Higher minimum wages linked to reduced suicide rate

[Purgatio]

Pretty well established by who?

Pretty well-established by numerous studies, several of them which show that raising the minimum wage does not increase unemployment or lead to catastrophic inflation:
http://cepr.net/publications/reports/wh ... employment
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41445397?seq=1
https://research.upjohn.org/up_workingpapers/260/

Well, I don't know about "catastrophic inflation", maybe not quite that severe, but the concept of wage-push or cost-push inflation is a pretty well-recognised economic concept, and anyway there do seem to be specific case studies or examples of cases where a higher minimum wage did contribute to higher prices on consumers (https://apnews.com/9bed3bde87cd46dbbe2ba7a81b782abd and a Bobeica & Ciccarelli Working Paper to the ECB, as seen here https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecb.wp2235~69b97077ff.en.pdf, and an older but still interesting analysis of different economies where Blackman notes wage escalation contributed to wage-push inflationary effects https://www.jstor.org/stable/2520305?seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents)

[Czechoslovakia and Zakarpatia]

Pretty well-established by numerous studies, several of them which show that raising the minimum wage does not increase unemployment or lead to catastrophic inflation:
http://cepr.net/publications/reports/wh ... employment
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41445397?seq=1
https://research.upjohn.org/up_workingpapers/260/

Well, I don't know about "catastrophic inflation", maybe not quite that severe, but the concept of wage-push or cost-push inflation is a pretty well-recognised economic concept, and anyway there do seem to be specific case studies or examples of cases where a higher minimum wage did contribute to higher prices on consumers (https://apnews.com/9bed3bde87cd46dbbe2ba7a81b782abd and a Bobeica & Ciccarelli Working Paper to the ECB, as seen here https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecb.wp2235~69b97077ff.en.pdf, and an older but still interesting analysis of different economies where Blackman notes wage escalation contributed to wage-push inflationary effects https://www.jstor.org/stable/2520305?seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents)

Quite a bit of right-wingers suggest that even a modest increase of the minimum wage would lead to "catastrophic hyperinflation" and "economic ruin", an argument which obviously has no basis in reality.

[Purgatio]

This is often practically true, but you're stating it in a misleading way. Raising minimum wage will, in a theoretical framework, always push up inflation and unemployment. In practice we don't see this borne out unless a country tries to enforce a positively silly minimum wage hike in terms of end value and/or speed of increase. Market actors have a theory of mind and awareness of politics and expectation that wage hikes are going to be seen through, meaning markets will and do adjust unless they just fundamentally can't.

Good thing that nobody, not even Sanders supporters, are advocating for a huge hike (Such as 30 dollars or 50 dollars an hour) here, and the "but muh unemployment" argument was so conclusively debunked that it does not merit further attention.

Roundly debunked? That's a bit of a stretch, there is a lot of literature out there concluding that raising the minimum wage does not increase unemployment, and a lot of countervailing research reaching the opposite conclusion (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/001979399204600105 and https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/0019-8676.00199?referrer_access_token=ZMz-0pGONysKCKIzIkEtv4ta6bR2k8jH0KrdpFOxC64hAAIG9m0kWaGYSAY6YUBvBdjQxkMsM3Qkm4BNlkjNP2MXjhn-VySuTjLYrF-xsnHVnuHOsVJhhzGK79u0mOV1NVhwcaPbat6HUc5kMbn5c_tuDC0QSFB9c-otcG6RGjI%3D and https://www.aeaweb.org/research/charts/labor-demand-minimum-wage-impact-jobs which is reporting the study here (https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20141374), and finally this one https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/iere.12262).

I think the more intellectual humble conclusion, one that I favour, is acceptance that there is conflicting literature and research from economists reaching differing conclusions on the subject, and on top of that more empirical debate between economists there is also the more conceptual or theoretical debate, with one school of thought applying the orthodox Laws of Supply and Demand to the labour market and the other arguing minimum wage employment should be analysed through a monopsony model, and the other countering that monopsony analysis is inapplicable in a flexible market with numerous competitors supplying and demanding the good in question, like the labour market, and on and on it goes. This is why I'm generally loathe to make broad claims that there is an irrefutable academic consensus finding X or Y unless it is unambiguously true, such as in the cases of evolution or anthropenic climate change.

