Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-seattle-mi...yment.html

INTRO: Between 2015 and 2017, Seattle, Washington, became the first U.S. city to increase its hourly minimum wage to $15, more than double the federal minimum wage and 60 percent higher than Seattle's previous minimum wage. A new study examined the impact of this change on public safety.

The study was motivated by the idea that since crime is sometimes the result of material deprivation, changes in the minimum wage might have implications for criminal activity: Boosting the minimum wage could raise workers' salaries (which could be associated with reduced crime). But if higher minimum wages spur employers to substitute capital for labor, this could increase unemployment (which could be associated with increased crime).

The study found little evidence that Seattle's aggregate rate of violent or property crimes changed relative to other U.S. cities. It also found no meaningful adverse effects on low-wage workers' rates of employment. The study, by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, appears in Criminology & Public Policy, a publication of the American Society of Criminology.

"Our study suggests that Seattle increased its minimum wage without compromising public safety, at least in the short run," explains David Mitre-Becerril, a doctoral student in criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, who led the study. Past research on the effects of minimum wage legislation on crime has been mixed... (MORE)

Duh, Republicans have been saying this for how long?
If you mandate $15/hr for entry level jobs, employers will give those jobs to more experienced workers, instead of relatively unskilled workers trying to enter the workforce. And that also means not giving people with criminal records a chance.

Was there in '17. Lots of hills, expensive and several bums begging for money. Even some openly advertising the money was for marijuana. $15 might get you a specialty coffee at one of many Starbucks. Had to buy clothes there because airline lost my luggage. They said I had only $100 to spend but that got me a t-shirt, shorts and some underwear. I spent over $200, gave them the bill and they didn't bat an eye*. Minimum wage is $15 here in Ontario and people have accepted it. Businesses a little apprehensive at first but consumer adjusted to resultant price hikes. Crime didn't seem to increase.

*4 days later my luggage was found and returned

Yeah, but Canadians are use to high taxes. What's higher prices compared to that?
And it didn't say crime rose, it said it didn't improve.

But aside from that, it's a vicious cycle. Raise the minimum, things cost more, and everyone else then needs a raise. So ultimately, everyone ends up relatively where they started. It's not just paying entry level jobs $15/hr. It's paying the guy currently making $15/hr $21+/hr, and so on up the pay scale. Otherwise, people who've worked to move up the pay scale suddenly have their progress taken from them.

But then leftists don't give a crap about hard work or merit. Otherwise they'd trust the free market to decide what jobs are worth.

(Mar 16, 2021 10:15 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: [ -> ]Was there in '17. Lots of hills, expensive and several bums begging for money. Even some openly advertising the money was for marijuana. [...]

Sans the climate, the West Coast often sounds like hell for poor folks -- or at least the ones that don't hold up "will work for food" signs a few hours a day. (Is that still viable fish-hook bait after all these years?)

Here rent is cheap (fewer homeless), taxes/duties are low, reasonable retail prices, even better at certain discount stores (half the Walmart prices in many instances). Prior to the pandemic, stigmatized grandsons fresh out of the penal system could get undocumented jobs washing dishes and other grunt work (like illegals) while staying at their Grandmas' or gullible girlfriends' places.

There's a church organization near here that distributes boxes of food twice a week to the needy. According to a caregiver who takes her elderly client there, it's better quality and more nutritionally well-rounded than anything the government dispensed back in welfare commodity days. Maintained by voluntary efforts and donations (including from companies) -- fewer Protector Lords around holding the barrels of Robbin' Hood agendas against the heads of middle class families and businesses while picking their pockets.

(Yeah, yeah, she says that sometimes there are items where the expiration date has slightly passed, or it will give up the ghost in a few months [the frozen shrimp didn't have one]. But time stamps on the canned goods are reliably good to go for two years. And there's lots of variety -- said it took 3 months for the first can of green beans to show up. )