But its all over now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhrDe0wtsv4

Good luck to the boys en La Habana. Raul and Fidel better listen real carefully, ‘cuz I have a feeling they’re just not ready for the Stones.

The curves symbolize the share of national income of the wealthiest 10% of the population. You will note that in the early decades of the 20th century, there was an enormous amount of income inequality, and it was rising in spite of WWI and the Great Depression. During WWII, the inequality plummeted–we simply could not afford to pamper the rich any more and still mobilize for total war.

After 1945, the inequality stabilized at about 32% (the share of national income the top 10% kept for itself). This explains the relative prosperity of the postwar era.

But look what happens around 1980, including the role of capital gains. Guess what happened in 1980?

The welfare check and food stamps are not a gift to lazy workers, they are a handout of tax dollars for greedy employers. If a boss can’t afford to pay his workers enough money to live on, whatever he is selling is something we can all live without.

They should be reminded that if they can’t find workers to pick their tomatoes or flip their burgers they need to raise their salaries until the jobs become attractive to workers. That’s called the “law of supply and demand”, you know, what they’re always so self-righteously lecturing us about.

We live in a country where salaries are dropping, worker productivity is going up, and corporate profits and executive salaries are higher than ever. It doesn’t take a mental giant to figure out what’s going on.

http://seattle.eater.com/2015/8/13/9143329/is-the-seattle-minimum-wage-law-as-bad-for-restaurants-as-the

For starters, while reporting the loss of 1,300 jobs from January to June, AEI fails to note that employment actually increased by 800 people from May to June, leaving the overall industry employment just 200 people short of levels when the first wage hike went into effect on April 1. It’s too soon to tell whether that trend will continue, but it certainly warrants mentioning.

It’s also important to note that the -1,300 jobs figure represents just a 0.96 percent drop in overall jobs during the six months in question. It does not seem unexpected to have a little short term disruption with a new regulation of this type.

Additionally, even though overall industry employment is down from January, the overall employment in the industry in June was still 300 people higher than it was in December 2014, just before the Washington State minimum wage hiked to $9.47 at the beginning of the year.

From a longer term perspective, industry employment is still up by 24,100 from the Great Recession low of December 2009, which means that the jobs that were lost since might not have even existed a little over five years ago. That’s little consolation to the people who lost those jobs, but it’s statistical proof that the industry is still overall stronger than it was in the late 2000s.

Let’s provide additional context from San Francisco, another city where the minimum wage is also on track to reach $15. Using the same St. Louis Fed data, note that when San Francisco hiked its minimum wage to $11.05 in January (from $10.74), it experienced a larger than normal drop in restaurant employment from December to January. Those numbers then rebounded by June, even after a second wage hike to $12.25 in May. Will Seattle rebound as well? It’s impossible to say, yet, but again, our city’s one month rise from May to June shouldn’t be ignored.

Finally, it’s important to acknowledge is that the St. Louis Fed data on which the AEI is relying covers the larger Seattle area, spanning Bellevue and Tacoma (the San Francisco data, likewise, includes Redwood City and South San Francisco), and the minimum wage is lower outside of Seattle proper. That may not significantly impact the data, but again it’s worth noting.

The bottom line, again, is it’s too soon suggest that the minimum wage increase in Seattle is “getting off to a pretty bad start,” and the AEI report doesn’t include a macro view of what’s happening. It will certainly be interesting to watch how all the numbers continue to unfold over time.

Either way, it doesn’t really matter- what you fail to grasp is that you are effectively arguing that the american taxpayer should subsidize business by picking up the tab when companies pay too little for a person to survive… THAT seems to be the form of welfare you are comfortable with…

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-low-wage-employers-cost-taxpayers-153-billion-a-year/

$153 billion.

That’s the annual bill that state and federal governments are footing for working families making poverty-level wages at big corporations such as Walmart (WMT) and McDonald’s (MCD), according to a new study from the University of California Berkeley Labor Center. Because these workers are paid so little, they are increasingly turning to government aid programs such as food stamps to keep them from dire poverty, the study found.

While McDonald’s has vowed to raise wages and Walmart is just this month boosting pay for many workers, that’s come after intense political pressure from advocacy groups such as the Fight for $15, which is urging legislation and private-sector change to push the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. While the cost of living has continued to rise, the baseline hourly rate has remained at $7.25 since 2009. At the same time, the post-recession years have created more low-wage jobs than higher-paid ones, adding 1.85 million more Americans to the ranks of poorly paid workers.

“When companies pay too little for workers to provide for their families, workers rely on public assistance programs to meet their basic needs,” Ken Jacobs, chair of the labor center and co-author of the new report, said in a statement. “This creates significant cost to the states.”

