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Los Angeles Raises Minimum Wage to $15 an Hour

Phys251 said:
I believe that a living wage is a necessary, but not sufficient, requisite for economic justice. Livable neighborhoods, reductions in food deserts, better transportation networks, better support for public schools, etc. are also things that I believe are necessary. A living wage is just one piece, but one important piece.

BTW, I'd like to address Kevin's post in its own right. It is a challenge to a liberal talking point that is actually rational, reasonable, and free from snide comments--truly a rare find around here. Well done.

Libertarians and conservatives, please refer to this example of how you're supposed to do it.

Inb4 I get examples of how you're NOT supposed to do it.
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define a living wage with a hard number. no business can justify paying 15 dollars to a dish washer or a bag boy.
the value of what they do simply isn't there. that is the problem.
 
jamesrage said:
Unless the rest of California goes along with this it will be a futile effort.It will just cause companies to move outside of L.A,.Or since California metaphorically sucks the testicles of pro-illegals and the traitorous scumbags who hire this will encourage more scumbags to hire illegals instead of paying the 15 dollar an hour wage.
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Yes, but those immigrants are Americans too, just like us, they just don't have the right papers. So decreed our great leader. So when the immigrant gets that lower paying job, and the citizen is still unemployed, it's called success in California.
 
ludin said:
define a living wage with a hard number. no business can justify paying 15 dollars to a dish washer or a bag boy.
the value of what they do simply isn't there. that is the problem.
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I could counter that by saying no business can justify paying anyone 6,000 per hour or more either.
 
Overall, even as the increase in Los Angeles' minimum wage will be phased in over 5 years, it should make for an interesting policy experiment. IMO, barring structural changes e.g., increased educational attainment, the minimum wage increase will likely have more adverse outcomes than what has been experienced in Seattle to date. Seattle, with its highly-educated population and knowledge-centered economy was in a much stronger position to handle the increase with modest negative outcomes. Los Angeles has a much less well-educated population and notably lower per capita income than Seattle. Put another way, it has a much larger lower-wage labor pool than Seattle and its local economy is much less productive than Seattle's. Unless Los Angeles can increase its economic productivity to a level necessary to finance the impact of the minimum wage increase, economic theory would suggest that it would experience more adverse labor market outcomes than Seattle has.

A brief comparison of the two cities is below:

LAand_Seattle.jpg
 
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I'm of the opinion that minimum wage should be indexed to cost of living. It can be difficult for a person living in rural Kansas to understand that 15 bucks an hour still doesn't get a person very far in San Francisco, because 15 bucks is simply a lot more money in Kansas than San Francisco.

In general, though, large increases in the minimum wage will only exacerbate the trend towards conglomeration at the expense of small business. Small businesses are already squeezed and for those businesses having just a small handful of employees, a sudden increase in payroll can be very challenging.
 
KevinKohler said:
I could counter that by saying no business can justify paying anyone 6,000 per hour or more either.
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depends on what that person is doing, and yes they can if that person is earning more than 6000 an hour.
of course the job of a ceo is way harder and more complicated than that of a dish washer.
 
min wage increases like this force companies to make hard decisions

a. automation....some things they may have put off, now seem much more palatable
b. staffing.....wont have a janitor....will let others pick up slack in some areas, or maybe even let it go completely
c. move their business to a friendlier place
d. fold their business and go back to working for someone else

with gross margins tight....and if the market will not allow the raising of prices....i can see a lot of places closing

like seattle...we will see

it takes time for these laws to be on the books, before you get a clear picture of what happened

sometimes...it may be too late to change
 
Anomalism said:
Good news for the fight against income inequality.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/20/u...to-raise-minimum-wage-to-15-an-hour.html?_r=0

The nation’s second-largest city voted on Tuesday to increase its minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020 from the current $9 an hour, in what is perhaps the most significant victory so far in the national push to raise the minimum wage. The increase — which the Los Angeles City Council passed in a 14-1 vote — comes as workers across the country are rallying for higher wages, and several large companies, including Facebook and Walmart, have moved to raise their lowest wages. Several other cities, including San Francisco, Seattle and Oakland, Calif., have already approved increases, and dozens more are considering doing the same. In 2014, a number of Republican-leaning states like Alaska and South Dakota also raised their state-level minimum wage by referendum. The impact is likely to be particularly strong in Los Angeles, where, according to some estimates, more than 40 percent of the city’s work force earns less than $15 an hour.
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Bad news for employees. As usual, the brain stems that run the City of Los Angeles see an opportunity to buy more slaves, and run small business owners out of the city.

