Posts Tagged ‘minimum wage’

Wage and hour roundup

January 29 roundup

  • Authorities arrested man who stood in front of courthouse passing out leaflets encouraging jury nullification. Michigan Supreme Court should uphold his First Amendment rights [Clark Neily and Jay Schweikert on Cato Institute brief in Michigan v. Wood, earlier here, here, and here]
  • Also on the topic of jury nullification, is that an appropriate metaphor for things happening with the Senate and impeachment? [Jim Galloway, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, quotes me]
  • In 2018 an Eleventh Circuit panel green-lighted a suit claiming that it was unconstitutional for Alabama to enact a law pre-empting Birmingham’s local enactment of a higher minimum wage, on the claim that the white-led state lawmaking majority had acted with the purpose and effect of injuring African-Americans, who (it was argued) were more likely to be beneficiaries of the wage mandate. Now the full circuit en banc (over a dissent) has dismissed the case on standing grounds without deciding whether disparate racial impact can taint otherwise neutral laws [Lewis v. Governor of Alabama]
  • New California law CCPA, promoted as giving consumers the right to see and delete their data, results in users being required to yield up more data and creates new security risks [Kashmir Hill, New York Times via Gus Hurwitz (“anyone who didn’t see this coming shouldn’t be in the business of writing laws”)]
  • Wasatch Brewery’s Polygamy Porter (“take some home to the wives”) is deemed okay by regulators in its own state of Utah, but is too naughty for their counterparts in North Carolina [Hayley Fowler, Charlotte Observer]
  • Symposium on “The Politicization of Antitrust” with Luigi Zingales, Alec Stapp, and others [Truth on the Market] And “The Future of Antitrust: New Challenges to the Consumer Welfare Paradigm and Legislative Proposals” with Makam Delrahim, Maureen Ohlhausen and others [Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention]

U.S. Department of Labor steps back on joint-employer rule

The U.S. Department of Labor has proposed a final rule stepping back from the Obama administration’s damaging effort to stretch the definition of “joint employer” so as to tag companies with liability over the employment actions of many franchisees, subcontractors and even suppliers. “The new rule beats a retreat from the past administration’s aim ‘to force much more of the economy into the mold of large-payroll, unionized employers, a system for which the 1950s are often (wrongly) idealized.’ That very same goal is at the root of California’s unfolding debacle with AB5, a law that tries to force many lines of freelancing into a direct-employment model and is already harming large numbers of workers it had purported to help.” I explain in a new Cato post.

Wage and hour roundup

  • “Bernie Sanders and Bad Justifications for Minimum Wage Hikes” [Cato Daily Podcast with Ryan Bourne and Caleb Brown]
  • Oregon senator wants to give CEOs a pay incentive to automate, contract out, or otherwise eliminate low-compensation jobs faster than they would otherwise [Hans Bader]
  • “Mayor Pete Wants To Destroy the Gig Economy in Order To Save It” [Nick Gillespie on Buttigieg plan to limit independent contractor status] More on California independent contractor battles [Federalist Society podcast with Bruce Sarchet, earlier here, etc.]
  • Not many states do this: “New York State Passes Bill Allowing Employees to Place a Lien on Employer’s Property For Accusation of Wage Violations” [Employers Association Forum]
  • With hand-made tortillas no longer economic, the Upper West Side restaurant began going downhill [Jennifer Gould Keil, New York Post]
  • The myth of stagnant real wages [Scott Sumner]

Wage and hour roundup

  • After Target, under pressure from activists, announced a $15 companywide minimum wage, “workers say they’ve had their hours cut and lost other benefits, such as health insurance.” [Eric Boehm, Reason]
  • New Chicago scheduling ordinance is “the ultimate intrusion of government in the workplace.” [Chicago Tribune editorial; Allen Smith, SHRM; Fisher Phillips]
  • “As predicted, the $15 wage is killing jobs all across the city” [New York Post editorial; Billy Binion, Reason; Michael Saltsman and Samantha Summers, Crain’s New York letter (defenders of hike playing fast and loose with numbers) ]
  • The Federalist Society held a teleforum with Tammy McCutchen of Littler Mendelson on the lower courts’ reception of the Supreme Court’s decision one year ago in Encino Motorcars on FLSA interpretation [earlier]
  • By next year I expect Left Twitter to be asserting in the alternative that this famous Seattle restaurant 1) never existed, 2) remains open and has no plans to close, and 3) was sunk by issues unrelated to the minimum wage. [Jason Rantz, KTTH (Sitka & Spruce)] More on restaurants: Legal Insurrection (closure of West Coast chain); Tyler Cowen (NBER working paper on what kinds of restaurants are most likely to be affected);
  • “In the past five years, nearly two-thirds of companies have faced at least one labor and employment class action and, overwhelmingly, companies report that wage and hour matters are their top concern in this category.” [Insurance Journal, Carlton Fields Class Action Survey]

