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Economics	>Either you increase it and nothing happens, which suggests that people weren’t getting paid less than it in the first place (and thus it is a superfluous waste of political capital) I wouldn't call raising the wages of many Americans working at or near minimum wage superfluous. Especially if it comes at the expense of firm surplus and not overall production. >Of 80.4 million people over 16 earning hourly wages in 2017, just 542,000 were earning the federal minimum of $7.25/hr or less Raising the minimum wage would also help lift wages for those close to the minimum. So I think far more workers would be affected than your analysis suggests.
Economics	>I think minimum wage makes the most sense to execute as a local policy. More than 3 states have now passed legislation to Bar cities from passing local raises to their minimum wage, and more will follow. I don't think I need to tell you what political party those states are under the thumb of. So if state legislatures won't let cities pass their own respective and appropriate minimums, what is the answer? If state legislatures have become corrupt, action can only be taken at the federal level.
Economics	While your statement is absolutely true, that 3.3% of workers represents 540,000 people who, by the very definition of minimum wage, would be paid less than $7.25/hr if it were legal. A law that guarantees a minimum standard of living of 15k a year for half a million people seems pretty worthwhile. Policy certainly needs to first focus on things like median wages, but it can't ignore those on the margins.
Economics	IMHO they need to tie minimum wage to age. Shitty jobs are meant to go to people with little to no experience, not people trying to support families. Either pay people more as life demands more of them or get used to a high turnover of people who know fuck-all and have school schedules you need to work around. Employers have gotten used to having a supply of desperate people willing to eat shit and pretend its ice-cream all the while saying, "Well anyone can do your job so be thankful!" Yeah but they aren't going to hire just anyone because they want someone with few options and bills to pay, not the teenager who can tell them to take this job and shove it if their demands are too high.
Economics	> Minimum wage is an artificial lower bound on the price of labor; it has two potential effects. Either you increase it and nothing happens, which suggests that people weren’t getting paid less than it in the first place (and thus it is a superfluous waste of political capital), or it restricts the demand for labor. I would suggest that this is an incomplete view of the cycle. Remember that money paid to workers doesn't just vanish. It goes into the hands of consumers, which in turn increases demand for all things done by all companies, which in turn increases the demand for labor.
Economics	I'm not arguing for any particular minimum wage. I believe you that such a policy decision is highly dependent on related policy choices, such as the level of the EITC, the amount of housing support, and the subsidy of food production. Indeed, there is a set of policy options that makes the efficient minimum wage $0. What I am arguing for is a large difference in minimum wages across America, as the cost of living varies greatly from place to place. A gap of 2x between the lowest minimum wage and the highest minimum wage in America would be on the small side, relative to the cost of living delta in various places.
Economics	>So all the people who have Kansas!minimum wage jobs that have to work multiple jobs to pay rent / bills are going to all have the day off on election day? Never herd of absentee ballots? never heard of early voting (Kansas allows voting on the Saturday before election day)... Heck in 2016 I was out of town on a camping trip during the election. I voted the weekend before the trip. What a person in Kansas \can't\ do is change 49% of the senate or 99% of the house. Even if every voice in Kansas screamed for a lower minimum wage to help create more entry level jobs they literally have \NO\ power on a national stage. So to sum up. Kansas: Can vote early or absentee (via mail) to change local elections but cannot significantly change the makeup of the house or senate. &#x200B;
Economics	No, this is how cities develop; they don't have a choice as to what industries develop - cities are established and grow to support the population and industry that locate in an area. Those cities that have tried to artificially spur development in a new industry have generally failed badly. This is not unique to the industrial midwest, all over the country single industry mid-size cities develop wherever there is an industry, but not enough population to support a large, diversified city. This is true whether you look at, say, oil in Houston, agriculture in Des Moines, meat processing in Omaha, entertainment in Las Vegas, etc.
Economics	Ah, yes, because when you're paid dirt and have to work multiple jobs to make end's meet, your days off are so plentiful and naturally you'd spend them voting and not getting ready for. And yeah, the entire working population of Kansas would totally absentee vote. They're totally not just gonna brush it off, on the whole. And yes, they can't change the national baseline. That's why it's there. It isn't some malicious "Let's keep entry level jobs from popping up". It's "Let's make sure employers aren't fucking over their employees and bribing state congressmen to keep it legal."
Economics	> You should probably have some economics education to know whether or not raising the wage in a city will have a significant impact on the economy as a whole, employment as a whole, or on household income. Yes. That's a classic Argument from authority fallacy... A Business owner in Wyoming probably knows better what he can afford to pay people than an economist in NY. > MAYBE if you can't afford to pay your employees a living wage at your business, you are a poor businessman and should close. So rather than people making 7.25, they can make 0.... Great argument there...
Economics	It's not an argument from authority fallacy at all. The average business owner has zero training and zero sense in the net effect of wages on the local economy. Full stop. You are miss-applying that fallacy. Saying that you should have training and education on a complex topic to fully understand it is not an argument from authority fallacy. Argument from authority fallacy would be if I pointed to a prominent economist who said raising wages was good, and then said he must be correct because he is a prominent economist. Try actually refuting my argument now. I mean fuck, you're in the economics subreddit here dude.
Economics	No it wouldn’t. I think you underestimate the extent to which corporate consolidation has impacted our economy. The majority of the wages paid to low income workers come from company coffers that are not in the towns where the workers work. This applies to fast food, retail, every chain restaurant, factories, assembly lines, banks, service providers, even some utilities are now owned by out of state mega corporations. Raising the minimum wage would have absolutely nothing but positive impacts on Gary Indiana. It’s he companies that aren’t in Gary that are employing people there who would lose out.
Economics	>And my point is that nowhere in the country is there a floor below a certain point far above $7.25. You could likely double that and not be unreasonable anywhere in the country. What can you provide in support of this claim? Absent other policy changes, I think a national $15 minimum wage would be more devastating to American small towns in low cost of living areas than a tornado running right down Main Street. Small towns need a price advantage to compete against the cluster/agglomeration effects big cities enjoy. That's where your next proposal comes in, of course: >Should it be $25? Probably not everywhere, although certainly some places This proposal of a $25/hour minimum wage in the big cities certainly helps the small towns with their price competition problem. However, it has problems of its own. Depending on who you listen to, Seattle's minimum wage policy is or is not beneficial for low wage workers at the current $14/hr level. I happen to think that the pro case is still slightly stronger, but I will estimate that Seattle's minimum wage is near a level at which minimum wage earners are losing about the same from diminished opportunities than they are gaining from higher wages. Maybe the efficient minimum wage is $14, $15, or $16, but it's almost certainly not $25. Even at $25, the delta between Seattle's minimum wage and Fayetteville's proposed $15 minimum wage is still much too small. I imagine you concur that minimum wage should approximately track cost of living in each locale, yes?
Economics	It's not "dependent on who you listen to", facts are not relative. A simple Google search for "lowest living wage U.S." brought up a plethora of answers. [Here's](https://research.zippia.com/living-wage.html) a study that was on CNBC in February showing that you can get by on as little as $20.82 in Kentucky for a three person household. It's based on MIT's living wage calculator, which you can find [here](http://livingwage.mit.edu/); frankly I think the assumptions they use are absurdly low based on actual expenses in my area but it's a start. I'm sure there are a few impoverished places that survive on less but they shouldn't dictate policy for the country. They can structure it like they do the drinking age: a 10% cut to your state allocation for SNAP and Medicaid if you have a minimum wage under $15. You're free to opt out and explain to your constituents why.