Or would you be happier if the people that feed you just starve to death…?

Sure California has the highest housing and paying jobs in the country but that doesn’t make it sound. The coastal region is well off, but the interior is not doing the same. Middle income people are struggling to buy houses because the elites have driven the prices up.

We also have some of the highest sales taxes, income taxes and gasoline taxes all which hurt the lower income people, but that doesn’t affect the elite you boast about. One quarter of all Californians live below the poverty line and you can bet they don’t things are so rosy.

Even renting can be a problem for many, including teachers. Read this from your area http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_28585609/bay-area-rental-crisis-squeezing-out-middle-class as you enjoy your claim to fame.

SACRAMENTO — California has come a long way to dig itself out of budget deficits, but the state remains on shaky ground due to nearly $400 billion in unfunded liabilities and debt from public pensions, retiree health care and bonds, financial analysts say.

“Yes, the state’s budget is balanced if you are looking at what they are required to spend cash on this year, but not when you look at their expenses,” said Gabe Petek, a credit analyst with Standard & Poor’s.

The high debt and unfunded liabilities have resulted in the state’s rating lagging behind other states, Petek says. California saw its bond rating rise last year from A+ to AA-, the highest level the state has had in 14 years. Good bond ratings are a sign of a strong budget and financial management and allow states to pay lower interest rates when selling bonds.
“Compared to other states, though, California has one of the lower ratings,” Petek said.
And the reason is clear, he said. It’s California’s debt and liabilities that are concerning financial analysts, particularly the state’s rapidly growing unfunded retiree health care costs, which grew more than 80 percent over the past decade. California has promised $74 billion more in health and dental benefits to current and retired state workers than the state has put aside.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/California-s-400-billion-debt-worries-analysts-6812264.php

In June of last year, the Seattle city council passed a $15 minimum wage law to be phased in over time, with the first increase to $11 an hour taking effect on April 1, 2015. What effect will the eventual 58% increase in labor costs have on small businesses, including area restaurants? It’s too soon to tell for sure, but there is already some evidence that the recent minimum wage hike to $11 an hour, along with the pending increase of an additional $4 an hour by 2017 for some businesses, has started having a negative effect on restaurant jobs in the Seattle area.

The chart below shows that the Emerald City MSA started experiencing a decline in restaurant employment around the first of the year (when the state minimum wage increased to $9.47 per hour, the highest state minimum wage in the country), and the 1,300 job loss between January and June is the largest decline over that period since 2009 during the Great Recession (data here). The loss of 1,000 restaurant jobs in May following the minimum wage increase in April was the largest one month job decline since a 1,300 drop in January 2009, again during the Great Recession. In contrast to the January-June loss of restaurant jobs in the Seattle area: a) restaurant employment nationally increased by 130,700 jobs (and by 1.2%) during that same period (data here), b) overall employment in the Seattle MSA increased 1.2% and by 21,800 jobs (data here) and c) non-Seattle MSA restaurant employment in Washington state increased 3.2% and by 2,800 jobs

Perhaps Seattle’s restaurant employment will recover, or perhaps it will continue to suffer from the upcoming full 58% increase in labor costs for the city’s restaurants that will be phased in during the coming years – time will tell. What we know for sure is that there are now 1,300 Seattle area restaurant workers who were employed in January who are no longer employed today, so it looks like the Seattle minimum wage hike is getting off to a pretty bad start.

Chart here: https://www.aei.org/publication/minimum-wage-effect-january-to-june-job-losses-for-seattle-area-restaurants-1300-largest-since-great-recession/

The “fact” that “liberals” have* reduced California to a not-quite-metaphorical smoking crater is an article of faith among rightwingers, and has been for decades. There is absolutely no way to shake them of that belief, and god knows I’ve tried.

I thought my cleverest argument was to invoke the marketplace: “So, uh, if California is such a hellhole, why does it have the highest home prices in the US, and most of the world?” Uh… “Or the highest median incomes (overlooking the distribution)?” Uh…

Forget about it, Jake, it’s Wingnuttown.

* — (or are about to reduce it to a smoking crater, and have been for half a century…conservatives tend to be confused about causality)

Doesn’t help Steve much though…
The state he claims is being hurt by the increased minimum wage, came in at the top:

1. Washington

Washington state scored extremely well on most of our metrics. Its Q2 2015 annualized GDP growth rate was a stunning 8.0%, by far the highest among the states and DC. The November 2015 average weekly wage of $1,073 was the second highest in the country, and was 5.6% higher than the weekly wage in November 2014, the third highest wage growth rate.