tecoyah

It would seem the Minimum wage increase has been voted down.....along party lines. I simply cannot understand the mentatlity that finds this acceptable, in the climate of our current economy. I was hopeful that this "Might" help somewhat, in halting the destruction of what was once a middle class in this country....Alas, my faith is again slapped in the face.

http://www.wesh.com/helenthomas/5183628/detail.html

Mind you, the article is heavily Biased against Republicans....but I dont see how it could be written any other way.

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Kadath

I'm trying to think about what positive motives you could have for voting against a minimum-wage increase. I think it could be considered pro-business; after all, it's easier to operate in the black if you don't have to pay your minimum-wage employees an extra $1.10 an hour. But it's been 8 years since an increase, the minimum wage doesn't even come close to a livable wage, and I can't view this as anything but disinterest in the lower class.

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smooth

What constantly puzzles me is the notion that increases in minimum wages will drive small businesses to higher operating costs or to shed workers. All of the small business I have ever worked for or known pay their workers more than minimum wage. The only place I'm aware of that pay minimum wages are franchises and large corporations.

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ObieX

What puzzles *ME* is these guys will still get voted in again next election... or if not them, someone exactly like them.

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Elphaba

Individual states set their own minimum wage as long as it is not less than the federal minimum. Washington state adjusts it's mw annually based upon a cost of living formula and in January it will increase to $7.86 (I might be off a few cents).

My point is that state legislatures should be catching some heat as well, if they are merely waiting to be "forced" by the feds to raise their mw.

martinguerre

this defeat boggles the mind. Walmart supported this change.

Walmart.

Yeah...we've officially reached the point where evil is absurd.

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alansmithee

Raising the minimum wage would do one of two things. It would either do nothing (in the places or at the jobs that are already being paid above minimum wage) or it would reduce employment for the people recieving minimum wage. The only way to make a minimum wage have the desired effect (assuming the desired effect is to have those on the lower end of the income spectrum receive higher wages without job losses) would be to force businesses to opperate at lower profits. But this would help force more jobs overseas, or force businesses to employ more illegals.

Honestly, I think a petter poverty cure would be to focus more funding on schooling. The economics behind raising the minimum wage don't show it to be an effective anti-poverty measure (past a certain point).

politicophile

There is a fixed amount of money with which businesses can pay their employees. This amount is not affected by whatever the minimum wage is set at. Thus, raising the minimum wage would seem to necessarily reduce the number of minimum wage jobs available.

That said, raising the minimum wage would certainly increase the number of living wage jobs available: there are just fewer of these better jobs to go around.

Generally speaking, I oppose market regulation (rent controls, e.g.). I am not convinced that minimum wage laws are necessary in the American system because our rate of unemployment is so low. It seems that very few people would be willing to work for less than a living wage. Thus, I sympathize with both sides of the argument and remain personally ambivalent.

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samcol

As VP of a small business I see voting for a minimum wage increase as a slap in the face to me and a free market economy. Like mentioned earlier, large corporations and franchises are the only ones I know of who pay minimum wage anyway. The company I work for pays nearly twice the minimum wage as a starting pay.

I don't understand how raising the wage bar will have a positive influence on the middle and lower class? They have to absorb the cost somewhere because they also consume the most (I'm guessing).

Also, why the hell would Wal-Mart support this anyway? It makes zero sense. They are asking the government to MAKE them pay more instead of doing it voluntarily. Something tells me the end economic consequences of a minimum wage increase would benefit Wal-Mart more than it would benefit minimum wage employees. Why else would they support legislation for something that they can already do?

SecretMethod70

While I agree that school funding is the most important area to fight poverty, the truth remains that schooling does not exist in a vacuum. Children in poverty don't only have poor educational opportunities because of poorly funded schools, but also because of malnutrition, lack of access to pre-school programs (which is only partly addressed with the Head Start program), and poor home environments - many times caused by the stress of being one step away from living on the street.

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canuckguy

To address the walmart thing mentioned above, I read that walmart supported the wage increase as they already pay above the minimum wage and want other companies to up there payroll. Which they hope would lower there profits and force more companies to go under. Just what I read, true or not true who knows. seems to make sense to me based on what I've seen from walmart as a corporation.

