Minimum wage. Should it be $15?

[DrWho]

 

Income mobility in the USA is lower than in many other OECD nations. Perhaps more important is the differential between belief and reality. People believe the mobility is very high, and reality just doesn't match.

It's common data you can easily find on the internet.

 

"Easy to find on the internet" -> There is a difference between opinions using numbers, versus what constitutes actual data. It should go without saying that there is a ton of crap spewed all over the internet. We wouldn't have jokes like "if you read it on the internet, it must be true" if the internet wasn't full of rampant stupidity.

 

You are correct, it isn't hard to find website spouting opinions with some numbers behind those opinions - and you will find just as many claiming there is good mobility as there are people claiming there is poor mobility.

 

So I did a little searching, and finding raw data takes a little extra work. Here are a few studies performed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Having access to all the tax records probably puts them in one of the best positions for the most amount of data to process:

http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/Documents/OTA_Publications_2015.pdf (List of Studies)

http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/tax-analysis/Documents/ota99.pdf (1987 - 1996)

http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/Documents/incomemobilitystudy03-08revise.pdf (1996 - 2005)

 

And then some other studies:

http://www.cbs.nl/NR/rdonlyres/E1C44EED-D3A7-41C7-A96C-AE733C3679AD/0/2011measuringintergenerationalincomemobilityart.pdf

http://www.stata.com/meeting/boston14/abstracts/materials/boston14_nichols.pdf

 

 

It turns out it's quite a complicated subject, and there are trends in the data that we would absolutely expect. I was also realizing after parsing through some of this that maximal mobility isn't an ideal to strive for either - because that requires a massive lack of stability. Minimal mobility isn't great either because that's basically a caste system. If I were a blind numbers guy, then wouldn't we want to be somewhere right in the middle? All of the mobility studies show the dominant world economies having average income elasticity in the 30% to 50% range. The US is right around 40%'ish.

 

 

In terms of just income inequality, here is a cool map view of the Gini Coefficient (different from mobility):

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI/countries/1W?order=wbapi_data_value_2011%20wbapi_data_value%20wbapi_data_value-first&sort=asc&display=map

(a rather incomplete dataset though)

 

 

Again, just to stress a point....what are the ideal Gini Coefficients and ideal Income Elasticity targets we should be striving towards? And what other ethical bounds might we want to place on those distributions? And then what are the realistic levers to push? Minimum wage is but one of the many levers, but it seems fairly clear to me that it addresses a symptom, rather than the root cause of the problem.

 

 

When it comes to policies, I think we want to focus on the factors that address the root issues.

 

 

I hinted at this earlier, but if the law of supply and demand affects a person's salary, then why aren't we focusing our efforts on training up more people into the skillsets that have higher incomes. For example, Jeff mentioned that lawyers used to make more money than they do today due to the massive increase in lawyers. Why aren't we training more people to be CEO's? It seems like a fairly common joke that people think their bosses are bad at their jobs.....so why not find ways to make our bosses better at their jobs? And find ways to make more people match those skill-sets? Education is but one of the many levers, but I personally would rather see the funds and effort targeted towards education (and proper education at that), rather than pouring money into less educated people just because we arbitrarily decided they need more money...

 

I think we should also see a cultural shift in the social status of people that live with their extended family, roommates, or in communes. Quite frankly, people shouldn't be living alone - especially if they can't afford it. We look down on people that stay at home after college, or that don't run off and get married right away to start their own family, etc.... These things should be considered not only socially acceptable, but a desirable status. Retired grandparents make the some of the best baby sitters, and they're great at educating too (the whole family, not just the grandchildren)...

 

 

There are solutions to the "living wage", but people simply don't want to make the necessary sacrifices.

 

[Paducah Home Theater]

I saw a facebook post from a paramedic, too vulgar to post, but he has a point. He seemed to be right under $15 an hour. So he's got all this training, peoples lives literally depend on him, yet a fast food worker would make the same as him if this goes through. Suddenly you've just taken away all financial incentives for this position. Why go through all that training if you can just whip up a cappuccino and make the same? The people already paying $15 would have to up the ante to retain good talent.

[DrWho]

 

But I still don't see an oath or code, even just one example, for capitalists.

 

A Scout Capitalist is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

 

 

I'd say a Capitalist "is or is not".....just to emphasize that it can go either way. The morality of a person is not dependent on their capitalist status.

 

I wonder if Joe is ever gonna see that point. There's been a lot of words wasted on that simple concept.

 

I personally am absolutely against any attempt at a system that tries to ensure morality. At it's essence, relying on a system or process or procedure to ensure morality is inherently immoral (not to be confused with amoral). Morality is as much intent as it is actual outcome - to augment the intent and maintain the outcome totally undermines the fundamental nature of morality in the first place.

