New study of Seattle's $15 minimum wage says it costs jobs - Polidicks

I'll repeat something that I believe is becoming more and more true with every passing day. We aren't people. We're numbers. We're employees. We're cogs in a machine. That's it. That's the world we're going towards. That's the world of the ultra rich, and the corporations. That's the world we're about to be in, and I think people have to make a stand and make noise.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52407750]I just think if you're doing a job, you deserve to be alive. People in my city who make minimum wage? They require a second job, and a handful of room mates to live in a tiny, tiny flat. The city of vancouver is paying the living wage to it's employees, 23.00$ an hour is their starting wage now. If you aren't making that much, you aren't at a living wage. I know for many ideologically different people than myself that sounds like "Fuck yeah, people have to earn that "living wage"" but to myself that sounds like a "We're not actually people, we're simply numbers on a page for some rich fuck to make money off of"[/QUOTE] If this study is correct, then raising the minimum wage to a certain level actually decreases the take home wages of workers. It's easy to say every job should make a living wage. It's not nearly as easy to figure out how to do that while also keeping a vibrant economy. [editline]27th June 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52407765]I'll repeat something that I believe is becoming more and more true with every passing day. We aren't people. We're numbers. We're employees. We're cogs in a machine. That's it. That's the world we're going towards. That's the world of the ultra rich, and the corporations. That's the world we're about to be in, and I think people have to make a stand and make noise.[/QUOTE] I don't know what this means beyond some socialist/communist revolution.

[quote]It's not nearly as easy to figure out how to do that while also keeping a vibrant economy.[/quote] It'd be a lot easier to do so if people weren't drowning in various sorts of unavoidable debt. Mass and constant bankruptcies are especially unkind to an economy.

[QUOTE=sgman91;52407767]If this study is correct, then raising the minimum wage to a certain level actually decreases the take home wages of workers. It's easy to say every job should make a living wage. It's not nearly as easy to figure out how to do that while also keeping a vibrant economy. [editline]27th June 2017[/editline] I don't know what this means beyond some socialist/communist revolution.[/QUOTE] It doesn't mean anything like that. It just means that you don't matter. firgof doesn't matter. You as a human don't matter. No human does, because the ultimate goal is profit, and if profit costs human lives, then so be it, profits more important. That's the world we live in, that's the world we've been headed towards, and there's no stopping that now. Your humanity is disposable based on the cost of disposing of it. Terrible.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52407794]It doesn't mean anything like that. It just means that you don't matter. firgof doesn't matter. You as a human don't matter. No human does, because the ultimate goal is profit, and if profit costs human lives, then so be it, profits more important. That's the world we live in, that's the world we've been headed towards, and there's no stopping that now. Your humanity is disposable based on the cost of disposing of it. Terrible.[/QUOTE] I actually don't know what you mean. I matter to me. I matter to my family, friends, coworkers, church, etc. There are LOTS of people who I matter to. I would hope the same goes for everyone else. If not, then they need to find a community to be a part of. Policy can't be done on the individual level. It's always been stats, numbers, and generalities. Community is personal, policy is general.

[quote] that's the world we've been headed towards, and there's no stopping that now. [/quote] I disagree, I don't think the future has humans much in it at all. I think jobs are going to be increasingly robotized to the point that even finding a job requires very specific and detailed skillsets - as you'll need do something that robots can't do. As it turns out, robots can do a very large set of things if you put money to it. Humans are entirely irrelevant to companies as a whole if robots can take up all the jobs. Edit: It isn't that you don't matter - it's that to those companies you don't exist.

