In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
On April 18 2014 12:56 zlefin wrote: Soul, you're in Canada, why do you care so much about us politics?
Because whatever happens down there bleeds over and affects us over here. We're getting all your bullshit like right to work legislation, union bashing, gerrymandering, voter ID laws, extreme partisanship, a bunch of evangelicals who want to reduce funding for scientific research, and a government that spies on its own people whenever they use wifi at the airport.
Also, much of Canada's economy is tied to trade with the US, so I want you to do well so that I can do well too!
On April 18 2014 12:47 SnipedSoul wrote: You don't see liberals continually proposing cuts to unemployment and other aid to the poor. It's Republicans that are doing it. You also don't see liberals saying abolish the minimum wage so that we can pay people what they're worth (sub $7.25 an hour). That's Republicans as well.
Republicans were behind the EITC, one of the best anit-poverty tools out there and currently under attack by liberals. Unemployment cuts are derpy issue - it's the temporary extended benefits that were cut.
Cash on balance sheets is a red herring.
Are Republicans actually going to increase the EITC or is this another one of those things where they will filibuster their own bill when they realize it might have a chance of passing?
Paying attention to a neighbor is fine, but that sounds rather rude and blameful; it's not like we choose to have those problems, we, like everywhere, have idiots.
On April 18 2014 11:56 SnipedSoul wrote: It's actually the converse. Nationalized healthcare would help businesses be more competitive by removing the significant financial burden of providing healthcare to their employees. Those funds would then be available for additional investment, higher wages, or whatever else the business wants to do with them.
That sounds like how a business subsidy is supposed to work ...
On April 18 2014 11:57 SnipedSoul wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:55 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:54 SnipedSoul wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:48 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:40 SnipedSoul wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:36 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:22 SnipedSoul wrote: Walmart gets $13.5 billion in foodstamp money every year. That amount would be far less if they paid their employees more.
I never said get rid of foodstamps. I am saying that without foodstamps, Walmart would be forced to pay higher wages and the burden of feeding Walmart employees would be taken away from the government and placed on Walmart which is where it belongs.
Force Walmart to pay higher wages and you will reduce the need for foodstamps.
Without foodstamps walmart would NOT be forced to pay more for work. That's what the bulk of the evidence tells us. All you'd be doing is making people poorer.
If you force walmart to pay substantially more, you start to get into the downside of a higher minimum wage.
You said that without foodstamps people would starve. Many Walmart employees are on foodstamps. If foodstamps weren't around, then Walmart would be forced to pay more or their employees would starve.
What evidence? Walmart in my country is forced to pay at least $10.00 per hour and people here are no poorer because of it.
Crap, double post!
The evidence that EITC and other subsides go to businesses in the form of lower wages is scarce. Conversely evidence that EITC and the like reduce poverty are well documented. If you were correct, this wouldn't be the case. EITC and SNAP wouldn't help anyone since the added benefit would just get shifted to the employer.
The negative impacts of a higher minimum wage are controversial but well documented. The higher the minimum wage goes, the more likely it is to reduce employment. No one seriously thinks you can raise the minimum wage to $30 and have no one lose their job
I know that those programs help reduce poverty. The problem is that congress keeps cutting them without forcing employers to make up the difference.
I never said raise minimum wage to $30 which would be a 4x increase. I said raise it to $10 which would be a 33% increase and be more in line with what the minimum wage would be if it were tied to inflation.
If they reduce poverty than they are not subsidies to businesses.
Taxpayer money is making up for a shortfall in wages. Government pays the bill instead of a business. How is that not a subsidy?
I live alone and pay between $7 and $10 a day for food and that's with cooking everything myself and making it from scratch. The rest of my family is similar.
If taxpayer money was making up for a shortfall in wages, than removing the money and doing nothing else would leave the worker no better or worse off. EITIC and the like do not depress the market price for labor. Nor are we talking about a subsistence level of income where less income means death.
