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friendlygrammar

>However, this is a very favorable interpretation of the data. Incomes are going up, but so are prices

The data doesn't agree with you.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/consumer-price...

(make sure to click for the 5 year chart to see how little prices have changed)

If you are basing your info off of living in Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley isn't reality.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/08/daily-c...

Silicon Valley prices are inflated because of artificial supply constraints. When housing is so expensive that unskilled labor can't even afford to live 90 minutes from the city, wages will rise until they can move a reasonable distance from the city and thus prices will rise to accommodate the wage increase.

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Here's some counter narrative to this article based on data out of gallup http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-20/we-havent-seen-grea...

We have just started hitting goals for inflation and job growth so it makes perfect sense that a poll from 2015 will indicate that the public is discouraged.

edit: look at the CPI chart I posted and you will notice the period of deflation in 2015. Deflation is bad.

And here are some facts that speak about zerohedge's credibility.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-29/unmasking-...

Zerohedge merely copy-pasted the original article from gallup http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/195680/invisible-amer...

how to avoid the "zerohedge rebuttal", for future reference

1. go to zerohedge article that raised awareness in the most sensational and comical way since Lehman

2. look for the sources in the zerohedge article

3. quote the source instead

The article argues that people are leaving poverty by moving to places with higher minimum wages and through places with large populations increasing their minimum wage. Which means expensive-to-live-in places like San Francisco, DC, New York etc because those are the places with the higher minimum wage. It also means that the places they're moving to will become more expensive because of more demand for housing.

Incomes of those that have managed to get a job are rising because of state-mandated increases in minimum wage - not because of natural market forces. Businesses have two ways to compensate for the higher cost of labor that has been imposed on them: they can hire fewer people, and they can raise prices. Some will do both. But prices will rise - they just haven't yet because most of the increases in minimum wage were fairly recent.

You've edited your top-level comment from "Incomes are going up, but so are prices" to "Incomes are going up in large part due to increases in the minimum wage, which will ultimately cause a rise in prices" in response to friendlygrammar's data. Why didn't you mark the edit, which substantially changes your claims?

Testament to the current political reality: ideology trumps facts.

It's an old saying that democracy depends upon an informed citizenry, but what happens when the citizenry doesn't act in accordance with the information?

Do you have any basis for this claim?

There is none.

It's been "wisdom" for so many years that low taxes and low minimum wage results in increased employment and better prosperity for all. Guess what. It hasn't worked.

And it's a stupid argument to make when productivity is such an important measure that never gets factored in. How productive are workers who can't afford to properly live ?

>prices will rise

While the overall impact of minimum wage increases on prices is far from settled, history has not shown it to lead to the catastrohic increases that are oft-foretold by opponents.

For instance, one full year after Washington's wage increase, we aren't seeing marked price increases [0].

If the effects of the wage increase on businesses was as profound as the doom-sayers wanted us to believe, then a year is certainly more than enough time to have seen them.

>they can hire fewer people

An expanding economy (which is partially fueled by higher incomes), helps to offset displacement of workers. Further, it's not as if businesses were seeking to hire workers they didn't need in any case. In fact, the ever-striving for optimal efficiency and productivity combined with automation is largely to blame for the lower labor demand/stagnant wages that precipitated the need for an increased minimum wage in the first place.

[0] http://www.washington.edu/news/2016/04/18/early-analysis-of-...

Indeed, it surprises me how employers are given so much credit for creating jobs when they're responding to demand. The more people who can (or are willing to) spend money on products and services, the more jobs are created. Businesses may start jobs but it's the consumers that make them viable.

>Businesses have two ways to compensate for the higher cost of labor that has been imposed on them: they can hire fewer people, and they can raise prices.

This is the "big lie" about the minimum wage.

Reality is that profits get hit first and profits get hit hardest.

Business lobbies and restaurant associations spend millions lobbying to prevent minimum wage increases. That would be completely irrational behavior if they could just pass on the costs to the consumer.

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