Economics	I think people just imagine their boss and think "f that guy!" So these laws are like "you think we should redistribute money from that guy whos trying to fire you? It really is arbitrarily stupid to make the people who create jobs suffer As a son of an income cliff trapped mom, i know first hand the meaning of "democrats love the poor, thats why they make so many" and i am skepitcal of it being an accident any more. At this point if they dont know what theyre doing, they dont represent us
Economics	Well, now we're talking about a different thing, which is whether you can live on the minimum wage. Whether the minimum wage should be a living wage is an interesting policy question. Technically speaking, it isn't an economic question -- this is a matter of values. Therefore I cannot answer this question, at least not with my economist hat on. My commentary "depending who you listen to" was referring to the research into whether minimum wage increases in Seattle are benefiting or hurting minimum wage workers in Seattle. This is a positive statement, not a normative one -- this body of research is discussing what is, without considering what should be. It's a controversial matter, so it's difficult to answer with any certainty which paper best reflects reality. I would suggest that, since both the pro and con sides appear to have reasonable arguments, the Seattle minimum wage is close to the level at which the social costs and benefits of the minimum wage balance out. Absent other policy changes, I don't think a large increase in the Seattle minimum wage would benefit Seattle minimum wage workers.
Economics	I think I understand the argument in the parent comment because it is implied that in a weak agglomeration city, like Gary, increasing minimum wage in our current regulation framework would just cause flight of businesses and labor from these weakly agglomerated cities. However, if the policy is instituted nationally (federally), then there is no change in preference anywhere within the nation. So wouldn't it make sense that implementing it equally, nationally would be the preferable and most equitable method? i.e No one can gain an economic advantage simply by moving from one location in the nation to another.
Economics	Yes but we’re talking about setting a “global” floor here. Having a nation wide floor and a local floor that might be higher are not mutually exclusive things. If there is any evidence that federal minimum wages are too high for certain regions then I suppose there is a discussion, but given that that does not appear so it’s irrelevant in practice whereas the threat of owners and employers underpaying low skill uneducated employees is very real
Economics	you have to realize that a large portion of those 540k people have no skills, no work experience and dont command a wage higher than 7.25. If you raise the minimum wage employers are less likely to hire them and train them. There really should be a training wage rate that allows employers to hire someone for 6 month to a year at below minimum wage. Even if an employer cycles through trainee workers to pay less they are giving those workers experience that lets them command better salary. Youth unemployment is very bad because no one wants to hire inexperienced workers
Economics	Is there any evidence to show that anyone has lost a job anywhere in the United States because they would have to be paid $7.25/hour? Furthermore, I think there is something to be said about the idea that if an employer doesn't have the ability to support a worker at that wage, maybe there's something wrong with their business model, or the product itself. In the end, SOMEONE is going to pay the differential between what the firm is paying the labor and what it costs to pay for basic necessities. If we're going to handle that with UBI derived from taxing high earners, then I'm all for that payer to be the government. Until then, we should try to put as much of that responsibility on the firms as possible. --edit: By the way, Happy Cake Day!!!
Economics	What would the possible value of a minimum wage be if it was not a living wage? You literally started this by talking about the amount needed to pay rent. If you aren't discussing a wage that would cover the necessities then what is the point? There are not positive arguments on both sides, there are facts that can be measured. You create a basket of goods, establish a geographic area, and determine their cost within it. Offering an employee a wage below that cost shifts the remainder onto the public and allows the employer, who is so good at business they probably shouldn't be in the market since they can't pay a wage can live on, the opportunity to pocket the difference. If there are fewer jobs that require a state subsidy to exist, good. Any side arguing for alternative facts is a charlatan.
Economics	So, I decided to investigate the claim that Democrats make people poor. The results are interesting. It seems that polarization makes people poor, and that when a state leans heavily in either direction, it ends up with more poverty. In the data below, I set 50.0 to be the mid-point political lean, with below 50 being Republican and above 50 being Democrat. When you compare that with poverty rates, you find that very interesting curve that puts both parties at fault. edit: Had to add the obligatory "causality could run either way". It's entirely possible that poverty causes polarization as well. One hypothesis may be that rural-type poverty begets a heavy republican lean, while urban-type poverty begets a heavy democratic lean. I will admit that this seems much more plausible to me than the other direction of causality. https://imgur.com/OSPZ2u7 https://imgur.com/PnLEpph Sources: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_poverty_rate - https://news.gallup.com/poll/226643/2017-party-affiliation-state.aspx
Economics	no, state by state minimum wage forces wages down. if NJ says no minimum wage but PA says minimum wage, then businesses are going to set up camp in NJ, which will force PA to lower their standard of living. it's a race to the bottom effect, not dissimilar to what happens when you globalize trade. if you can get something done in china by paying someone a dollar a day, of course you're going to do it. a federal minimum wage stops that.
Economics	Your first example is a poor choice. Houston is the fourth largest city in the US, not a mid-size city. It has also successfully diversified, and is a major port and trading hub, with major industries in biotech/healthcare, aerospace, and HR outsourcing. It has one of the fastest population growths and job creation rates in the country, and did so even in the midst of the oil crash of the past few years. [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Houston)
Economics	>What would the possible value of a minimum wage be if it was not a living wage? You literally started this by talking about the amount needed to pay rent. If you aren't discussing a wage that would cover the necessities then what is the point? In an environment where buyers of labor have more market power than sellers of labor, a minimum wage can transfer surplus from employers to workers at very little cost to society. It is not obvious that wage labor for the least productive laborers in society generates enough value to provide for a minimum standard of living. This is not to say that people should starve or be forced into the streets, of course, but employers won't pay more than an employee is worth to their business model. If the minimum wage isn't sufficient, other social welfare policies can cover the gap (e.g. SNAP, Section 8, Medicaid). >There are not positive arguments on both sides, there are facts that can be measured. The argument put forth by the UW study is [summarized here](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/uw-study-finds-seattles-minimum-wage-is-costing-jobs/): "The team concluded that the second jump had a far greater impact, boosting pay in low-wage jobs by about 3 percent since 2014 but also resulting in a 9 percent reduction in hours worked in such jobs. That resulted in a 6 percent drop in what employers collectively pay — and what workers earn — for those low-wage jobs. For an average low-wage worker in Seattle, that translates into a loss of about $125 per month per job." This is not a settled topic. Other economists disagree. >If there are fewer jobs that require a state subsidy to exist, good. Not so. Suppose a worker generates $13 an hour in value for their employer. In such an environment, raising the minimum wage from $10 to $12.50 is a very low cost way of improving their situation. However, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour makes everyone worse off. The worker will lose his job. The employer will lose the surplus that was being generated by the worker. Society will need to pay for the full upkeep of that worker, not just the difference between their wages and the cost of their acceptable living standard.
Economics	This is always my response to the Bernites that support the $15 min wage. A dual income household in my area can afford to live on $8/hr. And that's super easy to come by, places like starbucks and walmart start you higher than that, servers and line cooks make more than that. Rent is cheap, services are cheap, products are cheap, state income tax is low... more than doubling the min wage might be fine for a coastal or metro area that already has high prices and insane 2-3k/month rent for small apartments, but it would decimate the south and midwest, and destroy small business startups.
Economics	Dont you think that maybe those few states dont have one because there's just an easy federal standard to fall back on? I mean if the fed min wage was lifted and all of a sudden there was an epidemic of employers in Oklahoma paying $4/hr that slashed tax revenue and stagnated the state economy, in addition to increasing spending on housing/food assistance, etc... im quite sure that any state government would act pretty quickly. And that's the worst case scenario, if the state doesnt institute its own, which again could very well be because it hasnt had to.
Economics	Dont you think that maybe those few states dont have one because there's just an easy federal standard to fall back on? I mean if the fed min wage was lifted and all of a sudden there was an epidemic of employers in Oklahoma paying $4/hr that slashed tax revenue and stagnated the state economy, in addition to increasing spending on housing/food assistance, etc... im quite sure that any state government would act pretty quickly. And that's the worst case scenario, if the state doesnt institute its own, which again could very well be because it hasnt had to.