There's no natural force like starvation that demands wages be higher. Nor is there a market need demanding higher wages. In other words, there's no shortfall in an economic sense. It's only a shortfall because you think a wage lower than that is "gross".
Sounds like you are using neoclassical economics to arrive at those conclusions? As if Neoclassical economics was a proven science? Your claims are tenuous at best.
No, I'm not using neoclassical economics to arrive at my conclusions. There's little evidence that EITC and the like depress wages. There's a lot of evidence that these subsides increase incomes.
Sounds like working as intended. If they weren't working as intended you'd see more evidence of wages being depressed and less evidence of incomes going up.
Hmm because the evidence supporting your claim seems to stem from Neoclassical economics unless your referencing some evidence I can't find?
Here's a piece suggesting many of the claims stemming from Neoclasssical economics (that are the only ones I can find supporting your claim.) just are not accurate or support the idea that a min. wage increase doesn't actually decrease employment in a significant way? (despite it's common use as a talking point)
The weight of that evidence points to little or no employment response to modest increases in the minimum wage.
The report reviews evidence on eleven possible adjustments to minimum-wage increases that may help to explain why the measured employment effects are so consistently small. The strongest evidence suggests that the most important channels of adjustment are: reductions in labor turnover; improvements in organizational efficiency; reductions in wages of higher earners ("wage compression"); and small price increases.
Given the relatively small cost to employers of modest increases in the minimum wage, these adjustment mechanisms appear to be more than sufficient to avoid employment losses, even for employers with a large share of low-wage worker
At least concerning the type of wage raises reasonable people are suggesting...
On April 18 2014 13:03 zlefin wrote: Paying attention to a neighbor is fine, but that sounds rather rude and blameful; it's not like we choose to have those problems, we, like everywhere, have idiots.
The real problem is that our current government is trying to turn us into America Jr. so that you'll let us build the Keystone XL pipeline.
It actually just pains me to see a great country like the US slipping and dragging everyone else along with it. I want to go back a few decades to when you guys were inventing the internet rather than using it to spy on my webcam.
On April 18 2014 11:05 zlefin wrote: re: snipedsoul
I don't think one job is supposed to support a family of four; more like 2 jobs. One job should be enough to support one person, (with one optional child).
As to cost of living, i'd need to run some numbers to figure it all out; but costs aren't always so bad if you're frugal. Let me see what I can come up with. Also note that costs of living vary substantially in different places.
That is a totally idiotic statement. If you want the population to reproduce you have to be able to provide a living for a family of 4 on one job. You have made a bunch of further short idiotic arguments, but if you think that finding "affordable daycare" involves getting a nephew to watch your kids you are sorely deluded. Work out a schedule so that someone is always available to watch the kids? Have you seen the job market lately? Do you know what happens to people who complain about their randomly assigned shifts in minimum wage jobs? They get fired.
The 50's were more of an economic anomaly, and furthermore, living at THAT level might well be achievable today very affordably; but people aren't living at that level, but at a higher one.
That is just false. Having an iphone does not make it a higher standard of living. The purchasing power of your wage hit a peak 40 years ago, and has gone down since.
On April 18 2014 12:56 zlefin wrote: Soul, you're in Canada, why do you care so much about us politics?
I don't know how long you've followed US politics threads on TL, but it's never been an exclusive thread for Americans. There has always been Europeans, Canadians, and others debating along side or against different issues in America. When US casts such a large shadow in world economics and geo-politics, it is inevitable that citizens of other countries will be interested in what goes on in US. And things really do get mirrored in Canada (intentionally or otherwise)- I'm feeling rather betrayed by my party over Bill C-23 that is looking very similar to some of the voter supression nonsense that was attempted down south.
I think due to US global preponderance, arguing US politics allows people to argue political ideology in general by proxy using US as the battleground.
On April 18 2014 11:56 SnipedSoul wrote: It's actually the converse. Nationalized healthcare would help businesses be more competitive by removing the significant financial burden of providing healthcare to their employees. Those funds would then be available for additional investment, higher wages, or whatever else the business wants to do with them.