SecretMethod70

With regards to a minimum wage increase hurting small businesses, that's also simply not true. First of all, money does not have a hardline value - $5 now is not worth the same amount as $5 eight years ago. With that in mind, businesses are actually paying their employees LESS now than what they were eight years ago. That $5 is not only less valuable to the person receiving it, it also has the same lower value to the person paying it. Second, all the empirical evidence points to a higher minimum wage being, at the very least, a "not bad" thing. See this and this. To be honest though, I'm not surprised by this vote. It's not the first time Congress has voted in opposition to what has been shown by numerous studies on policy effects and it won't be the last.

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Paq

brian has it exactly at why walmart would support a minimum wage increase.

Now, i personally have to agree with smeth and politicophile, smeth for the fact that educational opportunities are not just a product of how much money is spent on schools, but on how many other factors and stresses play into this. Politicophile for the simple assesment that a min wage increase would actually increase the number of 'living wages' jobs, which i think is much more important than bottom line profit margins, but that's just me.

I still find it sickening at how much CEO's/senators/upper/middle/lower management people will get a yearly increase while the poorer get ..well, nothing

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samcol

If there is a minimum wage increase, and Wal-Mart execs support it because these workers will spend more at Wal-Mart stores, then aren't these workers paying to send their REAL jobs overseas(manufacturing jobs instead of selling junk foreign retail merchandise)?

To me it just seems like a minimum wage increase will hurt the middle class and not help it in the long run. Sure they'll appreciate the temporary increase in wages, but when the only place to work is at a retail store making minimum wage because low dollar retail sent your manufacturing job overseas, that's not good for the economy in the long run.

smooth

secretmethod's got it right in regards to the empirical evidence of whether wage increases hurt job opportunities (they don't).

samcol, in regards to whether rising prices due to wage increases a couple things must be mentioned and realized:

1) prices are conditional upon demand, not necessarily cost to produce
I don't dispute that wages are part of overhead, and that overhead must be analyzed before a tenable price is set
it seems to me that if one's profit margin is so low that a rise in wages commensurate with the changing value of the currency would put someone's business in the red, one's business model is inefficient and/or demand is too low for the product

2) regardless of point 1, cost and price increases in one sector do not necessarily result in a rise in prices across the board
if we examine what impoverished workers consume, we can do a pretty good job of estimating the real world impact of rising wages on their cost-of-living
it may be true that raising the minimum wage could conceivably raise the cost of Taco Bell or Kentucky Fried Chicken products (although their prices haven't actually risen very much if you think about it, and minimum wages have gone up over the years, so that's an interesting tangible response to the notion that prices automatically rise and jobs disappear when wages rise), but impoverished workers don't need to buy those kinds of products. They don't need to go out to the movie theators, or to the 7-11, or where else do we imagine workers are being paid minimum wage?

What won't rise are costs associated with groceries, or rent, or vehicles, perhaps gas might be one of the few sectors that would be a necessity that could conceivably rise in price when attendants earn more

What I'm saying is that most of what workers absolutely need is already subsidized and the sectors they consume from: rent, groceries, energy (except gas as I poited out above), government services are usually private owner/operators or unionized and won't benefit from an increase in the minimum wage

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pan6467

Ohio's minimum wage is $2.15. That's what employers have to pay anyone that works in a "tipping or gratuity" job such as waiters, waitresses and even pizza places. These places have to show though that these workers make at least $5.25/hour or adjust.


They use this neat little chart where you claim your tips and to avoid people lieing they take the average of what is reported. So if you have someone who writes to the penny what they get and they show they made say $7/hr in tips the company is then justified in the pay.

What I find pathetic is anyone who supports this. How can ANYONE support people making less than $30,000 a year working 40 hours a week? I feel if someone works 40 hours a week they should make enough to live semi comfortably and not need to worry about bills.

What these geniuses who support these wages don't understand is that by paying people fucking low salaries you need to tax the rich more to make up the differences, you need to use tax money to help these people pay bills (I.E. aid for electric, heating, food stamps, healthcare, etc.). Whereas, if you pay people enough to live on you have a better tax base, you need less taxes to support those aid programs and you in the long run have a healthier and stronger economy.

