Trotz apokalyptischer Warnungen hat die Lohnerhöhung im kalifornischen Fast-Food-Bereich keine Arbeitsplätze vernichtet. Eine Studie der UC Berkeley kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass die Beschäftigung stabil blieb – und nur ein paar Cent zu den Menüpreisen hinzukamen.
Despite Apocalyptic Warnings, California Fast Food Wage Hike Didn’t Kill Jobs
2 Kommentare
This keeps getting posted, but the answer is that other strands of research found both employment losses and relatively significant price pass through.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w34990
https://www.nber.org/papers/w34033
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504851.2026.2641130
The minimum wage is an incredibly nuanced topic, and articles like this do it a disservice.
Here is what we know about the minimum wage.
1. Overall estimates find (at most) small job losses from minimum wage increases. There is a substantial amount of 0 estimates, however.
2. There can be positive employment effects, in monopsony models. Empirical evidence of this exists.
3. Even if employment doesn’t fall, there are other mechanisms that exist that can worsen both worker and social welfare: reduced hours of work, reduced non wage benefits, higher prices, reduced training, changes in the composition of the workforce. There’s evidence that these play some role in minimum wage responses.
4. There are secondary positive and negative impacts from minimum wages (externalities) in: crime, education, health, time with children, …
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS14000018](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS14000018)
The problem with Minimum Wage is the above.
The Black Youth Unemployment rate runs at an amount that would make the Great Depression blush.
This is because inner city schools do not pass on the skills required to work a job making Minimum Wage, so it is therefore illegal to hire them.
The price floor, becomes a price ceiling if you don’t have the skills to warrant the artificially higher wage, and you then make $0/hr.
The bad effects fall almost exclusively on the people we want to help most.
That’s all besides the increases in automation and the flight of jobs as it becomes unprofitable to operate in the local area.
It started out as a means for Unions to reduce the supply of labor by decree, to maintain their member’s wages at the expense of their non union counterparts.
Our disconnected „generous“ politicians have priced a particular segment of our own citizens out of a job altogether, and no one seems to care.