That sounds like how a business subsidy is supposed to work ...
On April 18 2014 11:57 SnipedSoul wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:55 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:54 SnipedSoul wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:48 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:40 SnipedSoul wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:36 JonnyBNoHo wrote: [quote] Without foodstamps walmart would NOT be forced to pay more for work. That's what the bulk of the evidence tells us. All you'd be doing is making people poorer.
If you force walmart to pay substantially more, you start to get into the downside of a higher minimum wage.
You said that without foodstamps people would starve. Many Walmart employees are on foodstamps. If foodstamps weren't around, then Walmart would be forced to pay more or their employees would starve.
What evidence? Walmart in my country is forced to pay at least $10.00 per hour and people here are no poorer because of it.
Crap, double post!
The evidence that EITC and other subsides go to businesses in the form of lower wages is scarce. Conversely evidence that EITC and the like reduce poverty are well documented. If you were correct, this wouldn't be the case. EITC and SNAP wouldn't help anyone since the added benefit would just get shifted to the employer.
The negative impacts of a higher minimum wage are controversial but well documented. The higher the minimum wage goes, the more likely it is to reduce employment. No one seriously thinks you can raise the minimum wage to $30 and have no one lose their job
I know that those programs help reduce poverty. The problem is that congress keeps cutting them without forcing employers to make up the difference.
I never said raise minimum wage to $30 which would be a 4x increase. I said raise it to $10 which would be a 33% increase and be more in line with what the minimum wage would be if it were tied to inflation.
If they reduce poverty than they are not subsidies to businesses.
Taxpayer money is making up for a shortfall in wages. Government pays the bill instead of a business. How is that not a subsidy?
I live alone and pay between $7 and $10 a day for food and that's with cooking everything myself and making it from scratch. The rest of my family is similar.
If taxpayer money was making up for a shortfall in wages, than removing the money and doing nothing else would leave the worker no better or worse off. EITIC and the like do not depress the market price for labor. Nor are we talking about a subsistence level of income where less income means death.
There's no natural force like starvation that demands wages be higher. Nor is there a market need demanding higher wages. In other words, there's no shortfall in an economic sense. It's only a shortfall because you think a wage lower than that is "gross".
Sounds like you are using neoclassical economics to arrive at those conclusions? As if Neoclassical economics was a proven science? Your claims are tenuous at best.
No, I'm not using neoclassical economics to arrive at my conclusions. There's little evidence that EITC and the like depress wages. There's a lot of evidence that these subsides increase incomes.
Sounds like working as intended. If they weren't working as intended you'd see more evidence of wages being depressed and less evidence of incomes going up.
Hmm because the evidence supporting your claim seems to stem from Neoclassical economics unless your referencing some evidence I can't find?
Here's a piece suggesting many of the claims stemming from Neoclasssical economics (that are the only ones I can find supporting your claim.) just are not accurate or support the idea that a min. wage increase doesn't actually decrease employment in a significant way? (despite it's common use as a talking point)
The weight of that evidence points to little or no employment response to modest increases in the minimum wage.
The report reviews evidence on eleven possible adjustments to minimum-wage increases that may help to explain why the measured employment effects are so consistently small. The strongest evidence suggests that the most important channels of adjustment are: reductions in labor turnover; improvements in organizational efficiency; reductions in wages of higher earners ("wage compression"); and small price increases.
Given the relatively small cost to employers of modest increases in the minimum wage, these adjustment mechanisms appear to be more than sufficient to avoid employment losses, even for employers with a large share of low-wage worker
At least concerning the type of wage raises reasonable people are suggesting...
I don't have a problem with a modest increase in the min wage. But to do away with EITC and the like you'd have to raise it a lot.
CBO estimates that a $10.10 min wage would increase incomes for families up to 3X the poverty line by $12 Billion. Food stamps pay out $80 billion and EITC pays out $60 billion. source
If you want to do away with these programs (not to mention all the others!) you'll have to go well beyond what reasonable people are suggesting.
