Octopus Overlords

The major conclusion one should draw from this analysis is that the Seattle Minimum Wage
Ordinance worked as intended by raising the hourly wage rate of low- - wage workers, yet the
unintended, negative side effects on hours and employment muted the impact on labor earnings.
The Seattle economy (as well as comparison regions in the state of Washington) is booming, and
this strong macroeconomy has led to improved outcomes for low-wage workers. Yet, our best
estimates find that the Seattle Minimum Wage Ordinance appears to have lowered
employment rates of low-wage workers. This negative unintended consequence (which are
predicted by some of the existing economic literature) is concerning and needs to be followed
closely in future years, because the long-run effects are likely to be greater as businesses and
workers have more time to adapt to the ordinance. Finally, we find only modest impacts on
earnings. The effects of disemployment appear to be roughly offsetting the gain in hourly wage
rates, leaving the earnings for the average low-wage worker unchanged. Of course, we are
talking about the average result.

More specifically, we find that median wages for low-wage workers (those earning less than $11
per hour during the 2 nd quarter of 2014) rose by $1.18 per hour, and we estimate that the impact
of the Ordinance was to increase these workers’ median wage by $0.73 per hour. Further, while
these low-wage workers increased their likelihood of being employed relative to prior years, this
increase was less than in comparison regions. We estimate that the impact of the Ordinance was
a 1.1 percentage point decrease in likelihood of low-wage Seattle workers remaining employed.
While these low-wage workers increased their quarterly earnings relative to prior years, the
estimated impact of the Ordinance on earnings is small and sensitive to the choice of comparison
region. Finally, for those who kept their job, the Ordinance appears to have improved wages
and earnings, but decreased their likelihood of being employed in Seattle relative other parts of
the state of Washington.

We find that Seattle employers closed less frequently than in prior years. Yet, this improvement
was not as strong as in comparison regions. We estimate that the impact of the Ordinance was a
0.7 percentage point increase in the rate of business closures. However, Seattle establishments
opened more frequently than in prior years, and we estimate that the impact of the Ordinance
was a 0.9 percentage point increase in the rate of business openings. Thus, any effect of the
Ordinance on business closures was more than offset by a corresponding increase in business
openings.

noxiousdog wrote:I would like to see the effect on rents. I think there's a very strong argument to be made that almost all wage increases go into property.

GreenGoo wrote:

noxiousdog wrote:I would like to see the effect on rents. I think there's a very strong argument to be made that almost all wage increases go into property.

Certainly in Ontario there is a limit to how much rent can increase year after year, especially if the same renters stay. You can't just spring a large increase on current renters, nor can you kick them out just so you can turn up the rent. There are ways to do it anyway, but those tend to involve having the property vacant while you do renovations and such.

GreenGoo wrote:

noxiousdog wrote:I would like to see the effect on rents. I think there's a very strong argument to be made that almost all wage increases go into property.

Certainly in Ontario there is a limit to how much rent can increase year after year, especially if the same renters stay. You can't just spring a large increase on current renters, nor can you kick them out just so you can turn up the rent. There are ways to do it anyway, but those tend to involve having the property vacant while you do renovations and such.

Isgrimnur wrote:It wasn't increases that I had a problem with. It was increases when they were advertising my floor plan for the same or less than I was already paying.

With much of President-Elect Trump’s cabinet in place, the direction the administration could take on some policy issues is becoming clearer. Among the priorities that likely won’t be carried forward: support for minimum-wage hikes. Andrew Puzder—President-Elect Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. Secretary of Labor has opposed the federal minimum wage rising to $10.10 an hour, arguing that such a hike would reduce employment. In a 2014 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, he wrote that in reality, hiking minimum pay would lead business owners to “cut jobs and rely more on technology” instead of raising prices to make up for costlier payrolls or taking a hit to profits.

Whether people agree with Puzder often comes down to their ideological bent—do they trust the market or do they believe in government intervention? But, in the end, this is not a theoretical question—it’s one that data should be able to settle, and there’s lots of data and many, many studies out there. Yet, despite the mountains of research over the past few decades, there’s a lack of agreement among economists on this question—which affects an estimated 2.6 million American workers who currently earn the minimum legal wage. There are even studies about why the effects of a minimum wage are so hard to discern.

