That's your conjecture.

In some states in the US truck driving is the most common occupation. What transferable skills do you think truck drivers have that will enable them to switch to other jobs with a similar wage?

Of course in the long run people who would have been the truck drivers of the future will have to find other occupations, such as?

I don't know how to break it down more simply. If a person will drive me to a place for 10 dollars and the next person offers to drive me there for 5 dollars but he has to take a slightly longer route, I'll consider the cheaper offer. If the second person wants the same 10 dollars and will still take the longer route I have no reason to hire him at all.

I think even this example is too complex. Remember that a lot of the liberals ITT don't understand what an incentive is or how they work. The idea that welfare can de-incentivize someone from getting a job is a completely foreign concept.

I don't think you're right there because there's a lot of interest on the left across the West in an appropriately pitched UBI that allows and incentivises people to top up their basic income.

Bad enough to exterminate?

I thought this thread was about Trump.

If it can be automated it will be automated. Trump or Clinton or $25 or $15 or $7 minimum wage. Booming economic stock market or not. It really doesn't matter, its going to happen. So attempting to argue something based on economic policy or outcomes is just making noise for the sake of making noise and trying to sound smart.

This isn't correct. Higher labor costs means that investment in automation has a greater return.

Stop complaining about your pitifully low wages or we'll automate you out of the labour market altogether. Nice.

I didn't argue there were no benefits or incentives.

Even my job as it is now has the potential when and if technology catches up and it is certainly not minimum wage or close.

you guys arn't even speaking the same language, just talking past each other

you are saying in the long run automation will occur

hes saying higher labour prices incentives and speeds up automation

these are not contradictory ideas, and no one is arguing that say in 200 years pretty much every single job will be done by smart ai

I'm a bit sympathetic to the anti-minimum wage arguments as on some level they are basically correct. If there is some job that is only worth paying x-1 to do, and the minimum wage is x, then the job will not exist under the presence of the minimum wage law.

At least in terms of immediate effect, minimum wages almost definitely increase unemployment.

However, that doesn't mean minimum wage laws are bad, because

1) You are going to have a hard time demonstrating that there are a large class of jobs with fair values under the current minimum wage.
2) You are not correctly understanding the problem that minimum wage laws are attempting to address.

The free market is only going to lead to a clearing price near the fair price of the labor in situations where both sides have similar abilities to negotiate. In the middle and upper end of the labor market, this probably works pretty well. If I currently have a job, and I'm not struggling to eat or pay my mortgage, I won't accept a job for less than I feel the fair value is, I will negotiate and probably get something close to fair market price.

On the other hand, if I am unemployed and struggling to eat, my negotiating power is limited. The huge asymmetry of power between employee and employer at the bottom end of the market gives the employer side huge leverage in negotiating relative to the employee and this will cause the employee to often get paid far below the fair market value of their services because they are a "motivated seller".

Regarding the robots are taking our jerbz, I agree this is going to be a big problem going forward. Having a reasonable minimum wage probably doesn't affect it that much; once robots are feasible for a job they are probably going to be cheaper than what any human is going to accept to do the job anyway. I agree with betair that the skilled class needs to solve the problem of providing for those who will lose their jobs to this because if left unchecked wealth will become increasing concentrated at the top and there will probably be a revolt of some kind.

Regarding "fight for $15" or whatever, I'm not really in favor of raising it all the way to $15. What I would personally do is:

I'd set it to $11-$12 an hour now.
I'd explicitly index it to inflation.

Also for ****'s sake with this strawman of "raise the minimum wage to $50" or whatever. No one disputes that that would be a bad idea. If you raise the minimum wage higher than the fair market value of a large class of existing jobs obviously that would introduce massive inefficiencies and massively increase unemployment.

Eh, just because it hasn't happened before doesn't mean it isn't going to happen in the future. The technology we will have in the near future will obviously be far more advanced than what we have had in the past.

I agree that everyone isn't losing their jerbs tomorrow but the time is definitely coming (whether it is in 20 years or 200 or 2000) when "unskilled" labor will be basically worthless, and when that time comes we are going to have to figure out what to do with the people who lack skills.

This is amazing coming from the "I don't understand marginal tax rates" guy.

I mean this is a bit ridiculous I think. I agree the automation is coming, but that doesn't mean that economic policies cannot affect things today.

But note the qualifier here - higher min wage COULD have that effect. I don't disagree. What makes wil's argument dumb is that we don't live in that country. Note that in his long, rambling answer he still couldn't answer and tell me what the federal minimum wage is. It's an issue where conservatives have currently "won", so to turn around and blame this news on liberals is, like most of his posts, to be totally ignorant of reality.

Only they aren't always called wages- they are costs. Easier to cut costs, because wages directly suggests how people eat.

An economic policy driver such as minimum wage would only accelerate the inevitable by shifting the curve of cost efficiency - if the technology was present to support it.

But if the technology is present to support it, then economic policy aside, it is already likely happening at a pace the implementing industry and its customers accepts.

We should call them "cuckroaches". If that word catches on, remember that wil318466 of 2+2 fame used it first on 6/24/2017.

The Japanese are pretty good at automating a lot of things because they have a need for it. The fact is in a company can get cheap labor, they will stick with it as long as it's possible. People prefer dealing with people over machines in most cases.

Silence, you cuckroach.

Hello again sub human PoS. Threatened anyone else here with violence lately?

I've always assumed that you are of very low intelligence, but it turns out you're quite seriously psychotic too. And I don't believe you're anywhere near the top 2% of the US population by income, or you'd be pursuing some interesting and expensive hobby and you simply wouldn't be here.

cuck+any word makes that word great

Would you favor a universal basic income of 11K plus completely getting rid of the minimum wage over the status quo?

You guys elected a daddy to tuck you in and tell you everything will be ok.

I'm high intelligence, not psychotic, and attractive on top of it. The last part is subjective, admittedly.

Due to your poor wording I'll make an offer to you. Let's enter a bet, 1000 dollars, escrow to a third party. I'll prove my household income is > 250k.

Let me know, I'll accept well named or Chez as trusted third parties right now, quote to book.

11k is around 5.50 an hour, min wage is 7 and change, with a proposed 15. Why did you use 5.50?

Welfare in some states is equivalent to almost 35k (17 an hour) in most states.