Why not $25/hr? How about $50? What brain trust economic wizardry came up with $15/hr as the magic bullet? Why not $14.82/hr, or $15.11/hr?

Just more cookies for the losers who are determined to see young people never get employed.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
Looks to me like you're confusing correlation with causation, because there's quite a few nations out there with significant government-mandated minimum wages whose economies are doing quite well, thank you very much. Just ask Canada. Or Australia. Or New Zealand.
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How about you ask Canada, Australia and New Zealand if they would like the US economy and the stability necessary to make their currency the fiat currency around the world?
 
Anomalism said:
Good news for the fight against income inequality.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/20/u...to-raise-minimum-wage-to-15-an-hour.html?_r=0

The nation’s second-largest city voted on Tuesday to increase its minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020 from the current $9 an hour, in what is perhaps the most significant victory so far in the national push to raise the minimum wage. The increase — which the Los Angeles City Council passed in a 14-1 vote — comes as workers across the country are rallying for higher wages, and several large companies, including Facebook and Walmart, have moved to raise their lowest wages. Several other cities, including San Francisco, Seattle and Oakland, Calif., have already approved increases, and dozens more are considering doing the same. In 2014, a number of Republican-leaning states like Alaska and South Dakota also raised their state-level minimum wage by referendum. The impact is likely to be particularly strong in Los Angeles, where, according to some estimates, more than 40 percent of the city’s work force earns less than $15 an hour.
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Raising prices and cutting workforce will be the result. Fewer jobs, more expensive goods, more Democrat votes. Mission accomplished!
 
what may actually occur is more and more people working under the table....working for cash

saves the employers taxes.....doesnt worry about paying minimum wage

for los angeles area, there is an abundant number of undocumented workers willing to do so

the more i think about it....the more this will be the solution for most small businesses

and less taxes for the city.....woot....they won!.......lmao
 
LA should expect a sharp rise in illegal immigration.
 
Fenton said:
Its driven their inflation rates through the roof.
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This is false. A plunging currency, deficits during periods of extreme economic growth, lack of access to international financial markets, propensity to hold dollars (7% of all dollars are held in Argentina), low interest rates, etc... are the drivers of inflation.

Calls to increase wages came after inflation roared.

In order to reign in price increases, their central bank will have to invoke a recession as a means of squeezing inflation expectations.
 
cpwill said:
"The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in 'Metcalfe's law'–which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants–becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's."

- Paul Krugman, 1998​
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Since you are unaware, the quote above comes from a 1998 Time Magazine article where he was asked to fast forward 100 years to 2098, and provide a thought provoking account of the past 100 years. He also "predicted" St. Petersberg will have more skyscrapers than NYC....

Surly you can do better than this.
 
poweRob said:
THAT's WHAT I'M SAYING. Allow them to work here under a work visa ABOVE the table.

I lived in AZ for over a decade and are aware of immigrant's treacherous journeys to America. It's under the promise of loads of under the table jobs. A promise that businesses deliver. Start jailing those businesses hiring them under the table, dole out work visas so they work ABOVE the table, tax them and make them compete fairly with American workers at our wages.

