Bush to annonce $600 Bn Tax Cut

[Imran Siddiqui]

Which outside of urban legends, how many people eat?

[orange]

:looks up:

:continues eating cat food:

[Imran Siddiqui]

People who do it because they think it tastes good don't count .

[orange]

fancy feast comes in 40 flavours now

[Imran Siddiqui]

Well then, they offer more choice than Baskin' Robbins.

[Adam Smith]

Gepap:

An entirely reasonable set of questions. My argument is based both on the theory and the empirical evidence.

There are two general types of studies on the effects of the minimum wage: cross section - time series studies, and case control studies.

Cross section - time series studies gather data on wages, output, and hours of labor (along with demographic data such as education, sex, and years of experience) from various states over a period of years. The Consumer Price Index or similar price index is used to remove the effect of inflation across states and over time. Regression analysis is then applied to the data. The variation in the wage, output, and hours variables allows economists to draw conclusions about the effect of wage increases by themselves and output increases by themselves. The proposed minimum wage increase is plugged into the regression equation to determine the effect of a minimum wage increas on unemployment.

There are some cases where individual states increased the minimum wage in their state. Recent cases include California (1988), Texas (year?) and New Jersey (1992). Conditions like this give rise to the obvious case control studies, comparing the effects in neighboring states.

The conclusions of both types of studies has been fairly uniform.

On balance, a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage is estimated to result in about a 1-3 percent reduction in total teenage employment.

Charles Brown, Curtis Gilroy, and Andrew Kohen, "The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Employment and Unemployment", Journal of Economic Literature, June, 1982, p. 505. See also John Kennan, "The Elusive Effects of Minimum Wages", Journal of Economic Literature, September, 1995, pp. 1949-1965 for a more detailed discussion of the case-control studies. The Journal of Economic Literature provides literature reviews by leading academic economists (Charles Brown is a professor at Michigan; John Kennan is a professor at Wisconsin), and is a standard reference in the economics profession.

edit: clairty

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Adam Smith

How about for non - teenage population. What was the reduction?
My Econ teacher told me about this study which the U of Chicago had done about the minimum wage. He said that Chicago is avidely anti- minimum wage, but they still found that a minimum wage increase does not effect the market that much. (dont know specific data or have a link. sorry)

[Sava]

In a recession where there are millions of people in poverty, you'd think that if there was a government handout of money, it wouldn't go to people who already have too much

[Adam Smith]

Most studies are for the teenage population, since something like 80 percent of those affected are teenagers.

The only U Chicago study I know of off the top of my head is Kevin Murphy (and Finnis Welch?), which compared nearby towns in New Jersey and Pennsylvania in 1992. IIRC, they found the 1-3 percent reduction similar to the existing studies. Does that equate to "not that much"? But back to the original point, why raise the minimum wage when you can use the earned income tax credit to get poor people into the labor market, instead of crowding them out?

[Sava]

The Democratic governor of Pennsylvania is explaining the new Democratic governor's tax cut program that will come out tomorrow. Apparantly the new program will contain the following:

Capital Gains Tax cuts focused in areas that are hard hit by the recession.

Low income tax rebate programs (subsidized housing, job creation programs)

Government infrastructure rebuilding plan (public passenger rail system, improving ports, roads, and public mass transit programs, construction, etc)

He also correctly stated that "Trickle down economics has never worked."

The governors' programs sound much better than the other Democratic plan, and the "let's give rich people $45,000 in tax cuts" program by Bush. I may not know a lot about how corporations and such are taxed, but everyone who is more informed than me seems to think that the Bush tax cut is bad and will only create a worse deficit.

[MosesPresley]

How can anyone be against the minimum wage. Doesn't everyone have a right to make a living?

When the human race lived primarily in tribes, everyone was provided for and everyone had access to the medicine man. Sure there was a hierarchy, but again everyone was provided for and everyone had a function. There is archaelogical evidence that shows even Neanderthal man took care of the invalid members of the tribe. Now the rich ***** whenever the average people of the country want to make a living wage doing the bottom, but necessary jobs. If the job is necessary, it must necessary enough to be worth paying a minimum living wage.

Minimum wage means that this is the lowest wage the government will allow us to pay you, if we could we would pay you even less.
:/rant:

[Adam Smith]

Originally posted by MosesPresley


How can anyone be against the minimum wage. Doesn't everyone have a right to make a living?

Because there are other, better, policy alternatives. Please read the thread.

[Sava]

[evil capitalist rant]
No mosesPresley! As a capitalist its unfair that I am forced by the evil government to pay people a decent wage in which they can survive on. I want it to be like the good old days, like in the early 20th century when a business tycoon could pay people pennies for back-breaking 16 hour day labor. My personal wealth is much more important than a poor persons' right to eat or provide health care and shelter to their children.
[/evil capitalist rant]

[Lawrence of Arabia]

What I don't get is that if you use the EITC, and abolish the minimum wage, people like Janitors will get paid very little money (unless they are part of a union) In that case, even if they do get a EITC credit, they will be making so little money that they will not be able to live. (as in have a house, put food on the table, pay for electricity/water bills etc.)

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by Sava
The Democratic governor of Pennsylvania is explaining the new Democratic governor's tax cut program that will come out tomorrow. Apparantly the new program will contain the following:

The states are coming up with better plans because they can't go into deficit spending like the federal gov't can.

Democratic governors are coming out the tax cut plans and Republican governors like Kenny Guinn and Dirk Kempthorne are coming out with ideas to raise taxes.