Christ the title could not have been more editorialized, imo. The study does not say it costs [I]jobs[/I] at all: only hours and earnings. That article is incorrect within the first few words. This study contradicts more than a few studies before it, and the NY Times had a [URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/business/economy/seattle-minimum-wage.html"]decent piece[/URL] on the study released recently - along with another study released at a similar time. The important bits from the article are as follows: [quote] - The UW study found that wages increased but hours decreased, with greatest intensity during the most recent wage hike. The results were actually a net wage [I]loss[/I], ultimately. - The UW study had access to more data than the other studies, particularly in terms of breadth: it covers all industries, not just the restaurant industry, which is what most studies use as their data source - The UW study is criticized heavily for how it handled the control data: instead of comparing wage data to another city of similar economic health (i.e booming market) and size, it combined data from several regions of Washington together - The Berkeley study doesn't demonstrate that the wage increase was tremendously successful: it parallels previous studies and shows that a minimum wage that is about half an area's average wage leads to a slight decrease in unemployment [I]at most[/I]. Otherwise, it has little to no effect. [/quote] I would like to note the following things as a long-time resident of the state and a resident of Seattle for the past 3 years (personal anecdotes aren't a basis for a solid argument, but oh well): - Personally, I think comparing the data to other regions of this state was foolish. Much of the industry elsewhere in the state is agricultural, and in many cases this is done by illegal/undocumented immigrants. I'm not sure how you'd even collect accurate data for this, to be honest - its not like most farm/orchard owners using cheap labor are going to [I]nearly[/I] as diligent in keeping wage records. Its seasonal temp work, too. - The Seattle metropolitan area has nearly half of the state's total population: keep in mind that most western states still have stark differences in population density vs. the more uniform eastern states. This undoubtedly also affects wage data, especially given how sudden and tremendous economic growth affects wages and earnings in an a region. Additionally, are we going to skip the fact that this study (the one from UW) has not been peer-reviewed yet? That's kind of a big deal. Most studies aren't really considered to count until they've been peer-reviewed and had their conclusions verified. Not to mention who funded the study, and the numerous other points brought up earlier in the thread. In my opinion, this fuss over the minimum wage is mostly undue. The effects have been demonstrated to not be negative in the vast majority of cases: I'll wait until this UW study is peer reviewed until I worry about their claimed net earnings decrease.

[QUOTE=sgman91;52407798]I actually don't know what you mean. I matter to me. I matter to my family, friends, church, etc. There are LOTS of people who I matter to. I would hope the same goes for everyone else. Policy can't be done on the individual level. It's always been stats, numbers, and generalities. Community is personal, policy is general.[/QUOTE] Will you matter if a corporations profits take precedence over their lives? If they get sick(god forbid) and their healthcare costs more than their lives are worth, are their lives still of value? If you can't get the funds together for an operation, is that persons life worth more than profit? No, not really. It honestly isn't what I meant that you mean something to those people emotionally, if a corporations desires are more important than someones life in the grand scheme, then that life doesn't matter, it gets pushed aside.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52407833]Will you matter if a corporations profits take precedence over their lives? If they get sick(god forbid) and their healthcare costs more than their lives are worth, are their lives still of value? If you can't get the funds together for an operation, is that persons life worth more than profit? No, not really. It honestly isn't what I meant that you mean something to those people emotionally, if a corporations desires are more important than someones life in the grand scheme, then that life doesn't matter, it gets pushed aside.[/QUOTE] What you're describing is essentially all of human history before 1960 or so. The entire concept of people not in your immediate community paying for your healthcare is a totally new. At most, you had town or city funded hospitals for those who with emergencies. Honestly, I don't really care if a corporation cares about me personally. I just want them to treat me fairly by following through on any agreements we've made. That's all my employer is to me. They're the person who pays me for doing work.

[quote]What you're describing is essentially all of human history before 1960 or so.[/quote] No, this is brand new territory. This isn't 'well, you can't find a job so I guess it's off to the factory/mines with you'. This is 'there are no jobs for you and there's no money to get the skills needed to train you for jobs'. And if you don't have a job and if you don't contribute anything to society and if you [I]can't[/I] because that requires money that society refuses to let you have and if corporations control most of the political capital anyway, then what hope have you to gain any services at all? Will those protections not be dissolved over time? Aren't you more liable to simply be kicked out of the country for 'failing to pay taxes due to having no provable income'? The rich have no need for income, only the unwealthy, and so they'd be largely unaffected and their children could in fact go to schools to obtain educations. You, your family, etc. though? They're non-persons to such a society. [quote]Honestly, I don't really care if a corporation cares about me personally.[/quote] In what may be coming to be the Age of Machines, you'd better hope they care.

Does the growing trend of homelessness not worry you? The growing trends of debt? You can blame all this on poor education which is an enormous factor but that also stems from people trying to cut costs to minimize taxes. At a certain point society will break down if the richest groups and peoples continue to try and pay nothing and continue to try and force as much as they can into the poor who they try to pay as little as they can. Eventually this will break down into total serfdom for the rich

And it's not just homelessness. People own property far less now than they have before - because it's becoming too expensive. And so folks are being trapped in apartment pricing because they can't afford a house - and so they lose even more agency over their lives/money as apartment prices continue to rise because landlords know that the folks that inhabit those apartments have no other choice but to agree with those price hikes. This snowballs with the debts mentioned above and people will wind up in their 70s with no money saved for retirement and no social services to support them - all because it was impossible-to-very-unlikely for them to have saved that money in the first place. The more agency you lose, the less power you have over your own circumstances - and we're looking over a pit where a massive amount of agency may be about to fall in the next 10-50 years.