I swear you aren't reading my posts at all and are just posting pre-written statements and they don't even address what I'm saying.
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let me see if i can get what you are saying:

raise the wage to $15.....allow people who are not Citizens, to work legally by work visa........

so according to you every person would be a legal working person in america........and because everyone in america is legal, the businesses of america are only going to hire american citizens?..is that correct?



note to you: if the u.s. gave a work visas to any person who wanted one, people around the world would see a potential of making $15 an hour in america, the u.s. would be overwhelmed with applications for work visas from foreigners who would give up everything to get here, and once here if they did not get hired what would they do?

remember that most of the people coming here would not speak the language, know the laws, have little to no money, no body is going to hire someone who looks and smells like they slept in a dumpster.

they would have to resort to crime or the system would have to care for them, making the tax payer pay the bill.

you have not thought into the details of your idea at all.
 
ARTHUR 1976 said:
Then why is Unemployment in Seattle only 4% home of the highest minimum wage in the USA???

Boeing, Microsoft, Alaska Airlines, Costco, Amazon, Starbucks, Tmobile, Seattle Seahawks, all economic powerhouses, I don't see them packing up and leaving...
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Several points:

1. Seattle's $15 per hour minimum wage isn't the reason the Seattle area has such a strong economy; its strong economy leverages such factors as a highly-educated populace (57% of Seattle residents have Bachelor's Degrees or higher while fewer than 7% lacked high school diplomas), and is a reason the minimum wage increase (just now being phased in) will very likely have a much smaller adverse impact than that in Los Angeles.

2. The law will impact approximately 102,000 workers having wages between $9.32 per hour (Washington's minimum wage) and $15 per hour, or about a quarter of Seattle's workforce: Study: $15 wage floor would lift pay for 24% of Seattle workers | The Seattle Times

3. A study is being conducted by the University of Washington on the effects of Seattle's minimum wage law (Seattle Minimum Wage Study | Evans School of Public Affairs). As the law is just being phased in, data is not available. Some media outlets have been using "concerns" as proxies for data, but the actual data will be essential to measuring the impact in Seattle. Right now, there's no conclusive evidence of a major impact (which may lend support to the modest impact scenario), but it's premature to reach firm conclusions right now.

IMO, Seattle is well-positioned to handle its $15 per hour minimum wage with only modest adverse labor market and broader industry structure and economic effects. Los Angeles, with more than a quarter of its population lacking a high school diploma and fewer than a third possessing college degrees, is in a notably weaker position than Seattle.
 
donsutherland1 said:
Several points:

1. Seattle's $15 per hour minimum wage isn't the reason the Seattle area has such a strong economy; its strong economy leverages such factors as a highly-educated populace (57% of Seattle residents have Bachelor's Degrees or higher while fewer than 7% lacked high school diplomas), and is a reason the minimum wage increase (just now being phased in) will very likely have a much smaller adverse impact than that in Los Angeles.

2. The law will impact approximately 102,000 workers having wages between $9.32 per hour (Washington's minimum wage) and $15 per hour, or about a quarter of Seattle's workforce: Study: $15 wage floor would lift pay for 24% of Seattle workers | The Seattle Times

3. A study is being conducted by the University of Washington on the effects of Seattle's minimum wage law (Seattle Minimum Wage Study | Evans School of Public Affairs). As the law is just being phased in, data is not available. Some media outlets have been using "concerns" as proxies for data, but the actual data will be essential to measuring the impact in Seattle. Right now, there's no conclusive evidence of a major impact (which may lend support to the modest impact scenario), but it's premature to reach firm conclusions right now.

IMO, Seattle is well-positioned to handle its $15 per hour minimum wage with only modest adverse labor market and broader industry structure and economic effects. Los Angeles, with more than a quarter of its population lacking a high school diploma and fewer than a third possessing college degrees, is in a notably weaker position than Seattle.
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Everybody discusses the $15 minimum wage and nobody discusses the 25% rise in the USDollar's relative value that kills export markets as surely as a $15 minimum wage. The pundits try to assess blame for the minimum wage, but fail to address our banking shortcoming as regards the currency value. Since economic fundamentals allegedly drive the value of currencies, then I have been unable to locate the invisible market moving fundamentals. The point being that all the "cause and effect" scenarios seem to go out the windows in "fiat" money economies structured on debt.
 
