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Comment by wwweston | Hacker News Reader

> Minimum wage increases directly affect the purchasing power of all through price inflation

You're economically savvy enough to realize that increased purchasing power causes inflated costs with more money chasing goods/services, and you're zeroing in on a minimum wage increase from $11 => $15/hr instead of, I don't know, tech worker salaries?

Maybe you know something I don't, because I'd guess the effect from the former isn't even close to keeping the class of people it benefits at purchasing parity.

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Tech worker salaries aren't set by the government. They're set by market forces, so why would that be something he ought to think about? Are you suggesting a government enforced salary cap on software engineering salaries? What exactly do you think you could do about high pay of software engineers? I don't understand your comment. It seems that you're understandably upset at the negative effects of rising prices, but why the focus on the high pay of others? Should everyone make the same salary?

It is always an incremental straw until the camel's back breaks. If you increase the minimum wage for the worker, all prices across a system will increase as the business must remain a going concern to compensate the increase. The price increase affects end-users purchasing power.

The median household income in the United States is $51,000, tech worker salaries are are not the norm, they are 6% of the population ($100,000 for a single individual). Their effect on society is negligent in the purchase of everyday goods as they are only 6% of the population and purchase affluent goods and upward.

Assuming direct elasticity, if a place increases costs by 30%, 30% less will shop.

If a median income family has a 10% increase in food prices, they have to absorb it. Try getting a 10% wage increase across an entire operating company, let alone a single employee.

> The median household income in the United States is $51,000, tech worker salaries are are not the norm, they are 6% of the population ($100,000 for a single individual). Their effect on society is negligent in the purchase of everyday goods as they are only 6% of the population and purchase affluent goods and upward.

I think it's fairly safe to say the the effects are considerably more pronounced in San Francisco than they are nationally:

http://www.spur.org/blog/2014-02-27/forecasting-san-francisc...

But since you brought up the median income, let's use that to talk about my point: $51k is about $25/hr. The hike under discussion moves minimum wage up to... well, from just under $10 a few years ago to $11 as of this year (so, less than half that). But wait, that's national median. San Francisco median is closer to $70k ($35+/hr), so we're really talking about a motion that's all below 1/3 median.

Again... this is a primary driver of inflation? We're talking about a roughly $2000 yearly boost in the bottom quartile that almost doesn't even keep pace with average monthly rent increases over the last 5 years.

If minimum wage hikes aren't even successfully chasing cost of living increases, it's pretty hard to argue they're driving inflation.

>If you increase the minimum wage for the worker, all prices across a system will increase as the business must remain a going concern to compensate the increase.

Only if the business employs a significant number of minimum wage employees. If a business is paying well above minimum wage no changes are necessary. This also neglects the dropping reliance on minimum wage workers for years. Automation and outsourcing to other countries had reduced costs for years.

And yet every year inflation is adding 1 to 2% to costs while wages have been stagnant for 40 years, all the while companies are taking in record profits.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-wor...

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