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Comment by fallingfrog | Hacker News Reader

The data shows that you are not correct- Seattle has a 17$ per hour minimum wage and the sky did not fall. Things improved, mostly for the people at the very bottom. Business owners made a lot of threats but ultimately they did not move out of the city.

https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/7/13/20690266/seattle...

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There is also a psychological phenomenon at play here: anytime one group of people is above another in some hierarchy, they must tell themselves a story to justify their position. It usually goes: they deserve to be under us, because they are lazy/violent/oversexed etc. But we also must be protected from them, as we are so outnumbered.

This is why you get perplexing attitudes that latinos are too lazy to work but also taking our jobs, or that white people are helpless victims but also simultaneously the master race.

Of course, change the actors and story remains the same- no matter who is on top and who is on bottom. Thus the attitude of the privileged towards the commoners is one of contempt, and the attitude of the commoners is one of resentment and resistance.

The story repeats in every society with a lot of inequality. Your own comment, for example, drips with contempt.

Edit: I don’t know you, so I do take you at your word. I’m glad you don’t have contempt for anyone.

That 4.25 however is actually higher than the federal minimum wage today, adjusted for inflation.

Also, if you’re ever watching news stories about young people, watch for the fear and contempt: the story with them is that they are crybabies who won’t leave their safe spaces (contempt, why they deserve to suffer) but also antifa super soldiers seeking to take over the country (fear, why we must police them). In actuality young people today are raising children in the middle of historic upheaval, plagues, unaffordable housing and stupidly expensive education. But yet they soldier on. They’re survivors.

And I want to be perfectly clear: I do not in any way have the thought that anyone making minimum wage is "lazy/violent/oversexed etc". I don't think we need to "be protected from" minimum wage earners. As I mentioned in my original post, even when minimum wage was $4.25, I earned substantially less at my first job. Even as minimum wage increased, I earned close to it for a long time. My family lived check to check at best when I grew up.

My bone of contention is with the lawmakers changing the min wage and not focusing on the greed of politicians and corporations: give taxes back to the poor communities/earners; reduce profits to allow for lower costs so low wage earners can afford to get themselves or their children out of poverty.

I did not mean to imply the "blame" lies with the workers. I know full well, many people earning minimum wage are already doing the best they can, even if these types of jobs are not meant to raise families on or be sole wage suppliers, sometimes that is the only option.

True, but this occured 3 months ago. 3 months is hardly the long term I was referring to. Also, isn't Seattle one of the more expensive cities to live in? If cost of living sites are to be believed, it is 50-70% higher cost of living than the average US city. Higher minimum wages are just going to make that worse as prices go up to offset the higher wages.

Higher prices are being driven by institutional investors using leverage and free money from the fed. That’s happening nationwide. It’s not being driven from below, in this particular case. Also, Seattle has had a minimum wage above 15 per hour since 2017.

Edit: 2017 for larger businesses, 2019 for mid size, 15 per hour universally as of 2021

This isn't a stellar example - there were several studies and counter studies in Seattle - you can end up cherry picking what you want.

Also, Seattle was right in the midst of a huge boom during the study. And anecdotally, Seattle has overall been a horrendous place in the last 10 years for livability (we ended up getting priced out and moving away). So the sky not falling might be subjective.

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