DaveFagan said:
Everybody discusses the $15 minimum wage and nobody discusses the 25% rise in the USDollar's relative value that kills export markets as surely as a $15 minimum wage. The pundits try to assess blame for the minimum wage, but fail to address our banking shortcoming as regards the currency value. Since economic fundamentals allegedly drive the value of currencies, then I have been unable to locate the invisible market moving fundamentals. The point being that all the "cause and effect" scenarios seem to go out the windows in "fiat" money economies structured on debt.
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In general, foreign exchange rates are driven by the combination of fundamentals and expectations. The latter can be highly subjective and can even outweigh the impact of fundamentals at times. Moreover, uncertainty, information asymmetry, etc., can further complicate the picture i.e., making it difficult to accurately measure the fundamentals and skew expectations. Having said that, your point about foreign exchange rate movements impacting trade is a good one.

In terms of the minimum wage's impact on exports, it's very small. Wages only comprise a part of a product's cost and that share varies from company to company and industry to industry. Moreover, only a fraction of employ compensation is attributed to minimum wage employees or near-minimum wage employees whose wages would be impacted from a hike in the minimum wage. Most of the impact would fall on companies that are only marginally competitive globally (where only a tiny change in costs would render them unable to compete). Broader wage pressures would have a larger impact, but currently such pressures restrained and far from nationwide.
 
Anomalism said:
Good news for the fight against income inequality.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/20/u...to-raise-minimum-wage-to-15-an-hour.html?_r=0

The nation’s second-largest city voted on Tuesday to increase its minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020 from the current $9 an hour, in what is perhaps the most significant victory so far in the national push to raise the minimum wage. The increase — which the Los Angeles City Council passed in a 14-1 vote — comes as workers across the country are rallying for higher wages, and several large companies, including Facebook and Walmart, have moved to raise their lowest wages. Several other cities, including San Francisco, Seattle and Oakland, Calif., have already approved increases, and dozens more are considering doing the same. In 2014, a number of Republican-leaning states like Alaska and South Dakota also raised their state-level minimum wage by referendum. The impact is likely to be particularly strong in Los Angeles, where, according to some estimates, more than 40 percent of the city’s work force earns less than $15 an hour.
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Excellent. We can study what happens.
I was discussing the effect on minimum wage and other labor regulations here in germany. What became clear was that we have lost jobs in trucking and businesses that have migrated to Poland, Romania and Bulgaria, while taxis are getting their drivers to work unpaid overtime and have practically stopped buying new vehicles.
 
KevinKohler said:
I like that you use food as an example.


Question. Is ALMOST enough food to survive as good as no where near enough food to survive?
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Half a loaf is indeed better than no loaf at all.

As with almost all Americans, I've never felt true hunger...but almost everyone in my wife's family has. She remembers many nights where all they had to eat was a few bites of rice with a sprinkle of salt on it. For years she had two panties - every day she'd wear one and wash the other by hand...but the biggest thing is that she never felt sorry for herself because she knew many families who had much less than her. Now she drives a 2014 Mercedes, owns two small businesses (along with me), provides jobs for several other people...and the two of us pay it forward, helping other family members to have even more opportunities than she had growing up.

As you can tell, I'm very, very proud of my Darling. But if you asked her, she would tell you that a little bit of real hunger is a heck of a lot better than a lot of real hunger.
 
jmotivator said:
How about you ask Canada, Australia and New Zealand if they would like the US economy and the stability necessary to make their currency the fiat currency around the world?
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Do you beat up strawmen that much?

Have you anything showing that the fact that a nation has a significant minimum wage is affected at all by that nation's currency not being the fiat currency around the world?

Didn't think so.
 
ludin said:
umm yea about that. we can't justify paying that person 15 dollars an hour so we are going to automate their position and now they don't have a job.
of course they can try and find another but then again they don't have the skills to earn 15 dollars an hour so no one will hire them.

good idea. other cities in CA that have implemented this including seattle are seeing business close down and owners drop because
they can't afford the wage hikes.

the cost to their businesses are just to much.
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Try backing up what you said with references. And I do so encourage you to try to use Seattle as an example...because I'll slap that one down very easily.
 
donsutherland1 said:
Several points:

1. Seattle's $15 per hour minimum wage isn't the reason the Seattle area has such a strong economy; its strong economy leverages such factors as a highly-educated populace (57% of Seattle residents have Bachelor's Degrees or higher while fewer than 7% lacked high school diplomas), and is a reason the minimum wage increase (just now being phased in) will very likely have a much smaller adverse impact than that in Los Angeles.