[QUOTE=sgman91;52407838]What you're describing is essentially all of human history before 1960 or so. The entire concept of people not in your immediate community paying for your healthcare is a totally new. At most, you had town or city funded hospitals for those who with emergencies. Honestly, I don't really care if a corporation cares about me personally. I just want them to treat me fairly by following through on any agreements we've made. That's all my employer is to me. They're the person who pays me for doing work.[/QUOTE] Well aren't you a nice little wage slave? Jesus christ this is what conservatives actually use to justify income inequality? [editline]27th June 2017[/editline] Such disgusting complacency its no fucking wonder we're in the second gilded age

It's ludicrous to expect conservatives to agree that things need to change when the entire idea of conservativism is that things shouldn't change. The state of the economy is atrocious. Something's going to change, whether or not the Republicans want it to. The nature of that change [i]could[/i] be influenced by the cesspool of corruption and ignorance that is the GOP, but it won't. So we'll be left with a change that doesn't really work out for anyone. The United States is not immune to collapse.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52407872]Does the growing trend of homelessness not worry you? The growing trends of debt? You can blame all this on poor education which is an enormous factor but that also stems from people trying to cut costs to minimize taxes. At a certain point society will break down if the richest groups and peoples continue to try and pay nothing and continue to try and force as much as they can into the poor who they try to pay as little as they can. Eventually this will break down into total serfdom for the rich[/QUOTE] I don't blame it on poor education even. I blame it on two major things: 1) Our society creating a stagnant economy that makes it incredibly difficult to gain skills, dooming those at the bottom to stay at the bottom. 2) The destruction of community in society, mostly as it relates to religion. Let's say I get sick, need help with something, need a place to stay, was a kid without a family, etc., I know with 100% certainty that someone in my church will help. I know it like the sky is blue. We've done it before and we'll do it again. This used to be common. Most everyone had communities like these, but not anymore. Now we're trying to fill these gaps with government and it isn't working. The cycle just keeps repeating. We spend tons of money to help X group, X group doesn't get helped, so we spend more to help X group, etc. etc. etc. We have many of the same problems now as they did 40 years ago, but we spend trillions more on it. [editline]27th June 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=geel9;52407902]It's ludicrous to expect conservatives to agree that things need to change when the entire idea of conservativism is that things shouldn't change.[/QUOTE] Eh, that's not really true. There are plenty of things conservatives want to change.

Like you can't get mad that education is terrible without getting mad at all the groups who try and cut education at every opportunity, at the corporations like Pearson who specialize in education and control the very curriculum that children will learn, guiding and shaping the very citizens who will exist in the future and ensuring they may not have the skills required because that's in the long term cost benefit analysis of the companies goals. I mean it terrifies me to think about that, and you can say "That'll never happen" but it already has, and no ones stopping it. All that's happening is that senators are actually pushing that, and supporting them. It saves money, lowers taxes, so of course, that's worth it? Honestly, when the only goal is to lower taxes, and increase profits, all you're going to be left with in the modern world is a society that relies on the good graces of the rich for their very existence and a nation that doesn't actually matter on a global stage anymore. And you may not be the "rightwing" type who supports this, but the people who are in office, this is what they're supporting and working towards.