The hypocritical party line is to cry about how the family is being torn apart because both parents have to work to make it, yet they support wages where both parents have to work to make it.

If you raise wages to where people can make it on 1 income, I think you'll find more "traditional" families with a stay at home parent. That in turn makes more job openings which in turn increases salaries even more, which increases the tax bases and the overall economy.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

djtestudo

For the record, $30,000 a year working 40 hours a week comes to a minimum wage of $14.42 an hour.

I do understand your point, the problem is it isn't very realistic.

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martinguerre

That's the thing...people said Ford couldn't do the five dollar day (which was a living wage), but it helped redefine the nation's idea of work. that a single full time salary could pay for middle class life. i guess this all just says something about america's culture of work, and how anti-labor it's getting.

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djtestudo

That is middle-class wages. We're talking about the very bottom of what people can earn.

__________________
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smooth

but don't you think our social problems are related to the evaporation of our middle class?
what you are saying is middle class should be a minimum in this country--we're certainly wealthy enough to do it
if that became the minimum, the top would have to stretch higher, achieve more, in order to pull away from the pack. it seems raising the standard would have an invigorating stimulus on the whole class structure.

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Seaver

Positives? Preventing Inflation.

Raising the minimum wage may make things look good for a couple of months, but it will do nothing. Businesses wont just absorb the profit changes, they'll just pass it to the customer. What does this do?

Those $.99 burgers go up to 1.29.
The higher end jobs find themselves closer to the no-talent job incomes. Because they are in higher demand (less competition), they get paid more.
Everything costs more in turn. From manufacture to trucking to services. This makes the minimum income required to "live" is raised in turn. So those it's intended to help get no benefit.

flstf

Maybe we shouldn't just focus on the low end with minimum wages but also focus on the high end with maximum incomes. If we made a law that the highest incomes cannot exceed 100 times the lowest wages then there would probably be more support to raise them. Yeah, that's the ticket.

kutulu

I don't think it's realistic to think that education can cure us of poverty. As a result, I don't think it is usefull to make sure that everyone goes to college. There are loads of good-paying jobs out there that require no education whatsoever.

pan6467

When CEO's can make more in comparison than the worker in any other point in the last 100 years and people are complaining that laborers raise in wages would inflate costs there is something pathetically wrong in the way people think.

I agree with Smooth put a maximum on what the CEO's and upper management can make and see how fast wages rise.

Our middle class is going fast, personal credit is getting outrageously dangerous and the upper managements make more and more and more while they continue to try to cut wages and benefits.

It's pathetic and not what this country is about. Even Henry Ford said "you pay a worker enough to afford your product and you will always have a customer. People don't buy imports because they are better made, or because they want to, people buy imports because they know they can maybe stretch that dollar more. However, the imported products are cheaper made and don't last as long as when the US had great workers, wages and pride in their jobs.

You cannot expect to have workers take pride in a job that barely pays them enough to live, while they see the CEO's and upper management making millions upon millions every year. The gap has gotten too large and the greed has destroyed us.

Just as the unions got too greedy, management has now. Somehow, someway we need to find a medium. Problem is the upper management and CEO's are far too greedy and would rather ship jobs overseas than to give up some of their salaries and the government is too weak to step in and try to solve the problem since ownership seems unwilling to.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Paq

pan just said everything that was on my mind in a much more articulate way.


seriously, though, nobody mentions how raising CEO's salaries by hundreds of thousands of dollars will drive up the cost of goods, but you raise the minimum by a bit and bammo, the whole economy is going to fall.

Where are they henry fords of the world.

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j8ear

Minimum wage worked so well in the former Soviet Union. It hasn't worked so far, except in shrinking the number of jobs.

It's really interesting to hear the jealousy and class envy of those who have ZERO understanding of how or why CEOs are compensated.

Above 30k a year for 40 hours a week is some sort of RIGHT? DID someone actually present that here.

I am so taken aback by the reposnses I see in this thread. The arrogance and elitism of the left is astounding. ASTOUNDING. You people actually think you can change the laws of physics, human nature, and economics with your feel good, vote pandering, solve nothing ideas.

-bear

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filtherton

It's interesting that you'd attribute it to class envy, when everyone whose mentioned it has done so because of other reasons. Methinks perhaps you are projecting a bit. Perhaps you could enlighten with your understanding as to how ceos are compensated.

