Seattle hates jobs

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Moliere
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Seattle hates jobs

Post by Moliere »

Seattle City Council approves historic $15 minimum wage
Molly Moon Neitzel, owner of Molly Moon’s ice cream, said the mandate will drive up her labor costs by $100,000 a year, but she expects to benefit from workers with more money to spend locally.

“A hundred thousand people next year will have more money in their pockets,” she said, referring to the estimated number of workers who now make less than $15. “They’ll have more money to buy ice cream.”
How can people be so economically ignorant as to think that artificially raising the wages won't drive up the cost of running a business? Prices will increase and people will lose their jobs. If prices increase how will someone have more money to buy ice cream? Politicians who pass these laws should be forced to run a small business first.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Isgrimnur »

*in 2017 or 2018 or 2019 or 2021

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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Moliere »

Isgrimnur wrote:*in 2017 or 2018 or 2019 or 2021
With both sides suing to speed up and slow down this timeline.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by LordMortis »

Remind me to scale back on tipping if I ever head to Seattle after 2021. This would be a good thing if you knew when a tipped employee was making $3.35 and when they were making $15... Short of the full $15 an hour mark. While $10 or even $15 is not a living wage, I don't come from the FDR that every wage needs to be a living wage. I think we have designed a society that pays 2nd wage earners and children less money for "lesser" jobs and I think that design decision is positive. OTOH, I think we do need enema for our pay scales, in general, though actually what I think what we really need is an enema to our taxation scales which hopefully would at least have the side effect of doing minor corrections to our pay scales.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Malificent »

Moliere wrote:Seattle City Council approves historic $15 minimum wage
Molly Moon Neitzel, owner of Molly Moon’s ice cream, said the mandate will drive up her labor costs by $100,000 a year, but she expects to benefit from workers with more money to spend locally.

“A hundred thousand people next year will have more money in their pockets,” she said, referring to the estimated number of workers who now make less than $15. “They’ll have more money to buy ice cream.”
How can people be so economically ignorant as to think that artificially raising the wages won't drive up the cost of running a business? Prices will increase and people will lose their jobs. If prices increase how will someone have more money to buy ice cream? Politicians who pass these laws should be forced to run a small business first.
So a minimum wage is not needed at all then? I'm not economically wise, so I'd be interested in an explanation as to why or why not the minimum wage?
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Alefroth »

With Washington state already having the highest minimum wage, I'd imagine they already have high unemployment and cost of living.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Isgrimnur »

National Unemployment 6.3%
Washington State 6.1%
Sea-Tac-Bellevue Unemployment: 4.8%
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Alefroth »

Forbes' best place to make a living
Forbes wrote:At the top of the heap this year is Washington.

“Washington is one of only eight states where the average wage is in excess of $50,000 a year,” Barrington says. “However, Washington is the only one of those eight states where high wages are not offset somewhat by a high cost of living. Each of those other states has a cost of living at least 20% higher than the national average; in Washington, the cost of living is only 2.5% higher than the national average, so the state’s residents get the benefit of high incomes without an unusually high cost of living.”

In addition, Washington has no state income tax, so its residents get to keep more of those high salaries, he says. “Finally, Washington also got an above-average ranking in a Gallup-Healthways poll about workplace environment.”
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by El Guapo »

Kind of sloppy of Forbes to say that no state income tax means that the residents get to keep more of their money, when obviously Washington state has other forms of taxes (the state funds itself somehow), so the question is Washington's overall tax burden, not whether or not it has an income tax.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Isgrimnur »

Their state sales tax is 6.5%. They may not tax income, but they get money from the businesses through the Business & occupation tax
The state B&O tax is a gross receipts tax. It is measured on the value of products, gross proceeds of sale, or gross income of the business.

Washington, unlike many other states, does not have an income tax. Washington’s B&O tax is calculated on the gross income from activities. This means there are no deductions from the B&O tax for labor, materials, taxes, or other costs of doing business.
They get their money one way or another.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by LordMortis »

Sloppy or intentionally sensationalistic (and misleading). I read the same oddity sticking out and read it as an attempt to preach an agenda I wasn't otherwise paying attention to. But then Michigan has a small income tax to supplement a large sales tax, so it sticks out as really strange.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by malchior »

Forbes is just plain sloppy. It prints a lot of garbage economics and is especially heavy in astroturf Heritage Foundation baloney.

