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Comment by natas | Hacker News Reader

What surprises me is that all states with high minimum wage (CA, WA, OR, etc.) are the ones with the most homelessness; while all others do not have homelessness, drugs, and other sort of problems; or at least, not to the magnitude of high-wages states. Probably because low-wage jobs are necessary for the lower class to find jobs.

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> states with high minimum wage (CA, WA, OR, etc.) are the ones with the most homelessness

Adjust for GDP/capita or urbanisation (they go hand in hand) and housing cost.

Everyone you mentioned is on the west coast, where the weather is favorable for being homeless and where many other states tend to ship their homeless via one-way bus tickets

So, it's not surprising after all, it sounds like. Pretending that every job is worth $20/hour apparently has "unforeseen consequences"... the kind that the legislators and voters were warned about repeatedly.

Every [1] study [2] on minimum wages [3] using empirical data showed de minimis to positive effects on employment. There is absolutely a wage where employment is curtailed. But there is no evidence anyone in America has hit it.

Much more corrosive to hiring is the amount of paperwork involved.

[1] https://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/njmin-aer.pdf

[2] https://irle.berkeley.edu/publications/working-papers/minimu...

[3] https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/685449

And yet there are a lot of unemployed people hanging around in the areas in question. If correlation==causation is sauce for the goose, it's good for ganders, too.

Paperwork? Really?

> yet there are a lot of unemployed people hanging around in the areas in question

It’s almost like there are other variables involved. And again, you’re comparing highly-productive regions to ones that require federal subsidies to stay afloat.

> Pretending that every job is worth $20/hour apparently has "unforeseen consequences"

Pretending that companies can do things they can't afford to, by paying people less than they need, also has consequences. Although they're not really "unforeseen" since we've been seeing the consequences of it for decades now.

I didn't need a livable wage as a teenager. It was a way to get extra spending cash/job experience. Granted, wages definitely haven't kept up, so I agree in part.

It's sad that people need these menial jobs--which will probably be automated at some point--to survive, instead of being able to pursue something more meaningful.

And if minimum wages were, in fact, limited to teenagers who were fully supported by their parents (as opposed to, say, teenagers whose parents were disabled, already living on a fixed income, or otherwise poor and relying on the extra income from the teenager's job), that might hold some weight.

As it stands, people just use that as an excuse for retaining sub-livable minimum wages for everyone.

Shameless politicized spitballing.

or maybe the states you listed have relatively mild winters, good social programs, and liberal (as in liberty, not as in libs) mindset.

Florida, Texas don't have mild winters?

I think you might have replied to my comment before reading past the first 10 words.

I'm not sure what you qualify as good but Oregon does not have great social programs. In fact, it lags behind on many indicators. California and Washington are pretty well off. Oregon is often in the bottom 1/2 of most metrics.

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