Fallout Of $15 Minimum Wage In Seattle.

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WhatInThe

SF VIP
There has been some fallout or side effects of the new $15/hour minimum wage law in Seattle. A lot of employees are asking for cuts in hours to keep their total income down so they can stay on benefit programs. Apparently some noticed that their new salary/income exceeds the government threshold for many of the government benefit programs they are on or want.

http://www.myfoxorlando.com/story/29616731/seattle-sees-fallout-from-15-minimum-wage

There has been also some price increases or tack on around the country to compensate for higher minimum wage increases.

It's still early but I know from past experience when payroll gets tight many businesses will cut hours which by the end of the first year in these high minimum wage areas will start to see.
 

WhatInThe said:
There has been some fallout or side effects of the new $15/hour minimum wage law in Seattle. A lot of employees are asking for cuts in hours to keep their total income down so they can stay on benefit programs. Apparently some noticed that their new salary/income exceeds the government threshold for many of the government benefit programs they are on or want.


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Never thought of that one, benefits will be cut if you go over the limits.
doesn't take much of a mind to figure out what's going to happen here with the welfare program.
 
This is what is known as the poverty trap. Loss of benefits should be on a sliding scale to prevent this problem.
 

Dame Warrigal said:
This is what is known as the poverty trap. Loss of benefits should be on a sliding scale to prevent this problem.
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Certain benefits are pro rated or based on one's previous pay like unemployment benefits after getting laid off-one can work a part time job as long as it doesn't exceed the what is being paid out. Food Stamps are based on current income level and number of kids. Other assistance is based on wether one owns a home or not. Housing could be an actual house or rent/mortgage assistance. A lot of states also have an asset test and make one use some of their own money first.

I know of people who refused to take a new job after the crash in 2008 riding out their 99 weeks of unemployment benefits frequently turning down jobs paying more but not as much as their old job. One did wind up on food stamps and the other is living like a gypsy off of friends and family. There has to be incentive to work.
 
Butterfly said:
And of course the higher minimum wage led to higher prices. You can't expect to get $2 hamburgers when the people assembling them are getting paid $15 per hour.
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Why should people expect to get their fast food for as little as $2 by underpaying the men and women who work there?
Or the farmers who produce the beef and other ingredients.

Whatever happened to the ideal of a fair day's pay for a fair day's work?
 
I, of all people, certainly have no quarrel with fair pay. What I meant was that if people are complaining about rising prices, that is the price of minimum wage going up. I didn't say there was anything evil with the prices going up, I was pointing out that that's how it works.
 
Prices go up all the time but some people wages don't. Butterfly, I'm glad we are not arguing that wages shouldn't go up with inflation.

It seems that the trouble with minimum wages is that there is no mechanism for making small increments each year so that when an adjustment is finally necessary, even though it probably isn't enough, it seems like a very big increase because it is making up for 5 or more years of nothing.
 

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