# Start Here > Guest Forum >  Highest Minimum-Wage State Washington Beats U.S. in Job Creation

## Boshembechle

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...with-jobs.html




> When Washington residents voted in 1998 to raise the states minimum wage and link it to the cost of living, opponents warned the measure would be a job-killer. The prediction hasnt been borne out. 
>  In the 15 years that followed, the states minimum wage climbed to $9.32 -- the highest in the country. Meanwhile job growth  continued at an average 0.8 percent annual pace, 0.3 percentage point  above the national rate. Payrolls at Washingtons restaurants and bars,  portrayed as particularly vulnerable to higher wage costs, expanded by  21 percent. Poverty has trailed the U.S. level for at least seven years.


I will enjoy seeing you guys spin this away!

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## luctor-et-emergo

Raising minimum wages in a good economy isn't necessarily a damaging thing. Where it becomes dangerous is when the economy falls back and nobody is hired anymore because under those new circumstances minimum wage could be too high. 




> German jobless rate was recorded at 5.1 percent in March of 2014, unchanged from February, provisional figures released by the Federal Statistics Office showed. A year earlier, unemployment was recorded at 5.4 percent.


Guess what, Germany is the economic powerhouse of the EU, they do not have an official minimum wage. 
People in Germany aren't poorer than people from surrounding countries that DO have minimum wages.

Try to spin that ?

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## juleswin

> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...with-jobs.html
> 
> 
> 
> I will enjoy seeing you guys spin this away!


I dont get it, if raising the minimum wage will be a boom for business, govt coffers via increased return in tax revenue and workers, why would anyone be against it? I mean you hear liberals all the time say how the improved pay of the workers will go out immediately to support local businesses etc etc will help the economy. So why not do it immediately, dont wait 7 or 10 yrs to faze it in, just do it now and maybe up the limit to something like $20.

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## NorthCarolinaLiberty

Check their teen unemployment rate and see how it compares with everybody else. This stuff always adversely effects those with the least skills, which is usually teenagers.

Your link called "job growth" (in your snippet) is also a dead link.  I don't know how to spin something that is not there.

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## Boshembechle

The reason I posted this is because rarely, if ever, has a minimum wage increase resulted in anything close to what free marketers says would happen. In reality, Seattle will now have less people on the dole.

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## MelissaWV

> The reason I posted this is because rarely, if ever, has a minimum wage increase resulted in anything close to what free marketers says would happen. In reality, Seattle will now have less people on the dole.


Then they should immediately raise the minimum wage to $50/hour   That should get everyone off of the dole AND make many of them rich!

Shame on you for not advocating for more.

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## jkr

no job +higher minimum wage = who gives a $#@!


spin that

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## silverhandorder

So what if it best the avg. Did it beat Texas?

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## Voluntarist

xxxxx

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## erowe1

Imagine how much better it would be without that minimum wage.

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## erowe1

> The reason I posted this is because rarely, if ever, has a minimum wage increase resulted in anything close to what free marketers says would happen. In reality, Seattle will now have less people on the dole.


That's not true. Every single time a minimum wage has ever existed, it resulted in less employment than there would have been without it. There are zero exceptions.

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## Boshembechle

> That's not true. Every single time a minimum wage has ever existed, it resulted in less employment than there would have been without it. There are zero exceptions.


A baseless assertion.

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## erowe1

> A baseless assertion.


It's a mathematical certainty. The only way for it not to be true would be with a minimum wage so low that it was lower than what anybody got paid anyway.

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## oldietech

who needs minimum wage when you can just hire illegals to do the work?

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## VIDEODROME

Correlation does not imply causation.  Also, this article is just anecdotal and could use more detail.  

Let's Grant that the Economy is strong though after that minimum wage increase.  I would be interested in whether the same industries thrived and this is a good economic story, or if many small business owners choked on this wage increase.  If so, is the state comfortable just transitioning to a Big Box Store / Fast Food economy along with some manufacturing jobs?  