Moliere wrote:Will the Minimum Wage Debate Ever Be Settled?

The Harvard study used reviews on the social media site Yelp as a gauge of relative quality. It found that lower-rated eateries in particular were more likely to go under as the minimum wage was raised.

Alefroth wrote:I like that they claim the minimum wage may be too high, but they still refer to those people as low-wage workers.

noxiousdog wrote:

Alefroth wrote:I like that they claim the minimum wage may be too high, but they still refer to those people as low-wage workers.

I don't know if you're being silly, but it's a demand question. People will only pay a certain amount for services. If those services cannot be produced cheaply enough, the business is going to die.

Which is fine. That's the way it should work. But then, you have to balance is it better for 96% of the people to be employed at an $11/hour minimum or 94% of the people at a $13/minimum.

Alefroth wrote: I'm not being silly, but I think you're missing my point. I understand demand, and I understand that people are focused on the bottom line of something rather than the true cost, since the true cost rarely affects them directly. Having the same paragraph say the minimum wage may be too high and call those people low-wage workers, I find darkly amusing. It reinforces the notion that maintaining a low-paid, low-mobility working/service class is vital for the economic status quo.

Isgrimnur wrote:High job mobility? Sure. High geographic mobility? Not on your life.

If your metro prices you out of the workforce, good luck making a run for the border.

Isgrimnur wrote:The foreign worker crossing the border is substantially different than an inner city worker unable to find a job within their ability to travel.

But perhaps those poor inner city folks should just lower their definition of rock-bottom standards so that they're sharing the same rung on the ladder.

Isgrimnur wrote:There is some point where value is not created. And what do you do with a population that doesn't have the skills to generate value?

Noxiousdog wrote:FWIW, this goes completely away with the minimum income argument that I become more interested [in] all the time.

Carpet_pissr wrote:Picked up Space Run at 75% off. Enjoying it muchly, but how the hell has this not been ported to iOS? Seems like the perfect game for an iPad.

LordMortis wrote:

Carpet_pissr wrote:Picked up Space Run at 75% off. Enjoying it muchly, but how the hell has this not been ported to iOS? Seems like the perfect game for an iPad.

I think you may have multiple tabs open.

Alefroth wrote:

noxiousdog wrote:

Alefroth wrote:I like that they claim the minimum wage may be too high, but they still refer to those people as low-wage workers.

I don't know if you're being silly, but it's a demand question. People will only pay a certain amount for services. If those services cannot be produced cheaply enough, the business is going to die.

Which is fine. That's the way it should work. But then, you have to balance is it better for 96% of the people to be employed at an $11/hour minimum or 94% of the people at a $13/minimum.

I'm not being silly, but I think you're missing my point. I understand demand, and I understand that people are focused on the bottom line of something rather than the true cost, since the true cost rarely affects them directly. Having the same paragraph say the minimum wage may be too high and call those people low-wage workers, I find darkly amusing. It reinforces the notion that maintaining a low-paid, low-mobility working/service class is vital for the economic status quo.

Seattle’s Department of Labor Standards (OLS) is taking public comment on a proposed rule change that would extend local minimum wage protections to disabled workers.

Currently, city and state law exempt from the minimum wage “individuals whose earning capacity is impaired by age or physical or mental deficiency or injury,” as the Revised Code of Washington puts it. The proposed change to city rules would strike the “or physical or mental deficiency or injury” part, so that the exemption only applied to underage labor.

Moliere wrote:Peter Schiff explaining

AWS260 wrote:

Moliere wrote:Peter Schiff explaining

No thank you.

Pyperkub wrote:After Moliere's post in Political Randomness today, I wonder if we need a Moliere Hates Seattle thread

Moliere wrote:

Pyperkub wrote:After Moliere's post in Political Randomness today, I wonder if we need a Moliere Hates Seattle thread

How you ever noticed how much it rains in Seattle? And what's up with all the hipsters and their coffee shops?