Edit: As to the wage hike - it seems extreme. It'll be interesting to see if it causes noticeable business environment effects and I'm sure it'll be watched closely by other cities.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by LawBeefaroni »

I wonder what Washington looks like if you throw out Redmond on the income side. Their cost of living is 25% higher than the national average.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by hitbyambulance »

i am pretty conflicted about this. as a Seattle resident, i will say that the sales tax in the city is 9.5%, my rent is Pretty Darn High, and the city's/region's overall cost of living is not exactly what you'd call 'cheap'. there are quite a number of restaurants i won't eat at, because a $14 hamburger is just not acceptable, budgetary or otherwise. i can't help but feel that the subsequent price increases on... everything will nullify amount of the minimum wage increase for the lowest earners, thus resulting in nothing gained, and just making life more expensive as a result of this forced inflation. i'd like to be wrong about this prediction, so if you can prove it to me otherwise, i'd be happy to hear.

the s.o. made a good argument against this today, in saying that the slightly-above-low-income people are hit hardest. they are unlikely to get raises, so it is like a bunch of people who were scraping by OK are now demoted to the poverty line. (and you have to admit it would be somewhat crushing to work pretty hard to get promoted and raises over many years, and then suddenly everyone else just gets boosted to your pay level.)
Molly Moon Neitzel, owner of Molly Moon’s ice cream, said the mandate will drive up her labor costs by $100,000 a year, but she expects to benefit from workers with more money to spend locally.

“A hundred thousand people next year will have more money in their pockets,” she said, referring to the estimated number of workers who now make less than $15. “They’ll have more money to buy ice cream.”
there's a Molly Moon's sorta around the corner and down the street from where i live. good ice cream, but at $7.50 for a sundae, not only do i limit my indulgences there to about once annually, it kinda exemplifies my point. also, people buying more stuff is not going to do anything to bring cost of living down - it just lines the pockets of the owners of certain lines of business. i suppose weed sales will do quite well for the state government's finances.

on the other hand... there are some other countries with much higher minimum wage that we can look to as a potential indicator of what the future holds. if it turns out that the worst-off become less so, then it's a win for everyone.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Grifman »

hitbyambulance wrote:the s.o. made a good argument against this today, in saying that the slightly-above-low-income people are hit hardest. they are unlikely to get raises, so it is like a bunch of people who were scraping by OK are now demoted to the poverty line. (and you have to admit it would be somewhat crushing to work pretty hard to get promoted and raises over many years, and then suddenly everyone else just gets boosted to your pay level.)
How do other people getting raises and you not, push you below the poverty line? Nothing changed for you. I don't see that logic.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by stessier »

Grifman wrote:
hitbyambulance wrote:the s.o. made a good argument against this today, in saying that the slightly-above-low-income people are hit hardest. they are unlikely to get raises, so it is like a bunch of people who were scraping by OK are now demoted to the poverty line. (and you have to admit it would be somewhat crushing to work pretty hard to get promoted and raises over many years, and then suddenly everyone else just gets boosted to your pay level.)
How do other people getting raises and you not, push you below the poverty line? Nothing changed for you. I don't see that logic.
I think the general idea is raises lead to inflation. So if you were making $16/hour and were getting by while everyone was making $10/hour, you're going to be hurting when everyone is at $15 and prices of good adjust accordingly.

I don't know if it will happen, but I think that's the argument.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Isgrimnur »

Wages from anyone that wants to remain competitive in the labor market will raise wages as well. You won't be getting min+6 after the adjustment, but you shouldn't be getting $16 either.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by stessier »

Isgrimnur wrote:Wages from anyone that wants to remain competitive in the labor market will raise wages as well. You won't be getting min+6 after the adjustment, but you shouldn't be getting $16 either.
You're right - by ratio (16/10 = x/15) you should be getting $24. Don't see that happening though as nothing would change except everyone's number got bigger. If you get less than that, you've lost ground. I believe the fear is that If the raise is little enough, you may have lost enough ground that where you weren't hurting before you now are.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Isgrimnur »

I'm suggesting that it will be compressed. Without going into sliding scales, say everyone gets bumped up in diminishing returns. Take the range between $15-20 now might be compressed down to a $18-21 range, as those higher up get less of a bump. They maintain a positional advantage over those below them, but the bands get closer.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Pyperkub »

The thing is that it is pretty well established in Macroeconomics that raising minimum wages does have a positive affect on wages overall, and especially near the boundary.:

Enlarge Image
A higher minimum wage will lead to a significant boost in incomes for the worst off in the bottom 30th percent of income, while having no impact on the median household.

