Why Employers Won?????t Fire People If We Raise The Minimum Wage

[_subgenius]

Not much of a "counter" since my study is recent (published this month!) whereas yours is not. And your NBER paper is friggin 13 years old! Not exactly up to date on the historical economic impact of the latest minimum wage increases. And its conclusion that the wage increase had no benefit to a worker was driven by the fact that workers were given fewer hours as their pay increased, which is a non sequitur. If I can make the same amount of pay for working fewer hours, while at the same time having more free time to get a second job, then that still benefits me and my family.

Paul Kersey's (whoever that is!) testimony is outdated as all get out as he was lobbying against an increase to the minimum wage proposal a decade ago, and subsequent economic realities have proven his assertions false. Good grief. You're still mining outdated stuff I see...

Again based on all the evidence to date, these Right Wing assertions have been tossed to the bin of myth. You complain about a Liberal think tank and then cite Heritage, which is notorious for being a whore to corporations. You know, the same "think tank" that attacked scientific research proving nicotine causes cancer, on behalf of Phillip Morris decades ago.

Back in the real world, a 2010 Institute for Research on Labor and Employment study likewise found "no detectable employment losses from the kind of minimum wage increases we have seen in the United States."

In fact, numerous studies have shown that historically, unemployment is not linked to an increase in minimum wage. A Fiscal Policy Institute study conducted after New York increased their minimum wage in 2004 found that over the next three years, "total employment in the state [had] grown by 3.0 percent." A National Employment Law Project study found that even during times of economic downturn, increases in the minimum wage did not lead to job losses among teens.

i feel bad for arguing with you......i did not realize you were an idiot until now.

[_Kevin Graham]

You should feel bad.

Thanks for playing, but refuting you is no serious task.

[_cinepro]

3. Lowering turnover. A higher minimum wage “makes it easier for employers to recruit and retain employees” and may even “compensate some or all of the increased wage costs, allowing employers to maintain employment levels.” One study found “striking evidence that separations, new hires, and turnover rates for teens and restaurant workers fall substantially following a minimum wage increase…”

Lower turnover is not necessarily a good sign; turnover can indicate that workers have options, and one of the best ways to improve opportunity is to move to another company.

If minimum wage laws decrease the availability of jobs to low-skill and entry-level workers, then turnover will decrease because these workers no longer have options.

If the government (or a union) gets an employee an above-market wage, then the odds of that employee leaving that job are very slim. But that's not necessarily a good thing for the employer, the employee, or the economy in general.

[_Kevin Graham]

Lower turnover is not necessarily a good sign; turnover can indicate that workers have options, and one of the best ways to improve opportunity is to move to another company.

Have you actually been involved with corporate training? Because I have. I've trained in virtually every field I've worked in and I can tell you that lower turnover does in fact reduce overhead to a significant degree. Twenty years ago I managed a Pizza Hut. Corporate policy required training for every new worker, providing them with uniform, paying them for an eight hours training session, and then paying them to tag along with a trainer for the first week before they were allowed to do it on their own. Turnover rate was a real problem because it seemed like we were doing these training sessions every other week. These costs add up! It would have been far more profitable to simply pay these kids an extra dollar per hour, if it meant retention.

I was also trainer for Echostar systems, and I was involved in training new hires in satellite dish installation. These guys weren't making around double the minimum wage, but their training was very detailed and took about six weeks to complete. I was told that when all was said and done, the company spent about $8,000 to train each person and so there was a lot of pressure on the trainers to make sure they were successful at their job. But the job was a difficult one, and too many of them decided it wasn't worth the money they were being paid. I'd say that at least two people from each training session (in a class of about 8-10), left before the training period was over, and another treee to four left before their first six months. This was killing company profits, and so the answer was to increase the rate of pay to attract more dedicate workers.
Now you talk about the opportunity of the worker by moving to another company, well that's a different position from where you were starting. First you complain about the minimum wage hurting corporate profits, therefore leading to less employment. Now you want to say really low wages are a good thing because it gives the employee more freedom to move around from job to job. Are you friggin kidding me? When you're making $7.25 per hour there is no such a thing as "increased opportunity" by job hopping. This kind of thing follows you on your work record and will hurt your ability to negotiate for future employment. Besides, there is nothing stopping an employee from moving to another company no matter how much money he/she is making.

If minimum wage laws decrease the availability of jobs to low-skill and entry-level workers, then turnover will decrease because these workers no longer have options.

But it doesn't decrease employment, not unless you're talking about some neighborhood woman who refuses to babysit your kid for less than $9 an hour, because technically its the law. There will be cases like this where technically, job opportunities drop because no one wants to pay $9. But I can't think of many examples like this, even when I try. How many jobs are there worth doing that isn't worth $9 an hour? In the real world of employment opportunities, minimum wage jobs are easy to find, at least here in Georgia. I knew guys who job hop like crazy, especially in the warehouse industry where they were getting paid around $12. They'd start, and then quit after a few months, only to go to work for some other temp agency the next week. The problem is that people can't live while working these low paying jobs and so they move around a lot.

[_Gadianton]

I can't figure out how it's a good idea for the federal government to be setting it. The cost of living varies so drastically from one part of the country to the next

...maybe it's an act of revenge against the red states?