'm not sure what effect a price floor would have on aa market clearing rate.)

[David S]

Oregon has the second-highest unemployment rate of all the West Coast (behind oil-and-gas Alaska), and it doesn't have the excuse of being a high-income state like CA or HI.

And have you paid attention to the two pages of previous posts about the replacement of supermarket cashiers by do-it-yourself counters? Sales clerks are among the lowest paid of service workers as per the

Furthermore, service jobs that can't be automated are simply moved overseas, ex. telemarketing jobs to India.

Source:  http://www.bls.gov/lau/

And, lastly, the very lowest of the low, namely agriculture and "hospitality" work, undocumented immigrants working sub-miminum wage have all but forced out Americans who work at minimum wage from those jobs http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5303325

The second paragraph is just unsubstantiated drivel.

I was actually quite curious regarding how strong the relationship is between a higher minimum wage and a higher unemployment, so I decided to do some basic statistical analysis of the data.  Unemployment rates were taken from here, and minimum wage laws were taken from here.

The graph looks like this:



I didn't think that it'd be a 1-to-1 relationship, but I didn't actually think there'd be that little of a relation.

If you calculate the correlation coefficient (a measurement of how much two quantities are related based on a set of pairs of data), it comes out to 0.116.  This coefficient can be between 0 (no correlation whatsoever) and +/- 1 (perfect linear or inverse correlation).  A value of 0.116 indicates almost no correlation whatsoever.

Since the correlation coefficient is nonetheless greater than 0, this indicates that there may be a slight contribution to unemployment rates from a higher minimum wage, but it's slight, at best, and there would be many much stronger factors contributing to unemployment.

Nice bit of work on the graph and correlation coefficients Gabu. May I ask what software you use for the correlation coefficients?

[bullmoose88]

Did I confuse everyone?

[Verily]

That's rather a surprise, albeit not an unpleasant one.

Not really. The Democrats had a veto-proof majority with the pro-minimum wage Republicans (the ones saving their political hides rather than standing their ground on the issue).

[jokerman]

Although I don't think it's necessarily accurate to measure it as Minimum Wage Rate vs. Unemployment.  If the data was available it would probably be better to study Minimum Wage Rate vs. long term (longer than the business cycle) change in unemployment after such increase is enacted.

[Colin]

Did I confuse everyone?

No I thought that was an excellent arguement.