[Yirophia]

This is often practically true, but you're stating it in a misleading way. Raising minimum wage will, in a theoretical framework, always push up inflation and unemployment. In practice we don't see this borne out unless a country tries to enforce a positively silly minimum wage hike in terms of end value and/or speed of increase. Market actors have a theory of mind and awareness of politics and expectation that wage hikes are going to be seen through, meaning markets will and do adjust unless they just fundamentally can't.

Good thing that nobody, not even Sanders supporters, are advocating for a huge hike (Such as 30 dollars or 50 dollars an hour) here, and the "but muh unemployment" argument was so conclusively debunked that it does not merit further attention.

$15 is pretty extreme. It's unprecedented in US history (the highest minimum wage in US history, adjusted for inflation, would be about $11 today). I for one wouldn't be against trying to get there I suppose, but only as a gradual measure and with an overseeing council of actual economists that can keep their fingers on the pulse of the situation and are empowered to stall hikes if they would threaten to push over a tipping point and start to do more harm than good.

It's a good job that companies are free to lay off unprofitable workers, then. What's more, in the longer term, minimum wage hikes (within sane limits, see: my earlier post explaining that $10-11 would probably be a good national minimum wage for the USA rather than the Bernie meme $15) kicking people out of low-profit jobs means either A: if they have the skills to hop up to some better paying vacant jobs they do while they're on unemployment, or B: if they don't they get justifiably dropped into the safety net formed by welfare, formal private charity, and just the plain old good will of family and friends and the likes, and are sooner or later are bounced back up, upcycled to better paying work by accruing some higher formal education or just better skills at marketing themselves or whatever you will.

Companies are free to lay off unprofitable workers with or without a minimum wage, the difference is if an employer is unwilling to pay a particular position a wage at or above the minimum wage, because the productive value of the job or employee in question is lesser than the minimum wage, he is barred from offering a wage anywhere below that price floor and has to opt for the extremes of either paying the minimnum wage or not hiring that person or filling that position at all. None of the benefits you mention under Option A are mutually-exclusive to a system of minimum wages, if say a job is higher-skilled and more productive and its market value is US$20.00 an hour, and another job is lower-skilled and less productive and so its competitive market value is less, maybe its US$7.00 an hour, under our present system employees with the skills and ability to offer and to enter the better-paid and more productive position can still apply for that position, nothing about having a minimum wage increases or decreases that capacity.

Two things. One, a firm facing a rising minimum wage isn't simply out of options if they can't turn a profit from workers in certain departments while still paying them that minimum wage. Automation is a thing, and contrary to what some people seem to believe it's a good thing; nobody would be able to be a doctor or IT professional or the likes if we didn't go from requiring 70+ percent of the global population to be farmers to support the rest to under 1%, among many other changes. And two, in the US at least, there is a legal framework for so-called "sub-minimum wages," utilised in an effort to raise employment rates in particular edge cases, usually among the disabled or those who simply have so little education and marketable skills they would be unable to find employment at all.

[Purgatio]

Well, I don't know about "catastrophic inflation", maybe not quite that severe, but the concept of wage-push or cost-push inflation is a pretty well-recognised economic concept, and anyway there do seem to be specific case studies or examples of cases where a higher minimum wage did contribute to higher prices on consumers (https://apnews.com/9bed3bde87cd46dbbe2ba7a81b782abd and a Bobeica & Ciccarelli Working Paper to the ECB, as seen here https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecb.wp2235~69b97077ff.en.pdf, and an older but still interesting analysis of different economies where Blackman notes wage escalation contributed to wage-push inflationary effects https://www.jstor.org/stable/2520305?seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents)

Quite a bit of right-wingers suggest that even a modest increase of the minimum wage would lead to "catastrophic hyperinflation" and "economic ruin", an argument which obviously has no basis in reality.

Yeah well I'm not making a "catastrophic inflation" argument, but the fact remains that wage-push inflation is an effect or a consequence of raising the minimum wage, and so with that in mind its worth having a moral debate about whether it is justifiable to require consumers to put up with higher prices on goods and services, even if inflation is not literally "catastrophic" as you describe, in order to give a class of workers higher pay that is above the efficient market value of their labour, as determined through mutual bargaining and voluntary, consensual transactions arising out of exercise of contractual freedom on both sides.

[Czechoslovakia and Zakarpatia]

Good thing that nobody, not even Sanders supporters, are advocating for a huge hike (Such as 30 dollars or 50 dollars an hour) here, and the "but muh unemployment" argument was so conclusively debunked that it does not merit further attention.