Economics	We shouldn't be subsidizing someone's crappy business model. If you can't find enough value to provide a minimum standard of living, you're not cut out to be a business owner. That's like saying "I could have a thriving business if you'd only sell me X input a below-market rate". That's not business, that' social welfare. If that's what UW came up with, then check the measures, check the math, and accept it. I don't see how that's subject to debate. Other economists can disagree by showing how the measure or math is incorrect. The only person who's worse off in your scenario is the employer, who was skimming $5 an hour from John Q. Public by paying $10, pocketing $13, and telling the employee to go get SNAP or Medicaid to make up the difference. The worker will lose his job, and find one that pays him enough to survive. The employer will lose the surplus he was taking from his neighbors taxes and have to get a job that generates a surplus for someone else or figure out a better business model. Society will pay the upkeep for the worker while they find some other employment, without subsidizing the employer's ill-conceived hobby.
Economics	[http://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/41860](http://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/41860) $17.76 for an adult at the bare minimum of living wage. More if you have a child or family. San Francisco is higher than that. $19.63 [http://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/06075](http://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/06075) The national living wage is 17.28 [https://truthout.org/articles/the-real-living-wage-17-28-an-hour-at-least/](https://truthout.org/articles/the-real-living-wage-17-28-an-hour-at-least/) An average one bedroom to rent in San Francisco is [https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-rent-trends/](https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-rent-trends/) Over $3,000. That means for one person to actually live in San Francisco, at the "living wage I gave" they would have about $100 left over. The Living wage I gave is on the low side when you take into account renting. They have to share rooms or live with parents, for instance. In Seattle a one bedroom, on average, is over $2000. [https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-seattle-rent-trends/](https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-seattle-rent-trends/) Which suggests that even the higher than average living wage I gave you isn't enough. If you take into account cost of living should be 1/3 of your expenses. That would me total income for a one bedroom in Seattle should be around $37 an hour. People survive because they live with family and share rooms. That means it is unlikely a $15 an hour minimum wage would provide anyone with a lot of expendable income. It also shows, since most wages were near or higher than that, how a city can afford increasing a minimum wage. [https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/occupationalemploymentandwages\_seattle.htm](https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/occupationalemploymentandwages_seattle.htm) " Workers in the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett Metropolitan Division had an average (mean) hourly wage of $31.42 ". &#x200B; &#x200B; &#x200B;
Economics	>We shouldn't be subsidizing someone's crappy business model. If you can't find enough value to provide a minimum standard of living, you're not cut out to be a business owner. That's like saying "I could have a thriving business if you'd only sell me X input a below-market rate". That's not business, that' social welfare. The minimum wage is fundamentally a social welfare policy. We are setting a price floor on labor because we believe it will improve the welfare of the poor worker. If you set the minimum wage so high that no one will employ the worker, or that no one will supply as many hours as the worker wishes to work, your policy can be welfare pessimal. The basic disagreement in various empirical studies is whether wage increases for minimum wage workers do or don't offset the declining supply of hours to minimum wage workers; different methods for modeling the problem lead different economists to reach different conclusions. >The worker will lose his job, and find one that pays him enough to survive. You're right that, if the worker can get a job that pays a living wage, the only net loser is the employer. However, this is an unsafe assumption. If all workers on the minimum wage could get a job that pays a higher wage, we'd have no need of a minimum wage.
Economics	You’re literally making a circular argument which I suppose from a checks and balances standpoint I somewhat agree with. But ultimately for a representative democracy to be responsive to any subgroup, especially one as large as the working poor, laws “closer” to the voter seem to be “better”. I searched for research on federalism but was disappointed. I understand your worry about employers moving to low wage areas but ultimately the federal minimum wage has to be the lowest common denominator or the policy will devastate rural America. Someone working at a metro airport has living wage requirements higher than a rural diner worker. You’ll kill rural diners if you force those employers to pay urban living wages.
Economics	That just means the law wouldn’t have been written well enough. Companies are going to do all they can to be profitable, right or wrong, like it or not, that’s what they do and will always do. It’s dangerous when a politician can write a law that is poorly thought out but has good intentions, and then when it fails you can always blame the “greedy governments”. It’s not an excuse, it’s a scapegoat.
Economics	It's not the fossil fuel industry that needs convincing but rather conservative voters and politicians. The council Yellen joined has oil companies already on it. Shell, BP and Exxon have been pushing carbon taxes for years. Most fossil fuel companies realize they've kept the world in the dark about climate change as long as they could and now the world is going to do something about climate change. They're trying to get ahead of the curb by implementing carbon taxes. Carbon taxes are infinitely better than subsidies and regulations which distort the market and allow politicians to pick winners and losers. Ms Yellen, who chaired the US Federal Reserve until February, has joined the Climate Leadership Council, a bipartisan group pushing for the US to address the threat of global warming by introducing a carbon tax, with revenues returned to the public in dividend payments. *The group is backed by large companies including ExxonMobil, BP, General Motors and Johnson & Johnson.*
Economics	And textbook solutions have such a good track record for real life. Econs are still trying to fit everything in a nice little box but I don't know if the concept of "rationality" will ever be truly rational. There have been some good attempts at it by Kahneman and Amos, maybe because they're looking at it from a psychological standpoint.' And not to mention the lobby groups who will pile on to swing things their way. There's always a back door in the US, it just keeps getting more expensive each day.
Economics	I've met a lot of people who seem like they understand basic economics, but they either don't know what externalities are, or have never heard the very basic idea that taxing negative externalities and subsidizing positive ones is, all else being equal, a pretty good idea. And then, a lot of people are really committed to pure laissez faire, and, even if they heard about the basic approach to externalities in econ 101, either say "yeah, but I don't think externalities really exist -- there's always somebody who can capture the benefit" (and then they just kind of ramble when we talk about negative externalities), or "okay, but you can't know exactly how significant the externality is, so instead of approximating, let's just go ahead and act like it's 0." I can respect the libertarians who say "okay, externalities are real, and taxing them does make sense, but between regulatory capture, politics in general, the difficulty of getting the math right even when you're trying, and the moral consequences of taxation, it's really better if we don't tax them." But so many are so committed to the idea that economics = laissez faire, and treat anybody who says otherwise as though they never took econ 101 is... insane.
Economics	>The council Yellen joined has oil companies already on it. Shell, BP and Exxon have been pushing carbon taxes for years... Carbon taxes are infinitely better than subsidies and regulations which distort the market and allow politicians to pick winners and losers. On top of it, it feels like there could be heavy wins directly for them. While a carbon tax hurts them by favoring renewables over gas, it further tilts the electricity generation trade-offs to gas from coal. In the short-term, could making coal even more unaffordable compensate for the losses to renewables? Regulations might grandfather in existing coal plants - which they don't want. And carbon taxes, without regulation, will fail to account for damages from [leaks](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/climate/methane-emissions-epa.html) \- another win for oil & gas.
Economics	> It's not the fossil fuel industry that needs convincing but rather conservative voters and politicians. That work is actually mostly done. [A majority of Republican voters support a carbon tax](http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Global-Warming-Policy-Politics-March-2018.pdf), and [a majority of Republican politicians are receptive](https://community.citizensclimatelobby.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/june-2017-meeting-analysis-1127.pdf). The final step will be to get [those constituents](http://www.congressfoundation.org/storage/documents/CMF_Pubs/cmf-citizen-centric-advocacy.pdf) to [lobby](https://sociology.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/friends_or_foes-how_social_movement_allies_affect_the_passage_of_legislation_in_the_u._s._congress.pdf) their members of Congress. [It's easier](https://www.ted.com/talks/omar_ahmad_political_change_with_pen_and_paper?language=en) than people tend to think. I guess the good news is, [lots of people are already doing it](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/about-ccl/accomplishments/).
Economics	Of course not, the point I was trying to make is that it's hard to apply a textbook solution rationally. There will always be exceptions that make it ineffective. Such as lobby groups who will find loopholes and ways around the tax. Making people pay more for doing something isn't a very effective way to encourage another type of behavior. Punishment doesn't work, incentives do. Sure, there's loss aversion, but people would rather be rewarded for behaving well than punished for not following certain rules. A tax would effectively be a punishment for emissions.