[QUOTE=sgman91;52407907] 2) The destruction of community in society, mostly as it relates to religion. Let's say I get sick, need help with something, need a place to stay, was a kid without a family, etc., I know with 100% certainty that someone in my church will help. I know it like the sky is blue. We've done it before and we'll do it again. This used to be common. Most everyone had communities like these, but not anymore. Now we're trying to fill these gaps with government and it isn't working. [/QUOTE] It's nice that your local church helps you but do you seriously not see a problem with advocating for religion as the solution to this problem? Do you legitimately not understand why religion should be kept as far away from politics and should not in any way be relied upon as a fundamental aspect of what keeps our society alive? I did not expect to have to explain that even to you.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52407911]Like you can't get mad that education is terrible without getting mad at all the groups who try and cut education at every opportunity, at the corporations like Pearson who specialize in education and control the very curriculum that children will learn, guiding and shaping the very citizens who will exist in the future and ensuring they may not have the skills required because that's in the long term cost benefit analysis of the companies goals. I mean it terrifies me to think about that, and you can say "That'll never happen" but it already has, and no ones stopping it. All that's happening is that senators are actually pushing that, and supporting them. It saves money, lowers taxes, so of course, that's worth it? Honestly, when the only goal is to lower taxes, and increase profits, all you're going to be left with in the modern world is a society that relies on the good graces of the rich for their very existence and a nation that doesn't actually matter on a global stage anymore. And you may not be the "rightwing" type who supports this, but the people who are in office, this is what they're supporting and working towards.[/QUOTE] What do you mean by "that will never happen." I probably have a lower view of it than you do. That's why conservatives want to take central control away from the education system. They want to let individual communities decide what is best for their kids instead of some federal, corporate sponsored, ideology forcing everyone into the same boat.

[QUOTE=sgman91;52407922]What do you mean by "that will never happen." I probably have a lower view of it than you do. That's why conservatives want to take central control away from the education system. They want to let individual communities decide what is best for their kids instead of some federal, corporate sponsored, ideology forcing everyone into the same boat.[/QUOTE] Read: "now we can let our schools teach Christianity as fact"

[QUOTE=geel9;52407920]It's nice that your local church helps you but do you seriously not see a problem with advocating for religion as the solution to this problem? Do you legitimately not understand why religion should be kept as far away from politics and should not in any way be relied upon as a fundamental aspect of what keeps our society alive? I did not expect to have to explain that even to you.[/QUOTE] Oh, I don't want the government encouraging religion. I just see the destruction of religion as one of the causes of many of our problems. [editline]27th June 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=geel9;52407924]Read: "now we can let our schools teach Christianity as fact"[/QUOTE] Having local control doesn't mean you don't have to follow laws. It means the entire curriculum isn't decide by a bureaucrat in Washington.

[QUOTE=sgman91;52407907]I don't blame it on poor education even. I blame it on two major things: 1) Our society creating a stagnant economy that making it incredibly difficult to gain skills. 2) The destruction of community in society, mostly as it relates to religion. Let's say I get sick, need help with something, need a place to stay, was a kid without a family, etc., I know with 100% certainty that someone in my church will help. I know it like the sky is blue. We've done it before and we'll do it again. This used to be common. Most everyone had communities like these, but not anymore. Now we're trying to fill these gaps with government and it isn't working. The cycle just keeps repeating. We spend tons of money to help X group, X group doesn't get helped, so we spend more to help X group, etc. etc. etc. We have many of the same problems now as they did 40 years ago, but we spend trillions more on it. [editline]27th June 2017[/editline] Eh, that's not really true. There are plenty of things conservatives want to change.[/QUOTE] 1) This as a point in and of itself makes no sense to me. There's a feedback loop happening to make that occur, it started with the decision to slash education and slash public works funding with reagan. 2) Sure maybe this has some role to play, but it's not a catchall and it failed back in the day too. It still fails today. Relying on small insular communities in a world that no longer relies on them isn't really helpful. Canadians just don't resonate with this at all. If I get sick, I have fucking healthcare. I don't need a church. And this isn't because I'm an atheist either. This is because it's unneeded.

[QUOTE=sgman91;52407925]Oh, I don't want the government encouraging religion. I just see the destruction of religion as one of the causes.[/QUOTE] It's kind of funny how the rate of religious people declines every time people become more connected and can share knowledge more easily, isn't it? It's almost as if the death of religion is a natural progression of the advancement of society. To suggest that religion, of all things, is what kept our society together is one of the most laughable things I've heard from you.

[QUOTE=Firgof Umbra;52407763]But what made that necessary to begin with was people finding it difficult to get well-paying jobs due to, ultimately, job shrinkage and unskilled (!!livable-wage!!) field shrinkage. I think if you want to balance out the folks who feel like they [I]have[/I] to go to college to get a job (because they do) then you [I]have[/I] to make unskilled labor something the state protects and more or less guarantees you can both live off of and qualify for in some respect. If you can't do either the only sensible thing to do is give everyone a universal basic income.[/QUOTE] there are more jobs out there than unskilled burger flipping and jobs that require a college degree. we can always use more plumbers, more mechanics, more linesmen, more welders. anecdotal, but everybody i know who has gone into those fields have been employed right out of high school and are earning more than me and most everyone else i know. they also don't have college debt. sure, they aren't earning a shitload of money but they're living fairly well.

