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Open thread July 29, 2014

Dan Crawford | July 29, 2014 7:07 am

Tags: open thread Comments (3) | Digg Facebook Twitter |
3 Comments
  • Denis Drew says:
    July 29, 2014 at 10:13 am

    If fast food prices were cut in half today, most people would not purchase any more burgers. How many can they (we) eat?

    We do not know how far below most people’s “maximum buy line” burger prices have sunk during decades of down-drifting minimum wages — plausibly meaning today’s prices could rise 25% higher and people might buy just as many; 50% might cut into business. We DO know today’s minimum wage is $3.50 an hour below what it was in 1968 — we DO know per capita income has near doubled over the same time frame. It is perfectly plausible that fast food prices began dropping deeper and deeper below the “maximum buy line” decades ago!

    Look at Wal-Mart: 7% labor costs. DOUBLE Wal-Mart’s average wages ($10 to $20 an hour) and ADD health benefits, paid vacations, etc., and prices might go up 10% (7% + 3%?). If Jimmy Hoffa’s Teamsters were in there that would have occasioned long ago.

    Look at most of the Americans you meet working on less than specific training required jobs (like x-ray tech): they are embarrassed. They are earning $400-$500 a week. $500 is today’s median wage.

    Look at the official federal poverty line: 3 X the price of an emergency diet (dried beans only please; no expensive canned) — a formula from the mid-fifties = $20,000 poverty line for family of three ($400 a week). Realistic minimum needs line based on table 3-2, p. 44 (after adjusting for inflation) in the MS Foundation book Raise the Floor works out to more like $50,000 a year for family of three if it has to pay its own medical insurance ($1,000 a week!). HALF OF AMERICANS NOW WORK FOR HALF THAT POVERTY LINE OR LESS!
    * * * * * * * * * *
    There are places in this country where they want to take four years to raise the minimum wage to $13 an hour. What business would take four years to reach a price of $13 if they thought the consumer would pay that much today — especially if they realistically supposed they could get all the way to $15 (if not $20!)?

    Brings back the big question of 1956: “Does the Negro want too much, too fast?” In 1956, the minimum wage was $8.75 in today’s dollars.

  • coberly says:
    July 29, 2014 at 10:37 am

    CRFB is presenting (has presented) a talkie talkie on Social Security today. I do not have the means to watch it. If anyone has, I would greatly appreciate hearing what was said, especially by Goss and Van de Water.

    Watch Live:
    Decoding the 2014 #SocialSecurity Trustees Report

    Watch it here.

    Tuesday, July 29, 2014
    8:45 am – 10:30 am

    Please tune in to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s event this morning, on the 2014 Social Security Trustees Report and the future of the Social Security program.

    The event will feature a presentation from Stephen Goss, Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration, and a bipartisan panel discussion. The panel will feature a variety of perspectives and provide a timely and informative discussion about the 2014 Social Security Trustees report, the Social Security program, and what Washington should do to reform the program in the coming years.

    And you can follow the conversation on Twitter:

    #SocialSecurity
    @budgethawks, @damianpaletta, @thirdwaykessler, @AEIecon, @JJFichtner, @SocialSecurity, @CenterOnBudget

    *Please, note new program start time of 8:45 am.*

    Agenda

    8:45 am Remarks by Congressman Tom Cole (R-OK) and Congressman John Delaney (D-MD)

    9:00 am Understanding the Trustees Report

    Stephen Goss, Chief Actuary of the Social Security Program

    Introduction by Maya MacGuineas, President of the Committee for a Responsible
    Federal Budget

    Remarks by Congressman Tom Cole (R-OK) and Congressman John Delaney
    (D-MD)

    9:30 am Panel Discussion: Is It Time to Reform Social Security?

    Moderated by Damian Paletta, The Wall Street Journal
    Andrew Biggs, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
    Jason Fichtner, Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center at George Mason University
    Stephen Goss, Chief Actuary of the Social Security Program
    Jim Kessler, Senior Vice President and Co-Founder, Third Way
    Paul Van de Water, Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

  • Denis Drew says:
    July 30, 2014 at 9:20 am

    RE: THE EFFECT OF THE MINIMUM WAGE ON YOUTH EMPLOYMENT — by Stephen Gordon

    I don’t know about day-to-day conditions in Canada of course. But bear in mind that a higher minimum wage attracts higher value employees — a.k.a., older employees?

    Sort of the reverse of the effect of deunionizing certain jobs in the US — like supermarket — where the value of the new (two-tiered) employees seems lower.

    In Chicago, amazingly, 100,000 out of my guess 200,000 minority, gang age males are in street gangs mostly (I presume) because among other things the US minimum wage is now $3.50 an hour below the 1968 level while per capita income has nearly doubled — by our standards our minimum wage pays like a Bangladesh shoe factory. And incredible state I call it the “Great Wage Depression.”

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