[tvhiggins]

correlation not causation. this flies in the face of econ 101. if a company has $100 budget and pay min wage of $8/hr they can have 12 employees. you raise min wage to $12/hr? they can only hire 8 people. you make human capital more expensive? more incentive to automate

[smacktoward]

> this flies in the face of econ 101

Econ 101 provides an extremely limited understanding of economics.

Your assumption is that the company is a closed system -- a fixed pile of money. But in the real world it isn't, it's part of the overall economy. If people are spending more, the overall economy expands, which increases the earnings of our hypothetical business, which leads to them having more than $100.

The benefit of a minimum wage increase is in the way it puts money in the hands of people who will spend it.

[freehunter]

Even in Econ 201, my teacher was quick to point out "this assumes perfectly rational actors in working within ideal situations". Which doesn't exist ever.

[tvhiggins]

raising min wage would price people out of jobs!

on another note, most people assume incorrectly that this bottom portion of earners is a fixed group of people year in year out. Simply not true. look at us bureau census data. Over half of people earning minimum wage are under 24. If you don't have skills for a job, you work for min wage, gain skills and experience so you can get better jobs. When the government makes companies pay more for these teenagers they will hire less. these would-be workers will have more difficulty gaining skills/experience.

[tvhiggins]

also citing 4 states that raised min wage and looking at 6 month time window is pretty weak conclusion imo. in the other 9, wage just grew with inflation. more conclusive evidence with whole countries (looking at you europe) over longer periods of time to dispute this articles claims.

[fixedd]

I also assume that a boost in morale would increase productivity.

[throwaway283719]

This ignores second order effects - increasing the minimum wage increases the amount of disposable income people have superlinearly, which leads to more trade, which creates more employment opportunities.

[TheCoelacanth]

It flies in the face of Econ 101, but if you made it to Econ 102, you would hear about a concept called price elasticity which would explain why raising wages by 50% doesn't necessarily lead to a 1 to 1 drop in employment.

[Florin_Andrei]

> this flies in the face of econ 101

So we must never question our reading of "econ 101", because it surely reflects some immutable eternal truths, and everything that contradicts it must therefore be wrong.

/s