Economics	>Factories in Russia increased their production of industrial waste products and then claimed millions of carbon credits for destroying them after an international trading scheme went into effect. ... >For the potent greenhouse gases trifluoromethane (HFC-23) and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), the value of the credits obtained can exceed the cost of destroying these gases in the production process, creating a 'perverse' incentive to increase production so that credits can be claimed. ... >Although a supervisory committee exists to monitor and prevent abuses of the scheme, it is up to nations hosting JI projects to decide to request their assistance. Seems like a poorly designed program, not an issue inherent to market based carbon credit systems.
Economics	I love when people are intentionally obtuse. Here we go... I argued for a market based solution, including a carbon credit, but not just carbon. Equating them all leads to abuses, as the link posted above discusses, and is unlikely to be the most effective option anyway. When it comes to regulatory agencies to prevent abuse, just dont make it toothless, enforce inspections and put sanctions on the products that a given country produces contrary to the credits system as consequence for those abuses. If there was no way to abuse the creation/destruction of them without incurring sanctions that make that abuse unprofitable, the abuse wouldn't happen. And I'm not advocating drastic sanctions either, just unilateral reduction in purchases of polluting products and their derivatives. I'm no economist, but from what little I know from having this conversation with a friend and professor of mine who is an economist that specializes in this kind of system, the credit program that was implemented wasn't implemented well. These are some ways I think would improve it, from what I remember of that conversation. Not sure why you object to it so strongly, I have to imagine an ulterior motive somewhere.
Economics	As a libertarian I would really like to see one of those impacts one-day. At best some republicans say 'small governments' sometimes to deny the Democrats some social project. Acting on any of this is totally absent, public debt, size of government and virtually any other measure shows that libertarians have no political influence what so ever. If you actually look at the general population or at politics you can not find many libertarians. Pretty much any poll on economics shows this. The only thing is that they like to talk about economics and other people who like to talk economics end up talking to libertarians. That just selection bias.
Economics	Storage is expensive though. However, we don't need to get to zero emissions, solar does a good job of ramping up as our demand does, and natural gas's flexibility is great for on-demand fine tuning and getting through the evening hump. Definitely a place for nuclear too. But the carbon tax is in fact the market solution, invented for and geared to the conservative palette. Would you rather that politicians simply commanded that various inefficient power plants and factories be shuttered? Of course not.
Economics	I’m sorry, but just how dumb are you? Trump being re-elected or not, let’s toss the politics out of this. Your response tells me that you’re okay with the deregulation for coal companies. The coal industry has been declining for years. It’s outdated. That’s like asking to bring back horse carriage drivers or get rid of the assembly line. Coal will be gone sooner than you think here in the US. The largest producers have already lost 92% or their market value. Meanwhile people are literally getting sick and dying from the result of coal waste polluting their water. Like a simple google search would suffice if you don’t believe it. Then there’s also the long lasting effect it has on the environment. But have no fear Mr. Fear Monger, jobs in alternative energy are already outpacing coal jobs it’s just getting started. Also, it’s been proposed that with the revenue from carbon tax, that coal miners would be specialized and transitioned into the alternative energy industry. Aka putting them back to work.
Economics	The thing is, energy companies don't want coal back. Not only is coal terrible for the environment its also expensive to burn. Renewables are cheap and getting cheaper every year. Energy companies understand this. Energy companies are in it for the long haul. The lifespan of a power plant is measured in decades. Existing coal plants will be kept around until they're decommissioned but new power plants are tending towards renewables. This includes wind, solar, and tidal. Politicians are trying to drag energy companies back to a 19th century power source while the energy companies have already been looking to the future.
Economics	LCD's got cheaper because there was economic incentive, the whole idea behind an externality is that there is not such incentive. The investments in solar and wind happened because there were government policies encouraging them, they didn't just come out of nowhere. The alternative to a carbon price is a government mandate. > In ten years we'll have this little climate change problem licked. > Trump is right. These 2 thoughts are entirely contradictory. What is Trump right about, that climate change is a Chinese hoax? How can we lick a problem that is a hoax? We can we solve climate change if we burn more coal, our cars burn the same amount of gasoline and we leak and flare more methane, all recent administration regulatory initiatives from the EPA?
Economics	This is so true. We use so much electricity, the scale is truly staggering. Pumped storage has been touted as a 'solution' by those who don't understand the scope of the issue, same thing with legions of Li-Ion battery banks. It's just not feasible for a national, or even regional grid to rely on Li-Ion tech for power smoothing. The main reason is batteries are expensive to produce, and experience resistance losses both during charging and discharging. Let's not talk about the waste involved in producing very large li ion batteries, or what we do with them when they've reached the end of their life cycle. I wish I had an idea on what we could do for a national or regional storage network. Maybe hydrogen storage?
Economics	While climate change is an issue, it absolutely is, climate change isn't causing the South African government to copy the tactics used in Zimbabwe and cease land from farmers based on the colour of their skin. Zimbabwe (at the time named Rhodesia) was once called the breadbasket of Africa, however, Zimbabwe's reforms under Mugabe lead to mass confiscation of farmland from farmers, and had it redistributed to those who had little to no experience with farming, leading to massive drops in production, something like 90,000,000,000% inflation (90 billion) and mass starvation. Today this is the situation in "The breadbasket of Africa" Https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/special-edition-agriculture-2014/zimbabwe%E2%80%99s-farmers-struggle-feed-nation
Economics	I can’t really say how sound of an idea this is since I don’t know the demographics of South Africa especially how many black citizens there are that have agricultural backgrounds and do not have any land. I know even less about their politics. When racial disparities exist to the extent they do in South Africa and result as a direct product of a recently abandoned system I’m not sure there is another way to address it. Letting it persist creates significant social problems and it isn’t likely to change with time.
Economics	They had at least an acceptable system before where the government needed to compensate the farmers they're ceasing land from, at the very least, it was a fair and slow system, pay the farmers for their land, and train and educate new farmers slowly so theres not a massive famine like in Zimbabwe. There was a lot of bad in South Africas past, but the average Boer farmer probably isn't the reason why things are bad. It's also very flawed to look at this in a black vs white issue, not all "blacks" in South Africa are the same, it's important to look at this as a Boer vs Bantu vs Khoisan vs ect. Should a Boer farmer living on land that used to belong to the Khoisan pay compensation to the Bantu, who murdered the Khoisan and occupied the land before the Boers arrived? Those who live forever in the past are doomed to stay there, the South Africans should be working toward racial integration, create an environment where boers want to teach the bantus and khoisans and others how to farm the land. The only way to build up society is to help elevate the poor, you get nowhere if you just drag the successful down to the same level as the poor.
Economics	“Racial disparities in living standards have also narrowed. In 2004 whites, who are 8% of the population, made up 86% of those in the top bracket of living standards. By 2015 that share had fallen to 49%. Blacks made up 30%. That is partly because more blacks have been able to move into government jobs, which often pay well. But business and education have opened up, too. One survey of firms found that whereas in 1996 blacks made up just 8% of company executives, by 2015 they made up 41%. Before the end of apartheid, South African universities produced 44 white engineering graduates for every black one; by 2014, there were two blacks for every white.” From https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2017/05/20/south-africas-inequality-is-no-longer-about-race It appears my information is outdated in the sense that the white minority now owns only about half the wealth which is still remarkably larger than it should be in theory.
Economics	And as the collapse of the Russian empire shows, simply killing the rich doesnt make the life of the poor any better, sure, it reduces inequality, but reducing inequality is the wrong goal to seek. A society where everyone is living in poverty is a perfectly equal society, but a very bad one to live in, on the other hand, a society where some people control most wealth, most people live above poverty, and some people unfortunately live in poverty is a very "unequal" society, but it's one where escaping poverty and living a moderately successful life is available for the majority of the population, the goal shouldn't be to destroy the rich, the goal should be to raise the poor up, pulling them out of poverty. Basically, it comes down to communism vs capitalism, I dont think I need to explain why communism is bad on an economics sub. Note, I'm not saying the South African government is communist, I'm just drawing attention to the parallels between the fuck the rich attitude of communists, and the fuck the rich attitude of the South African government, and how these attitudes universally end up making life worse for the poor.
