Bank of America is raising its minimum wage for employees to $20

A single price increase is not inflation, any more than a single stock going up means that the market went up. It might be a sign of inflation, or it might be offset by decreases in other prices.

Fortunately the recent increases in minimum wages in several US locales means that there is quite a lot of data available for studies that assess the impact of minimum wage increases on prices.

For example, from "The Effects of Increasing the Minimum Wage on Prices: Analyzing the Incidence of Policy Design and Context (2016)" [0]

>By looking at changes in restaurant food pricing during the period of 1978–2015, MacDonald and Nilsson find that prices rose by just 0.36 percent for every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, which is only about half the size reported in previous studies. They also observe that small minimum wage increases do not lead to higher prices and may actually reduce prices.

The interestingly-named page "$15 Minimum Wages Will Substantially Raise Prices" [1] from the Heritage Foundation cites multiple studies showing that a 10 increase in minimum wage will increase prices between 0.2% and 1.8% with most estimates around 1%. (Perhaps their definition of substantial is different from mine?)

>Sarah Lemos of the University of Leicester surveyed roughly 30 studies conducted before 2005 examining minimum-wage price effects. These studies found that minimum-wage increases have relatively small effects on the overall price level. They reported that a 10 percent minimum-wage increase raises overall prices by about 0.2 percent to 0.3 percent.

>Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Department of Agriculture, published a study in 2008 examining how restaurants respond to minimum-wage increases. They used Consumer Price Index (CPI) data and examined the 1996–1997 federal minimum-wage increase. They found that a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage raises overall restaurant prices approximately 0.7 percent. Unsurprisingly, they found larger effects in restaurants that employ more minimum-wage workers. Prices increased twice as much—by approximately 1.5 percent—at fast-food restaurants. In lower-wage regions, fast-food prices rose 1.8 percent.

>In 2010, Denis Fougère, Erwan Gautier, and Hervé Le Bihan, researchers at the Bank of France, criticized the econometric model that Aaronson and his co-authors used. [...] They concluded that a 10 percent minimum-wage increase raises restaurant prices by approximately 1 percent, although it takes one to three years for price increases to fully materialize

>This survey records the price of a McDonald’s quarter-pounder, a regular Pizza Hut cheese pizza, and Kentucky Fried Chicken fried drumsticks across America. They found that a 10 percent increase in required starting wages raises the price of burgers and pizza by about 1 percent. Curiously they found little effect on KFC chicken prices.

[0] https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/does-increasing-m...

[1] https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/15-minimum-wa...

While I don't think Bank of America has a large percentage of skill workers compared to knowledge workers I think this sends a very forward thinking message.

The debt waters are rising for both consumer and corporate and I assume we'll see a correction soon that once again hits middle class and lower class folks _almost_ ready to make a mobility play.

$20/hr during the coming lean times could be just enough to keep some folks from losing too much ground.

I'm just guessing at the rationale but it does kind of make me want to switch banks in support. Next few years could get rough for +60% of the US population.

Nurses Doctors etc there is an obvious moral incentive.

I half-heartedly looked for a credit union to join, but every one I found seemed to be for groups of employees I'm not a member of.

Are you generalizing across all "young people"? Or are you assuming what I mean? I was not trying to argue that we as a society, and especially as individuals, shouldn't help the displaced. What I have a problem with is the essentially Communist rhetoric we are using to justify removal from and placement in jobs.

> Or not increasing taxes as expenditures go up. Somehow things just don’t reconcile. Maybe that’s just how politics is.

A frequent conversation between a close friend of mine and myself is one that highlights these inconsistencies. I think the core issue is a fundamental lack of understanding on the part of the politician/person. We call it "bumper sticker" politics. Everyone wants a drop-the-mic moment, the feel vindicated, to feel justified, to feel right.

It is a scary thing to be wrong, even about trivial things. If a person possesses functional introspective capabilities, being wrong about something can shake a person's sense of identity.

Generally, I think that fear is the cause of 1) lack of introspection, which leads to 2) "yelling" meaningless phrases in an attempt to articulate a political opinion they don't understand.

You're right! This is a huge, glaring, obvious contradiction.

I've always found it useful to extend the principle of charity in situations like the you so wisely point to. Perhaps people have some reason to expect that some other outcome could result from permanently removing jobs other than a permanent reduction in the number and type of jobs available? Do you think this is possible? Maybe these people might opine that our economy is not a fixed-size lump of labor.

Again, you very correctly point to a absolutely critical point. Might perhaps there be something else to consider here? If I'm wrong, and the world is indeed a fixed lump of labor, can you help me understand why these people are wrong?

I subscribe to some limited belief that prices rise (where possible) to meet demand. See San Francisco housing prices, or Madison, WI housing prices as companies attract and pay their employees quite a lot. So, just paying people a "living wage" isn't enough. If that's a route we go in (and I sincerely hope we don't) we need to handle every aspect of living; housing, food, medicine, etc. Just dolling out dollars/euros isn't enough.

> or do we as a society expect to try to get as close to a fair and living wage as possible for everyone no matter how much value they add

Paying regardless of performance will destroy productivity. People tend to do a "gradient descent" algorithm in work, finding some local minima of effort for their pay. I understand not all people are like this. I'm only saying I think that enough people do, that paying some fixed minimum for all no-matter-the-value will destroy economic growth.

This will be exceedingly difficult in the U.S. where there is this deeply ingrained cultural belief that a living is something that must be “earned”. Basic Income and other safety nets that let people survive without working for it would be politically difficult. We are more likely to have government pay 1/2 the people to dig holes and the other 1/2 to fill them in, than have something like Basic Income here.

The fact is, there is a LOT of room for people to work and grow. The typical factory job is significantly waning, and will continue to do so. Local service oriented jobs are far less likely to be outsourced at all. "Dirty jobs" in particular tend to pay well, and are pretty damned safe from outsourcing.

The bigger issues are more societal and likely to worsen with roughly 2/3 of those in higher education being women, and over 70% of women unwilling to date/marry those of a lower social/education status, even with matching income.

The highest satisfactions in life, generally speaking, come from earned work:income and family engagement.

But consider exercise. Society automated a lot of manual labor and people still need to exercise, even though it's a blatantly wasteful use of energy. It's even more inefficient than digging holes and filling them again, because it's not even good for the soil. But it's important for people to do it.

You speak primarily about administrative organization. I'm speaking about content and focus of material.

But people still want their caffeinated milk shakes and misnamed espresso sugar drinks, and they will pay a premium for their fix.