Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Can Seattle Survive a $15 Minimum Wage?

Kshama Sawant advocate of $15 minimum wage.

Jason Russell at e21 writes:
With Seattle’s agreement to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, Seattle’s minimum wage will be one of the highest in the nation, matching the one approved by voters in 2013 in nearby SeaTac, Washington. The new minimum is a 61 percent increase from Washington State’s current minimum wage of $9.32, and will be indexed for inflation. The phase-in schedule depends on the number of employees in a firm and whether or not the firm offers health insurance, but for some the minimum wage will rise to $15 an hour as soon as 2017.... Kshama Sawant, a member of the City Council and the Socialist Alternative Party, opposes the mayor’s plan because the drastic increase will not occur quickly enough. “Every year of a phase-in means yet another year in poverty for a worker,” she said in a press conference last week. 
What kind of impact will this have on the Seattle economy? Russell notes:
With a $15 minimum wage floor, Seattle can say goodbye to many of its low-skilled workers. The city government must have decided it can do without them because of the city’s high-skilled workforce - Amazon.com and Nordstrom are two examples of corporations headquartered in downtown Seattle, in addition to several medical and biotechnology firms. Low-skill jobs remaining in the city will see increased competition, with medium-skilled, experienced workers winning out over low-skilled, mainly young, workers trying to reach the first rung of the career ladder.

Those working in restaurant, personal care, or building maintenance jobs will be most affected. These three occupational categories each have median hourly wages below $15.00 an hour, and comprise nearly 14 percent of employment in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metropolitan area (not to be confused with Seattle proper).

15 comments:

  1. Let's see how long that big smile lasts when the shtf.

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    Replies
    1. When things blow up the "free market" and "capitalism" will be blamed.

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    2. Anon @ 432PM-

      You're right, but we will have millions of articles and scholarly examinations of WHY the SHTF to prove that central government was the culprit. Central banks, central government policy, central industrial policy, etc. will be fingered as the culprit.

      That's why the US and The Elite are trying to start WW3- they see that their lies are falling apart and need a distraction.

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    3. True Rick. But most people won't care. They'll just brainlessly spout the bullshit they heard on TV. At least we'll have the information for the remnant to carry it on in the future. Maybe sometime in the distant future humans will grow up and discard the BS superstition that is government. At the very least they'll return to a minimal state (before it grows and destroys itself yet again).

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    4. I'm anon @ 3:02 pm and while I do not necessarily disagree that "the free market" and "capitalism" would probably be incorrectly blamed, the real trick is to continue pushing forward and persevere and not be distracted by the peripheral issues. A culture cannot be changed overnight.

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  2. Why only $15 an hour, that's not a living wage.

    Anything less than $1500 an hour is not fair and not a living wage. Since raising minimum wage is so positive with no negatives I say $1500 an hour!!!

    I'll be running on and getting elected on that platform soon!

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  3. Seattle... the next Detroit. The vast majority of us (the 99.999%) are going to be very poor in the future.

    A world based on each according to his ability to each according to his need is soon a world where nobody has any ability and everybody is in need.

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  4. Socialism has made her home country a cess pool and I guess she's determined to spread the misery. If she really cared about the poor, and I am willing to bet she does not (they are a convenient means to her ideological end), she would start businesses that would employ these low skilled workers and teach them skills. Her only solution is to steal from others and force others to do what she herself is incapable of doing. And you can bet when all this blows up, not one ounce of critical thinking will be applied by her as to why things went wrong, instead she'll blame everyone and everything else. I wish people like her could be sued for damages for the pain and suffering the implementation of their ideas cause. Other than being embarrassed, she has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

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    Replies
    1. Why should she bother THINKING when she can just have the government force everyone else to bend to her stupidity?

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  5. I'm glad the article notes the subsitution effect. Rather than paying a low-skill uneducated worker the new $15 minimum, restaurants will replace them with higher-quality workers. Observe the difference in the types of workers used by Starbucks (who pays their often college-educated baristas $12-$15/hr) versus Dunkin' Donuts (who pays their workers much closer to minimum wage).

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  6. Why so stingy, why not make it $50 an hour?

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  7. It always absolutely amazes me how differently people think and see things. I look at that socialist sign and I am both creeped out by it and horrified that people actually see it with joy. How how how can they not see destruction will be the end result beyond any short term gain for them. A rhetorical question yes, but boy would I love to be able to understand that thinking.

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  8. I say why not!!!! I have no problem with awful economic policies being implemented. My only condition is if there be at least one Libertopia. Instead of empyrically "proving" everything, we would have some pretty solid evidence to finally eliminate the poison that is statism.

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  9. Rather than arguing against this, libertarians should be out there advocating for an even higher minimum wage. $15? Pssh, I'll raise you $30. By fighting against it, all libertarians are doing is slowing the advance of socialism and not reversing it. It's a lot easier to explain away the problems with creeping socialism than it is for full bore socialism. Be the catalyst, not the inhibitor.

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  10. For the love of G-d, a Socialist world has been tried and it continues to fail. What does she think will happen when the American dollar can no longer support all the promises it backs? Human idiocy knows no bounds.

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