Latest Minimum Wage Study Reeks of Junk Science

A new study claims that Seattle's minimum wage law cost jobs, despite the fact that their unemployment rate dropped dramatically since the new law began to be phased in, faster than the rest of the country, and is now one of the lowest in the nation at 2.6%.  But there is far less here than meets the eye, and their methodology is highly questionable.  For example, they curiously omit data from the entire fast-food sector, ostensibly due to lack of data (riiiiight!), and assume that any decrease in the number of workers earning below a certain wage is a result of fewer jobs rather than those workers simply getting a raise.  Yes, really.  All this specious study really proves is that if you torture the data enough, they will confess to anything.  And of course, Occam's Razor would strongly disagree with these results, which are way out of line with other recent studies.

One should note that the unemployment rate in Seattle has dropped so low that it has now reached Massachusetts Miracle territory, albeit for reasons unrelated to the minimum wage.  In the city's white-hot economy, restaurants are having a hard time finding help due to the tightness of the labor market, and are essentaily forced by the laws of supply and demand to pay employees significantly more as a result, regardless of the legal minimum wage. Keynes would have a field day.  And this alone could potentially account for the anomalous results in this yet-to-be-peer-reviewed study that should essentially be considered a radical outlier in the field.

With the issue of the minimum wage now in the spotlight again, we must keep in mind that the whole debate is a giant workaround. Thus, I will let the late great Buckminster Fuller answer the question:

"We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living."

And he said this back in 1970, mind you. With today's technology, it would apply *a fortiori* to our time, if it weren't for the greedy oligarchs who siphoned up all the labor productivity gains since then. How do we put his plan into action, you ask? A Universal Basic Income Guarantee for all is the best and most efficient way to do it.   Until then, by all means, raise the minimum wage.  Fight for $15!   But the root of the problem ultimately needs to be tackled as well, especially in a world of increasing automation and globalization.

Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage: The Results Are In

Well, it's official.  Seattle's most recent unemployment rate dropped to 3.5% or even as low as 2.9%, depending on whose data you are looking at.  Either way, that is about as full employment as one can practically get, essentially at or close to the level of the 1980s "Massachusetts Miracle" during which the labor market was extremely tight and workers had a lot of bargaining power as a result.

And this drop occurred during the phase-in of the $15/hour minimum wage in the Rainy City, which is currently at $13.00-13.50 (and $15 already for large employers that don't pay health benefits) as of January 1, 2017 and has been at least $11 since April 1, 2015.  Not only is unemployment now lower than the national average of 4.7%, but it generally dropped faster than the national average as well. While correlation is not causation, of course, it certainly does put the lie to the naysayers' claim that it would be a job-killing disaster.  Thus, any putative negative effects on employment were clearly either small, short-lived, or (most likely) nonexistent.

As for automation of fast-food restaurants, guess what?  That is going to happen regardless of the minimum wage, just like it already has in so many factories, gas stations, etc. in the past few decades.  It's inevitable.  And outsourcing/offshoring is practically impossible for most remaining minimum wage jobs.  So we certainly shouldn't let that deter us from Fighting for $15.  Call their bluff!

The True Spirit of America Party currently advocates a national minimum wage of $15/hour, indexed to inflation, phased in within a year or two for businesses with 500+ employees, and within two to three years for smaller businesses.  And with no tip credit. After that, the only exceptions should be 1) small, non-chain businesses with 10 employees or less, 2) workers under 18, for whom it would be on an age-based sliding scale from 60%-90% of the normal rate, and 3) circus performers.  That latter one is so we can (with tongue firmly in cheek) say that any hypothetical people who are priced out of the job market for an extended period can go join the circus, the employer of last resort.  Of course, we also advocate implementing a Job Guarantee program (similar to the one that already exists for senior citizens) as well as a Universal Basic Income Guarantee as well, so regardless of anything the labor market would be fairly tight regardless, and workers would have far more bargaining power going forward, much to the chagrin of the rentier class.

What better time than now?