Report finds Seattle's $15 minimum wage may hurting workers

I looked for this the past day and have not seen any threads on this topic. A new report from the University of Washington says that the $15 minimum wage may be hurting low income workers. Companies are lowering hiring and cutting back on a worker's hours to compensate for the higher payroll. Also, no one says anything about people on fixed income losing their purchasing power. I wonder how much worse Seattle will be for lower income families once all the other people start asking for pay raises.

This is the third site I found with this story.




Report finds Seatlle's $15 minimum wage may hurting

New study cast doubts.

I would love to make $15 an hour, but it isn't reasonable to expect that, until I work to get it. Forcing companies to pay that for everyone who walks through the door is going to cripple them, and there won't be jobs period.

a reply to: Jefferton

I disagree to a point. It will just cause inflation and make everyone's money worth less. This benefits the rich who can then demand more and more. The people who are hurt are those on fixed incomes and those living off of savings. People refuse to look deeper at a subject and just rely on the surface to form opinions.

From the article(s):

found that when wages increased to $13 in 2016, some companies may have responded by cutting low-wage workers' hours. The study, which was funded in part by the city of Seattle, found that workers clocked 9% fewer hours on average, and earned $125 less each month after the most recent increase.

Kind of offsets the click-bait title.

When companies cut employees hours, they make less money. That's.... some elementary level stuff right there if you ask me, the title (not yours, OP, the original title) is the epitome of pushing a narrative, however.

"Deny ignorance." Lol.

Of *COURSE* it is.

Higher minimum wages just give employers a better reason to hire less people and force those less people to do more work in the time they are on the job.

originally posted by: RomeByFire
From the article(s):

found that when wages increased to $13 in 2016, some companies may have responded by cutting low-wage workers' hours. The study, which was funded in part by the city of Seattle, found that workers clocked 9% fewer hours on average, and earned $125 less each month after the most recent increase.

Kind of offsets the click-bait title.

When companies cut employees hours, they make less money. That's.... some elementary level stuff right there if you ask me, the title (not yours, OP, the original title) is the epitome of pushing a narrative, however.

"Deny ignorance." Lol.

I don't know what you are getting at.

The title was "
Report finds Seatlle's $15 minimum wage may hurting"

That isn't hyperbolic, its true.From the report.

Importantly, the lost income associated with the hours reductions exceeds the gain associated with the net wage increase of 3.1%. Using data in Table 3, we compute that the average low-wage employee was paid $1,897 per month. The reduction in hours would cost the average employee $179 per month, while the wage increase would recoup only $54 of this loss, leaving a net loss of $125 per month (6.6%), which is sizable for a low-wage worker.

www.zerohedge.com...

So everyone complained thaat people in Seattle were not making enough money to live. So they raised the wage, and now those people on average have LOST 6.6% of their income.

This means that if the situation was dire before as they said, it is even worse now.

How is that pushing a misleading narrative from the title that the $15 wage may be hurting?

a reply to: RomeByFire

Not really. The low wage workers lost money overall even if they were being paid more per hour.

In other words, they were hurt by the increased wages. And if the employers paid for less hours of labor, you can't just say they worked extra jobs because odds are that pretty much all the low wage employers responded the same way. There are less hours of low wage work for low wage workers.

Higher minimum wages = less available work for low wage workers.

originally posted by: xuenchen
Of *COURSE* it is.

Higher minimum wages just give employers a better reason to hire less people and force those less people to do more work in the time they are on the job.

companies have accountants who are paid to ALWAYS look for ways to cut costs....why do you think robotics are being installed to do menial jobs. they don't give a s**t about the worker, they only give a s**t about making more profits

originally posted by: jimmyx

originally posted by: xuenchen
Of *COURSE* it is.

