Re: Seattle hates jobs
Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 12:38 am
That wouldn't work too well.Jaymann wrote:Somebody needs to buy a decimal point.Alefroth wrote:http://www.seattletimes.com/business/lo ... /#comments
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons bring us some web forums whereupon we can gather
http://www.octopusoverlords.com/forum/
That wouldn't work too well.Jaymann wrote:Somebody needs to buy a decimal point.Alefroth wrote:http://www.seattletimes.com/business/lo ... /#comments
Liberals fighting for a dramatic increase in the minimum wage have insisted that there would be a negligible impact on job creation. Though the data are preliminary and overly broad, Washington D.C., Oakland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Chicago seem to be finding out that the reality isn’t so benign.
Oregon lawmakers have approved landmark legislation that propels the state's minimum wage for all workers to the highest rank in the U.S., and does so through an unparalleled tiered system based on geography.
The measure passed the state House on Thursday and is headed to Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, who said in a statement she will sign it.
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Fourteen other states have raised their rates over the past two years. Another dozen or so are considering taking up the issue this year, either through legislative action or ballot initiative, as issues of wage inequality and middle-class incomes have climbed to the forefront of presidential campaigns by Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and Hilary Clinton.
Oregon's plan imposes a series of gradual increases over six years. By 2022, the state's current $9.25 an hour minimum — already one of the highest in the nation — would climb to $14.75 in metro Portland, $13.50 in smaller cities such as Salem and Eugene, and $12.50 in rural communities.
Those minimums dethrone Massachusetts — where the statewide rate will climb to $11 an hour next year — from the top spot, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a D.C.-based think tank that tracks wage laws across the nation.
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Other states that have boosted statewide minimums above $10 include California and Vermont. That stands in stark contrast to more conservative states such as Idaho, which has blocked previous efforts to raise its minimum beyond the federal level, and Arizona, where lawmakers are considering a bill that would block state funding to municipalities that set a local minimum wage.
We pay our sitter $15/hour to help out with our son with special needs (or when he's at an appointment, the twins). She has no medical training.Isgrimnur wrote:Perhaps she could make more as a freelance babysitter for children with medical needs.
Keep in mind, that's an average. We pay our sitter $5 per hour to watch our little terror; so if $15.50 is the average, somewhere someone is making $25 an hour.ImLawBoy wrote:We pay our sitter $15/hour to help out with our son with special needs (or when he's at an appointment, the twins). She has no medical training.Isgrimnur wrote:Perhaps she could make more as a freelance babysitter for children with medical needs.
Don't use her for more than 8hrs a week or pay her more than $1900 a year......Jeff V wrote:Keep in mind, that's an average. We pay our sitter $5 per hour to watch our little terror; so if $15.50 is the average, somewhere someone is making $25 an hour.ImLawBoy wrote:We pay our sitter $15/hour to help out with our son with special needs (or when he's at an appointment, the twins). She has no medical training.Isgrimnur wrote:Perhaps she could make more as a freelance babysitter for children with medical needs.
https://www.care.com/a/are-you-paying-y ... 1309121503Jonathan Weber, founder of Minimum-Wage.org, an organization that provides information to workers about their rights, says that "The minimum wage applies to domestic workers, including babysitters, under certain situations. In general, casual part-time work, such as occasional babysitting or pet sitting, is not subject to the FLSA and is thus exempt from minimum wage and overtime laws."
But if your nanny or babysitter is regularly employed, however, and works more than eight hours a week or earns more than $1,900 in a single year, they will be subject to FLSA coverage and minimum wage laws.
I always question those kinds of stories. While you're undoubtedly getting a great deal at $5/hour, our offer of $15/hour to help with a child with special needs seemed pretty much in line with the market. I would have assumed a price of closer to $10/hour for a typical kid. Maybe the north shore suburbs are driving up the area average.Jeff V wrote:Keep in mind, that's an average. We pay our sitter $5 per hour to watch our little terror; so if $15.50 is the average, somewhere someone is making $25 an hour.ImLawBoy wrote:We pay our sitter $15/hour to help out with our son with special needs (or when he's at an appointment, the twins). She has no medical training.Isgrimnur wrote:Perhaps she could make more as a freelance babysitter for children with medical needs.