Well it's a bit of a red herring - min wage won't affect just Walmart. It also ignoring the impact of higher prices on real wages, lower demand from higher prices, etc.
On April 18 2014 11:56 SnipedSoul wrote: It's actually the converse. Nationalized healthcare would help businesses be more competitive by removing the significant financial burden of providing healthcare to their employees. Those funds would then be available for additional investment, higher wages, or whatever else the business wants to do with them.
That sounds like how a business subsidy is supposed to work ...
On April 18 2014 11:57 SnipedSoul wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:55 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:54 SnipedSoul wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:48 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:40 SnipedSoul wrote: [quote]
You said that without foodstamps people would starve. Many Walmart employees are on foodstamps. If foodstamps weren't around, then Walmart would be forced to pay more or their employees would starve.
What evidence? Walmart in my country is forced to pay at least $10.00 per hour and people here are no poorer because of it.
Crap, double post!
The evidence that EITC and other subsides go to businesses in the form of lower wages is scarce. Conversely evidence that EITC and the like reduce poverty are well documented. If you were correct, this wouldn't be the case. EITC and SNAP wouldn't help anyone since the added benefit would just get shifted to the employer.
The negative impacts of a higher minimum wage are controversial but well documented. The higher the minimum wage goes, the more likely it is to reduce employment. No one seriously thinks you can raise the minimum wage to $30 and have no one lose their job
I know that those programs help reduce poverty. The problem is that congress keeps cutting them without forcing employers to make up the difference.
I never said raise minimum wage to $30 which would be a 4x increase. I said raise it to $10 which would be a 33% increase and be more in line with what the minimum wage would be if it were tied to inflation.
If they reduce poverty than they are not subsidies to businesses.
Taxpayer money is making up for a shortfall in wages. Government pays the bill instead of a business. How is that not a subsidy?
I live alone and pay between $7 and $10 a day for food and that's with cooking everything myself and making it from scratch. The rest of my family is similar.
If taxpayer money was making up for a shortfall in wages, than removing the money and doing nothing else would leave the worker no better or worse off. EITIC and the like do not depress the market price for labor. Nor are we talking about a subsistence level of income where less income means death.
There's no natural force like starvation that demands wages be higher. Nor is there a market need demanding higher wages. In other words, there's no shortfall in an economic sense. It's only a shortfall because you think a wage lower than that is "gross".
Sounds like you are using neoclassical economics to arrive at those conclusions? As if Neoclassical economics was a proven science? Your claims are tenuous at best.
No, I'm not using neoclassical economics to arrive at my conclusions. There's little evidence that EITC and the like depress wages. There's a lot of evidence that these subsides increase incomes.
Sounds like working as intended. If they weren't working as intended you'd see more evidence of wages being depressed and less evidence of incomes going up.
Hmm because the evidence supporting your claim seems to stem from Neoclassical economics unless your referencing some evidence I can't find?
Here's a piece suggesting many of the claims stemming from Neoclasssical economics (that are the only ones I can find supporting your claim.) just are not accurate or support the idea that a min. wage increase doesn't actually decrease employment in a significant way? (despite it's common use as a talking point)
The weight of that evidence points to little or no employment response to modest increases in the minimum wage.
The report reviews evidence on eleven possible adjustments to minimum-wage increases that may help to explain why the measured employment effects are so consistently small. The strongest evidence suggests that the most important channels of adjustment are: reductions in labor turnover; improvements in organizational efficiency; reductions in wages of higher earners ("wage compression"); and small price increases.
Given the relatively small cost to employers of modest increases in the minimum wage, these adjustment mechanisms appear to be more than sufficient to avoid employment losses, even for employers with a large share of low-wage worker
At least concerning the type of wage raises reasonable people are suggesting...
I don't have a problem with a modest increase in the min wage. But to do away with EITC and the like you'd have to raise it a lot.