Higher minimum wages just give employers a better reason to hire less people and force those less people to do more work in the time they are on the job.

companies have accountants who are paid to ALWAYS look for ways to cut costs....why do you think robotics are being installed to do menial jobs. they don't give a s**t about the worker, they only give a s**t about making more profits

Ummm, yeah. They're a business, not a jobs program. They have work that needs doing and they are willing to compensate someone to do it, but those terms are not always going to be terms that will support a person for life and shouldn't always be.

If all you can do is clean toilets, I've got news for you ... everyone and their brother can also do that, so your skill and labor just isn't very valuable in the grand scheme of things and no one is going to pay you a whole lot for it.

If, on the other hand, you're a good brain surgeon? Well, then you have skills that you can bargain a good living out of because not many other people are going to have those.

That's the way it works and why we tell our kids that education is key.

originally posted by: jimmyx

originally posted by: xuenchen
Of *COURSE* it is.

Higher minimum wages just give employers a better reason to hire less people and force those less people to do more work in the time they are on the job.

companies have accountants who are paid to ALWAYS look for ways to cut costs....why do you think robotics are being installed to do menial jobs. they don't give a s**t about the worker, they only give a s**t about making more profits

Right, then why weren't they automating and cutting hours before the wage increase?

I find this debate hilarious.

People said over and over, if you raise the minimum wage too hi, businesses will find ways to cut hours, and people will be even worse off.

The wage supporters laughed that off as preposterous.

Then that is exactly what happens, and the people now say well businesses would have done that anyways.

originally posted by: Grambler

originally posted by: jimmyx

originally posted by: xuenchen
Of *COURSE* it is.

Higher minimum wages just give employers a better reason to hire less people and force those less people to do more work in the time they are on the job.

companies have accountants who are paid to ALWAYS look for ways to cut costs....why do you think robotics are being installed to do menial jobs. they don't give a s**t about the worker, they only give a s**t about making more profits

Right, then why weren't they automating and cutting hours before the wage increase?

I find this debate hilarious.

People said over and over, if you raise the minimum wage too hi, businesses will find ways to cut hours, and people will be even worse off.

The wage supporters laughed that off as preposterous.

Then that is exactly what happens, and the people now say well businesses would have done that anyways.

They are automating now because now the robots are useful and "intelligent" enough. They are cuttig hours because of greed!

I mean, a million less a year for the managers and board members and 15$ for the workers, who make the profits, should be no problem.

But if you listen to some people here, they all must be millionairs or billionairs and not workers. 15 bucks is too much and creates only problems...

Solution then: How about working twelve hours a day, for free, so that the greedy ones, those that own more money than they need, the tax dodgers, have no problems with their wage slaves anymore?

It´s not the 15$ for the workersthat create problems(they don´t, can´t horde their money like the greedy rich ones, keeping their money out of the money circuit, which is not good for the economy, the society, for nobody than the greedy mind of it´s owner).

The problem is and stays the greed of those have more than they earn, they act like Dagobert Duck. They think if they have to pay 15§, they will die because of poverty(one Ferrari less the last quarter of the year?). What didn´t they tell us in Germany about the risks of the minimum wage here, and the exact opposite happened, no negative but positive effects. Ah, the warners were the greedy ones, the economy, the industry, the banksters, the business and economy experts... That were afraid the rich and greedy ones could lose 0.00000985% of their profits.

Don´t the slave masters not think about quality? I mean, if somebody pays me way too less for the work i do, for the profits he makes out of my lifetime( i have to let, in exchange to get some of the "god" money), does he really think i will work as if i would be paid fair for it? If ones workers, employees, are bad-tempered every day(because of knowing they are fooled wage slaves), it is not good for the business, they will not be nice to the customers.
If you don´t pay fair, you won´t get quality work delivered from your employees.

The problem is not paying the people are fair price! Look at the rents, at the food prices, at everything you need every day, everything gets more expensive, but the wages stay low???

Not in a world that is not dictated by the greedy rich ones!

Other countries can pay their employees close to 15 an hour as minimum wage and yet their economy is doing better than the usa.

Heres a clue the executives need to adjust their pay and product margin instead of Fing over the very people that they stomp on to make their money.

a reply to: DerBeobachter

I disagree with you.