I hear interns work for free.Isgrimnur wrote:Perhaps she could make more as a freelance babysitter for children with medical needs.
Leave it to the small govt. locals! Unless we disagree with it.Jaymann wrote:Once again Alabama stays classy.
True enough. Alabama legislators love jobs. They just hate the people working those jobs.Fitzy wrote:It's States' rights not cities' rights.
The bill gives Oregon the highest statewide minimum wage rates in the nation, to $14.75 inside Portland's urban growth boundary, $13.50 in midsize counties and $12.50 in rural areas by 2022.
According to a document obtained by The Times, the negotiated deal would boost California's statewide minimum wage from $10 an hour to $10.50 on Jan. 1, 2017, with a 50-cent increase in 2018 and then $1-per-year increases through 2022. Businesses with fewer than 25 employees would have an extra year to comply, delaying their workers receiving a $15 hourly wage until 2023.
That's not how inflation works.Isgrimnur wrote:I guess this is one way to make sure that inflation stays in the "right" area.
But make no mistake: California’s decision is a big deal. To date, nearly all the places that have adopted $15 minimum wages are big coastal cities where costs of living are high and most workers already earn well above $15 an hour. California’s proposed wage hike, which the state legislature approved Thursday and Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to sign next week, is different. It would apply to the whole state, including poorer cities like Fresno and sparsely populated rural areas in the northern and eastern parts of the state. (California’s current minimum wage of $10 an hour is already tied with Massachusetts for the highest of any state.)
For economists, then, California’s hike is exciting, a valuable test of the effects of a big wage hike. But for the workers and businesses that will be the guinea pigs, it could be a nerve-wracking experiment. The higher wage could bring up standards of living, inject more money into the economy and turn out to be a win-win for workers and businesses. Or it could lead to lost jobs and higher prices, ultimately hurting the very workers it was designed to help. Or perhaps both. There will almost certainly be both winners and losers, but no one knows how many of each, or whether the benefits will prove worth the cost.
Why do it? Politics.Brown, traveling to the state’s largest media market to sign the landmark bill, remained hesitant about the economic effect of raising the minimum wage, saying, “Economically, minimum wages may not make sense.”
“Morally and socially and politically, they (minimum wages) make every sense because it binds the community together and makes sure that parents can take care of their kids in a much more satisfactory way,” Brown said.
Counterintuitive at first glance — organized labor's historic goal has been to obtain more for workers, not less — union exemptions are absent from state and federal pay standards. Yet they have been written into the fine print of wage ordinances in a dozen California cities at labor leaders' urging.
San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland and Santa Monica have all adopted union waivers in their most recent minimum wage laws. L.A. city officials are expected to indicate whether they will include such an exemption in their own $15 minimum wage at a hearing next week.
Critics see such provisions as a cynical collusion between politicians and big-city labor interests. By making unions the "low-cost option" for businesses seeking to avoid paying better wages, they assert, the exemptions are designed to drive up union membership — and revenue from dues — at the expense of workers.
In other news, New Yorkers are expected to become healthier with a gradual improvement expected to peak in 2019.Enough wrote:White Castle hates the new NY min wage.
Most Seattle employers surveyed in a University of Washington-led study said in 2015 that they expected to raise prices on goods and services to compensate for the city’s move to a $15 per hour minimum wage.
But a year after the law’s April 2015 implementation, the study indicates such increases don’t seem to be happening.
“Our preliminary analysis of grocery, retail and rent prices has found little or no evidence of price increases in Seattle relative to the surrounding area,” the team concluded.
Today the Supreme Court said it will not take up the challenge to Seattle’s minimum wage increase. The lower court upheld a Seattle law that requires business with five hundred or more employees to raise their minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2018.
The International Franchise Association (IFA), along with other franchise business, brought the challenge to the court. They argued they should have the same phase-in requirements as independent local business. Under Seattle's minimum wage law, which took effect last April, business with more than five hundred employees must raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour over the three year period. Smaller businesses have up to seven years in which to phase in the increase. The franchise owners claim they are being treated differently because of their affiliation with national chains.