CBO estimates that a $10.10 min wage would increase incomes for families up to 3X the poverty line by $12 Billion. Food stamps pay out $80 billion and EITC pays out $60 billion. source
If you want to do away with these programs (not to mention all the others!) you'll have to go well beyond what reasonable people are suggesting.
Well it's a bit of a red herring - min wage won't affect just Walmart. It also ignoring the impact of higher prices on real wages, lower demand from higher prices, etc.
I don't believe it advocated for a minimum wage. But even if it did, we all agree that minimum wage increases are a wash on unemployment.
Lower demand from 1.4% price increases? Offset by worker raises?
Uniform federal minimum wage is rather poor, as it doesn't account for the VERY large differences in cost of living around the country. (as much as 50%) a system with more precision is needed.
PS no igne, I was not talking to you, I was talking to johnny, and to a general audience, not including you.
Yes I am worried people might make too much money out in Idaho. But like I said, higher minimum wages, even "much higher" minimum wages have no predictable effect on unemployment. Making policy choices based on potential unemployment isn't logical or defensible.
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama's fiscal 2015 budget request would boost U.S. tax revenue by nearly $1.4 trillion over 10 years if fully enacted, cutting deficits by $1.05 trillion while funding new spending, the Congressional Budget Office said on Thursday.
But the non-partisan agency's analysis was less optimistic than the White House's own projections - showing that cumulative deficits would total $6.6 trillion over 10 years, compared to $4.9 trillion under the Obama plan when it was released in March.
A key difference between the two deficit pictures is CBO's projection of slower economic growth, partly resulting in lower revenue collections.
The likelihood that Congress will advance Obama's plan in its entirety is virtually nil, but the CBO's latest analysis will feed campaign messaging by Democrats and Republicans ahead of congressional elections in November.
The analysis by the nonpartisan agency compares Obama's request with a new CBO "baseline" estimate released last week that assumes no changes to current tax and spending laws.
Obama's budget plan is loaded with policy changes, including an assumption that sweeping immigration reforms will be enacted, producing a net 10-year deficit reduction of $158 billion.
It proposes to boost revenue by limiting tax breaks for wealthy Americans and businesses, imposing a new tax on millionaires, raising tobacco taxes, and restoring estate and gift taxes to their previously higher, 2009 levels.
At the same time, it would boost spending by expanding cash tax credits for low-income Americans, canceling the "sequester" automatic spending cuts to military and domestic programs, and increasing funds for job training programs, among other changes.
On April 18 2014 11:56 SnipedSoul wrote: It's actually the converse. Nationalized healthcare would help businesses be more competitive by removing the significant financial burden of providing healthcare to their employees. Those funds would then be available for additional investment, higher wages, or whatever else the business wants to do with them.
That sounds like how a business subsidy is supposed to work ...
On April 18 2014 11:57 SnipedSoul wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:55 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:54 SnipedSoul wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:48 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:40 SnipedSoul wrote: [quote]
You said that without foodstamps people would starve. Many Walmart employees are on foodstamps. If foodstamps weren't around, then Walmart would be forced to pay more or their employees would starve.
What evidence? Walmart in my country is forced to pay at least $10.00 per hour and people here are no poorer because of it.
Crap, double post!
The evidence that EITC and other subsides go to businesses in the form of lower wages is scarce. Conversely evidence that EITC and the like reduce poverty are well documented. If you were correct, this wouldn't be the case. EITC and SNAP wouldn't help anyone since the added benefit would just get shifted to the employer.
The negative impacts of a higher minimum wage are controversial but well documented. The higher the minimum wage goes, the more likely it is to reduce employment. No one seriously thinks you can raise the minimum wage to $30 and have no one lose their job
I know that those programs help reduce poverty. The problem is that congress keeps cutting them without forcing employers to make up the difference.
I never said raise minimum wage to $30 which would be a 4x increase. I said raise it to $10 which would be a 33% increase and be more in line with what the minimum wage would be if it were tied to inflation.
If they reduce poverty than they are not subsidies to businesses.
