Good news from Arkansas! (Minimum wage increase)

[Dinner]

Originally posted by DanS
FYI, from figures released Friday, Oregon has moved from the 7th worst unemployment rate to the 6th worst unemployment rate.

Do you have a link? I want to see how various states stack up.

[KrazyHorse]

average home price in Baltimore is $457,388

And this is why you can't take economic statistics at face value. What type of home? Are those weighted by new home sales?

The average person in Baltimore does not live in a house which would sell for 457000$. I can guarantee you that.

[DanS]

The list of states/territories is to the right.

http://www.bls.gov/lau/

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Ramo
Most people don't regard sleep as potentially productive time. If you count weekends, it's 58 2/3%.

Obviously I factored sleep in, or it would have hit 76%. 40 hours a week/112 hours awake per week = 35.7%. So I rounded 64.3% to 2/3, sue me.

Originally posted by Ramo
And isn't said minimum wage employee supposed to have some time to take night classes at a community college?

Originally posted by Ramo
And isn't said minimum wage employee supposed to have some time to take night classes at a community college?

A) In most parts of the country you can get an entire AA degree online, so you can budget your time spent on it however you like.
B) In the case of technical classes to learn a trade, it's still only 6-12 hours a week in class. That only adds up to 5-10% of your time.
C) As you can see in my first post I said save for tuition, implying the classes might taken later (perhaps when you receive a raise or promotion and can afford to work a bit less, which was the case for me).

Originally posted by Gibsie
If that's how you see free time, when have you ever had the time to play Civ to such an extent you'd go online and look up websites about it? Just curious...

I registered here back in highschool to play some PBEMs and haven't played Civ - or any videogame for that matter - since. I still skim the OT from time to time to get different perspectives on current events.

Also I didn't say you should spend every waking minute on the clock, I just said a mere 1/3 is ridiculous.

[Dinner]

That site is interesting. According to the official labor department stats (which we know use at least a few funny tricks like classifying hamburger makers as "manufacturers" instead of serivece sector jobs) the unemployment rate in California actually went up 0.2% from January to Feb. I didn't see any March figures.

San Diego's rate went from 4% to 4.1% during the same period. That's good but no where near the 2.6% unemployment rate we had in Dec. 1999. I'd consider that to be FULL employment.

[Dinner]

I also note that several states with minimum wage laws higher then the federal law have very low unemployment. Florida has 3.2%, Delaware 4%, New York 4.7%, Connecticut 4.5%, Rhode Island 5.1%, Massachusetts 5.0%, Vermont 3.5%, Maine 4.6%, Hawaii 2.5%, Washington 4.8%, Oregon 5.6%, Alaska 7%. Alaska and Oregon seem to be having some troubles but those two states have a long history of problems with their employment growth which go far beyond just the minimum wage.

To compare Kansas doesn't officially have a minimum wage and its unemployment is 4.7%, Ohio allows service secotr people (bar staff and waiters) to be paid below minimum wage yet its unemployment is 5.3%, Mississippialso has no minimum wage law but has a 8.4% unemployment rate, and the same goes for south Carolina (6.5%) & Tennessee (5.2%).

I think we can agree that minimum wage laws do have some effect but that the effect is small though it increases Logarithmically to the size of the wage increase. With these $0.50 and $1 per hour raises the effects seem very small. Certainly much smaller then other things effecting the employment rate.

[Provost Harrison]

Logarithmically

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Mississippialso has no minimum wage law but has a 8.4% unemployment rate, and the same goes for south Carolina (6.5%) & Tennessee (5.2%).

Don't forget that a lot of areas in Southern states just don't have the jobs available for people because of the history of the areas. They won't have the commerce and industry that a NY State will. There is a good possibility that raising the min wage by $1 will raise unemployment in Mississippi even greater (maybe even hitting 10%).