I can honestly believe that the OP has an interesting example for us to consider even if I wish it had more detail.  Even Obama has a point about redistributing wealth.  I think money does need to circulate, but Obama's "Stimulus" was a terrible clumsy Big Government way to do it.  Arguably, Bush did the complete opposite Bailing out the very Rich.  What if finally this is an example of Bailing out the Rank & File and re-invigorating a consumer class?  Oddly enough, this may also provide more Tax revenue to empower government to be a watchdog over industry.  

I've been thinking about things like this as being a kind of Collective Action Dilemma where we need to resolve issues that are good for Individuals or the Group as a whole.  That we can have some boundaries around the economy, but the Market should be as Free as possible within those boundaries.  

A lot of what I've been considering comes from author Robert H. Frank "The Darwin Economy" and this article "Darwin: The Market Whiz".  It kind of makes me think industry.

I would really like the OP to read this: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/bu...anted=all&_r=0

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## Bman

Let me describe the typical socialist.  They walk into a pine forest and in the middle of it build a ring.  They then throw a log into the ring and light it on fire.  They then turn around and say.."you said I would burn down the forest and I did not!"  They then build a bigger ring the includes some of the trees and light it all on fire.  They then turn around and say "you said I would burn down the forest and I did not!"  They keep doing this until either they have burned down enough trees that they no longer call it a "forest" or the completely burn it down and blame it on someone else for not helping to build a better ring.

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## angelatc

> A baseless assertion.


It is not baseless. States with a higher minimum wage than the federal $7.25 requirement have an average 2-point higher unemployment rate than the rest of the country

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## Bryan

> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...with-jobs.html
> 
> I will enjoy seeing you guys spin this away!


Boshembechle,

For arguments sake, let's say your premise is right.

Here's a line of critical questions for you: What give you the right to interfere with the private and personal affairs of what two adults agree on? Say person A agrees to do some work for person B for a rate that is lower than what you consider to be "minimum wage" why do you see the need to stop them? What gives you the authority? Where is this authority derived from? What are these people doing that is morally or ethically wrong in any way what-so-ever? These are serious questions, which need answers.

I understand there are a lot of people who argue for a minimum wage since they see the rich getting richer, the poor getting poor, and big corporations taking things over. If these are issues you have, then we agree! These are major problems! The question is, what is the answer?

Unfortunately the proposed solutions that often get pushed out to these problems aren't really solutions at all, and in many cases, just make matters worse. Such is the case with minimum wage laws. There is no question that, all things being equal, a big company would want to pay as little as possible for their workers (so more money for them) and at some level, don't want to have minimum wage laws, but on the flip side, most big companies have figured out there is a hidden benefit to minimum wage laws, and other industry regulation- it kills off their competition, particularly small businesses, entrepreneurs and start-ups since the resources needed to get started and established make it too hard for most to even get off the ground. Think of all the endless regulations, compliance, agencies, taxes, laws, etc that a small business has to contend with. For a small business, time and money spent on this can be a big portion of what they have available, which makes it very hard for them to get established since all their time/money is working on government issues. For big companies, they have the deep pockets to pay an extra few groups to deal with all the mess without much issue. Net result- while you think this might be helping out the little guy, you're really helping to build up big corporations!  Big corporations like not having competition, it's much more money for them!

So what are the answers? As I've written here before, the path forward can be found with a three step process:

1. Understand and respect the natural rights bestowed upon us as related to the issue.
2. Devise good government policy (which does not violate step #1).
3. Devise an effective personal social policy.

So for step one, we will find that trying to force a minimum wage is a violation of the principle of freedom of association, and freedom of contracts. This is why there is no good answers to some of my critical questions listed above. We can discuss these principles a lot more if you'd like.

For step two we could start off with reversing policies that provide strategic advantages to big companies that are already on the books. There are some clear and obvious examples of this such as corporate handouts, special privileges that only corporations enjoy, manipulation of regulations to benefit big corporations, manipulation of trade agreements and so on. These need to stop.