Taxpayer money is making up for a shortfall in wages. Government pays the bill instead of a business. How is that not a subsidy?
I live alone and pay between $7 and $10 a day for food and that's with cooking everything myself and making it from scratch. The rest of my family is similar.
If taxpayer money was making up for a shortfall in wages, than removing the money and doing nothing else would leave the worker no better or worse off. EITIC and the like do not depress the market price for labor. Nor are we talking about a subsistence level of income where less income means death.
There's no natural force like starvation that demands wages be higher. Nor is there a market need demanding higher wages. In other words, there's no shortfall in an economic sense. It's only a shortfall because you think a wage lower than that is "gross".
Sounds like you are using neoclassical economics to arrive at those conclusions? As if Neoclassical economics was a proven science? Your claims are tenuous at best.
No, I'm not using neoclassical economics to arrive at my conclusions. There's little evidence that EITC and the like depress wages. There's a lot of evidence that these subsides increase incomes.
Sounds like working as intended. If they weren't working as intended you'd see more evidence of wages being depressed and less evidence of incomes going up.
Hmm because the evidence supporting your claim seems to stem from Neoclassical economics unless your referencing some evidence I can't find?
Here's a piece suggesting many of the claims stemming from Neoclasssical economics (that are the only ones I can find supporting your claim.) just are not accurate or support the idea that a min. wage increase doesn't actually decrease employment in a significant way? (despite it's common use as a talking point)
The weight of that evidence points to little or no employment response to modest increases in the minimum wage.
The report reviews evidence on eleven possible adjustments to minimum-wage increases that may help to explain why the measured employment effects are so consistently small. The strongest evidence suggests that the most important channels of adjustment are: reductions in labor turnover; improvements in organizational efficiency; reductions in wages of higher earners ("wage compression"); and small price increases.
Given the relatively small cost to employers of modest increases in the minimum wage, these adjustment mechanisms appear to be more than sufficient to avoid employment losses, even for employers with a large share of low-wage worker
At least concerning the type of wage raises reasonable people are suggesting...
I don't have a problem with a modest increase in the min wage. But to do away with EITC and the like you'd have to raise it a lot.
CBO estimates that a $10.10 min wage would increase incomes for families up to 3X the poverty line by $12 Billion. Food stamps pay out $80 billion and EITC pays out $60 billion. source
If you want to do away with these programs (not to mention all the others!) you'll have to go well beyond what reasonable people are suggesting.
Well it's a bit of a red herring - min wage won't affect just Walmart. It also ignoring the impact of higher prices on real wages, lower demand from higher prices, etc.
I wish more conservatives took your tack on the minimum wage. But I don't understand where the 'do away with the EITC' keeps coming from?
On April 18 2014 11:56 SnipedSoul wrote: It's actually the converse. Nationalized healthcare would help businesses be more competitive by removing the significant financial burden of providing healthcare to their employees. Those funds would then be available for additional investment, higher wages, or whatever else the business wants to do with them.
That sounds like how a business subsidy is supposed to work ...
On April 18 2014 11:57 SnipedSoul wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:55 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:54 SnipedSoul wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:48 JonnyBNoHo wrote: [quote] The evidence that EITC and other subsides go to businesses in the form of lower wages is scarce. Conversely evidence that EITC and the like reduce poverty are well documented. If you were correct, this wouldn't be the case. EITC and SNAP wouldn't help anyone since the added benefit would just get shifted to the employer.
The negative impacts of a higher minimum wage are controversial but well documented. The higher the minimum wage goes, the more likely it is to reduce employment. No one seriously thinks you can raise the minimum wage to $30 and have no one lose their job
I know that those programs help reduce poverty. The problem is that congress keeps cutting them without forcing employers to make up the difference.
I never said raise minimum wage to $30 which would be a 4x increase. I said raise it to $10 which would be a 33% increase and be more in line with what the minimum wage would be if it were tied to inflation.
If they reduce poverty than they are not subsidies to businesses.