It's why I think if you want raise the min wage, focus on the states that can afford it. Ones with commerce, industry, and plenty of jobs. A state like Mississippi or South Carolina would only be hurt by it because there simply aren't enough stores or factories down there.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by DanS


KH: I thought it was obvious, but just to be clear, most areas of the US are not like Baltimore, where you live. Baltimore is a high cost of living area. So is College Park, Maryland.

But the people who live in College Park are either poor or college students...

JM

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Darius871


Personally I've always thought the arbitrary 40-hour benchmark is a joke: that means 2/3 of your time is wasted on completely nonproductive endeavors! It would drive me out of my mind.

"Nonproductive endevours?" Good God, man, you're letting capitalism set your goals for you? What a horrid concept! Like most white-collar professionals, I know people who spend all their waking hours on "productive endeavours." They're generally in loveless marriages, raising kids who are strangers to them, are incapable of conversation that doesn't pertain to what they do for a living, and are utterly lacking in self-knowledge. Go, productivity!

I like my job -- I think it's important, and it's given me a nice life. But every single thing that makes my life worth living -- time spent with my wife and daughter, time spent with friends, time spent traveling all over the world, time spent reading philosophy, time spent listening to jazz, time spent practicing the sax -- are all "nonproductive endeavors," by your estimation. That's just twisted. I'm certainly grateful for the job that subsidizes all that, but if I could work even less, I absolutely would. As far as I'm concerned, 1/3 of my time is wasted on non-productive endeavours, and its the 1/3 I spend at work, financing my life instead of living it.

[Darius871]

Well Rufus, it's certainly chaps like yourself that make the world go round.

[mrmitchell]

KH: I thought it was obvious, but just to be clear, most areas of the US are not like Baltimore, where you live. Baltimore is a high cost of living area. So is College Park, Maryland.

Who cares what most areas are like? Most people live in the high cost of living areas.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


"Nonproductive endevours?" Good God, man, you're letting capitalism set your goals for you? What a horrid concept! Like most white-collar professionals, I know people who spend all their waking hours on "productive endeavours." They're generally in loveless marriages, raising kids who are strangers to them, are incapable of conversation that doesn't pertain to what they do for a living, and are utterly lacking in self-knowledge. Go, productivity!

I like my job -- I think it's important, and it's given me a nice life. But every single thing that makes my life worth living -- time spent with my wife and daughter, time spent with friends, time spent traveling all over the world, time spent reading philosophy, time spent listening to jazz, time spent practicing the sax -- are all "nonproductive endeavors," by your estimation. That's just twisted. I'm certainly grateful for the job that subsidizes all that, but if I could work even less, I absolutely would. As far as I'm concerned, 1/3 of my time is wasted on non-productive endeavours, and its the 1/3 I spend at work, financing my life instead of living it.

Work to live, not live to work I think it is something more people ought to take into account

[DanS]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
Most people live in the high cost of living areas.

False.

[mrmitchell]

Originally posted by DanS


False.

True. (my google fu isn't working, but it just seems like common sense--most Americans live in urban areas, and urban areas are more expensive to live in...more populous states, like california, new york, massachussetts, also more expensive...)


Anyway the minimum wage bills passed and are going to be signed into law by the governor. Effective October 1 it will raise to $6.25. In fact, all the major legislation passed--the smoking ban, the new school money...plus a surprise was almost a joke of a bill that was introduced out of the blue that would ban smoking in vehicles with a child being held in a kiddie car seat (under 6 years / under 60 lbs). It passed like all the other laws, by a huge majority.

What got the minimum wage bill rolling was a group gathering signatures for a ballot proposal this fall to amend the Constitution so that the wage would be raised $1.10 AND be raised every year along with inflation. It was obviously going to pass, so the legislature and the amendment group came to the agreement, the $1.10 hike will be enacted, and the amendment effort will stop. Certainly not that some legislators are against tieing it to inflation, although I think that would be tougher than a plain pass--but they said they didn't think that is the kind of thing that goes in the state Constitution.

Long story short, most of you are now less progressive than Arkansas. Before long people will be making redneck jokes about Californians and New Yorkers. Maybe some day the rest of you will join us here in the 21st century...