There is one major root problem however, the Federal Reserve System, which puts the control of our entire money supply into the hands of seven people. Seven. We tend to be feed information that these board members are looking out for the best interests of the country but many here say they end up serving the interest of the elite banking class allowing for easy profits of countless billions a year. Talk about the rich getting richer and empowering big corporations.

Consider the possibility that the seven board members, who are each serving 14 year terms, pre-plan out the highs and lows of interest rates for the next 8 years, a road-map of sorts, and only share that with an elite few. Do you have any idea how much that information would be worth? That's just the beginning of the problems with the Federal Reserve System, I highly recommend doing some research if you haven't, here is a 42 minute video I would suggest for starters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLYL_NVU1bg

On to step three, effective personal social policy. If at any point you see an individual / company that is manipulating the system, or they are using business practices that you personally object to (such as laborers in poor working conditions, not paying a living wage, predatory business practices) you can always boycott the business and/or raise social awareness to the problems. Government force isn't needed to solve all issues and these solutions can work with a morally outstanding society, which is what I think we are both working towards.

Let's solve these problems together, but we need to take action that will strike the real problem, not address symptoms- and we certainly shouldn't support "solutions" that can just make things worse, even if there is some perceived temporary gain. Wealthy elites are fine to coincide these measures so long as their real advantage isn't challenged.

Please let me know of any questions. Thanks. 


Bryan

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## NorthCarolinaLiberty

> I will enjoy seeing you guys spin this away!


Looks like the only thing spinning is your head failing to answer all the posts.

Oh well, maybe the OP enjoys constantly being run out of his own threads.

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## Carlybee

> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...with-jobs.html
> 
> 
> 
> I will enjoy seeing you guys spin this away!


Do you make minimum wage?

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## VIDEODROME

> Looks like the only thing spinning is your head failing to answer all the posts.
> 
> Oh well, maybe the OP enjoys constantly being run out of his own threads.


I thought my response was fairly generous to the OP's position.  I was hoping we could meet halfway on Government involvement.

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## Quark

> A baseless assertion.


Please, take a first semester economics course. It's not only "free-marketers" who claim this. Keynesians know this as a fact as well. It's only been recently, because of ONE study, that some of them tried to spin things otherwise.

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## NorthCarolinaLiberty

> I thought my response was fairly generous to the OP's position.  I was hoping we could meet halfway on Government involvement.



Well, your generosity far exceeds mine.  The OP posts a consumer magazine article written by journalists and actually suggests some type of seriousness.  If that isn't bad enough, the first source link in his popular article is a dead link. 

If someone is too lazy to source their own article, then they deserve nothing.  As a matter of fact, he gets another neg rep for demonstrating the typical laziness of a welfare bum.

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## 56ktarget

Why would anyone be against it? Because it requires giant corporations to devote a cent more for workers instead of for their golden parachutes.

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## Carlybee

> Why would anyone be against it? Because it requires giant corporations to devote a cent more for workers instead of for their golden parachutes.


And what does it do to the small mom and pop business?

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## VIDEODROME

> And what does it do to the small mom and pop business?


Well, on one hand you have a surge in consumer spending power.  Would the Mom and Pop store have an expanded customer base enabling them to pay their own workers more, or would everyone run to the Mall and the Big Box stores?  

I'm not sure it's even possible to predict the outcome.  In some cases, well established Mom and Pop stores might even thrive and local governments would have more revenue.  However, I can also imagine many Old Town districts would become ghost towns if lower class take their wages to the Mall or even Walmart.

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## NorthCarolinaLiberty

> Why would anyone be against it? Because it requires giant corporations to devote a cent more for workers instead of for their golden parachutes.


Why would anyone be for it?  Because it requires that somebody salting fries would make the same as a person today who actually knows how to answer a telephone.

