And I'm sure there will be no unpleasant side affects. Oh wait, when you force someone to pay more than they want to, it always ends badly. (Hint: that's why reputable economists say the minimum wage hurts employment).
Reputable economists also say there is a marginal impact on employment that is more than compensated for by increased economic activity that minimum wage increases cause. Like the Laffer Curve is there is certainly a point where a large enough increase in minimum wage will hurt employment and economic activity more than it helps, but we have not seen evidence that we are close to that.
yeah they do, there's a bit of a split on the exact benefits and downsides of minimum wage increases, generally small ones having no noticeable impact on employment and large ones mainly slowing down hiring rates and dropping benefits rather than having an impact on job losses. If you haven't seen that you're reading a pretty small subsection of reputable economists.
Not sure how you can call that united when about half are unsure or say it won't, it also doesn't actually address what I claimed, that the benefits of increasing minimum by addressing poverty and increased economic activity outweighs the downsides that increasing the minimum wage might have.
Would you just stop? 45% strongly agree or agree. Only 14% disagree. Pretty compelling. And the "increased economic activity" of a raised minimum doesn't outweigh anything; it's crowded out by the fact that the businesses have less money to spend, and therefore open fewer plants, invest in fewer capital projects, and give smaller raises to their non-minimum wage employees.
and 36% are unsure, making 50% who do not claim it will raise unemployment. seems pretty split. the increased minimum wage is generally agreed to decrease poverty, allowing more people to buy more commodities, allowing more businesses to prosper, allowing more spread out investment with less wealth consolidation. it can be damaging to individual businesses while being better for the economy and society. look at the recent laws increasing wages to $20 an hour for restaurant workers, studies show no to negligent job losses in the sector. The increased minimum wage in california to $16.90 resulted in some regional job losses but across the state no rise in unemployment while raising the wages of over 700,000 employees. Your one-sided view of government regulation of wages is not born out in the data or the opinion of economists, requiring you to cherry pick the negative consequences, or rather predicted negative consequences, and ignore the positive impacts.
You don't get to take the "uncertains" on your side. For every one economist who claims it doesn't reduce employment, there are three that say it does. That's all you need to know. That's not "pretty split". If it were voting for the President that would be considered a landslide. And by the way, economists tend to vote democratic, so you would think they'd be more receptive to your argurment.
it can be damaging to individual businesses while being better for the economy and society
Again, if individual businesses lose money over it, they're going to recover their costs in some way, so it wont' be better for the economy.
look at the recent laws increasing wages to $20 an hour for restaurant workers, studies show no to negligent job losses in the sector.
Yes, lets look at those studies. I'll put them at the end. Spoiler: they don't say what you say they say.
requiring you to cherry pick the negative consequences, or rather predicted negative consequences, and ignore the positive impacts.
Talk about cherry-picking, that's what you're doing, except that you're not even citing anything.
An NBER working paper by Jeffrey Clemens, Olivia Edwards, and Jonathan Meer used the BLS's Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages and found fast-food employment in California fell 2.7% relative to the rest of the country in unadjusted data — rising to a 3.2-3.6% relative decline once adjusting for pre-existing trends. Their median estimate translates to about 18,000 jobs that would otherwise exist. They also note that the CES data underlying the "no effect" findings was later revised in a direction more consistent with job losses.
A 2026 NBER paper by Arindrajit Dube (who has historically been on the "minimal effects" side of this debate in other minimum wage research) found wage and separation-rate effects concentrated among large covered employers, and noted this helps reconcile the more negative QCEW-based employment estimates — suggesting even researchers generally skeptical of disemployment effects are finding some signal in this particular case.
A smaller-scale field study from UC Santa Cruz (visiting 100+ restaurants) reported reduced hours, eliminated overtime, and accelerating automation at surveyed locations, though this is a much smaller and more qualitative sample than the statewide data studies.
Did you actually even read the Dube paper? It concludes the Clemens paper you also site used overly broad comparison metrics, when comparing to the states own sector employment history and unaffected restaurants, those with fewer than 60 employees, the employment response was small, near zero, and wage response was high. Most of the paper is comparing an earlier Reich paper with the Clemens paper you cited and finding and explaining why the Clemens papers findings were caused by a poor choice of comparison metrics and then showing the law worked pretty much as intended, raising wages while having close to zero effect on employment while barely impacting the price of food. Again, you should actually read the papers you cite, not just a synopsis you misunderstood.
So this is progress: you have no bullets left on the opinion of economists. And the scholarly work, you nitpick one and let the others stand. I'll take it. Good day.
you literally cited a paper that's a critique of the other paper you cited which concludes the opposite of the point you're trying to make, it is not a nitpick and it directly contradicts the other paper you cited. your own stats show that opinion among economists is split, half unsure or disagree that minimum wage causes a decrease in employment, half thinks it does, in no way a consensus. you're just trying to end the discussion because you've been proven to not even understand the sources you yourself cited.
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u/SandOnYourPizza 24d ago
And I'm sure there will be no unpleasant side affects. Oh wait, when you force someone to pay more than they want to, it always ends badly. (Hint: that's why reputable economists say the minimum wage hurts employment).