2. The law will impact approximately 102,000 workers having wages between $9.32 per hour (Washington's minimum wage) and $15 per hour, or about a quarter of Seattle's workforce: Study: $15 wage floor would lift pay for 24% of Seattle workers | The Seattle Times

3. A study is being conducted by the University of Washington on the effects of Seattle's minimum wage law (Seattle Minimum Wage Study | Evans School of Public Affairs). As the law is just being phased in, data is not available. Some media outlets have been using "concerns" as proxies for data, but the actual data will be essential to measuring the impact in Seattle. Right now, there's no conclusive evidence of a major impact (which may lend support to the modest impact scenario), but it's premature to reach firm conclusions right now.

IMO, Seattle is well-positioned to handle its $15 per hour minimum wage with only modest adverse labor market and broader industry structure and economic effects. Los Angeles, with more than a quarter of its population lacking a high school diploma and fewer than a third possessing college degrees, is in a notably weaker position than Seattle.
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You have made some solid points! And I agree with most of it,, Seattle , Frisco, New York, all Liberal utopias shooting for the 15 movement, are all very well educated cities, with strong economies, moral of the story live in a Blue city and you will find yourself in a much more educated productive environment..

Repugs, and Cons, refuse to acknowledge for whatever reason known only to themselves, is that the 15:hour gig, will result in less turnover, a higher morale which leads to more productivity, and the more folks make the more they will pump into the local economy, and workers won't need welfare to subsidize their poor **** wages, which cost taxpayers more, and a happy employee is more motivated and everybody wins..
 
Glen Contrarian said:
Half a loaf is indeed better than no loaf at all.

As with almost all Americans, I've never felt true hunger...but almost everyone in my wife's family has. She remembers many nights where all they had to eat was a few bites of rice with a sprinkle of salt on it. For years she had two panties - every day she'd wear one and wash the other by hand...but the biggest thing is that she never felt sorry for herself because she knew many families who had much less than her. Now she drives a 2014 Mercedes, owns two small businesses (along with me), provides jobs for several other people...and the two of us pay it forward, helping other family members to have even more opportunities than she had growing up.

As you can tell, I'm very, very proud of my Darling. But if you asked her, she would tell you that a little bit of real hunger is a heck of a lot better than a lot of real hunger.
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This is a great example. Very few people have any idea what it is like to be poor. Those people really need to experience it to understand that minimum wage, even PT from 9/hr to 15/hr can make all the difference.
 
Trojan said:
Would you kindly tell me why Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden, and a number of other countries have ~20% or higher population of single parents? All of which have substantial safety nets and minimum wages higher than ours. I wouldn't call any of those countries low on the standard of living list.

http://i.imgur.com/pOcH3iW.png?1
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What a wonderful, CLASSIC example of cherry-picking! Out of sixteen nations (not counting the US), you picked the highest three (all of which still have lower percentages than the US) and tried to claim that this disproves what I told you.

Not only that, but you use that chart to claim "Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden, and a number of other countries have ~20% or higher population of single parents". Canada, the UK, and Ireland do have percentages above 20% (none of which are as high as the US' percentage, of course), but you wrote that in a way to make it seem that it wasn't just those three, but even more. That's a very shallow attempt at skewing, guy - and it won't work.

Look at that chart again, guy - there at the bottom. If the US is not counted, the AVERAGE and MEDIAN percentages of single parents in ALL those nations is 16%!!!! Whereas ours is 27%. That in and of itself shows that YES, generally speaking, the higher the standard of living, the lower the percentage of single parenthood.

Thank you for helping me prove my case.
 
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