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## erowe1

> Why would anyone be against it? Because it requires giant corporations to devote a cent more for workers instead of for their golden parachutes.


Obviously you don't have any loved ones who can't get as much work as they would like and would be glad to offer their labor at below minimum wage if they could.

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## angelatc

> Why would anyone be against it? Because it requires giant corporations to devote a cent more for workers instead of for their golden parachutes.


Thats wrong.  WalMart and the like usually support minimum wage hikes because they can afford it. It's their smaller competitors that can't.  These laws are mega-corporation protection acts.

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## angelatc

> Well, on one hand you have a surge in consumer spending power..


Yeah, and on other hand you have a surge in prices to make up for the increase in the cost labor combined with the increase in demand.

If you run a small business with 10 employees, and the minimum wage rises $3 an hour...plus the increase in employee taxes - you're looking at about an additional $5,500 a month in payroll expense. (More if you are contributing to a 401(k) type plan, too.)  Walmart can afford that, but most small businesses can't.  

They will react by doing a combination of  things:  raise prices, downsize the labor force or shutter.

This is where the liberals either disappear or they show their true agenda, by insisting that any business who can't afford another $5,500 a month does not deserve to stay open regardless.

They hate small independent minded efforts.  They want total control of the country, and it is easier for them to control a few large corporations than it is a hundreds of small ones.

Anybody who votes for crap like this should be required to live in Detroit.

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## MRK

Washington also has no state income tax. And you can grow and use marijuana there legally now without official papers.

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## VIDEODROME

Thank you for the numbers and feedback.  I just wanted to humor the idea and explore it. 

Suppose a hypothetical Mom and Pop restaurant has the bombshell dropped on their budget of having to pay another $5,500 a month. Also in the local economy, the various rank & file workers have their pay boosted.  I was exploring the idea of whether all these workers could conceivably start spending the extra income at such a place and could it be enough to more than offset the Mom & Pop store's own higher wages?  

I think if the business or restaurant was a staple of the community, maybe it's possible workers would spend their extra money there.  It's probably more likely though the money would go to other franchises like Dominos Pizza though.  

I guess I'll conclude that the OP and other leftists are pointing out a very real and frustrating issue of an apparently growing wealth gap, but a Wage Hike is problematic.  Even in my first post, I questioned whether or not the result is really just a prosperous Big Box Store economy.  Maybe people are happy and working there even if their Old Town district dies.  No more good local pizza places, everyone will have to be content with Dominos.

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## VIDEODROME

> Washington also has no state income tax. And you can grow and use marijuana there legally now without official papers.


Sweet.  I'm moving.

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## Carlybee

> Why would anyone be for it?  Because it requires that somebody salting fries would make the same as a person today who actually knows how to answer a telephone.


Bingo

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## Carlybee

> Thank you for the numbers and feedback.  I just wanted to humor the idea and explore it. 
> 
> Suppose a hypothetical Mom and Pop restaurant has the bombshell dropped on their budget of having to pay another $5,500 a month. Also in the local economy, the various rank & file workers have their pay boosted.  I was exploring the idea of whether all these workers could conceivably start spending the extra income at such a place and could it be enough to more than offset the Mom & Pop store's own higher wages?  
> 
> I think if the business or restaurant was a staple of the community, maybe it's possible workers would spend their extra money there.  It's probably more likely though the money would go to other franchises like Dominos Pizza though.  
> 
> I guess I'll conclude that the OP and other leftists are pointing out a very real and frustrating issue of an apparently growing wealth gap, but a Wage Hike is problematic.  Even in my first post, I questioned whether or not the result is really just a prosperous Big Box Store economy.  Maybe people are happy and working there even if their Old Town district dies.  No more good local pizza places, everyone will have to be content with Dominos.


It would end up like Canada...so expensive to eat out that people don't do it very often. So the govt gets to dictate whether or not a company can stay in business or not.  If a company has to decide whether or not to pay their bills or lay off non key people which do you think they will choose in order to stay afloat?