Arrogance and elitism are one thing, don't pretend that you aren't immune to their appeals. Your problem is that you are completely ignoring any of the points made by any of the critics of ceo pay scales. Instead you choose to accuse everyone of arrogance and class envy. Even if these two things were representative of the feelings of those who have posted(which you have absolutely no solid basis to believe they are) they have little to do with the substance of the various arguments against the current state of ceo compensation that have been made. Perhaps you could address those instead.

Yakk

Politico and Alan, those are not true statements.

There is not a fixed pool of money that can be spent on the minimium wage jobs. Companies can rebudget, reduce profits, increase or decrease service to areas, hire out from other companies gaining more productive workers. Any economic model which claims that there is a fixed pool of money to hire minimium wage workers, without substantial and massive documentary, theoretical, and statistical support is a dishonest one.

Alan, there are scenarios in which an increase in minimum wage would not reduce consumption of minimium wage employment.

A minimium wage being set acts like the government setting a monopoly price. Depending on the utility curve of employing minimium wage workers, it is possible that employment might not go down. This isn't all that likely -- but it is possible.

It is also possible that it would reduce employment, but significantly less than the % increase in the minimium wage. Which would mean fewer people employed, but more money going to the poorest parts of the nation.

Which "frees" up the now unemployed for government assisted education, ideally, in order to increase their job prospects.

Setting a higher minimium wage is an attempt to say "any job less than this in value is a charity case, not a livelyhood".

It is true that an arbitrailly high min wage would be disasterous. The same is true of an arbitrarially low min wage.

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JumpinJesus

I'm not an economist so any input I can give here is based solely on what I consider to be my own common sense, which might not be very well developed, so consider that before reading what I have to say.

It would seem that these are the following the arguments made so far -

1. Raising the minimum wage will result in increased operating costs for businesses thus resulting in higher costs for consumers, thereby negating any positive effect of a minimum wage increase.

2. Paying CEOs and other executives large salaries is an incentive to produce better products and make for a better company.

3. Raising the minimum wage will lead to an increase in the cost of living, again negating any positive effect of a wage increase.

4. Paying certain jobs a higher amount trivializes the work done by educated workers by paying uneducated workers a salary nearly commensurate with theirs.


Here is where I chime in. Wealth and poverty are relative terms in that they are dependent upon the definition of each other in order to have any real meaning. In order for wealth to exist, poverty must exist. One cannot exist without the other. If we are to decrease the amount of poverty, the only way to accomplish this is to decrease the amount of wealth. This is where point #4 makes sense. If I find that I will no longer make as much money as an uneducated worker, then where is my motivation to become a more educated worker? Some people have an intrinsic motivation to become educated, many do not. With no incentive to get a better education, few will do it. Also, this can have the result of demeaning education since many will realize that they can still make a good wage without one.

On to point #1: If increasing wages will have the inevitable result of increased costs, then wouldn't it stand to follow that stagnant wages should result in stagnant costs? Yet consumer prices on many products continue to increase without the benefit of a wage increase. Consumers' buying power is reduced due to stagnant wages. Wouldn't this have more of a negative impact on our economy?

Point #2: If higher salaries for CEOs is good for business, then why are higher wages for their employees bad for business? I honestly do not follow this logic.

Point #3 is similar to point #1 so I will say refer to that point.

Families making minimum wage often qualify for the Earned Income Credit on their taxes, which some might say could qualify for an increased wage due to the fact that their tax responsibility is nil due to their wages. So, with lower wages, we lose a large tax base and on top of that, use tax money to give them the EIC. This makes no sense. If they are paid a higher wage, they now are contributing to the tax base instead of pulling from it. And this is bad because....?

Someone mentioned envy and arrogance in an above post. I'm certain that envy plays a part in the lower wage earners desire to earn more, but I don't think arrogance plays any part whatsoever.

The envy comes from the lower class. The arrogance comes from the upper class.

It is arrogant to believe that one is more deserving of a particular lifestyle based solely on one's education, which is a major factor in determining wages. There are those struggling in low-income jobs whose character far outshines many who are six figure earners. What would we say if wages were tied to character traits instead and had nothing to do with education.

