Income Inequality Symposium: "False trickle-down economics"
(Previous post on the symposium is here.) Venture capitalist Nick Hanauer was the keynote speaker of the Income Inequality Symposium. His speech consisted mostly of decrying “false trickle-down economics”—namely, the concept that if minimum wages are increased, employment will drop. According to him, “rich people and businesses don’t create jobs;” consumers are the real job […]
Complete lack of balance at Mayor Murray's Income Inequality Symposium
Yesterday, Kriss and I attended Seattle mayor Ed Murray’s Income Inequality Symposium at Seattle University. This was no balanced discussion of the potential impacts of increasing the minimum wage in Seattle to $15; instead, everyone involved seemed to have agreed ahead of time on the goodness of significantly increasing the minimum wage. All that’s left […]
Income Inequality Symposium: Trade-offs? What Trade-offs?
(Previous posts on the symposium are here, here, here and here.) At the same time as the panel I discussed in the last post, there was one that was held in another building, in a room with limited seating, titled “Strategies for investing in workers.” This was moderated by Maud Daudon of the Seattle Metropolitan […]
20th of March 2014
How public policy supports low-wage workers and the high cost of the minimum wage
There’s no dearth of good analysis on the effects of raising the minimum wage. Let me call attention to a few of them here. First, a look at the income supports available to low-wage workers, as shown in this graph from a short and incisive AEI blog post. AEI fellow Robert Doar concludes, So […]
13th of March 2014
Minimum wage lessons for Seattle's $15 won't be learned by looking at other cities
Earlier we looked at the wrangling over the effects of raising the minimum wage. When theory fails to provide clarity, a look at reality is appealing. So it’s not surprising that the Seattle Times seeks to learn lessons from San Francisco’s highest-in-the-nation $10.74 municipal minimum wage. The Times interviewed economists who have studied the effects, […]
Economists wrangle over $10.10 minimum wage, CFOs say increase will slow hiring
Among the challenges faced by policymakers (and that includes voters) trying to determine the effects of raising the minimum wage is sorting through the flood of conflicting information. Much of the conflict comes because people who are supposedly talking about the same thing are not, really, talking about the same thing. There’s a difference between […]
6th of March 2014
Regional economist sets a low bar. Says a $15 minimum wage is "not outrageous." It's also not a good idea.
Regional economist Dick Conway told KPLU that a $15 minimum wage is “really not that outrageous.” Conway has been on record before; he was the economist Gov. Inslee cited by name at AWB’s legislative day (about 41 minutes in). As a benchmark for setting public policy affecting thousands of businesses and tens of thousands of employees, […]
Seattle's $15 minimum wage debate heats up; Jordan Royer article in Crosscut provides needed perspective
The Seattle City Council and the Mayor’s Income Inequality Advisory Committee held a joint public hearing last night on the $15 minimum wage proposal. The Seattle Times has the story. It sounds like quite a show. About 700 people, many wearing red T-shirts with “15” on the front, cheered calls to enact a pay increase […]
3rd of March 2014
Warren Buffet says $15 minimum wage would hurt jobs, Speaker Chopp says no vote on $12 minimum this year, and more
Warren Buffett weighs in on the federal minimum wage. “If you could have a minimum wage of $15 and it didn’t hurt anything else, I would love it,” he said. “But clearly that isn’t the case.” However, he added, he wouldn’t argue with President Obama’s proposal for a more modest increase, to $10.10 an hour […]
27th of February 2014
Minimum wage, the cost of living and the cost of doing business, even nonprofit businesses
As Mark Perry, AEI scholar and University of Michigan economist, points out, there’s no science to setting a minimum wage. But where does a minimum wage of $10.10 (or $9) per hour come from? Economic theory? Economic reasoning? Economic logic? Regression analysis? No. It comes from….. well it comes from….. OK, to be really honest, […]