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## eduardo89

> It would end up like Canada...so expensive to eat out that people don't do it very often. So the govt gets to dictate whether or not a company can stay in business or not.  If a company has to decide whether or not to pay their bills or lay off non key people which do you think they will choose in order to stay afloat?


BC's minimum wage is essentially the same as Washington State's.

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## Carlybee

> BC's minimum wage is essentially the same as Washington State's.


When I was on Vancouver Island last, a hotdog at Dairy Queen was like $5.

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## acptulsa

They have to do _something_ to help the economies of the other 49 states.  If they don't, all the unemployed will move there and they'll wind up with the highest unemployment rate.

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## eduardo89

> When I was on Vancouver Island last, a hotdog at Dairy Queen was like $5.


The $5 menu in Canada costs $6CAN which equals $5.48USD. With tax it's:

*British Columbia:* $6+5% GST -> $6.30CAN -> *$5.75 US*
*Washington State (King County):*  $5+9.5% sales tax -> *$5.46*

Not much of a difference.

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## osan

> Boshembechle,
> 
> For arguments sake, let's say your premise is right.
> 
> Here's a line of critical questions for you: What give you the right to interfere with the private and personal affairs of what two adults agree on? Say person A agrees to do some work for person B for a rate that is lower than what you consider to be "minimum wage" why do you see the need to stop them? What gives you the authority? Where is this authority derived from? What are these people doing that is morally or ethically wrong in any way what-so-ever? These are serious questions, which need answers.


Very much on point.  The central issue is not of economic effect, but of liberty and morality.

On the negative side, you are feeding a troll, and he appears to be getting just what he wants.

I gave the most cursory explanation of how things work and received no response.  This suggests there be trolls about.




> So what are the answers? As I've written here before, the path forward can be found with a three step process:
> 
> 1. Understand and respect the natural rights bestowed upon us as related to the issue.
> 2. Devise good government policy (which does not violate step #1).
> 3. Devise an effective personal social policy.


4. Be well trained in holding your breath for extended periods, like eternity.





> For step two we could start off with reversing policies that provide strategic advantages to big companies that are already on the books. There are some clear and obvious examples of this such as corporate handouts, special privileges that only corporations enjoy, manipulation of regulations to benefit big corporations, manipulation of trade agreements and so on. These need to stop.


This is a key point that señor Troll appears not to know or is ignoring.  All the progressive/liberal/Keynesian whining about how free market capitalism has failed is baloney because we have not had anything even remotely resembling this in well over 100 years.  Rigged market capitalism, which is the current system, is what needs to go, but the whiners are too dishonest and blindly married to their notions of what is actually going on to accept the truth.




> There is one major root problem however, the Federal Reserve System, which puts the control of our entire money supply into the hands of seven people. Seven. We tend to be feed information that these board members are looking out for the best interests of the country but many here say they end up serving the interest of the elite banking class allowing for easy profits of countless billions a year. Talk about the rich getting richer and empowering big corporations.


But that isn't even the worst of it.  I attempted to explain in another thread that we do not have money.  We have a debt-instrument currency that guarantees the sapping away of one's prosperity into the hands of others.





> Consider the possibility that the seven board members, who are each serving 14 year terms, pre-plan out the highs and lows of interest rates for the next 8 years, a road-map of sorts, and only share that with an elite few. Do you have any idea how much that information would be worth? That's just the beginning of the problems with the Federal Reserve System, I highly recommend doing some research if you haven't, here is a 42 minute video I would suggest for starters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLYL_NVU1bg


But that makes you a conspiracy theorist and you must, therefore, be destroyed.  There is no such thing as collusion.  There are no "elites".  It's all a pigment of your remagination.  You need meds... yes, yes... that's the ticket... meds.

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## VIDEODROME

What would left leaning people like Boshembechle think of the X-Tax? 

Note:  this is a little different from the VAT and isn't really a Sales Tax either.

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