Don't get me wrong, while I like most liberals are excited about LA's new $15 minimum wage there are some moving parts to this. Yesterday I said that a $15 MW is at least in the ballpark of a livable wage.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-minimum-wage-and-why-sumner-hates.html
However, a piece at Nate Silver's FiveThrityEight-by Ben Casselman points out that LA-like the other places that have a $15 MW: San Francisco and Seattle-has a very high cost of living. I live in New York which has the one larger city than LA with NYC which has the most expensive cost of living in the country.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/las-new-minimum-wage-isnt-worth-anywhere-close-to-15/
He points out that the MW doesn't get to $15 till 2020 so there will be some inflation by then, and when you factor in both that and the very high COL the real wage is about $9,76. Comparatively, the real NYC MW-the nominal is $8,75-is actually $3,86 per hour.
Factoring the COL, Columbus Ohio actually has the highest MW at $8.91-in 2020, LA's will be the highest based on these 2015 numbers.
I can imagine a conservative using these numbers to show liberal folly about the MW-he'd probably start with comparing NYC to Nashville Tennessee where there is no state MW but factoring the COL on the national MW leaves it with one of the highest MWs at $8.10.
The one thing I'm not sure about with Casselman is he factored in inflation between now and 2020 for LA, Seattle, and SF, but the LA MW is indexed to the inflation rate. So I read that as the $15 being in 2015 not 2020 dollars.
A commentator, CJ Battey argued that it's wrong to factor in COL as places like LA and NYC are so much better to live than Columbus or Nashville.
"Nope: $15 is $15. Money doesn't go as far in Los Angeles as it does in Columbus because Los Angeles is a better place to live than Columbus. More people want to live there because the weather is great, the economy good, and the culture passable, which drives up the cost of housing. We shouldn't mentally down-weight the incomes of residents of coastal cities because it's expensive to live there, we should just recognize that people living in LA are paying the cost of living in a desirable place where other people also want to live."
I don't know if he's right about this or not. Anyone who knows should let me know.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-minimum-wage-and-why-sumner-hates.html
However, a piece at Nate Silver's FiveThrityEight-by Ben Casselman points out that LA-like the other places that have a $15 MW: San Francisco and Seattle-has a very high cost of living. I live in New York which has the one larger city than LA with NYC which has the most expensive cost of living in the country.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/las-new-minimum-wage-isnt-worth-anywhere-close-to-15/
He points out that the MW doesn't get to $15 till 2020 so there will be some inflation by then, and when you factor in both that and the very high COL the real wage is about $9,76. Comparatively, the real NYC MW-the nominal is $8,75-is actually $3,86 per hour.
Factoring the COL, Columbus Ohio actually has the highest MW at $8.91-in 2020, LA's will be the highest based on these 2015 numbers.
I can imagine a conservative using these numbers to show liberal folly about the MW-he'd probably start with comparing NYC to Nashville Tennessee where there is no state MW but factoring the COL on the national MW leaves it with one of the highest MWs at $8.10.
The one thing I'm not sure about with Casselman is he factored in inflation between now and 2020 for LA, Seattle, and SF, but the LA MW is indexed to the inflation rate. So I read that as the $15 being in 2015 not 2020 dollars.
A commentator, CJ Battey argued that it's wrong to factor in COL as places like LA and NYC are so much better to live than Columbus or Nashville.
"Nope: $15 is $15. Money doesn't go as far in Los Angeles as it does in Columbus because Los Angeles is a better place to live than Columbus. More people want to live there because the weather is great, the economy good, and the culture passable, which drives up the cost of housing. We shouldn't mentally down-weight the incomes of residents of coastal cities because it's expensive to live there, we should just recognize that people living in LA are paying the cost of living in a desirable place where other people also want to live."
I don't know if he's right about this or not. Anyone who knows should let me know.
No comments:
Post a Comment