[QUOTE=sgman91;52407925]Oh, I don't want the government encouraging religion. I just see the destruction of religion as one of the causes of many of our problems. [/QUOTE] But reality doesn't support this, facts don't support this. Nothing but your conjectures support this. Other nations that have healthcare prove this to be a bubkiss point. It's not true.

[QUOTE=geel9;52407930]It's kind of funny how the rate of religious people declines every time people become more connected and can share knowledge more easily, isn't it? It's almost as if the death of religion is a natural progression of the advancement of society. To suggest that religion, of all things, is what kept our society together is one of the most laughable things I've heard from you.[/QUOTE] Say what you want, but the only atheistic societies we've ever seen in the history of humanity have been total failures. Community is absolutely key to human flourishing, and I don't see any mechanism for a non-religious society to make it work. [editline]27th June 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52407933]But reality doesn't support this, facts don't support this. Nothing but your conjectures support this. Other nations that have healthcare prove this to be a bubkiss point. It's not true.[/QUOTE] Those nations are also slowly dieing. They don't have enough kids to replace their population and their people don't self-report higher levels of happiness anyway. Anyway, I don't think healthcare is the end-all-be-all issue. The destruction of community is systemic across society.

[QUOTE=Ninja Gnome;52407932]there are more jobs out there than unskilled burger flipping and jobs that require a college degree. we can always use more plumbers, more mechanics, more linesmen, more welders. anecdotal, but everybody i know who has gone into those fields have been employed right out of high school and are earning more than me and most everyone else i know. they also don't have college debt. sure, they aren't earning a shitload of money but they're living fairly well.[/QUOTE] Plumbers: Can be robotized. Linesmen: Already being robotized. Mechanics: This one's probably stable for a little while longer, but if the industry starts agree to more standardized/universal blueprints? Robotized. (And it's already pretty shit right now anyway) Welders: Can be robotized. Don't expect the jobs here today to still be there 'tomorrow'. Those jobs that don't require a degree are going to be among the first jobs that're gonna get mechanized. [quote]Those nations are also slowly dieing.[/quote] This nation is slowly dying, I don't see your point. Edit: [quote]They don't have enough kids to replace their population[/quote] Alright, I won't disagree with that - but that's just part of how overpopulation settles arguably. Just means they're going to drop to a smaller population size and then stabilize and that's not surprising - up until very recently most countries were having to have crazy amounts of children due to just playing the odds as most of your children would die before they even reached adulthood.

[QUOTE=sgman91;52407938]Say what you want, but the only atheistic societies we've ever seen in the history of humanity have been total failures. Community is absolutely key to human flourishing, and I don't see any mechanism for a non-religious society to make it work. [/QUOTE] What, exactly, do you think an "atheistic society" even is? My ideal "atheistic society" would be one in which people were free to believe in a religion if they pleased, but in general most are informed enough to not. Can you name me an "atheistic society" that has been a "total failure" for reasons that are in any way related to its religious trends?

[quote]but the only atheistic societies we've ever seen in the history of humanity have been total failures. Community is absolutely key to human flourishing,[/quote] Oh, wow, I missed this one. I disagree entirely with your notion that 'community == religion'. What's needed for a community to flourish is access to good medical care, access to good food and water, shelter, and for that community to be able to produce goods that return income/etc. to said community. This can be shown as the amount of access has grown to those things, the higher the population has gotten worldwide and the less child-death and birth-death there's been.

[QUOTE=sgman91;52407938] Those nations are also slowly dieing. They don't have enough kids to replace their population and their people don't self-report higher levels of happiness anyway. Anyway, I don't think healthcare is the end-all-be-all issue. The destruction of community is systemic across society.[/QUOTE] sorry, canada isn't dying out at all norway isn't dying out sweden isn't dying out again, what supports your conjectures [editline]27th June 2017[/editline] Like please, drop your american exceptionalism for one minute and realize there are whole countries doing pretty well to pretty great without an overfocus on religion, and with a focus on healthcare

It's also pretty fucking absurd to state that without religion there is no community. It's fascinating how many Christians hold that absolutely ridiculous view that seems almost engineered to enforce the idea that without Christianity, there can't be much good in the world.