PeakTrader.com

[administrator]

PeakTrader:

“The Real Change In The Cost Of A Big Mac If McDonald’s Workers Were Paid $15 An Hour: NONE.”

The article oversimplifies the impact of a higher minimum wage.

We don’t know how much of a substitution effect will take place. Replacing labor with capital equipment requires labor. Workers design, build, install, replace, operate, maintain, and improve capital equipment.

Also, comparing a Big Mac with an Apple iPhone is ridiculous. How many low wage workers in China can afford a $400 iPhone?

****

Raising the minimum wage may reduce demand and employment at McDonalds (or for hamburgers) and raise demand and employment at the Sizzler (or for steaks).

****

Here’s a source of studies:

http://www.raisetheminimumwage.com/pages/job-loss

****

If a robot can make a better hamburger at the same price, I’m all for it

****

Citizen Buddy, people like you is why we need government, including government standards.

I wouldn’t want to be a 1870s Chinese railroad worker or consumer of hot dogs.

****

Ron, the funnel graph in the link represents 64 recent and rigorous studies, including the outliers, which shows increases in the minimum wage (e.g. nationally or between states) had little or no effect on employment. None of studies were done by NELP.

****

The (positive) income effect, along with the (positive) multiplier effect, may be stronger than the (negative) employment effect, perhaps up to $15 an hour.

****

Morganovich, one example is if minimum wage workers get a raise from $7.25 to $9.00, then non-minimum wage workers earning above $7.25 and below $9.00 also get a raise.

Moreover, I suspect, some workers earning above $9 will also get a raise.

You know, the real minimum wage use to be above $10, when per capita real income was half as much.

****

Morganovich, actually, your statement is propaganda. The more precise and unbiased the model, the better it explains the real world. The trend has been increases in the minimum wage has a much smaller effect on employment than previously believed.

****

Morganovich, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Other variables are controlled to isolate the effect of minimum wage increases on employment.

Moreover, the models explain why minimum wage increases have that effect on employment.

You either can’t understand anything beyond one dimension, or want to remain a “stick-in-the-mud.”

****

“Another Drug War Casualty: State Seizes a 2-Year-Old Child Because Parents Smoked Pot, and the Child Was Murdered in Foster Care.”

Another gross oversimplification.

****

“Libertarian movement’s signature causes, school choice and drug legalization.”

Students on drugs tend to have lower grades. So, they can choose poor schools. Fortunately, they don’t have to stay in poor schools, because they tend to drop-out more often.

Drug Abuse More Common Among Dropouts, Study Finds – Teenagers who quit school also report much higher rates of criminal activity
LA Times

“A new statewide survey shows that teen-age dropouts abuse drugs and alcohol and engage in criminal activities at dramatically higher rates than students who stay in school.

Dropouts were three times more likely to use methamphetamines, five times more likely to use cocaine or crack, and twice as likely to use LSD than their in-school counterparts.

Dropouts also ranked higher than students on a wide range of other problem behaviors, such as involvement in fights, selling or dealing drugs and committing a crime to obtain drugs.”

****

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/08/sunday-morning-links-7/#comments

---