As many economists have argued, the minimum wage ”substantially ‘held up’ the lower tail of the U.S. earnings distribution” through the late 1970s, but this effect stopped as the real value of the minimum wage fell in subsequent decades.
Now, as to inflation - that's a bit different. There are a number of different ways inflation comes about - the one in question is cost-push inflation:
Economists call this phenomenon cost-push inflation. An increase in the federal minimum wage did create an increase in production costs, which subsequently resulted in an inflated price for consumers
As to Seattle - well, the Northwest needs hipsters who can afford $5 lattes. Even if they cost $5.25...
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by msteelers »

Isgrimnur wrote:Wages from anyone that wants to remain competitive in the labor market will raise wages as well. You won't be getting min+6 after the adjustment, but you shouldn't be getting $16 either.
That's inevitably true in the long run, but it's not going to happen overnight either. I would think it would take years in most cases to get back up above the minimum wage. That's almost certainly true in my case should the national $10.10 minimum go through.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Pyperkub »

Better employees in lower paying jobs too
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Montag »

How much new automation will result from this? Robotic welding, more auto cup fillers, heck McDonald's is experimenting with robotic sandwich makers. Expect to see more sophisticated vending machines. This will likely result in a net reduction in jobs.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Pyperkub »

Montag wrote:How much new automation will result from this? Robotic welding, more auto cup fillers, heck McDonald's is experimenting with robotic sandwich makers. Expect to see more sophisticated vending machines. This will likely result in a net reduction in jobs.
Not too much which isn't already on the way. In-n-Out pays higher than minimum wage, as does McDonald's Europe. They've been doing fine for awhile.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Redfive »

hitbyambulance wrote:i am pretty conflicted about this....

Please, if you would, report back this time next year with an update on the prices you pay for goods and services.

Having not kept up with the process of how this came to be, I'm assuming the majority of voters gave this the thumbs up. I can only assume that they all expect to pay significantly higher rates for..most everything that was normally supplied by workers making less than $15/hr.

I'm afraid many of them think that anyone that is a business owner just has all kinds of extra money laying around to pay higher wages.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by GreenGoo »

Redfive wrote:I'm afraid many of them think that anyone that is a business owner just has all kinds of extra money laying around to pay higher wages.
No, but the major employer's such as McDonald's, Walmart etc certainly do. You can see it in every quarterly report.

I feel for the small business owner. I feel nothing at all for the larger corps, who in all likelihood could take the additional payroll out of their profits without increasing costs to the consumer at all. Investors wouldn't like it, but fuck them. They'll get over it.

I too look forward to some price checks in a year or two. If someone wanted to do it right, they'd get cost of living indexes for various states now, and then again in a year or two. We should see a greater increase for California than for any other state that doesn't have extenuating circumstances (such as a natural disaster or their own minimum wage change).
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by stessier »

GreenGoo wrote:
Redfive wrote:I'm afraid many of them think that anyone that is a business owner just has all kinds of extra money laying around to pay higher wages.
No, but the major employer's such as McDonald's, Walmart etc certainly do. You can see it in every quarterly report.

I feel for the small business owner. I feel nothing at all for the larger corps, who in all likelihood could take the additional payroll out of their profits without increasing costs to the consumer at all. Investors wouldn't like it, but fuck them. They'll get over it.

I too look forward to some price checks in a year or two. If someone wanted to do it right, they'd get cost of living indexes for various states now, and then again in a year or two. We should see a greater increase for California than for any other state that doesn't have extenuating circumstances (such as a natural disaster or their own minimum wage change).
Why California? Vermont (or was it New Hampshire?) just upped their statewide minimum wage to the highest in the country - $10.85 I believe.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by LordMortis »

Yeah but everyone knows Vermont are a bunch of commies... with their universal health care and their insistence that we provide veteran's benefits and their stance on civil rights. (And the law was signed for $10.50 just yesterday)

Wasn't Vermont where all of the Libertarian wanted to move to a few years ago. Boy, I guess that's changed.

I'd like to see how that plays out in Vermont. Sadly, I would have much rather seen how their health care played out without introducing more turmoil first but Vermont is my favorite state to watch right now.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Moliere »

LordMortis wrote:Wasn't Vermont where all of the Libertarian wanted to move to a few years ago. Boy, I guess that's changed.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

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stessier wrote:Why California? Vermont (or was it New Hampshire?) just upped their statewide minimum wage to the highest in the country - $10.85 I believe.
You could do it for any state that had a minimum wage increase. I also mentioned that for our purposes (seeing how raising the minimum wage affects cost of living) that we should exempt states that also had minimum wage increases, since we're trying to see the difference between increases in cost for states with no change versus states with increases in wages.

I think it would be appropriate to do each state with a wage increase as a separate case, after which we could then compare the wage increasing states with each other.

Anyway, I'm certainly not going to do any of this work. If someone else was up for it, that would be cool.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

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GreenGoo wrote:
Redfive wrote:I'm afraid many of them think that anyone that is a business owner just has all kinds of extra money laying around to pay higher wages.
No, but the major employer's such as McDonald's, Walmart etc certainly do. You can see it in every quarterly report.

I feel for the small business owner. I feel nothing at all for the larger corps, who in all likelihood could take the additional payroll out of their profits without increasing costs to the consumer at all. Investors wouldn't like it, but fuck them. They'll get over it.
Of course the Wal-Marts and McD's can afford it and yeah, they employ a whole bunch of folks. It's the small business people (as usual) that are going to be most affected by this and I expect that's where the vast majority of employees are.