$15 is pretty extreme. It's unprecedented in US history (the highest minimum wage in US history, adjusted for inflation, would be about $11 today). I for one wouldn't be against trying to get there I suppose, but only as a gradual measure and with an overseeing council of actual economists that can keep their fingers on the pulse of the situation and are empowered to stall hikes if they would threaten to push over a tipping point and start to do more harm than good.

Companies are free to lay off unprofitable workers with or without a minimum wage, the difference is if an employer is unwilling to pay a particular position a wage at or above the minimum wage, because the productive value of the job or employee in question is lesser than the minimum wage, he is barred from offering a wage anywhere below that price floor and has to opt for the extremes of either paying the minimnum wage or not hiring that person or filling that position at all. None of the benefits you mention under Option A are mutually-exclusive to a system of minimum wages, if say a job is higher-skilled and more productive and its market value is US$20.00 an hour, and another job is lower-skilled and less productive and so its competitive market value is less, maybe its US$7.00 an hour, under our present system employees with the skills and ability to offer and to enter the better-paid and more productive position can still apply for that position, nothing about having a minimum wage increases or decreases that capacity.

Two things. One, a firm facing a rising minimum wage isn't simply out of options if they can't turn a profit from workers in certain departments while still paying them that minimum wage. Automation is a thing, and contrary to what some people seem to believe it's a good thing; nobody would be able to be a doctor or IT professional or the likes if we didn't go from requiring 70+ percent of the global population to be farmers to support the rest to under 1%, among many other changes. And two, in the US at least, there is a legal framework for so-called "sub-minimum wages," utilised in an effort to raise employment rates in particular edge cases, usually among the disabled or those who simply have so little education and marketable skills they would be unable to find employment at all.

15 dollars isn't that extreme when you look at the numbers and realize that if the minimum wage truly kept up with inflation and productivity and was gradually increased every year in the past, the minimum wage today would have been $21.72 an hour, not $7.25. Even if we only followed price inflation alone while disregarding every other economic factor, the current minimum wage still falls way too short of what it should be, which is $11.00 an hour.

[Ors Might]

Nah, really? I was under the impression that my struggle to pay rent and afford my medication while simultaneously not starving to death is doing wonders for my mental health.

And for y’all complaining about the wrongness of the government holding a metaphorical gun to the heads of employers, well, while I can agree with that sort of thinking to an extent, that doesn’t change the fact that taking advantage of the desperation and powerlessness of the people helping you support yourself and your goals is fucking disgusting. That there is something wrong with the government forcing you to do x does not mean you aren’t horribly ungrateful and borderline predatory if you don’t do x.

[Yahaba]

Cool and all but lowered-skilled wagies aren't worth $15 dollars an hour

[Page]

Cool and all but lowered-skilled wagies aren't worth $15 dollars an hour

If all the employees who work minimum wage jobs quit at the same time, businesses would collapse into dust.

[Yahaba]

Cool and all but lowered-skilled wagies aren't worth $15 dollars an hour

If all the employees who work minimum wage jobs quit at the same time, businesses would collapse into dust.

I was referring to entry-level workers who are completely BTFO'd out of ever working at McRonalds because well, do you think McRonalds wants to waste $15 an hour to some entry-level wagie when they can hire someone slightly more experienced at flipping burgers? Also, this $15 an hour stuff effects smaller businesses more because they'll eventually hit a point where they can't pay their employees anymore if they're not raking in the cash Chad Warden style. So that's why I believe we should be paid in goats.

[The Emerald Legion]

Suicide is not a health crisis.

[Iridencia]

Not treating people like shit makes them less likely to kill themselves? Say it ain't so!

[Bear Stearns]

In order to keep a high minimum wage (which I support) from spiraling into out of control inflation and mass unemployment, you must deport all illegal immigrants and make hiring one punishable by up to five years and prison and forfeiture of wealth gained from illegal labor.

[Telconi]

If I eat lobster tail and filet mignon every night, my groceries alone would consume 15/hr.

Okay.... and? We aren't here to talk about your grocery list.

"Enough" is a preposterous measurement of a wage.

I'm sure it is to you.

But we're here to talk about the grocery list of America's workers evidently.

It's preposterous to everyone, your avocation for the preposterous doesn't make it any less so.