Taxpayer money is making up for a shortfall in wages. Government pays the bill instead of a business. How is that not a subsidy?
I live alone and pay between $7 and $10 a day for food and that's with cooking everything myself and making it from scratch. The rest of my family is similar.
If taxpayer money was making up for a shortfall in wages, than removing the money and doing nothing else would leave the worker no better or worse off. EITIC and the like do not depress the market price for labor. Nor are we talking about a subsistence level of income where less income means death.
There's no natural force like starvation that demands wages be higher. Nor is there a market need demanding higher wages. In other words, there's no shortfall in an economic sense. It's only a shortfall because you think a wage lower than that is "gross".
Sounds like you are using neoclassical economics to arrive at those conclusions? As if Neoclassical economics was a proven science? Your claims are tenuous at best.
No, I'm not using neoclassical economics to arrive at my conclusions. There's little evidence that EITC and the like depress wages. There's a lot of evidence that these subsides increase incomes.
Sounds like working as intended. If they weren't working as intended you'd see more evidence of wages being depressed and less evidence of incomes going up.
Hmm because the evidence supporting your claim seems to stem from Neoclassical economics unless your referencing some evidence I can't find?
Here's a piece suggesting many of the claims stemming from Neoclasssical economics (that are the only ones I can find supporting your claim.) just are not accurate or support the idea that a min. wage increase doesn't actually decrease employment in a significant way? (despite it's common use as a talking point)
The weight of that evidence points to little or no employment response to modest increases in the minimum wage.
The report reviews evidence on eleven possible adjustments to minimum-wage increases that may help to explain why the measured employment effects are so consistently small. The strongest evidence suggests that the most important channels of adjustment are: reductions in labor turnover; improvements in organizational efficiency; reductions in wages of higher earners ("wage compression"); and small price increases.
Given the relatively small cost to employers of modest increases in the minimum wage, these adjustment mechanisms appear to be more than sufficient to avoid employment losses, even for employers with a large share of low-wage worker
At least concerning the type of wage raises reasonable people are suggesting...
I don't have a problem with a modest increase in the min wage. But to do away with EITC and the like you'd have to raise it a lot.
CBO estimates that a $10.10 min wage would increase incomes for families up to 3X the poverty line by $12 Billion. Food stamps pay out $80 billion and EITC pays out $60 billion. source
If you want to do away with these programs (not to mention all the others!) you'll have to go well beyond what reasonable people are suggesting.
Well it's a bit of a red herring - min wage won't affect just Walmart. It also ignoring the impact of higher prices on real wages, lower demand from higher prices, etc.
I don't believe it advocated for a minimum wage. But even if it did, we all agree that minimum wage increases are a wash on unemployment.
Lower demand from 1.4% price increases? Offset by worker raises?
Well they'd get a higher wage but lose the benefits. For low income workers that's often a wash.
On April 18 2014 11:56 SnipedSoul wrote: It's actually the converse. Nationalized healthcare would help businesses be more competitive by removing the significant financial burden of providing healthcare to their employees. Those funds would then be available for additional investment, higher wages, or whatever else the business wants to do with them.
That sounds like how a business subsidy is supposed to work ...
On April 18 2014 11:57 SnipedSoul wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:55 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:54 SnipedSoul wrote:
On April 18 2014 11:48 JonnyBNoHo wrote: [quote] The evidence that EITC and other subsides go to businesses in the form of lower wages is scarce. Conversely evidence that EITC and the like reduce poverty are well documented. If you were correct, this wouldn't be the case. EITC and SNAP wouldn't help anyone since the added benefit would just get shifted to the employer.
The negative impacts of a higher minimum wage are controversial but well documented. The higher the minimum wage goes, the more likely it is to reduce employment. No one seriously thinks you can raise the minimum wage to $30 and have no one lose their job
I know that those programs help reduce poverty. The problem is that congress keeps cutting them without forcing employers to make up the difference.
I never said raise minimum wage to $30 which would be a 4x increase. I said raise it to $10 which would be a 33% increase and be more in line with what the minimum wage would be if it were tied to inflation.
