Kinja reply list

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ThomasMooreHamilton Nolan
3/18/16 12:24pm
The phase-in was key. But yeah, there are more restaurants opening here than ever before. They’re also more expensive than ever before. But you know, we can't have it both ways. So as long as people don't complain about $15 hamburgers I'm good with it.
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  AskYourMotherThomasMoore
  3/18/16 2:08pm
  If they raise prices that far the business owners are getting more of a raise than the servers.
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  ThomasMooreAskYourMother
  3/18/16 2:19pm
  Not really. Rents - including commercial rents- here have gone up almost 200% in less than a decade. But anyway even if it was pure profit taking (which it isn’t - I have a couple dozen small businesses as clients)- so what?
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BrianGriffinHamilton Nolan
3/18/16 12:16pm
No info on the demographics of the new employment, though. Statistically, raising the minimum wage doesn’t effect employment numbers (and often increases employment), but those increases tend to be mostly white adult employees. Increases in the minimum wage make working more desirable, so more people enter the labor force, which has a negative impact on minorities and teenagers (cause prejudice).
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  CartireBrianGriffin
  3/18/16 12:19pm
  Interesting conclusion. So how do we solve this issue? Raise the minimum, but only for minorities?
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  BrianGriffinCartire
  3/18/16 12:22pm
  End racism, duh.
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Low Information BoaterHamilton Nolan
3/18/16 12:15pm
Well, yeah, if you cherrypick cities on the west coast. Try that in areas geographically removed from the economically moderating effect of a nearby ocean and see what happens. It's Econ 101, dude.
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  Endless Supply of CynicismLow Information Boater
  3/18/16 12:19pm
  Proximity to large bodies of water throws all economic forecasts out of whack. Like all those so called economists claiming the Deep Horizon oil spill would devastate the fishing industry? Minnesota has over 10,000 lakes and none of them experienced any fish die off. So much for economists.
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  Low Information BoaterEndless Supply of Cynicism
  3/18/16 12:21pm
  A dismal science indeed!
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Richard M TysonHamilton Nolan
3/18/16 12:46pm
I'm also guessing every comment on here disputing this article is from people who already live comfortably or make more than $15 an hour. Show me the person making 8.75 who thinks they're making enough to live a normal life.
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  FrederickDouglassRichard M Tyson
  3/18/16 1:50pm
  You will not have to look hard to find these people. I recently had someone interrupt a conversation I was having with someone else to argue against the minimum wage. This person admittedly had been paid the minimum wage for most of his life. He was afraid it would hurt business and espoused the usual talking points the right brainwashes the masses with in this country. I was stunned at someone literally arguing against their own raise and for the people who had paid him subsistence wages his whole life. This is why there hasn’t been raise in the minimum for so long. Republicans have the lock on stupid and that is not gonna change any time soon.
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  CarlySparklesFrederickDouglass
  3/18/16 2:54pm
  “ i learned to live on ramen and dreams, and they can too!!” - someone who can now afford to eat actual food and the cholesterol medication they need to counteract all the sodium in the ramen they used to eat.
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ThenSAHamilton Nolan
3/18/16 12:25pm
WRONG!

I heard just last year that at least two restaurants in Seattle closed!

HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THAT?!?!1
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JoshDigiHamilton Nolan
3/18/16 12:26pm
There are negative effects. One percenters now have to wipe their ass with 50 dollar bills instead of 100s. And the volunteers at soup kitchens are more lonely now that people are being paid a living wage and can afford to purchase their own groceries.
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WhatthefoxsaysHamilton Nolan
3/18/16 12:33pm
That is some really questionable economic data though- the majority of the sample areas didn’t have minimum wage increases. For all we know, the businesses that hiked wages fired workers and the businesses that didn’t have the higher minimum wage hired those fired workers. You can’t tell from the data.

Edit to clarify: the employment data surveyed regions that included both businesses subject to the high MW and those that were not, and the latter were in the majority.
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Demon!Hamilton Nolan
3/18/16 12:15pm
Yep. This is so econ 101 that I can’t even argue.

People who argue this are seriously real-life deficient.
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  FrederickDouglassDemon!
  3/18/16 1:52pm
  Arguing against the minimum has almost become as American as apple pie. Everyone is gonna become a millionaire tomorrow so you don’t want all that money to disappear from paying people a living wage.
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Fabian KnockwurstHamilton Nolan
3/18/16 12:22pm
“If you raise the minimum wage, if you allow for paid parental leave, if you allow for paid sick leave, ... then small businesses will flee and with them all their jobs!!”; we have so often heard this shouted from every muncipal hill top. To which if you manage to summon the political spine to say the equivalent of: “All those basic social boons are granted, and for you I guess it’s bu-bye!” then 80% of those bewailing businesses will (somehow) manage to stay, and the 20% who do move one block out of the city will replaced in a heartbeat. That is, cities really do own the physical marketplace.
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