Our average employee makes about $13/hr--well over the minimum, but if we had to increase $2 an hour that would mean a rough annual labor increase of $134,000. We would have no choice but to pass that on to the customer. Actually, the other choice would just be to close the business.

So, costs would go up for the customer or 35 people would be looking for jobs.

All of that is 'A-ok' as long as the people voting for the higher wages are cool with their costs going up across the board to consume the goods/services provided by lower wage scales (car wash, groceries, restaurants, lawn care, entertainment, etc...and probably Wal-Mart and Target as well).
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by GreenGoo »

As I said, I feel for the small business owner. I am interested in how much impact the increased prices have on the market. Things cost more, regularly. Hopefully we'll see how it goes. I can guarantee I won't remember to bring it up again. Maybe we can sick Isgrim on it. He's pretty good and keeping track of things over long periods of time.

Of course if you have a direct stake in this, you won't need anyone to remind you, Redfive. Good luck to you.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Isgrimnur »

The government is better: Seattle CPI

Knock yourself out.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

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Isgrimnur wrote:The government is better: Seattle CPI

Knock yourself out.
Yeah, we need you to remind us in a year or two.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

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GreenGoo wrote:As I said, I feel for the small business owner.
I don't feel the least bit sorry for anyone who decided it was a good idea to seek their fortune by building a business on the backs of those being paid slave wages. And shame on banks who approve a business plan that doesn't take into account the possibility of having to pay employees a living wage. The job landscape should stay relatively unchanged -- for every company that closes its doors, a competitor is going to realize more business and will need to expand.

What you will see however is a change in the nature of the low-end workforce. The dregs that are currently sucking up some of the most unpleasant, lowest-paid jobs will be replaced by those higher up the evolutionary chain who would previously prefer unemployment over this kind of work. Some of these people (ex-cons, high school dropouts, etc.) might find themselves completely unemployable. As I mentioned in other threads before, I see this when I go to the Philippines -- fast food workers, store clerks, cab drivers, etc. all have college degrees because there is a surplus of degreed candidates who are willing to work for what constitutes a living wage there.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Redfive »

Jeff V wrote:
GreenGoo wrote:As I said, I feel for the small business owner.
I don't feel the least bit sorry for anyone who decided it was a good idea to seek their fortune by building a business on the backs of those being paid slave wages.

Because this is the baseline description of every small business owner. Hyperbole much?
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Alefroth »

Redfive wrote:
Jeff V wrote:
GreenGoo wrote:As I said, I feel for the small business owner.
I don't feel the least bit sorry for anyone who decided it was a good idea to seek their fortune by building a business on the backs of those being paid slave wages.

Because this is the baseline description of every small business owner. Hyperbole much?
If they are paying slave wages. Does that seem unreasonable to you?
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by GreenGoo »

Alefroth wrote:If they are paying slave wages. Does that seem unreasonable to you?
What's a "slave wage"?

The idea that small business owners (especially ones just getting off the ground) are living high off the hog (employees) is laughable.

I don't understand Jeff V. sometimes. I assume he just likes to say (negative) stuff, but a lot of it has me scratching my head.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Kraken »

Apparently Massachusetts hates jobs, too: We're on the verge of implementing the highest state minimum wage in the country at $11/hr. Wages are necessarily a couple of bucks higher in Boston, so we're going to be close to Seattle territory.

It's a shame this graphic is so small, but here it is anyway -- how much a household needs to meet basic expenses. You can mostly read it if you squint.

Image

$11/hr still leaves a single person just a wee bit short of a living wage.
Economists are divided on whether raising the minimum wage leads to job loss. But most agree on another sticking point in the debate: Increasing the minimum wage is not a particularly efficient antipoverty strategy.

Census data crunched for The Boston Globe by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, based in Washington, shows that almost two-thirds of Massachusetts residents who will benefit from a hike in the minimum wage to $11 per hour are in households earning a combined $40,000 or more.

David Neumark, an economist at the University of California-Irvine, called a minimum wage increase “a very strange” way of addressing income inequality.

“It doesn’t give to the poorest, and it doesn’t take from the richest,” he said, noting that small business owners bear the brunt of a hike.
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Re: Seattle hates jobs

Post by Jeff V »

GreenGoo wrote:
Alefroth wrote:If they are paying slave wages. Does that seem unreasonable to you?
What's a "slave wage"?

The idea that small business owners (especially ones just getting off the ground) are living high off the hog (employees) is laughable.

I don't understand Jeff V. sometimes. I assume he just likes to say (negative) stuff, but a lot of it has me scratching my head.
A slave wage would be < living wage. If a small business has pay slave wages to stay in business, they have a shitty business plan and should find something else to do in life.
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