I sometimes believe that education is a somewhat arbitrary way to determine wages since most jobs and careers train you anyways once you're hired. On the job training is far more valuable than a 4 year degree, in my opinion. Instead of basing employment on education, base it on character then train the best person to perform that particular job. If we're going to use arbitrary means to determine wages, make it one that gives the most deserving character a high salary and leaves the greedy CEOs who will eventually rob their employees' pension funds begging with an empty coffee cup.

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Cynthetiq

I'm currently working on a NPO project with Synergia to help poor students in the Philippines and yes, all those things make a difference and impact the people directly and immediately.

Education takes time, time these people may not choose but raising wages impacts immediately, but trades "free fish now" in place of "learning to fish"

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pan6467

Wrong analogy.

By raising wages you raise people's work ethic. You pay people enough to live on you have loyal workers. Again, I defer to Henry Ford's "Pay your workers enough to afford your product and you have a customer for life."

Look, when I owned my pizza place I paid my workers $7.50/hour in 1995, and those that worked hard (cleaned and what not without being asked) got raises monthly.. Plus they got tips and mileage (25 cents a mile). I kept my prices below the nationals, I used the best products available (usually paying top dollar to the distributor because I only owned 1 shop). And I still made beaucoup profits.

WHY?

Because, my workers knew I valued them, they were part of the "team" . Their friends and families saw a new pride in them and started buying from me. I helped my workers get apartments, gave them advances for their deposits if needed, made sure they made enough to pay the bills and have 1 night out. They paid me back by being loyal, working hard, and helping me increase business by giving me ideas, giving me a good rep and showing pride in the job. My sales increased from roughly $2500 a week when I bought the place to $10,000 weekly in 3 months.

So my business plan worked flawlessly:

- pay more to the workers (who btw got more in tips and mileage because of the business increase)

- use the best quality product

- sell cheaper

- and I donated the entire night's monies to charity every 1st Tuesday of the month.

I was making a very nice salary and had I not gambled it away with my addiction, there is no doubt in my mind, I would have a chain of Partner's Pizzas.

My point is it is ridiculous to claim any CEO is worth millions while paying the worker squat. You don't get company loyalty that way, you don't build a customer base that way and you sure as Hell can't justify it.

I justified my wages because my workers were well paid also and I could sleep at night.

I have watched others pay as little as possible and lose their business even though they had great product, they had lousy service and no employee loyalty.

The problem existing today is people in the upper tax brackets are content to ignore the low wages for fear they may lose something. When in reality, they pay more in taxes because the burden is lopsided and the low wage earners need more and more gov't assistance.

Manufacturing jobs aren't leaving this country by the 1000's because we are more sophisticated and have better oppurtunities, that's f'n neocon BS. They are leaving because the workers can't afford to buy the product. And the CEO's know they can make more money if they pay lower wages in another country.

The problem is we have become to profit driven and we have lost concern about the worker. Instead of moving forward on what our grandfathers built, a nation with the best education, highest standard of living and a country continuously moving forward to better itself.

We have become stagnated, cynical, have an educational system hurting, a standard of living on the decrease, people more in debt than ever and a gap that continues to grow wider and wider between the rich and the poor.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

raveneye

I think this touches on the crux of the ethical argument in favor of a minimum wage above the poverty level. Any labor pool has a maintenance cost (minimally food and rent). Who is going to pay that maintenance cost, the person exploiting that labor, or the public at large?

I would argue that if your business cannot pay that maintenance cost then it is not a viable business, rather it is a charity case.

raveneye

The raise the bill proposes isn't enough to cause anybody (that I know) to quit college. On the other hand, it would make it a bit easier for somebody to work their way through college because it would cut down the hours worked by about 30%.

Marvelous Marv

Yes, we could start by confiscating all motorcycles over 100cc, and make sure no one is allowed to have anything bigger than a moped.

That has not been my experience. What HAS been my experience is that the more you pay employees, the more time they take off from work, since they have a little extra money.

It then becomes necessary to hire more people just to fill the gaps when someone isn't there, which makes prices go up. I doubt there's a business owner anywhere who hasn't experienced employees that lose their motivation as salary goes up. Professional athletes, anyone?