[Page]

If all the employees who work minimum wage jobs quit at the same time, businesses would collapse into dust.

I was referring to entry-level workers who are completely BTFO'd out of ever working at McRonalds because well, do you think McRonalds wants to waste $15 an hour to some entry-level wagie when they can hire someone slightly more experienced at flipping burgers? Also, this $15 an hour stuff effects smaller businesses more because they'll eventually hit a point where they can't pay their employees anymore if they're not raking in the cash Chad Warden style. So that's why I believe we should be paid in goats.

As others already pointed out, relative to inflation, businesses were paying more than the equivalent of $15 an hour in the 40's, 50's, 60's, and 70's and were doing just fine.

[Bear Stearns]

Cool and all but lowered-skilled wagies aren't worth $15 dollars an hour

If all the employees who work minimum wage jobs quit at the same time, businesses would collapse into dust.

Depends on the business.

Want to see a business squeal like a greedy pig when you take away its cheap labor? Talk to an agricultural executive after you've deported his illegal workers.

[Evil Dictators Happyland]

In order to keep a high minimum wage (which I support) from spiraling into out of control inflation and mass unemployment, you must deport all illegal immigrants and make hiring one punishable by up to five years and prison and forfeiture of wealth gained from illegal labor.

Why is deportation preferable to easy naturalization? Deporting millions of workers is going to cause catastrophic damage to the economy, naturalization costs us just as much money in paperwork fees as the deportations would and lets us keep our larger labor pool.

[Evil Dictators Happyland]

Okay.... and? We aren't here to talk about your grocery list.


I'm sure it is to you.

But we're here to talk about the grocery list of America's workers evidently.

It's preposterous to everyone, your avocation for the preposterous doesn't make it any less so.

I'm pretty sure that if you conduct a survey asking if it's unreasonable for businesses to pay their workers enough, "yes" won't even be a majority, much less 100% of the total.
The United States is ostensibly the wealthiest nation on the planet. We definitely have enough money to pay our workers enough to afford food, rent, and basic medical care.

[Bear Stearns]

In order to keep a high minimum wage (which I support) from spiraling into out of control inflation and mass unemployment, you must deport all illegal immigrants and make hiring one punishable by up to five years and prison and forfeiture of wealth gained from illegal labor.

Why is deportation preferable to easy naturalization? Deporting millions of workers is going to cause catastrophic damage to the economy, naturalization costs us just as much money in paperwork fees as the deportations would and lets us keep our larger labor pool.

*Catastrophic damage to the 1%

The bolded is against the logic of increasing the minimum wage.

[Estanglia]

People who are paid more money and have to worry less about stuff like being able to afford food, housing, medication and the like are less likely to kill themselves? Truly, I am shocked.

[The Liberated Territories]

$30 minimum wage when.

[The World Capitalist Confederation]

There should be a small increase every year, or every couple of years, so people's income gradually rises.

The only problem with minimum wage increases is their relationship with inflation goes both ways.

So, by the logic of inverse relationships, if we abolished the minimum wage, we'd cause a second Great Depression through a significant deflation?

[Nuevo Mexican Empire]

Well, I don't know about "catastrophic inflation", maybe not quite that severe, but the concept of wage-push or cost-push inflation is a pretty well-recognised economic concept, and anyway there do seem to be specific case studies or examples of cases where a higher minimum wage did contribute to higher prices on consumers (https://apnews.com/9bed3bde87cd46dbbe2ba7a81b782abd and a Bobeica & Ciccarelli Working Paper to the ECB, as seen here https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecb.wp2235~69b97077ff.en.pdf, and an older but still interesting analysis of different economies where Blackman notes wage escalation contributed to wage-push inflationary effects https://www.jstor.org/stable/2520305?seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents)

Quite a bit of right-wingers suggest that even a modest increase of the minimum wage would lead to "catastrophic hyperinflation" and "economic ruin", an argument which obviously has no basis in reality.

Quite a bit of Left-Wingers suggest that even a large increase of the minimum wage will lead to "huge improvements for the poor" & "economic prosperity for the minimum wage worker", an argument which obviously has no basis in reality.

^ there you go. Fixed the terms for you. See how lovely a logical fallacy is?

