- “Study: Minimum Wage Cost Germany 60,000 Jobs” [Axel Schrinner, Handelsblatt]
- Even they can’t comply: federal Department of Labor settles overtime claims with its own employees [J. William Manuel, Bradley Arant]
- “50 Business Groups Sue Feds Over Upcoming Overtime Rule” [Connor Wolf, Inside Sources, related, Daniel Fisher on suit by 21 states] “With all these efforts to block it, can employers relax?” [Robin Shea]
- Translation: it’s time to throw many more disabled persons into involuntary unemployment [proposal to end sub-minimum wage exemption in disabled work centers, earlier here and here]
- Dems’ $15-and-index platform plank would set a “policy written for the nation’s very wealthiest enclaves, but incoherent for economically distressed regions.” [IBD]
- Efforts to measure early impacts of Seattle minimum wage hike [Charles Hughes/Cato, Tim Worstall, Sean Higgins/Washington Examiner]
Posts Tagged ‘minimum wage’
Wage and hour roundup
- Refuting wage czar David Weil: “Employer Concerns About The New Overtime Exemption Rules Aren’t A Myth” [Bill Pokorny, Wage and Hour Insights] Federalist Society podcast on overtime rules with Tammy McCutchen and Elizabeth Dorminey;
- “The Customer Service Downside to the New Federal Overtime Rules” [Coyote] The “mass reclassification that will have to take effect by December 1 has the makings for an employee morale nightmare.” [Robin Shea, Employment and Labor Insider]
- “A $15 minimum wage will crush the retail industry” [Nicole Gelinas] “$15 minimum wage shutters old-school Brooklyn diner” [New York Post] “Minimum-wage increase sinks Roseville bookstore, owner says” [Sacramento Bee]
- Service sector even more susceptible to automation than manufacturing [McKinsey vs. Arnold Kling]
- Employers such as nonprofits that can call on the services of volunteers should not expect that to rescue them from new overtime mandate [Daniel Schwartz]
- “A worker-scheduling bill would be bad for business in D.C.” [Washington Post editorial; see also Seattle, February]
Wage and hour roundup
- “President Obama says there is ‘no solid evidence’ [that higher minimum wages kill jobs]. Yes there is — lots of it.” [Tyler Cowen channeling David Neumark etc.] “The minimum wage arose in the early 20th century as a Progressive policy designed to [harm] low-wage workers,” and it worked [Deirdre McCloskey]
- “The car wash industry: a case study of how the $15 minimum wage will destroy immigrant jobs” [Jim Epstein, Reason] “Weak Enforcement Will Blunt the Impact of New York’s $15 Minimum Wage” [same] District of Columbia jumps with its own $15 law [Charles Hughes, Cato]
- Ugly Betty, stranded in Queens? New overtime edict could cut off entry-level jobs in fields like fashion journalism [New York Times] New overtime regs draw fire from one left-leaning group whose own paid canvassing operations are affected, PIRG (Public Interest Research Group);
- New York attorney general, in legal action, seeks to hold Domino’s liable for franchisees’ alleged wage underpayment [Reuters]
- Millions of workers had better get used to time sheets or corresponding apps from now on [Bill Pokorny, SHRM via Steve Miller on Twitter] Travel time will make an added complication [Daniel Schwartz] A “‘deer-in-the-headlights moment’ for small businesses” [Akin Oyedele, Business Insider]
- Will Republicans in Congress block the overtime rule? [Connor Wolf, Daily Caller] Or will Congress take the less principled step of merely exempting itself? [Veronique de Rugy, earlier]
Wage and hour roundup
- Los Angeles hotel workers catching on to real intent of city ordinance carving out sub-minimum wage at unionized employers [Scott Shackford, Reason, earlier] “Why Sports Authority is throwing in the towel and closing all of its stores” [Kevin Smith, San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Pasadena Star-News]
- “France might pass a law that makes it illegal to send after-hours work emails” [Washington Post]
- Boiled at slightly lower temperature: DoL considering knocking down salary threshold a bit, $47,000 rather than $50,440, for its awful upcoming overtime mandate [Jon Hyman; video from Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity, group critical of regs; earlier here, etc.]
- “Eleventh Circuit Reins in NLRB’s Mischaracterization of Independent Contractors as ‘Employees'” [John Park, Washington Legal Foundation]
- “Relax Everyone: NELP’s New Report Says The Minimum Wage Doesn’t Cost Jobs” [Tim Worstall] “The Economic Denialism of a $15 Minimum Wage” [John McGinnis; Chris Edwards/Cato] David Henderson scrutinizes work by left-wing Berkeley economist Michael Reich backing $15 minimum [EconLog]
- Idea of abolishing the tip system, pushed by some labor activists and eyed as a fallback by businesses tied up in wage law knots, meets with huge resistance from restaurant staff in U.S. [NPR]
- “Hillary Clinton Just Turned the Democratic Party Into the Party of the $15 an Hour Minimum Wage” [Peter Suderman]
Wage and hour roundup
- Finally, Republicans introduce bill to stop Obama’s overtime edict [SHRM, Connor Wolf, Veronique de Rugy] “Congress realizes new overtime rules stink” at least as applied to themselves [Suzanne Lucas, Evil HR Lady, earlier] Knowing whether you’re in FLSA compliance can be tricky enough to fool HR specialists [Eric Meyer]
- “German army forced to lay down weapons due to ‘overtime limits'” [Telegraph, U.K.]
