There’s not good evidence for the minimum wages reducing the amount of jobs. Reality is complex.
There is not good evidence that a minimum wage does NOT reduce the amount of jobs.
Meanwhile, unpaid internships and graduate assistantships are being attacked because they do not meet minimum wage laws. Is there good evidence that a graduate student is better off if she is not offered a stipend to help teach, or that a would-be television worker is better off if they cannot work for a year on a television show as an aid to making themselves employable? Is there evidence that the rather general mathematics of optimum economic deployment of resources when market mechanisms are used does NOT apply to the bottom end of the labor market?
If one were to look for it, might there be evidence that if you think society owes a person a higher income than can be gathered by working full time at the minimum wage, that it makes sense to put the burden or cost of that conviction entirely on the employer of that person? That is, wouldn’t be better off sharing the cost of our social justice convictions across the entire tax base with something like a negative income tax?
I personally am a fan of passing laws only when their is good evidence that they do more good than harm. A lack of good evidence that they do harm is NOT a good reason to pass a law.
What do you think the effect of passing a $25 or $50/hr minimum wage? I think it would destroy the economy. And in the absence of good evidence that there is some kind of magic non-linearity down at the $10/hr and lower level, I suspect the only reason that there is not “good” evidence that a low minimum wage does harm is because the “signal” has been turned down so it is in the “noise” by choosing low numbers that allow you to miss the effects you are looking for.
Is there good evidence that a graduate student is better off if she is not offered a stipend to help teach, or that a would-be television worker is better off if they cannot work for a year on a television show as an aid to making themselves employable?
The problem is that there are too many people who want to be television workers. Having a market that pushes some of those people out of that industry and into something more productive is useful.
The fact that universities who get huge tuition fees use graduate students who haven’t learned anything about teaching to teach is appalling. If you force a university to pay the people who teach more money than they will have higher standards and pick people who can teach better.
The university doesn’t suddenly stop teaching.
Is there evidence that the rather general mathematics of optimum economic deployment of resources when market mechanisms are used does NOT apply to the bottom end of the labor market?
If the mathematics would really work you could calculate the size of the effect and see whether or not the effect exist in reality. In reality things are complex enough that you can’t predict them with the models. That proves the math doesn’t work out. Cognitive Science also frequently shows that humans aren’t simple utility optimizers.
That is, wouldn’t be better off sharing the cost of our social justice convictions across the entire tax base with something like a negative income tax?
Today that’s commonly called basic income. I’m in favor of it but the underlying politics are complex.
I suspect the only reason that there is not “good” evidence that a low minimum wage does harm is because the “signal” has been turned down so it is in the “noise” by choosing low numbers that allow you to miss the effects you are looking for.
If the signal has turned down and the effect is really small, then the effect maybe isn’t that important.
The problem is that there are too many people who want to be television workers. Having a market that pushes some of those people out of that industry and into something more productive is useful.
Do you really think you know what is more productive and what is less better than the market? If only the centrally planned economies had had access to your expertise before they collapsed, we might now be living in a worker’s paradise!
The fact that universities who get huge tuition fees use graduate students who haven’t learned anything about teaching to teach is appalling. If you force a university to pay the people who teach more money than they will have higher standards and pick people who can teach better. The university doesn’t suddenly stop teaching.
You’re not from around here, are you. I was a professor, a higher priced teacher at a university. I had NO training to teach and was not hired based on my ability to teach, but rather was hired entirely on the basis of the research I had done. And this is typical. The highest paid teachers are the most famous, and they are notoriously NOT available for a lot of teaching. The higher paid the professor the less time they spend teaching, and none of them got that high pay based on their ability to teach in the first place.
If the signal has turned down and the effect is really small, then the effect maybe isn’t that important.
In which case it makes absolutely no sense to pass a law about it.
Do you really think you know what is more productive and what is less better than the market?
The market is not what decides which skillsets are over-supplied and which are under-supplied. The market merely reacts to this over- or under-supply by adjusting salaries.
What decides which skillsets are over- or under-supplied is a whole lot of students, fresh out of high school, deciding which career(s) to pursue. If more of them decide to pursue a career in television than there is demand for careers in television, then the market-clearing price for careers in television will drop; possibly even to below a living wage. (The market does not care about whether people live or not). On the other hand, if virtually nobody wants to pursue a career in (say) medicine, then those few who do will be able to earn vast amounts of money… but they will not be able to provide medical care to everyone, which would be a bad thing.