Economics	At no point have I even brought up communism only that when there is substantial inequality in wealth particularly in land ownership among populations there are social problems that arise. The attitude of the SA government is more about attempts to redress this inequity which is the direct result of apartheid rather than a “fuck the rich” attitude. They are going about it the wrong way IMO but not confronting this issue in the long term is not wise.
Economics	"It appears my information is outdated in the sense that the white minority now owns only about half the wealth which is still remarkably larger than it should be in theory." The problem is that is because white people in South Africa are more likely to own a business or have a higher degree. It isn't because they're farmers. Farmers in SA are one of the worst paid of any profession. Per hours put in and work they're near the bottom. &#x200B;
Economics	> I am afraid I do not understand what "uncertainty" has to do with a local lunch place who takes advantage of worker desperation to get out of having to pay fair wages In markets, we could say that uncertainty is any deviation from the contracted/expected outcome. Whether we're talking about deviation from the honoring of a contract (labor/purchase/rental/whatever), or whether we're talking about financial volatility, the effects on the econ at the macro level do tend to surface. There's actually some economic theory about the way that this might play out under information asymmetry. (called the [market for lemons](http://www.utdallas.edu/~nina.baranchuk/Fin7310/papers/Akerlof1970.pdf)). Basically, if there is a risk that a contract stipulating "$x in goods or services in exchange for $x in cash" won't be honored, then there will be less participation in that market, and parties that DO participate will take steps to protect their interests (which costs resources). So, from the regulator's POV it makes sense to deal with this issue because the macro-level effects that this change in market-behavior causes.
Economics	> if there is a risk that a contract stipulating "$x in goods or services in exchange for $x in cash" won't be honored, then there will be less participation in that market, and parties that DO participate will take steps to protect their interests (which costs resources). I believe that there is no shortage of people who are willing to work for substandard wages or are willing to work for under the table wages. Workers do so for a number of reasons (wanting to disappear, the need for immediate cash, inability to establish bank accounts, job flexibility to leave the job for weeks of months where necessary) and unethical employers will take advantage of this. I am not sure that rectifying problems of wage abuses by employers would increase participation in the market, given that workers do so for reasons that the market cannot address. Would a local pizza place notorious for paying under the table and short changing workers suddenly see an increase in applications if they were to stop paying under the table and paid a living wage? Maybe, but why would this matter if their labor needs are already satisfied? There is nothing to be gained for them, which is why the practice continues.
Economics	"I’m pretty confident that not many people in the US are getting paid less than minimum wage." Gathering data on such practices is obviously not easy, but given my experiences with being paid less than minimum, working at places that pay less than minimum and being associated with people who work for less than minimum, it is probably more than you think. Contractors are, of course, required to file their own taxes as self employed individuals. A person working in a restaurant or for a non-construction business, however, should not have to.
Economics	They could move to where public transit exists, or support government that wants to expand public transit. It's already wasteful when people live spaced out. They take up more state-wide money for the cost of keeping up their infrastructure. Some other ways to keep costs low with a carbon tax, is bicycling whenever possible, like to the grocery store, or if work isn't too far, or buying an electric car sooner than previously expected.
Economics	To clarify, discussing fiscal or monetary operations by saying 'printing money' isn't really accurate and is a cause for confusion. The federal government issues T-bills through the Treasury and they auction them off to dealers in a primary market; doing this is a method of expanding or contracting the supply of reserve balances in the banking system, and it has no relation to government spending. QE was the process of the fed buying toxic assets (mortgage backed securities and collateralized debt obligations) by transferring reserve balances to those banks' accounts at the Fed. If you notice, this is all a far different process than the headline implies. All National Debt means is the dollar value of outstanding treasury securities, and that number is never inherently bad. &#x200B; Main takeaway: Trump is just a moron and doesn't understand monetary theory, so this headline quote really makes no operational sense whatsoever.
Economics	>To clarify, discussing fiscal or monetary operations by saying 'printing money' isn't really accurate and is a cause for confusion. The federal government issues T-bills through the Treasury and they auction them off to dealers in a primary market; I agree that "printing money" is an oversimplification of how QE works, and doubt Trump meant much more then he said. The government issues Tbills to generate income to fund their budget deficits, they sell these bonds in the market. But 2.5 trillion of these bonds were bought buy the fed >doing this is a method of expanding or contracting the supply of reserve balances in the banking system, and it has no relation to government spending. Tbills have no relation to government spending? You sure? https://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/financial-planning/treasury-bills1.htm I believe the contraction and supply of reserves and balances is done through QE, where the fed prints money to buy bonds/MBS from banks so they have more money to lend out to people to start business and buy things with cheap interest rates >QE was the process of the fed buying toxic assets (mortgage backed securities and collateralized debt obligations) by transferring reserve balances to those banks' accounts at the Fed. If you notice, this is all a far different process than the headline implies. All National Debt means is the dollar value of outstanding treasury securities, and that number is never inherently bad. Ok, but 67% of the feds balance sheet is Tbills. >Main takeaway: Trump is just a moron and doesn't understand monetary theory, so this headline quote really makes no operational sense whatsoever. Agreed
Economics	Right.. the treasury should print money to stimulate aggregate demand adequately, and the Fed should buy bonds to control interest rates adequately. You're right, this is exactly what is happening. And what is the problem, exactly? We are doing what Trump said we should do, which is also what MMT/post-Keynesian (AKA sane economic theory) says we should do, so what is the problem?? The problem is, of course, that the fiscal stimulus could be much better targeted than it is. But it is still better than no fiscal stimulus, so shouldn't we be marveling at how well Trump has played politics to get the Republic party to be Keynesian? It's really astonishing, honestly. Before 2016, neither the Republicans or the Democrats were Keynesian. The Republicans were basicaly Monetarists, and the Democrats were New-Keynesians. AKA, both parties were essentially neoliberal. Now we have a political party that is actually Keynesian, and lo and behold, good economic policy is actually working well. How will the Democrats react? Edit: Just, really, anyone who wants to downvote, explain why? It's so frustrating, as someone who's not in either stupid camp, who actually thinks about these things impartially... What is wrong with the point that Trump's fiscal stimulus is better than no fiscal stimulus? What is wrong with that point? Please explain.
Economics	>The government issues Tbills to generate income to fund their budget deficits No, this is not true. The federal government doesn't not have to fund budget deficits, there is no revenue constraints on government spending; they can just spend the money because they are the sovereign issuer and controller of their own fiat currency. Issuing t bills is not done to raise funds for spending, they are completely separate operational processes. When the government does issue t bills, it contracts the supply of reserve balances because the issued t bills will have a higher interest rate than the current FFR, attracting banks to hold those instead of earning interest on reserves; the point of this process is to offset in expansion in reserves that occurs from government spending that creates deposits in the private sector. So no, treasury bills are not for funding spending, the two are unrelated in that way. &#x200B; >Tbills have no relation to government spending? You sure? [https://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/financial-planning/treasury-bills1.htm](https://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/financial-planning/treasury-bills1.htm) howstuffworks is a second hand interpretation of orthodox econ monetary theory that is wrong in its own formulation, I do not rely on these kinds of sources for an understanding of monetary theory. If you want to discuss sources some very clear places that clearly go over operations are: Modern Monetary Theory by Randall Wray Why Minksy Matters by Wray Understanding Government Finance by Brain Romanchuk Freedom From the National Debt by Frank Newman &#x200B; >I believe the contraction and supply of reserves and balances is done through QE, where the fed prints money to buy bonds/MBS from banks so they have more money to lend out to people to start business and buy things with cheap interest rates No, the contraction of the supply of reserves is not done through QE, its done through issuing t bills. QE was a plan to inject reserve balances (i.e expand the supply of reserves) by buying toxic assets because their hope is that the banks would take these reserves to make loans. Here is a clear demonstration of how the orthodox monetary theory is flawed: banks don't lend reserve balances. QE did not work as intended because they had a fundamental misunderstanding of the financial system. Banks make loans on their own by endogenously creating money, they don't need to get it from anywhere. Banks don't lend reserves, that's why the Fed balance sheet currently has something like $800 billion in reserves right now.