However, I've always supported a merit or production/sales-based pay plan. In other words, the "If you (the employee) make more, I make more" philosophy is the best of all.

Agreed. First of all, if voting to raise everyone's wages was going to solve poverty, every country would have done it by now. How can anyone be naive enough to think that the cause of poverty is that every government hasn't required wages high enough to stamp it out?

You need look no further than the airlines. The unions make such outrageous demands that eventually, most major airlines bankrupt. Then all the retired employees see their pensions disappear, or at the very least, become significantly smaller.

You can't legislate prosperity.

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smooth

Your argument doesn't even make sense.
Granting your experience is representative of the population wage earners, and it certainly hasn't meshed with my experience, how would costs increase if you are merely hiring someone to fill a spot someone else left?

Your argument was that people are paid more, then they take time off.
You have to hire someone to fill in that time.
Costs rise.

This argument is bogus.
If you hire someone to fill someone else's timeslot, then your costs remain the same because you simply use the money you would have paid the person who was supposed to be working to pay the wages of the fill-in. Even better, most places I've had experience with pay their part-time workers a lower wage than their full-time workers (and don't give them benefits). So if anything happens other than costs remaining stable, the alternative would be that your overhead actually decreases when the full-time worker goes home and the part-time worker steps in for one or two days per week.

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djtestudo

One thing to point out with THIS analogy: Henry Ford also would fire people who he found driving in a competetor's vehicle. He wanted to make sure people could afford HIS products

All of this boils down to Socialism vs. Capitalism. Either you believe people should be allowed to make certain amounts, or they should have their incomes decided by the market.

__________________
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Cynthetiq

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that people would quite because they got $2/hr more...

But people make choices based on wages, I did. I quite going to school because classes were getting in the way of my billable hours, and I consider myself lucky that was the case. I'm sure that there are a handful of people who's class schedule is ruled by how many hours they must put in to make ends meet.

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alansmithee

From an economic standpoint, my statement was 100% true. There are volumes of empirical evidence showing this. It's not about there being a fixed amount spent on low wage workers, it's about companies having fixed budgets. If at a certain pay scale comanies demand X labor, when the cost of labor goes up, they will demand less. Its the same as any other good-prices rise, demand falls.

It has nothing to do with utility, it has to do with marginal costs. And if you raise minimum wage, you raise marginal costs of each worker. Now if the minimum wage level still has the MC lower than the MVP (marginal value of production) of each worker, you might be right. But that would never be the case, because MC should always equal MVP (or be as fractionally close as possible). So raising MC would put it over MVP.

And it doesn't work like a monopoly, a minimum wage generally sets up a pure competition model, because all firms become price-takers at the minimum wage level.

Again, neither of these statements disproves what I said, which was simply that raising the minimum wage lowers employment. And also, I'm sure people laid off due to minimum wage increases are happy to know that those who still have jobs are making more.

And your whole idea about freeing up people for gov't programs just seems ridiculous to me. You might as well have said it will give agriculture a boost, as it causes so many people to have food stamps to spend on foodstuffs.

How can you have an "arbitrarilly low" minimum wage? A minimum wage would never go lower than what market forces would demand, which wouldn't be arbitrary. It would be what the job market in that area could bear.

And the problem isn't even really minimum wage work. The percentage of single-earner families that rely upon minimum wage is miniscule. Minimum wage laws always get a lot of uproar, but usually they just end up being much ado about nothing, because they don't affect the lowest elements of society. Minimum wage laws have the greatest effect on middle-class teens. Unless you advocate a much-higher "living wage" which would be better targetted at lower-income groups, but would also have catastrophic effects upon the economy.

SecretMethod70

Perhaps not, but I've already provided two sources that show it does not. A quick excerpt from the page at the Economic Policy Institute (the first of the two links I provided above):

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alansmithee

I know about the pseudo-experiment models, and they aren't entirely without flaw. One of the things they don't take into account is the job changes BEFORE implementation of minimum-wage differences. Many people see the corrections coming when the wage changes are announced, and not actually implemented. So when the actual change comes around, you don't see loss, because the market has already factored in the new level of wages. And that's the problem with pseudo-experiments-they can provide necessary data but it is very hard to isolate any factor, or to show any direct correlation.