It is simple to paint all employers as greedy rich folk abusing their employees.

Often times this is not the case.

Owners or businesses are entitled to make money like anyone else.

Placing artificial limits on what they can earn is the first step to the workers paradise in places like the Soviet Union that killed 50 + million people.

They too told people thee wealth farmers were making to much, and so they drove them out or killed them, only to then realize that they didn't know how to farm, and so they starved to death.

You speak of people not having enough money, but most of the "poor" in this country have tvs, smart phones, computers, and do all sorts of things for recreation.

The people in Seattle thought they had the answer, just give them $15 an hour, and it failed.

The best solution is to allow free markets. If the wage isn't fare, people won't work for it.

This mentality led to the US and the western world having the highest standard of living for the poor in recorded history.

Every time we seek to limit the rich and procure their money, it becomes a disaster.

a reply to: Grambler

Cost effectiveness...is why.

The long term cost of a robot is now less than a 15/he employee.

Not hilarious.

Business.

Mg

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
Other countries can pay their employees close to 15 an hour as minimum wage and yet their economy is doing better than the usa.

Heres a clue the executives need to adjust their pay and product margin instead of Fing over the very people that they stomp on to make their money.

Here are some great short videos on why Minimum wages increases are a bad idea.

originally posted by: missed_gear
a reply to: Grambler

Cost effectiveness...is why.

The long term cost of a robot is now less than a 15/he employee.

Not hilarious.

Business.

Mg

Yes exactly. If employers were not forced to pay such a high minimum wage, it would have been more cost effective to use more labor.

This was told to those proposing a minimum wage increase, and yet they said it wouldn't be the case.

Now when that is exactly what happened, they complain that the businesses are evil.

The fact that they ignored the warnings and are now changing their tune is what is hilarious.

a reply to: Grambler

And yet other countries see a very different math when it comes to how much they pay their employees.

I did mention that there are countries with economies that are better than the usa has been for several decades and they pay 16 minimum wage.

Gee there must be something theyre doing different than the usa and it comes down to the employers who simply in the usa dont want to pay the cost to do business. They just want to make 500k a year owning a mcdonalds while screwing the people they hire. Then they go out and buy a 100k car as an endulgence when they could have hired 3 more people with that money. Face it americas wrong with how it works its economy.

The problem in america is the employers not the employees.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: Grambler

And yet other countries see a very different math when it comes to how much they pay their employees.

I did mention that there are countries with economies that are better than the usa has been for several decades and they pay 16 minimum wage.

Gee there must be something theyre doing different than the usa and it cones down to the employers who simply in the usa dont want to pay the cost to do business. They just want to make 500k a year ownibg a mcdonalds while screwing the people they hire. Then they go out and buy a 100k car as an endulgence when they could have hired 3 more people with that mobey. Face it americas wrong with how it works its economy.

The problem in america is the employers not the employees.

America is wrong, it has too much government intervention.

The points in this country where we had the most free market principles lead to not only the united states becoming the wealthiest power the world has ever seen, but also had the highest standard of living for the poor.

a reply to: Grambler

Nope the employees in the usa were just fooled by the okie doke.

The problem lies with the business owners.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: Grambler

And yet other countries see a very different math when it comes to how much they pay their employees.

I did mention that there are countries with economies that are better than the usa has been for several decades and they pay 16 minimum wage.

Gee there must be something theyre doing different than the usa and it comes down to the employers who simply in the usa dont want to pay the cost to do business. They just want to make 500k a year owning a mcdonalds while screwing the people they hire. Then they go out and buy a 100k car as an endulgence when they could have hired 3 more people with that money. Face it americas wrong with how it works its economy.

The problem in america is the employers not the employees.

If there is so much excess profit and businesses are just being greedy, by all means please invest and open your own McDonald's and pay your cashiers $15/hr or whatever your feel the cashier's deserve. My guess is that you won't be in business very long...