Also your various "links" mean nothing. I can provide my own that I assembled in about a minute of searching with my browser:

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/i ... oyment.asp
https://www.epionline.org/oped/o76/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adammillsa ... 98f1cf1e7d
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/08/73960796 ... s-cbo-says
https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregoryfer ... 6fcaad6ffa
https://reason.com/2019/02/26/minimum-w ... or-robots/

& more. Not to mention, many advocates of minimum wage simply don't look at the context of the policy. Let me explain.

We live in a world where automation is becoming an ever more present reality. Even today, businesses such as Taco Bell or Mcdonalds are beginning to implement self serving kiosks that eliminate the need for a cashier. By increasing the minimum wage, sure, those workers will be better off... in the short run. In the long run, companies will begin to look for ways to cut those costs down. Especially mega-corporations like Mcdonalds where the constant goal is how to expand their profit margins. Now, maybe in the 50's or 60's automation seemed like a distant dream. But we are in 2020, where, again, you have self serving kiosks.

For those who look to "morality" as the deciding factor. Why don't they answer this?

Is it moral to help benefit workers for a year or two, only for them to be replaced by a machine?

Will you be there to pay for the lives of those workers when they get laid off? Or will you still be here, on NationStates? Crying about how the world is unfair that we don't pay Joe at Mcdonalds $50 an hour?

& to critics who state, "Automation will happen regardless of minimum wage". Perhaps, but to think again in the mind of a company. They will be looking to cut costs. Machines are still that: machines. They require maintenance, upgrades, etc. to remain relevant. The cost of a worker in the IT field is higher (& depending on the job / skillset required it could be MUCH higher) than the cost of a minimum wage employee. <---- this does not also account for the increase in expense of say electricity or other minuscule factors that one does not consider which factor into overhead costs for a business.

So again, simply raising the minimum wage may seem like a sweet deal in the short run but not in the long run.

[The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp]

"B-but guys think of the poor executives who will now have to down grade from 3 private jets to one!"

Suicide is not a health crisis.

Not what the CDC says but ok

[The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp]

Quite a bit of right-wingers suggest that even a modest increase of the minimum wage would lead to "catastrophic hyperinflation" and "economic ruin", an argument which obviously has no basis in reality.

Quite a bit of Left-Wingers suggest that even a large increase of the minimum wage will lead to "huge improvements for the poor" & "economic prosperity for the minimum wage worker", an argument which obviously has no basis in reality.

^ there you go. Fixed the terms for you. See how lovely a logical fallacy is?

Also your various "links" mean nothing. I can provide my own that I assembled in about a minute of searching with my browser:

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/i ... oyment.asp
https://www.epionline.org/oped/o76/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adammillsa ... 98f1cf1e7d
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/08/73960796 ... s-cbo-says
https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregoryfer ... 6fcaad6ffa
https://reason.com/2019/02/26/minimum-w ... or-robots/

& more. Not to mention, many advocates of minimum wage simply don't look at the context of the policy. Let me explain.

We live in a world where automation is becoming an ever more present reality. Even today, businesses such as Taco Bell or Mcdonalds are beginning to implement self serving kiosks that eliminate the need for a cashier. By increasing the minimum wage, sure, those workers will be better off... in the short run. In the long run, companies will begin to look for ways to cut those costs down. Especially mega-corporations like Mcdonalds where the constant goal is how to expand their profit margins. Now, maybe in the 50's or 60's automation seemed like a distant dream. But we are in 2020, where, again, you have self serving kiosks.

For those who look to "morality" as the deciding factor. Why don't they answer this?

Is it moral to help benefit workers for a year or two, only for them to be replaced by a machine?

Will you be there to pay for the lives of those workers when they get laid off? Or will you still be here, on NationStates? Crying about how the world is unfair that we don't pay Joe at Mcdonalds $50 an hour?

& to critics who state, "Automation will happen regardless of minimum wage". Perhaps, but to think again in the mind of a company. They will be looking to cut costs. Machines are still that: machines. They require maintenance, upgrades, etc. to remain relevant. The cost of a worker in the IT field is higher (& depending on the job / skillset required it could be MUCH higher) than the cost of a minimum wage employee. <---- this does not also account for the increase in expense of say electricity or other minuscule factors that one does not consider which factor into overhead costs for a business.

So again, simply raising the minimum wage may seem like a sweet deal in the short run but not in the long run.

>complains about logical fallcys
>attacks the person, not the arugment later on in his post

You know what cuts could be done? Cut executive funding, not the ground workers.