this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
933 points (98.3% liked)

News

23627 readers
2377 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 167 points 3 months ago (13 children)

This has been studied over and over and always with the same results. The economy isn't hampered, jobs aren't replaced by machines and overseas workers, the cost of goods doesn't go up, and factories don't close. The main impact is that quality of life increases, health spending increases (now that people can afford to take their kids to the doctor), and corporate profits decrease very slightly.

Especially in this economy of runaway corporate greed, we need a meaningful increase in wages

[–] [email protected] 83 points 3 months ago

corporate profits decrease very slightly

This is the thing that people will reflexively point to, but this:

quality of life increases

This is the real issue. If quality of life increases, workers are less desperate, and are less willing to put up with their employers BS. Moreover, if other jobs are also paying a living wage, it's much easier to quit.

We have seen, over and over, that businesses are willing to spend money to exert control over workers. They'll do it even if it means a decline in profits, or even in revenue. Because at the end of the day, if you have your needs met, any money left over is just power, and power is meant to be used to control others.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago

Especially in this economy of runaway corporate greed, we need a meaningful ~~increase in wages~~ revolution to eliminate those corporations and the systemic rewarding of greed.

The fact that they could increase wages and still make money while improving society but don't, is why they don't deserve any more benefit of the doubt, or room to continue hoarding wealth and power as they are, because a system that craves constant growth at any cost will never stop on its own (nor provide paths for reform).

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Oh jobs are replaced by machines, it just has almost nothing to do with minimum wage. Machines cost pennies on the dollar for production value compared to humans. The human wage is pretty meaningless at that point, even forced labor is less profitable.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

But, the line must go up…

load more comments (9 replies)
[–] [email protected] 62 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Increasing minimum wage puts more money in the economy which people will spend which puts more money in businesses so they can pay their people more putting more money in the economy.

The only reason the wealthy don't like this is because their money passes through the hands of the unclean masses instead of going directly into their offshore tax haven accounts.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 3 months ago (8 children)

Yep.

Give a rich man a dollar and all you've done societally is remove a dollar from the economy. If you instead make him give that money to his employees things change, but cause poor people actually need money and will spend it.

You give a poor person that dollar through increased minimum wage and they spend it at a business. That business now makes more money, which is passed on to its employees through the increased minimum wage, and they spend that dollar again.

And again.

And again.

That dollar you took from the rich and gave to the poor drove a lot more than a dollar's economic activity.

OH - and it's also taxed every time it changes hands, so it also brings in more than its initial value in tax revenue.

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The only reason the wealthy don't like this is because ~~their~~ our money passes through the hands of the unclean masses instead of going directly into their offshore tax haven accounts.

Ftfy

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

Well corrected.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Where I live, Washington, the minimum wage is $16.28 p/hour. Across the border in Idaho, the federal minimum applies — $7.25.

Businesses on the higher-wage side of the border are doing fine, and Spokaners do not drive across the border into Coeur d'Alene for cheaper groceries or a half-price Big Mac.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 3 months ago (64 children)

Spokaners do not drive across the border into Coeur d’Alene for cheaper groceries or a half-price Big Mac.

I actively boycott any and all ID businesses, because of the state's shitty labor and reproductive-rights laws and its nurture of Christofascism. They can Gilead all they want but it won't be with my financial support.

load more comments (64 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 46 points 3 months ago (1 children)

California recently increased minimum wage, and despite this, people still live there.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 months ago

More than that, California (last I checked) had the fifth largest economy in the world when comparing to entire countries.

I think they'll do just fine.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Economic models keep most numbers fixed to simplify their math. They call it ceteris paribus.

So when economists claim that increasing wages will reduce the amount of jobs, they came to that conclusion by keeping corporate profits fixed while doing their math. So any business expense is paid for by reducing workers or wages.

In the real world corporate profits are not fixed and have grown faster than wages for decades.

Keep that in mind if an economist ever tries to claim increasing wages will reduce the quantity of jobs.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (8 children)

Right. The problem is, CEOs maintain that as “responsibility to their shareholders” to ensure their Q4 earnings reports prove continuous growth. So prices will inevitably increase, or overhead will be reduced to maintain those margins.

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

Economists are also very aware of what they choose to keep fixed and what they choose to allow as a variable. It's a science that's incredibly easy to corrupt the results in. Which is why people really need to pay attention to who it's giving the results.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Have we not known this for years?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I've always used it as an example of when oversimplified chalkboard economics don't match experimental reality.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Are the “oversimplified chalkboard economics” basically the businesses winging about having to pay people more?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (5 children)

What follows is incorrect

It's a price floor, which creates a deadweight loss.

Since we're also consumers, it's a net loss.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

Card & Kreuger has been held up by right wingers for ages as evidence to the contrary but it's a very bad study

[–] [email protected] 36 points 3 months ago

None of the people uttering that lie will care about this news.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 months ago

Our corporation funded a study that says this study is wrong. /s

[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 months ago

Corporations were bragging about record profits not that long ago, and then basically admitted to price gouging. Folks are extremely underpaid in most areas. Not shocked at all.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago
[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago

From the abstract of the actual study

We find that most studies to date suggest a fairly modest impact of minimum wages on jobs: the median OWE estimate of 72 studies published in academic journals is -0.13, which suggests that only around 13 percent of the potential earnings gains from minimum wage increases are offset due to associated job losses. Estimates published since 2010 tend to be closer to zero.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago

Card and Kreuger found this out when they did a large study back in the 90s when each state could finally set its own minimum wage.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

If its a real business and not a grift or privtization of gains/socialization of losses, they will pay closer to the right wage to have the right people fill the chair

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The only thing increasing minimum wage must do is take money out of the wealthiest pockets.

And that's why wages stay stagnant.

Every other argument is a red herring.

load more comments
view more: next ›