Pyperkub wrote:After Moliere's post in Political Randomness today, I wonder if we need a Moliere Hates Seattle thread

Sound Transit’s long-awaited Lynnwood light-rail extension is running $500 million over budget and is expected to open six months late, in mid-2024, agency CEO Peter Rogoff said Thursday.

Staff reports blame soaring labor, materials and land costs in the overheated Seattle-area market, along with features being requested by communities.

Rip wrote:But not young boys.

http://nypost.com/2017/09/12/seattle-ma ... se-claims/

Moliere wrote:

Pyperkub wrote:After Moliere's post in Political Randomness today, I wonder if we need a Moliere Hates Seattle thread

Found another one!

Sound Transit’s Lynnwood extension running $500M over budget

Sound Transit’s long-awaited Lynnwood light-rail extension is running $500 million over budget and is expected to open six months late, in mid-2024, agency CEO Peter Rogoff said Thursday.

Staff reports blame soaring labor, materials and land costs in the overheated Seattle-area market, along with features being requested by communities.

SPD SOP for you Seattle-hating Moliere

Pyperkub wrote:SPD SOP for you Seattle-hating Moliere

Sound Transit’s financial odometer will soon roll past $100,000 per stall to provide parking garages for its growing clientele of park-and-ride customers.

The agency says cost estimates have soared to $65 million, compared with the previous $35 million, to add as many as 550 spaces by 2023 at the Sounder train station in Kent, which already has one big garage.

The project will keep a promise made to voters during the Sound Transit 2 campaign in 2008, then deferred during the Great Recession, to boost park-and-ride capacity next to Sounder commuter trains.

The new figures average out to $118,000 a space, though the project includes $3 million for improvements unrelated to parking, such as passenger drop-off areas, new bus shelters, walk and bike paths, and illumination.

Moliere wrote:

Pyperkub wrote:SPD SOP for you Seattle-hating Moliere

What else is there to do at 4am in Seattle?

I thought by now someone would post about Seattle's overpriced parking garage.

Sound Transit’s financial odometer will soon roll past $100,000 per stall to provide parking garages for its growing clientele of park-and-ride customers.

The agency says cost estimates have soared to $65 million, compared with the previous $35 million, to add as many as 550 spaces by 2023 at the Sounder train station in Kent, which already has one big garage.

The project will keep a promise made to voters during the Sound Transit 2 campaign in 2008, then deferred during the Great Recession, to boost park-and-ride capacity next to Sounder commuter trains.

The new figures average out to $118,000 a space, though the project includes $3 million for improvements unrelated to parking, such as passenger drop-off areas, new bus shelters, walk and bike paths, and illumination.

Suck on that Seattle fanboys!

The Chargers are charging $100 for fans to park in the general tailgating lot. For a franchise that needs to establish a fanbase in an already-fickle sports market, that wasn’t the most endearing strategy...

...And that was just to park. The cheapest tickets on Ticketmaster ahead of Sunday’s game were around $90 per ticket.

The only place not jumping for joy is the company's current hometown of Seattle, where politicians have reacted to the prospect of Amazon expanding elsewhere as if they were going through the phases of a bad break-up.

Local officials greeted Amazon's initial announcement with an "I'll never let you go" kind of rage. One councilmember, Kshama Sawant, reacted by yearning "to take these behemoths into democratic public ownership."

Some Seattle politicians are now expressing regret about such harsh words, and are promising to be a better partner to the company.

Last Friday, five out of nine Seattle City Councilmembers—along with a clutch of county and state officials—sent a letter to Amazon. To the extent that the company's decision to expand elsewhere was based on "feeling unwelcome in Seattle, or not being included in some of our regional decisions," they wrote, "we would like to hit the refresh button."
...
In 2014 the city passed one of the nation's first $15 an hour minimum wage laws. This was followed by onerous employee scheduling regulations, restrictions on running criminal background checks, and an infamous (and probably illegal) income tax.

And these are just the policies that have passed. Also in the works is a so-called Amazon tax, which would levy a yearly $100-per-employee levy on large companies. To draft this tax, Seattle hired John Burbank, director of the Economic Opportunity Institute, who once called Amazon a "sociopathic roommate" that the city was better off without.