- “Minimum Wage Hike Kills Popular Upstate NY Eatery” [Legal Insurrection] “Please don’t be the reason the future of our farm ends here and now” [WENY, upstate New York]
- “How raising the minimum wage hurts disabled workers” [Naomi Schaefer Riley, Philanthropy Daily] Maryland moves to end exception that allowed workshop programs for the disabled to pay subminimum wages, and if clients sit at home as a result, at least they’ll have their rights on [Capital News Service]
- Proposed D.C. ordinance restricting “predictive scheduling” of employee hours would snarl retail and restaurant operations [E. Faye Williams, Huff Post]
- “Economically, minimum wages may not make sense,” said Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown, and then proceeded to sign the bill [Scott Shackford, Reason] “UC Berkeley Touts $15 Minimum Wage Law, Then Fires Hundreds Of Workers After It Passes” [Investors Business Daily]
Seattle’s minimum wage law and the Constitution
All minimum wage laws are bad economics, but Seattle’s new law adds its own potentially unconstitutional twist: harsher terms for out-of-state businesses [Ilya Shapiro and Jayme Weber, Cato]
Estimate: $15 wage to cost California taxpayers $3.6 billion/year
The state of California’s legislative analyst projects that raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, as a pending deal among political bigwigs would do, would cost taxpayers $3.6 billion more a year in government pay [Associated Press] Related: California plan an experiment that’s sure to generate interesting data, too bad it’s being conducted on real people [David Henderson] “Labor is not a commodity like bread or electronics,” moralists claim. Funny how it is subject to economic laws all the same [Coyote]
More: “The $15 minimum wage sweeping the nation might kill jobs — and that’s okay.” So now they tell us [Lydia DePillis/WaPo via Noah Rothman, Commentary] Data from Europe: Steve Hanke, Cato 2014.
California: we’ll make our citizens guinea pigs for $15 minimum
California political leaders have agreed on a deal that will lead to imposing a $15 minimum wage statewide, not only in San Francisco and San Jose, where the median wage is expected by 2022 to be $34-37, but also in Fresno and Chico, where the projected median wage in that year is around $20. [Noam Scheiber and Ian Lovett, New York Times]
Cities with high real estate prices are typically better able to withstand minimum wage increases than cities with low prices, because wages represent a smaller fraction of a business’s overall cost in those cities and therefore have a smaller effect on the bottom line….
Craig Scharton, the owner of a farm-to-table restaurant called Peeve’s Public House in downtown Fresno, said he was still smarting from a recent increase in the minimum wage from $9 to $10 an hour. He said the increase had forced him to close on Mondays and Tuesdays and played a role in reducing his staffing to a dozen today from 18 two and a half years ago.
Mr. Scharton was at a loss to explain how he would absorb the new increase. “We’re trying our best to revitalize downtown,” he said. “This just kind of kicks our legs out from under us.”
More: Scott Shackford/Reason, Preston Cooper/Economics 21, Charles Hughes/Cato, Timothy Lee/Vox, Ira Stoll (role of Berkeley “radical economist” Michael Reich).
Labor and employment roundup
- A good labor economics class lets you see through society’s secular religion [Bryan Caplan first, second, and third (“Why labor fallacies have replaced industrial organization fallacies in society’s secular religion”) posts]
- “Meet The Obama Czars Who Decide How Your Workplace Runs” [Connor Wolf/Daily Caller, and thanks for quote]
- Welcome news for employers: Seventh Circuit signals it isn’t buying EEOC’s attack on severance offers in CVS case [Jon Hyman, background]
- Can a unionized Uber or Lyft driver file a grievance over your negative comment as a customer? “It’s not at all clear how union job protection policies can jibe with a community-rating economy.” [Brian Doherty, Reason]
- Riffling through just one day’s BNA Labor Report, Michael Fox finds headlines like Firing After FMLA Request Raises Triable Issues, Recommendation Letter Saves Fired Professor’s Bias Suit, and Commission Seeks Comment on Workplace Murder Case [Employer’s Lawyer]
- Disney exec: here’s our plan to engage in racial discrimination in hiring journalists [Ira Stoll, Future of Capitalism] Have they compared notes with BuzzFeed Canada? [Mediaite]
- On minimum wage, New York Times editors find Hillary Clinton overly tethered to economic reality, urge cutting of final moorings [Charles Hughes, Cato] “The Evidence Is Piling Up That Higher Minimum Wages Kill Jobs” [David Neumark, WSJ]
Labor and employment roundup
- “Outdoor guides to Obama: Take a hike” [Sean Higgins, Washington Examiner; Labor Department imposes higher federal-contractor minimum wage on outfitters operating in national parks, though they do not fit conventional definition of contractors]
- Los Angeles: “Gov’t Emails Cast Doubt On Berkeley Minimum Wage Study” [Connor Wolf, Daily Caller]
- Video: David Boaz (Cato) debates Chai Feldblum (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) on identity in the workplace [Atlantic “Ideas”]
- Oyster visas: when even Sen. Barbara Mikulski says labor regulations go too far, maybe they go too far [Rachel Weiner, Washington Post]
- Lawsuit: California shouldn’t be letting private employees work seven days in a row whether they want to or not [Trevor Burrus, Cato; Mendoza v. Nordstrom brief, Supreme Court of California]
- One hopes U.S. Senate will think carefully before ratifying international labor conventions [Richard Trumka and Craig Becker, Pacific Standard]
- “We’re going to overturn every rock in their lives to find out about their lifestyles”: union chief vows to go after lawmakers seeking to break county liquor monopoly in Montgomery County, Maryland [Bethesda Magazine]