If they reduce poverty than they are not subsidies to businesses.
Taxpayer money is making up for a shortfall in wages. Government pays the bill instead of a business. How is that not a subsidy?
I live alone and pay between $7 and $10 a day for food and that's with cooking everything myself and making it from scratch. The rest of my family is similar.
If taxpayer money was making up for a shortfall in wages, than removing the money and doing nothing else would leave the worker no better or worse off. EITIC and the like do not depress the market price for labor. Nor are we talking about a subsistence level of income where less income means death.
There's no natural force like starvation that demands wages be higher. Nor is there a market need demanding higher wages. In other words, there's no shortfall in an economic sense. It's only a shortfall because you think a wage lower than that is "gross".
Sounds like you are using neoclassical economics to arrive at those conclusions? As if Neoclassical economics was a proven science? Your claims are tenuous at best.
No, I'm not using neoclassical economics to arrive at my conclusions. There's little evidence that EITC and the like depress wages. There's a lot of evidence that these subsides increase incomes.
Sounds like working as intended. If they weren't working as intended you'd see more evidence of wages being depressed and less evidence of incomes going up.
Hmm because the evidence supporting your claim seems to stem from Neoclassical economics unless your referencing some evidence I can't find?
Here's a piece suggesting many of the claims stemming from Neoclasssical economics (that are the only ones I can find supporting your claim.) just are not accurate or support the idea that a min. wage increase doesn't actually decrease employment in a significant way? (despite it's common use as a talking point)
The weight of that evidence points to little or no employment response to modest increases in the minimum wage.
The report reviews evidence on eleven possible adjustments to minimum-wage increases that may help to explain why the measured employment effects are so consistently small. The strongest evidence suggests that the most important channels of adjustment are: reductions in labor turnover; improvements in organizational efficiency; reductions in wages of higher earners ("wage compression"); and small price increases.
Given the relatively small cost to employers of modest increases in the minimum wage, these adjustment mechanisms appear to be more than sufficient to avoid employment losses, even for employers with a large share of low-wage worker
At least concerning the type of wage raises reasonable people are suggesting...
I don't have a problem with a modest increase in the min wage. But to do away with EITC and the like you'd have to raise it a lot.
CBO estimates that a $10.10 min wage would increase incomes for families up to 3X the poverty line by $12 Billion. Food stamps pay out $80 billion and EITC pays out $60 billion. source
If you want to do away with these programs (not to mention all the others!) you'll have to go well beyond what reasonable people are suggesting.
Well it's a bit of a red herring - min wage won't affect just Walmart. It also ignoring the impact of higher prices on real wages, lower demand from higher prices, etc.
I wish more conservatives took your tack on the minimum wage. But I don't understand where the 'do away with the EITC' keeps coming from?
That's my interpretation of calling those programs corporate subsidies.
On April 18 2014 14:35 IgnE wrote: Just raise the cap on foodstamps.
That's a different argument from what others were making. They seem to be wanting to replace the 'subsidies to walmart' with higher wages rather than supplement the subsidies with higher wages.
Ex. the video calling for higher wages and saving the taxpayers money. you only save the taxpayer money if they aren't forking out the benefit anymore.
On April 18 2014 14:35 IgnE wrote: Just raise the cap on foodstamps.
That's a different argument from what others were making. They seem to be wanting to replace the 'subsidies to walmart' with higher wages rather than supplement the subsidies with higher wages.
Ex. the video calling for higher wages and saving the taxpayers money. you only save the taxpayer money if they aren't forking out the benefit anymore.
Which they would not have to do if recipients of government assistance were paid enough to get them above the minimum income threshold for qualification of said subsidies.
If a million people making less than $10 an hour are on foodstamps and the income threshold is $14 an hour, then getting those people up to $15 an hour will take them off foodstamps and save taxpayers money.
The "downside" is that feeding employees will be the burden of employers instead of the government.
EPT