Minimum wage roundup

  • “No, Krueger Didn’t ‘Prov[e] that Raising the Minimum Wage Doesn’t Increase Unemployment’” [Thomas Firey, EconLib]
  • “Making Sense of the Minimum Wage: A Roadmap for Navigating Recent Research” [Jeffrey Clemens, Cato Policy Analysis no. 867] “A review and a doubt” [John Cochrane]
  • Evidence from Denmark: “the age discontinuity in minimum wages has a large impact on employment at around age 18” [Claus Thustrup Kreiner, Daniel Reck, and Peer Ebbesen Skov, Cato Research Briefs in Economic Policy No. 169]
  • To quote Mencken, “Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction sale in stolen goods.” [Marina Pitofsky, The Hill reporting Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (D-MI) comments supporting $18-20 federal minimum wage]
  • “Higher minimum wages are also a restrictionist immigration policy, at least for the poorest class of migrants. This is one of those truths that is inconvenient for people at both ends of the political spectrum.” [Tyler Cowen] “Low wage workers responded by commuting out of states that increased their minimum wage” and more on domestic migration effects of these laws [Cowen]
  • “The minimum wage is not a settled issue. Important, high-quality studies come to different conclusions on serious questions. Journalists, commentators and policy makers: Take note.” [Michael Strain, Bloomberg Opinion]

Minimum wage roundup

In the Washington Post on the Maryland minimum wage

New from me and Cato colleague Ryan Bourne in the Washington Post:

One thing we’ve learned in this year’s debate over a statewide $15 minimum wage, now set to become law after the legislature overrode Gov. Larry Hogan’s (R) veto today, is that affluent central Maryland doesn’t want to listen to hard-hit rural Maryland….

In the debate over the $15 minimum wage, lawmakers from [already high-wage] Montgomery County, Baltimore City and Howard County were nearly unanimously in favor, with most delegates supporting strong versions of the scheme. Meanwhile, most lawmakers from depressed parts of the state were passionately opposed.

Guess who had the numbers to outvote whom?…

Affluent sections of Maryland can vote for $15 without much worry that a large share of their job base will disappear. Poor counties can’t.

Whole thing here (update: unpaywalled version). Related: Highly informative Jacob Vigdor/Russ Roberts interview on the Seattle studies, and on the strategies that employers (restaurants in particular) use to adjust [David Henderson, Econlib] More on the problems of applying a uniform law to portions of the country with seriously different wage levels and costs of living [Daniel McLaughlin, NRO] Some observations of mine at an earlier stage of the Maryland debate [Free State Notes] Ryan Bourne on adjustments at Whole Foods following its accession under political pressure to a $15 minimum [Cato].

“The article Alan Krueger wrote that I wish Fight For 15 advocates would read”

The late and widely mourned Princeton economist was celebrated for his work across many areas, especially in empirical applications. But some of those who cite him on the effects of minimum wage laws do not always well understand his views, as manifested in for example this 2015 New York Times piece. More from David Henderson, Tom Firey, NPR, New York Times. [Headline via Peter Isztin]

Krueger’s work, often with Morris Kleiner, was instrumental in the revived wave of interest in recent years in the costs of occupational licensure policies, a welcome development in which both the Obama administration and free-market groups have played a role. [Eric Boehm, Reason; Brookings]

Wage and hour roundup

  • Decision time coming up for administration on whether to reverse one of Obama’s worst initiatives, overtime for junior managers [Veronique de Rugy; Robin Shea]
  • California observes different rule on overtime for offshore oil workers than does federal government, exposing employers to huge retroactive back pay liability [Washington Legal Foundation, Supreme Court granted certiorari last month in Newton v. Parker Drilling]
  • Today in bad ideas: Philadelphia becomes latest jurisdiction to regulate shifts and scheduling in retail, hospitality [Juliana Feliciano Reyes, Philadelphia Inquirer/WHYY, Drinker Biddle/National Law Review, Max Marin/BillyPenn]
  • “I’m a restaurant employee in a city with a $15 minimum wage; here’s how it’s hurt me” [Simone Barron, Washington Examiner] Virginia could wind up with a $15 minimum law before long, tough luck for rural parts of state [Hans Bader]
  • “Nurses allege Corona, Calif. underpaid them, rounding down their time to the nearest quarter hour. Ninth Circuit: This can proceed as a class action. Five judges, dissenting from denial of en banc review: The only evidence in support of the nurses’ claim is a declaration from plaintiffs’ lawyers’ paralegal, which is plainly not admissible. ‘This doesn’t pass the straight-face test.'” [Short Circuit on Sali v. Corona Regional Medical Center, Ninth Circuit panel, denial of en banc rehearing]
  • “The Impact of The New German Minimum Wage” [Ryan Bourne]