The program provides money for YouthWorks, which pays the wages of 4,400 low-income teens in eligible cities who work for nonprofits or local government agencies in the summer. The Senate originally proposed the same funding amount as last year, $11.5 million. Level-funding actually means 600 fewer positions, though, because of the rise in the state’s minimum-wage increase to $10 per hour this year and $11 per hour next year. Maintaining the number of positions would take $13.34 million. But the compromise budget bill lawmakers filed Wednesday night included $10.2 million for the program, which translates into about 1,000 jobs lost.
Perhaps another factor if we are being honest is poorly funded programs can't meet their full potential. Of course with a budget shortfall of $950 million, this program surely isn't the only one. Shall we blame other helpful programs that didn't receive their full funding on higher min wages as well?Moliere wrote:higher minimum wage = fewer jobs
The program provides money for YouthWorks, which pays the wages of 4,400 low-income teens in eligible cities who work for nonprofits or local government agencies in the summer. The Senate originally proposed the same funding amount as last year, $11.5 million. Level-funding actually means 600 fewer positions, though, because of the rise in the state’s minimum-wage increase to $10 per hour this year and $11 per hour next year. Maintaining the number of positions would take $13.34 million. But the compromise budget bill lawmakers filed Wednesday night included $10.2 million for the program, which translates into about 1,000 jobs lost.
The point is that it requires higher funding just to maintain the same number of jobs when you increase the minimum wage. That means more taxes to provide the funding. That means less discretionary income for those people paying the taxes which will hit middle and low income people hardest.Enough wrote:Perhaps another factor if we are being honest is poorly funded programs can't meet their full potential. Of course with a budget shortfall of $950 million, this program surely isn't the only one. Shall we blame other helpful programs that didn't receive their full funding on higher min wages as well?Moliere wrote:higher minimum wage = fewer jobs
The program provides money for YouthWorks, which pays the wages of 4,400 low-income teens in eligible cities who work for nonprofits or local government agencies in the summer. The Senate originally proposed the same funding amount as last year, $11.5 million. Level-funding actually means 600 fewer positions, though, because of the rise in the state’s minimum-wage increase to $10 per hour this year and $11 per hour next year. Maintaining the number of positions would take $13.34 million. But the compromise budget bill lawmakers filed Wednesday night included $10.2 million for the program, which translates into about 1,000 jobs lost.
Baltimore's ($10/hr min wage) YouthWorks program actually increased funding this year in part thanks to private donations (8,000 jobs in the city alone). In Washington State they have increased funding all three years the program has been in existence. Of course with increased minimum wages it leads to a higher front end cost, but we also know that much of that money will be spent on local goods and services helping to drive the local econ and hopefully increase tax revenues over the long term. Perhaps earning a higher wage will allow some of these at-risk kids to make something of themselves. The reason this program exists is that long before the current increases or planned increases in min wage the youth job market had been imploding. And that was even before the pressure of automation and higher wages.Moliere wrote:The point is that it requires higher funding just to maintain the same number of jobs when you increase the minimum wage. That means more taxes to provide the funding. That means less discretionary income for those people paying the taxes which will hit middle and low income people hardest.Enough wrote:Perhaps another factor if we are being honest is poorly funded programs can't meet their full potential. Of course with a budget shortfall of $950 million, this program surely isn't the only one. Shall we blame other helpful programs that didn't receive their full funding on higher min wages as well?Moliere wrote:higher minimum wage = fewer jobs
The program provides money for YouthWorks, which pays the wages of 4,400 low-income teens in eligible cities who work for nonprofits or local government agencies in the summer. The Senate originally proposed the same funding amount as last year, $11.5 million. Level-funding actually means 600 fewer positions, though, because of the rise in the state’s minimum-wage increase to $10 per hour this year and $11 per hour next year. Maintaining the number of positions would take $13.34 million. But the compromise budget bill lawmakers filed Wednesday night included $10.2 million for the program, which translates into about 1,000 jobs lost.