Personally, I find it easy to believe that ChristianKi is better at predicting which careers are productive than an average student just out of high school.
Do you really think you know what is more productive and what is less better than the market? If only the centrally planned economies had had access to your expertise before they collapsed, we might now be living in a worker’s paradise!
This discussion isn’t about central regulation of television workers but on setting parameters within with market forces can act. I don’t advocate solving the issue through quota but through using the market.
In which case it makes absolutely no sense to pass a law about it.
Unless you don’t pass the law to effect the number of job but you want that the people at the bottom that have jobs have higher payed jobs.
There is not good evidence that a minimum wage does NOT reduce the amount of jobs.
Meanwhile, unpaid internships and graduate assistantships are being attacked because they do not meet minimum wage laws. Is there good evidence that a graduate student is better off if she is not offered a stipend to help teach, or that a would-be television worker is better off if they cannot work for a year on a television show as an aid to making themselves employable? Is there evidence that the rather general mathematics of optimum economic deployment of resources when market mechanisms are used does NOT apply to the bottom end of the labor market?
If one were to look for it, might there be evidence that if you think society owes a person a higher income than can be gathered by working full time at the minimum wage, that it makes sense to put the burden or cost of that conviction entirely on the employer of that person? That is, wouldn’t be better off sharing the cost of our social justice convictions across the entire tax base with something like a negative income tax?
I personally am a fan of passing laws only when their is good evidence that they do more good than harm. A lack of good evidence that they do harm is NOT a good reason to pass a law.
What do you think the effect of passing a $25 or $50/hr minimum wage? I think it would destroy the economy. And in the absence of good evidence that there is some kind of magic non-linearity down at the $10/hr and lower level, I suspect the only reason that there is not “good” evidence that a low minimum wage does harm is because the “signal” has been turned down so it is in the “noise” by choosing low numbers that allow you to miss the effects you are looking for.
The problem is that there are too many people who want to be television workers. Having a market that pushes some of those people out of that industry and into something more productive is useful.
The fact that universities who get huge tuition fees use graduate students who haven’t learned anything about teaching to teach is appalling. If you force a university to pay the people who teach more money than they will have higher standards and pick people who can teach better. The university doesn’t suddenly stop teaching.
If the mathematics would really work you could calculate the size of the effect and see whether or not the effect exist in reality. In reality things are complex enough that you can’t predict them with the models. That proves the math doesn’t work out. Cognitive Science also frequently shows that humans aren’t simple utility optimizers.
Today that’s commonly called basic income. I’m in favor of it but the underlying politics are complex.
If the signal has turned down and the effect is really small, then the effect maybe isn’t that important.
Do you really think you know what is more productive and what is less better than the market? If only the centrally planned economies had had access to your expertise before they collapsed, we might now be living in a worker’s paradise!
You’re not from around here, are you. I was a professor, a higher priced teacher at a university. I had NO training to teach and was not hired based on my ability to teach, but rather was hired entirely on the basis of the research I had done. And this is typical. The highest paid teachers are the most famous, and they are notoriously NOT available for a lot of teaching. The higher paid the professor the less time they spend teaching, and none of them got that high pay based on their ability to teach in the first place.
In which case it makes absolutely no sense to pass a law about it.
The market is not what decides which skillsets are over-supplied and which are under-supplied. The market merely reacts to this over- or under-supply by adjusting salaries.
What decides which skillsets are over- or under-supplied is a whole lot of students, fresh out of high school, deciding which career(s) to pursue. If more of them decide to pursue a career in television than there is demand for careers in television, then the market-clearing price for careers in television will drop; possibly even to below a living wage. (The market does not care about whether people live or not). On the other hand, if virtually nobody wants to pursue a career in (say) medicine, then those few who do will be able to earn vast amounts of money… but they will not be able to provide medical care to everyone, which would be a bad thing.
Personally, I find it easy to believe that ChristianKi is better at predicting which careers are productive than an average student just out of high school.
This discussion isn’t about central regulation of television workers but on setting parameters within with market forces can act. I don’t advocate solving the issue through quota but through using the market.
Unless you don’t pass the law to effect the number of job but you want that the people at the bottom that have jobs have higher payed jobs.