Reply to Help me understand the impact of a $15 minimum wage?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]higher minimum wage = more automation displacing workers and fewer jobs for young people entering the workforce...

Argue as you might that those outcomes are fantasy but this is the truth.

When I was a kid I got my first W2 job at 15 when minimum wage was $2.25. The company had a policy to limit hours to 28 hours per week to avoid paying benefits from what I understood.
My kid just turned 16 and has been having trouble finding a job because many place will only hire people over 18 years old now. I stopped by my old job from high school the other day to ask if they are hiring and was told they still limit hours to 28 per week and will only hire if over 18 with at least a high school degree. The $15 minimum wage will simply lead to more selective hiring which will make the completion for the comparatively fewer entry level jobs more stiff.

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You do realize that your $2.25 minimum wage back in the 1970s was equivalent to $20-something in 2018, right?

[img]https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/FT_18.07.26_hourlyWage_adjusted.png[/img]
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My highschool job was in the late 80s. don't think it had an equivalent $20 purchase power. As I recall my go-to snack on my 15 minute break was a 50cent coke and 55cent snickers bar. Thats $1.05 which was 30 about 30 minutes of labor. A coke and snickers bar do NOT cost $10 today. [/quote]

DP.  The federal minimum wage in the late 80s was $3.35, not $2.25.[/quote]

Well. My summer job in 1972 paid 1.25 which was worth 4 gallons of gas (I'd buy a gallon at a time--it was a small town where I spent the summer at my grandparents' house and had a crush on the kid pumping gas, so I clearly remember 31 cent pas). Right now gas in tha area runs probably 2.49/gal and of course pas prices have been low for quite awhile. That would be $10 minimum wage.

But. I spent my tips that summer and saved my paychecks for college. I was part time and made $25 each week.  I had merit aid (National Merit Scholarship and a bunch of small scholarships besides, plus some other from the college) at a SLAC. $25 of tuition then would be $750 today, and my 10 weeks would cover $7500 of tuition is minimum wage were the same. But I would actually be earning $145 a week doing that job today and only able to pay $1450 of my tuition bill--effectively, in terms of college tuition, my summer job today is worth 1/5 what it was in 1972. As for your Coke and Snickers, the wholesale price of sugar has only gone up 3x since 1972, and the labor costs have decreased relatively, so of course your Coke and Snickers is still cheap.

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