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**Team Sergeant** · 06-04-2014, 09:41

And what's actually going to happen...........

Forbes
6/03/2014 @ 11:08AM 15,237 views
We Can Predict The Effects Of Seattle's $15 An Hour Minimum Wage

It’s not difficult to outline some of the effect that this new $15 an hour minimum wage in Seattle is going to have. And I, for one, would rather hope that people are starting to study that labour market right now, so we can get a good idea of what it is like before that wage comes in. And then we can go back when it’s fully implemented and see what the effects have been. For my prediction is that the effects are not going to be good and it would be rather useful in future to have the evidence that large rises in the minimum wage really aren’t a good thing.

You know, before someone suggests it should be applied to the whole country? As, in fact, people already are?

The first and most obvious effect of a $15 an hour minimum is that there are going to be job losses. Don’t forget that the message from the academic literature is that “modest” increases in the minimum don’t seem to have “much” effect on employment levels. And we’d all agree that a $100 minimum would have rather large effects. So our puzzle here is to try to decide what is the definition of “modest”. Clearly $100 an hour isn’t. But also we can dismiss something like $1 an hour as being problematic. Since no one at all gets paid a sum that small making the minimum $1, or $1.50, has no effect on anything whatsoever.

The best result we have from the academic literature is that a minimum wage in the 40-45% region of the median wage has little to no effect on unemployment. The reason being similar to that of a $1 one. So few people get paid so little that it just doesn’t affect the wages of anyone very much. The same research tells us that once we get to 45-50% of the median wage then we do start to see significant unemployment effects.

This $15 an hour in Seattle will be around 60% of the local median wage. We would therefore expect to see reasonably large unemployment effects.

cont:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworst...-minimum-wage/

06-04-2014, 09:41	#2
Team Sergeant Quiet Professional Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 20,929	We Can Predict The Effects Of Seattle's $15 An Hour Minimum Wage And what's actually going to happen........... Forbes 6/03/2014 @ 11:08AM 15,237 views We Can Predict The Effects Of Seattle's $15 An Hour Minimum Wage It’s not difficult to outline some of the effect that this new $15 an hour minimum wage in Seattle is going to have. And I, for one, would rather hope that people are starting to study that labour market right now, so we can get a good idea of what it is like before that wage comes in. And then we can go back when it’s fully implemented and see what the effects have been. For my prediction is that the effects are not going to be good and it would be rather useful in future to have the evidence that large rises in the minimum wage really aren’t a good thing. You know, before someone suggests it should be applied to the whole country? As, in fact, people already are? The first and most obvious effect of a $15 an hour minimum is that there are going to be job losses. Don’t forget that the message from the academic literature is that “modest” increases in the minimum don’t seem to have “much” effect on employment levels. And we’d all agree that a $100 minimum would have rather large effects. So our puzzle here is to try to decide what is the definition of “modest”. Clearly $100 an hour isn’t. But also we can dismiss something like $1 an hour as being problematic. Since no one at all gets paid a sum that small making the minimum $1, or $1.50, has no effect on anything whatsoever. The best result we have from the academic literature is that a minimum wage in the 40-45% region of the median wage has little to no effect on unemployment. The reason being similar to that of a $1 one. So few people get paid so little that it just doesn’t affect the wages of anyone very much. The same research tells us that once we get to 45-50% of the median wage then we do start to see significant unemployment effects. This $15 an hour in Seattle will be around 60% of the local median wage. We would therefore expect to see reasonably large unemployment effects. cont: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworst...-minimum-wage/ __________________ "The Spartans do not ask how many are the enemy, but where they are."
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