On Saturday, August 8, 2015 at 1:48:30 PM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:

Lip service. Anyone with a family does better on welfare than he does
making minimum wage and supporting them with it. You're living a
fantasy.

--
Ed Huntress

And the corollaries a

Anyone with a family does better on Welfare if they also have a minimum wage job.

Or anyone working at a minimum wage job is better off if they also get welfare.

You are living a fantasy if you think a minumum wage of $10.10 an hour will get people off welfare.

Dan

On Sat, 8 Aug 2015 12:23:21 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Saturday, August 8, 2015 at 1:48:30 PM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:

Lip service. Anyone with a family does better on welfare than he does
making minimum wage and supporting them with it. You're living a
fantasy.

--
Ed Huntress

And the corollaries a

Anyone with a family does better on Welfare if they also have a minimum wage job.

That's a good reason to raise the minimum wage. Then you start to move
beyond lip service and actually provide an incentive to work. The
higher the raise, the more get off of welfare.


Or anyone working at a minimum wage job is better off if they also get welfare.

Depending on the state, they may get a reduction in welfare if they
get a minimum wage job.

The desireable relationship is obvious; the actual relationships are
sometimes undesireable.


You are living a fantasy if you think a minumum wage of $10.10 an hour will get people off welfare.

It will get some off of welfare. But if you think it should be higher,
how much higher should it be?

--
Ed Huntress

Dan

On Saturday, August 8, 2015 at 4:07:43 PM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:


You are living a fantasy if you think a minumum wage of $10.10 an hour will get people off welfare.

It will get some off of welfare. But if you think it should be higher,
how much higher should it be?

--
Ed Huntress

I looked at one web site with data for Chicago. It claimed that $12 an hour wages provided the maximum benefits. Higher wages resulted in fewer free gov benefits so wages above $12 reduced benefits more that the increase in wages.
So from about $12 an hour in wages to $20 an hour in wages there was a reduction in benefits. When wages increased above $20 an hour the additional money in wages were more than the welfare benefits lost.

My answer to how high should it be is Zero. Supply and demand will keep the wages at about what they are now. All the money now used to enforce the minimum wage law could be used to help pay for welfare.

It will not happen. There are no politicians that would vote to get rid of the minimum wage. And few that would vote to raise the minimum wage above the market-clearing wage for low-skill jobs.

Dan

On Sat, 8 Aug 2015 18:23:30 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Saturday, August 8, 2015 at 4:07:43 PM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:


You are living a fantasy if you think a minumum wage of $10.10 an hour will get people off welfare.

It will get some off of welfare. But if you think it should be higher,
how much higher should it be?

--
Ed Huntress

I looked at one web site with data for Chicago. It claimed that $12 an hour wages provided the maximum benefits. Higher wages resulted in fewer free gov benefits so wages above $12 reduced benefits more that the increase in wages.
So from about $12 an hour in wages to $20 an hour in wages there was a reduction in benefits. When wages increased above $20 an hour the additional money in wages were more than the welfare benefits lost.

My answer to how high should it be is Zero. Supply and demand will keep the wages at about what they are now.

There is no reason or evidence that I know of that suggests that would
be true. The supply/demand curve now is biased by the minimum wage.
Nobody knows by how much.

A few years ago there were some pundits, and business managers, who
said that we have to reduce wages to compete with China. There is
plenty of pressure to drive wages down. Fortunately, wages in China
are going up, so it's unlikely that the push to lower wages in the US
will go anywhere.

All the money now used to enforce the minimum wage law could be used to help pay for welfare.

It will not happen. There are no politicians that would vote to get rid of the minimum wage. And few that would vote to raise the minimum wage above the market-clearing wage for low-skill jobs.

Dan

--
Ed Huntress

On Sunday, August 9, 2015 at 11:54:00 AM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:

There is no reason or evidence that I know of that suggests that would
be true. The supply/demand curve now is biased by the minimum wage.
Nobody knows by how much.


Ed Huntress

And more to the point, no one knows if the supply/ demand curve is biased at all by the minimum wage. You said yourself that no one knows by how much. Well then the bias might be zero. That is my guess. Back about six years ago, a friend tried to hire some teenagers to do some yard work in the Seattle area. At $15 an hour he found NONE. The minimum wage law at less than $10 was not having much effect.

Dan

On Sun, 9 Aug 2015 09:40:59 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Sunday, August 9, 2015 at 11:54:00 AM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:

There is no reason or evidence that I know of that suggests that would
be true. The supply/demand curve now is biased by the minimum wage.
Nobody knows by how much.


Ed Huntress

And more to the point, no one knows if the supply/ demand curve is biased at all by the minimum wage. You said yourself that no one knows by how much. Well then the bias might be zero. That is my guess. Back about six years ago, a friend tried to hire some teenagers to do some yard work in the Seattle area. At $15 an hour he found NONE. The minimum wage law at less than $10 was not having much effect.

Dan

I'm even less moved by anecdotes than I am by old neo-liberal economic
theories. d8-)

Again, the "market-clearing" low wage is unknown, except that we know
it's no higher than the current minimum. If it was, no one would be
paid the minimum -- but 3.6 million people are.

--
Ed Huntress

On Sunday, August 9, 2015 at 1:01:39 PM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:

Again, the "market-clearing" low wage is unknown, except that we know
it's no higher than the current minimum. If it was, no one would be
paid the minimum -- but 3.6 million people are.

--
Ed Huntress

Would you believe the " market cloaring " low wage is not the same in every state or even in every city?

You could have a higher market clearing wage in Manhattan and a lower one in Tupelo.

So what percentage of that 3.6 million live in Manhattan?

Dan

On Sun, 9 Aug 2015 12:08:08 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Sunday, August 9, 2015 at 1:01:39 PM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:

Again, the "market-clearing" low wage is unknown, except that we know
it's no higher than the current minimum. If it was, no one would be
paid the minimum -- but 3.6 million people are.

--
Ed Huntress

Would you believe the " market cloaring " low wage is not the same in every state or even in every city?

Yes. And in every state, and probably every city, there are people
making the (local) minimum wage. So the minimum wage is not the
"market clearing" wage, anywhere. It is a politically decided floor,
everywhere.


You could have a higher market clearing wage in Manhattan and a lower one in Tupelo.

Of course. And it is NEVER more than the minimum wage, or there would
be no one making the minimum wage.


So what percentage of that 3.6 million live in Manhattan?

You could look it up. I'm not interested in the question. Try that
Labor Dept. report on characteristics of minimum-wage earners. Maybe
it's there.

--
Ed Huntress



Dan