Economics	The federal government pays for the interest on bonds from the treasury account at the fed, so the government is paying for the interest; however, the idea that taxpayers pay for the interest on the debt itself relies on the idea that taxes fund government spending. On the local level this is more true to where state and local governments need to balance their budgets because they are not the sovereign issuer and controller of their own currency, but this is not the case for the federal government. The federal government does not have to worry about revenue before it spends, it can do so freely. The federal government can just spend; it can create money instantaneously because, again, they are the sovereign issuer of their own currency, and that currency does not have its value tied to anything (i.e gold, or another currency). &#x200B; Federal taxes do not exist to fund spending, but they create demand for the currency (this topic itself quickly becomes complicated, and is credited to the theories comprising Neochartalism). Tax collection is an independent process to government spending. In fact, if you were to pay your taxes in cash, the fed would then shred that cash instead of 'store' it. There can be theoretical downsides to excessive deficit spending even with a fiat currency, but these have nothing to do with revenue constraints (such as paying interest on bonds). Since the Great Recession, there have been some implementations, such as the ability to pay interest on reserves, that have had implications for how the government can spend in relation to issuing bonds (remember these as interest rate manipulation tools). Restrictions like the debt ceiling, or more importantly the inability of the fed to buy bonds from the treasury directly, are completely self-imposed constraints without any rational basis at this point. &#x200B; I know this can be very strange to hear, and it is obviously not the case for all countries. Greece, for example (along with every other country on the Euro), has given away control of their monetary policy because they entered into the Economic and Monetary Union to adopt the Euro, so for them government debt and revenue can constrain their spending (as well as other policies they agreed to when signing the Maastricht treaty). When the US was still signed onto the Bretton Woods monetary agreement prior to 1972, then excessive spending could be damaging because the US dollar had its value tied to gold still, which is fundamentally different from the free floating fiat currency we have now. Other commenters have tried to bring up the German or Zimbabwe hyperinflation crises in response to my points on government spending, but these countries have different monetary systems which has different meanings for how government can spend. &#x200B; The main points: * issuing bonds, spending, and collecting taxes on the federal level, are separate processes and not necessary for each other * Government spending expands private sector deposits thus creating reserves, while issuing t bills contracts that supply * managing bank reserves is important to hit the Federal Funds Rate target * however, this reality has been changed since the recession with the introduction of the ability for banks to earn interest on reserve balances * While the debt doesn't matter for use, it can for countries with different monetary regimes &#x200B; edit: this approach to understanding monetary policy is known as Modern Monetary Theory, and you'll find it somewhat controversial among economists (especially the 'economists' on this sub) but this is because most people haven't actually read the literature or the arguments. If you are a curious and ambitious reader, the economists Randall Wray and Stephanie Kelton are two of the architects of this theory and have some wonderful material.
Economics	No, I don't think Trump understands monetary policy at that level. The man needs his daily briefings dumbed down for him. I think like a commenter down the way said, he's at the level of an 8yr old who asks his mom why they don't just print more money. If you can point me to any evidence where Trump speaks about any kind of Economic metric clearly where he demonstrates a functional grasp of what he's talking about, maybe I'll change my mind. Instead, I look to the mountain of evidence that he's an idiot
Economics	QE pushed down long term interest rates. In that regard it was successful, no? It was a tool to inject no-yield liquidity and thus some forced velocity into the system. The central banks doing QE bought assets and thus the banks were left with cash that they were forced to "invest", and they of course just "bought" assets (such as loans in the forms of bonds, swaps, etc.) with that cash, thus pushing down interest rates. &#x200B; That said, could you explain how Tbills auctions are not a direct consequence of the US federal budget deficit? &#x200B; \> The federal government doesn't not have to fund budget deficits, there is no revenue constraints on government spending; &#x200B; Sure, but there's a solvency constraint, right? The Treasury can't wire transfer money to departments if their accounts are empty. &#x200B; \> they can just spend the money &#x200B; If they have it. Of course the Fed can create money against/expanding their balance sheet, but the Treasury can't do that, can they? &#x200B; \> because they are the sovereign issuer and controller of their own fiat currency. &#x200B; Yes, but you're mixing the central bank (monetary policy), which is supposedly an independent gov entity oversaw by Congress and the Executive branch (the Administration) that spends the money based on the fiscal policy (the budget accepted by Congress). &#x200B; \> Issuing t bills is not done to raise funds for spending &#x200B; The Treasury must have a reason to do that. &#x200B; \> When the government does issue t bills &#x200B; The Treasury does an auction via the primary dealers, right? These bonds are sold below their nominal value, as far as I know, and based on how low the Treasury has to go, makes loan service cheaper or costlier. (And there's something with coupon payments, but I don't remember right now.) &#x200B; Now of course those same primary dealers participate in the Fed's Open Market Operations. And that's how the Fed conducts ordinary monetary policy. (Interest rate setting.) And of course the Fed doesn't have to auction off bonds, they can simply put it on their balance sheet. &#x200B; \> , it contracts the supply of reserve balances because the issued t bills will have a higher interest rate than the current FFR \[federal funds rate\], attracting banks to hold those instead of earning interest on reserves; &#x200B; Hm, yes, but the Treasury auctions are basically working against the Fed in some sense. Let's say the Fed wants to slow down the economy to clamp down inflation, so they want to raise the FFR - to slow down the "money creation via lending by banks" process - what does it do? It can buy securities, essentially starving the bond market, which pushes down bond interest rates, but at the same time it results in banks suddenly having a lot of cash in reserves, so they are incentivized to invest it again or lend it out, etc. (Which again pushes down interest rates.) So they have to sell it, but how do they do that? They first have to buy it? &#x200B; &#x200B; \> the point of this process is to offset in expansion in reserves that occurs from government spending that creates deposits in the private sector. &#x200B; This part is clear, and it's what most people don't get. (Because it seems so counter-intuitive.) &#x200B; \> So no, treasury bills are not for funding spending, the two are unrelated in that way. &#x200B; I'd say they are a very versatile tool. &#x200B;
Economics	> There can be theoretical downsides to excessive deficit spending even with a fiat currency, but these have nothing to do with revenue constraints (such as paying interest on bonds). For the curious, Wray lists several of these theoretical downsides to excessive spending in a blog: * too much spending can cause inflation * too much spending could pressure the exchange rate * too much spending by government might leave too few resources for private interests * government should not do everything—impacts on incentives could be perverse * budgeting provides a lever to manage and evaluate government projects http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2012/02/mmp-blog-36-what-government-ought-to-do.html The role of taxation is perhaps even more interesting under the theory, as alluded to in the above comment. If the government can spend at will, why levy taxes? At a glance, the theory holds that taxes are necessary mostly to keep aggregate demand under control and as an incentive for citizens to use the currency. http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/05/taxes-mmt-approach.html http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2011/07/mmp-blog-8-taxes-drive-money.html
Economics	With popularity polls coming out every week, national elections every two years, and four-year presidential campaigns that begin three years before the election... the temptation is to focus on the very, very short-term and ignore the long-term consequences. Saddam Hussein is reported to have been preoccupied with what people would say about him in 500 years. That's probably too long a timeline to rule effectively... but somewhere between 500 years and 24 hours is probably the sweet spot.