 

Striving for a "moral system" is just plain stupidity at its core.

[DrWho]

Let's cut to the chase.  If you are preaching for some system governed by "ought to dos," how are you going to enforce it?

 

Let's not be practical Jeff.

 

Practicality is irrelevant to the process of "pontificating, obfuscating, and masturbating while spinning off red herrings, non sequitors, strawmen, and more."

(Thanks for that Dave, haha).

[Jeff Matthews]

 

 

But I still don't see an oath or code, even just one example, for capitalists.

 

A Scout Capitalist is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

 

 

I'd say a Capitalist "is or is not".....just to emphasize that it can go either way. The morality of a person is not dependent on their capitalist status.

 

I wonder if Joe is ever gonna see that point. There's been a lot of words wasted on that simple concept.

 

I personally am absolutely against any attempt at a system that tries to ensure morality. At it's essence, relying on a system or process or procedure to ensure morality is inherently immoral (not to be confused with amoral). Morality is as much intent as it is actual outcome - to augment the intent and maintain the outcome totally undermines the fundamental nature of morality in the first place.

 

Striving for a "moral system" is just plain stupidity at its core.

 

Wow!  What a relief to hear somebody was able to ascertain the hypocrisy of the whole concept.

[xxJPMxx]

I saw a facebook post from a paramedic, too vulgar to post, but he has a point. He seemed to be right under $15 an hour. So he's got all this training, peoples lives literally depend on him, yet a fast food worker would make the same as him if this goes through. Suddenly you've just taken away all financial incentives for this position. Why go through all that training if you can just whip up a cappuccino and make the same? The people already paying $15 would have to up the ante to retain good talent.

 

Some people don't want to make cappuccino's for a living. If you have the capacity to do another job so be it. I had to learn a lot to do what I do for work but I don't get paid much, I probably earn less than $15/hr. The key is if you have the capacity to do more than flip burgers or make cappuccino's than you now have more employment options to choose from, do something that interests you. Apparently the paramedic doesn't like his job and is only in it for the $$. 

Edited November 20, 2015 by xxJPMxx

[Mallette]

While I honestly have never heard the wage range it's hard to believe a paramedic would make only 15.00 an hour.  If so, talk about a field that is only a very small fraction of the cost of the operation.  Check your bill for the next 15 minute ride and then wonder if maybe the folks riding with you shouldn't be making a bit more.

 

Dave

[Paducah Home Theater]

While I honestly have never heard the wage range it's hard to believe a paramedic would make only 15.00 an hour.  If so, talk about a field that is only a very small fraction of the cost of the operation.  Check your bill for the next 15 minute ride and then wonder if maybe the folks riding with you shouldn't be making a bit more.

 

Dave

Ain't no telling what it costs. A medical helicopter ride costs upwards of $25,000 nowadays. My dad is in the hospital right now and they claim they've been receiving like 15 flights a night. Cha-ching.

[Gilbert]

Your objection seems to be based on nothing more than political dogma.

No, just life with eyes wide open..... you forgot to answer my 2 simple questions, but not to worry, I understand your posts and that dogma thing you mentioned.

Do you have an economic proposition? I haven't seen it.

My Proposition is this:

Higher wages in the low end produces immediate increase in demand (spending), which stimulates more production, which creates more jobs, and increases the GDP, and increases profits and stock prices. All of that is good for the country and good for the people.

Woops, looks like we forgot to check the inflation, and increased costs of living boxes. Must be that dogma thing kicking in gear.

But I will admit, that idea of yours (and every dirty politician, sorry, not dogma, just an experience thing) looks really cool on paper. I would assume your still in school or have never owned a business. Carry on though, like I said, it looks great on paper.

Once more I ask, do you have some specific economic proposal, or are you just going to continue to recite inanities and non-sequitors, and bad attempts at humor? No one needs to own a business to understand economics. If you have some particular understanding of the economics involved to counter what I offered, then spit it out.

Once more? When was the first?

And actually, owning a business helps a whole lot more than standing on a soap box playing pretend.

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[Gilbert]

While I honestly have never heard the wage range it's hard to believe a paramedic would make only 15.00 an hour. If so, talk about a field that is only a very small fraction of the cost of the operation. Check your bill for the next 15 minute ride and then wonder if maybe the folks riding with you shouldn't be making a bit more.

Dave

No joke. I'll bet the insurance they pay is as high as mine, and probably more.

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[Gilbert]

While I honestly have never heard the wage range it's hard to believe a paramedic would make only 15.00 an hour. If so, talk about a field that is only a very small fraction of the cost of the operation. Check your bill for the next 15 minute ride and then wonder if maybe the folks riding with you shouldn't be making a bit more.

Dave

No joke but I'll bet they insurance rates as high as mine, if not more.

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