Economics	Excuse me, [there is no inflation in Venezuela](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-economy/for-economy-czar-of-crisis-hit-venezuela-inflation-does-not-exist-idUSKBN0UL27820160107) according to their Economy VP. >“Inflation does not exist in real life,” he wrote in a 2015 pamphlet called “22 Keys to Understanding the Economic War.” “When a person goes to a shop and finds that prices have gone up, they are not in the presence of ‘inflation.’” >Salas has argued against the idea that excessive printing of money causes inflation - an almost universally accepted tenet of macroeconomics. He insists prices rise primarily because corporations seek excessive profit margins.
Economics	What are these idiots trying to achieve? My wife is USW and makes an INSANE amount of money ($50us/hr second year on the job). I was union (OE, BAC), and cannot for the life of me figure out how they justify not only their wages, but their administrative costs. I'm just a student again, but an econ major this time. I cannot understand outside of politics how organized (bullshit) labor can be anything but a hindrance to the US economy.
Economics	Labor unions push wages and standards for work up in the whole economy, as employers of even non union workplaces have to respond to the changing market. The only thing that determines wages is bargaining power, and unions are a means of workers to get bargaining power. Unless you want to participate in the race to the bottom, in which case tell your wife to quit her job and work a non union job. The ideal laborer for an employer is hourly, with no benefits, and on demand, like temp agencies. You could try convincing her to do that and see how it goes.
Economics	OK? That's your job, not your wife's. I didn't ask about your work. Unions push wages and labor standards up. Laborers are consumers, and the marginal dollar is more valuable to someone with lower income. Higher wages at lower incomes stimulates more demand. I can understand someone who manages or owns capital as being opposed to unions, it's a naturally antagonistic relationship. I can't fathom why someone who doesn't own capital would oppose unions, there's no material benefit to you in doing so. In fact there is material benefit to you personally by the existence of unions, because your wife makes good money.
Economics	Workers are not paid for productivity, they are paid their wage for their time. Workers are also the public. There isn't a distinction between a worker and a consumer and a taxpayer, it's the same person at different points of the day. So the idea that workers doing well somehow detracts from the public doing well is nonsense, they are the public. Why would unions stop asking for more? What logic would be behind that? For decades now, productivity has climbed yet real wages are stagnant in the broader economy. Workers are working harder now than they used to, they are capable of producing more in quantity and quality, yet in real terms they are paid the same or less than workers were getting 40 years ago, nearly 50 now. Stagnant wages with an ever rising cost of living is a declining standard of living, which we can see with our own eyes as people delay things like buying a house and having children because they can't afford it. What is the point of any of this if all anyone has to look forward to is things continually getting worse?
Economics	Kind of the same question I've been asking myself and talking to my professors about. Does it matter if wages go up if the cost of goods and services does so at the same or similar rate? I really can't see anything but bloat on both sides of the equation. Historically based on my (terrible) math it doesn't matter if one side goes up or down, because it will always correct for the change. I'm not being an arrogant dick here, I'm actually trying to learn something, just so you know. I am opposing what I perceive to be counterproductive, and supporting what I perceive to be a solution, but feel like I'm constantly dividing by 0.
Economics	Real wages are nominal wages adjusted for inflation, and inflation is measured from how the basket of goods in CPI changes. Nominal wages have risen at or below the rate of inflation for decades, so real wages haven't grown much if at all. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ Real wages matter because they measure how much material stuff a person can have to maintain or increase their standard of living. If you expect your future life in society to be worse than it is now, what incentive do you have to participate in existing society? Historically people have been able to make real wage gains and have rising standards of living, in large part due to unions making demands. Individual workers have little bargaining power, but unions have a lot as they pool individual bargaining together. Which is why employers hate unions and do everything they can to avoid workers unionizing, going so far as to try and preempt unionization efforts with relatively generous policies like Henry Ford did or even places like Walmart do now, in addition to propaganda to demonize unions (which has succeeded, but seems to be less effective nowadays).
Economics	Denied doesn't mean wrong. How many have sued him for slander- 0 Why, because they know he's telling the truth. If there are 10 people in a meeting and 6 talk to Woodward he doesn't have to talk directly to #8 to confirm what #8 said in that meeting. The administration doesn't exactly have the best tack record with honesty or hiring the best people. Not that they haven't had enough chances.
Economics	This is the first I'm seeing of any actual quote and it's not attributed to anyone so I give it no credibility. I've also heard a ton of BS come out of the mouths of the people in this administration that just wasn't true. Fuck, they lie under oath as a hobby. And for the record, I have been a registered Republican for most of my adult life. I don't like liars and grifters.
Economics	> "People start being interested in something because it's going up, not because they understand it or anything else. But the guy next door, who they know is dumber than they are, is getting rich and they aren't," he said. "And their spouse is saying can't you figure it out too? It is so contagious. So that's a permanent part of the system." This also explains the popularity of cryptocurrencies and ~~pyramid schemes~~ "network marketing", except in the latter you don't actually make a profit, but simply convince social media that you do.
Economics	Came here to say this. I met a guy last fall around this time who was all excited about some BitCoin he had just purchased with his meager funds. I didn't know he had bought any we he asked me, So what do you think of BitCoin? "It's a fad. It sounds cool and in theory it has its uses in the market place, but it's actual value is more imaginary than most currencies because their are not many outlets for it's use. It could be the dotcom bust all over again" He told me I was wrong and that this was a thing of the future. I don't think he understood the first thing about economics he was just getting swept up in the tail end of the boom. It was his get rich quick scheme. I feel bad for the guy, but not that bad. EDIT: I was thinking it was last fall because I remember it was a birthday party, which I thought was for a friend. However if it was my friennd's son's birthday party, that would have been in December just as BTC was peaking. If memory serves, that was when I had the conversation.
Economics	This is what happened when everyone heard their Uber driver talking about it. Serious fear of missing out, feelings of inadequacy, or whatever it may be. Then the "currency of the future" disease spread like wildfire. Now everyone's stuck on the bounty referral campaign syndrome. I don't understand who would honestly trust those links, but evidently someone does. There's way too much spamming around about absurd altcoins these days. It must be awfully hard for someone who is actually serious about the market to sift through all the mess.
Economics	Back when the it was a huge fad going up 10K% and people were interested I asked them if they used bitcoin for anything. And the answer has always been a resounding no. Because of this growth potential is and always will be capped, because Dollars work just as well as digital currency. And its a real catch-22. Bitcoin would be great for lets say traveling, if you could spend one currency bought at a unified rate you could save a ton of money in many countries. But places need to use bitcoin and accept bitcoin for it work.
Economics	I have a friend who was sending money to some hedge fund in the Balkans, and he kept getting these statements showing his money was growing at what amounted to about 80% annually. He kept asking if I wanted in and I kept turning him down. It was obviously a ponzi scheme, but after about two years, he told the dude he wanted all his money out, and (less some big fees of course) he got just what the statements showed, which by that time amounted to a small fortune. It was really frustrating, knowing that (well I assume anyway) I was right the whole time about it being a ponzi scheme, yet he was lucky enough to get in and get out while the guy was still growing and needed people to believe it was legit. But you know, if I had put anything it, it would have cratered immediately. :(
Economics	haha I guess so, the work I do has put me in touch with a lot of people who invested early on in crypto (like $100) so I guess im more exposed to BTC success stories rather than late buying bad ones. The most utility BTC has right now is for sportsbetting and online poker in America and seems to be working quite well to circumvent deposit laws America has at the moment. I too bought into the hype at 5k and then watched it go to 20 and back down to 7k where I sold lol
Economics	Sure, but that's why most welfare subsidies are geared at families with children. A single mom with two kids earning minimum wage is going to receive about 5.5k in EITC, 4k in the child tax credit, health coverage through Medicaid or CHIP, subsidized school lunches, and 2-4k in food stamps depending on their state, and possibly TANF or section 8 housing depending on where they're at or how lucky they are. Just looking at raw income would miss a lot of that.
Economics	When it all boils down to it, its still bread crumbs compared to the actually increases in inflation, and also, why dont we just pay less taxes and just pay our workers more so everyone can live comfortably? Why have this convoluted system of payments that exist because our businesses don't pay people a living wage and pawn it off to have the government pay it out, while those said companies avoiding those taxes they should be paying? Most high income brackets have seen steady increases over the years, well over inflation, and average worker pay has stagnated. While social programs have been bloated, I wish we could go back to the days when your employer took care of you, not the government.
Economics	What many people don't realize is that moving up a tax bracket doesn't mean you'll be taxed at a higher rate overall. Only the amount above the cutoff will be taxed at the higher rate. So the effective tax rate would still be a continuous curve as you increase pretax income Anyway, I think looking at it before taxes may make more sense regardless, considering how many tax breaks and benefits there are for various expenses/situations/etc. While the study is about income specifically, those tax breaks would probably be statistically undesirable since an increase in post-tax income wouldn't necessarily mean an increase in pretax income
Economics	Median family income accelerated 1.4% beyond inflation. That's a very healthy increase for just one year. > why dont we just pay less taxes and just pay our workers more so everyone can live comfortably? Because not everyone has an employer or steady work, especially single moms with kids. Most single people without kids don't get stuck in poverty, and policies that help those who need it while not encouraging employers to hire one group over another who needs help are much better than distortionary policies that hurt those most at risk (see Bernie's BEZOS bill). The vast, vast majority of jobs pay enough to keep a childless household out of poverty. It's when kids come into the mix that things get tough.
Economics	As someone who knows a few single mothers (single dad here), that's not entirely accurate. Ya gotta jump through hoops to get those benefits, it isn't easy and easier to lose them. Can't work too many hours or there goes your benefits and financial aid if you're going to school as well. God forbid you collected financial aid before you apply for benefits. All this is anecdotal, make what you will.
Economics	> It's when kids come into the mix that things get tough. Don't have a job because I go to school full time. Either I get a part time job on top of the 15 units and see my son a lot less or sacrifice financial freedom for a better opportunity down the road. I have a family that I can fall back on, but not everyone has that luxury. It's a shame that there is a lack of empathy in this country.
Economics	Unless people are lying to the US census the median household size has been and still is decreasing. >Median household size in 1960=3.33 >Median household size in 1970=2.76 >Median household size 2017=2.54 >>The population of the United States has been growing steadily for decades. Since 1960, the number of households more than doubled from 53 million to about 126 million households in 2017. Most of these households, about 34 percent, are two-person households. The distribution of U.S. households has changed over the years though. The percentage of single-person households has been on the rise since 1970 and made up the second largest proportion of households in the U.S. in 2016, at 28 percent. In concordance with the rise of single-person households, the percentage of family households with own children living in the household has declined since 1970 from 56 percent to 42 percent in 2016. https://www.statista.com/statistics/183648/average-size-of-households-in-the-us/
Economics	Well, that's not really true. My wife made something like $800. The problem with counting individual income is that she would completely bring down the average. They wouldn't really have a way of knowing that we intentionally don't have her get a job because I make enough to get by. Students can also make a meager sum, as well as the unemployed. This just serves as a way to ignore all that. I'm not saying I support this measurement though. It definitely does tell a different story. She also doesn't get a job because most jobs pay complete shit, and I'd rather have her home than out making $10/hr doing a crappy job with no benefits. The household income metric doesn't really tell that story either.
Economics	My friend struggling to find a job for over 9 months with a Bachelor’s degree in chemistry would disagree with you. So would the one paying almost $500 a month for his prescriptions WITH insurance. So would my friend desperately trying to move AWAY from a large city to save money but doesn’t want to leave her aging mother alone. Stop spreading the rumor that millennials are entitled. It’s disgusting, despicable, and completely invalidates any struggles our age group deals with.
Economics	Other countries do pay for these things. That pay via income and other tax expenditures. The tax burden for a family making the equivalent to $61,000 would be ~ 40% of their income in Europe, but is only ~20% of their income here. If you think that ~$12,000 doesn’t matter, I’m not sure what you’re thinking. Americans live better than any other country on earth. Look at these comments in this thread. People are saying “yeah you can’t afford two cars and a house on $61,000”. Yeah. No shit. Even in wealthy European countries, people have ONE used car and they rent or own a small apartment or townhome - yes, even middle class and wealthy families. Americans live these exorbitant, inflated, excessive lives then complain when they are in debt even though they make $60,000+.
Economics	> Except people in the US have to pay huge amounts for stuff like health insurance that people in most other developed countries don't. There is a statistical measure used by the World Bank called PPP per capita. It measures how much it cost to live in a country when taxes and living expenses are accounted for, and compared to income. So with PPP, medical, educational and child care cost are fully accounted for. If Europeans countries, with their PPP, where compared with the US they would be poorer than some of our poorest States. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/08/25/britain-is-poorer-than-any-us-state-yes-even-mississippi/amp/
Economics	Dude it's not entitlement it's preference. Shit, chill man. So my thing about millennials moving home to save up for a house [is grounded in data](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/582309002). Millennials have notoriously bought houses at a really low rate, but now that we're hitting our 30s we're suddenly buying houses worth $300,000. This is literally what my partner and I did. I have no degree, very little savings, but enough income to pay for a pretty hefty mortgage. My partner lived with her parents, had a biology degree, was a farm laborer, and had almost enough saved up for a down payment on a house. We pooled our resources and are part of the new trend.
Economics	I don’t take issue with your data. I take issue with you perpetuating the narrative that millennials are all entitled. I personally see no reason to purchase a house until I can afford a nicer one. I rent, and have no problem with that, nor do I complain about it. Having different goals and different priorities don’t make me or someone in a worse off situation entitled. I see no reason to “chill” when my entire generation is represented as a bunch of spoiled brats. Not only is it a misrepresentation, it’s downright damaging. It creates a stereotype that anyone in my age range has to work to overcome to be taken seriously by our elders. The struggles of my peers shouldn’t be downplayed, but the narrative you are feeding into directly does that.
Economics	More like 12k in cash alone. Medicaid benefits are valued at about 10k for a household that size, and school lunches about 2k a year, so 24k to support 2 kids, plus 14k from annual minimum wage payouts, or 38k total which is more than meidan personal income. If she gets section 8 housing voucher, thats about a 12k benefit bringing the total to 60k for two kids, which is on par with US household income. Keep in mind these are only federal benefits. There's at least another trillion dollars spent annually by state and local governements on social support programs, so this leaves out other sources of help that exist. Good talk!
Economics	The median is the midway point so it gives you a better idea of how people are doing as a whole. With the median, you know half the population is making below or above a certain amount. The mean can be deceiving bc if you have a bunch of people not making much and a few people making a ton, it can make it seem like we are doing better/worse than we are.
Economics	I should have qualified my question. Looking at the data for mean income which is lower than the median why use the median? Just want to get some context for the message that this article is portraying. Maybe I'm making something out of nothing. The article just doesn't seem to saying anything of importance. Edit: I think I just have a personal issue with using a median in relation to economic concepts bc it ignores distribution. And being that economics is a social science distribution should be considered. And some of the statistics dont paint an appropriate picture of the issue.
Economics	> Looking at the data for mean income which is lower than the median why use the median? Mean household income is considerably higher than the median ($72,641 in 2014 according to the census bureau), not lower. > I think I just have a personal issue with using a median in relation to economic concepts bc it ignores distribution. And being that economics is a social science distribution should be considered. And some of the statistics dont paint an appropriate picture of the issue. It depends on what the point of your analysis is. If you're trying to talk about the income of a typical household, a measure of central tendency that is less sensitive to skew is clearly better.
Economics	The middle class cannot shrink. Anyone proposing such an idea is playing with numbers and statistics and trying to paint a picture. The middle class is the middle 3 quintiles of the population. That is the definition. It cannot shrink unless the population shrinks, and not only that but people in those 3 quintiles are becoming less and less affluent as inequality increases. We know this because incomes have not kept up with cost of living.

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