Minimum Wage should not increase to $15.

Thanks to LordHelm for what has been a great debate! == HARMS ==1. UnemploymentIt is unfortunate that Pro has opted to waste so much of his final round trying to refute 2 of the studies I cited -- his efforts amount to virtually nothing, because I also cited more than 90 other Pro-MW studies via literature reviews. Pro objects to my use of meta-studies on the basis that he had to do more 'work' in citing individual studies, but (1) he himself cited several meta-studies last round, (2) that is completely irrelevant to the accuracy of the meta-studies' results, and (3) realistically speaking, there is no difference between citing a meta-study and individually citing each study with a prefix of "X researcher used Y methodology and found no discernible impact on employment". Both provide the same level of insight. But anyways, my intention here is not to say "I have more studies on my side, therefore I win". Pro seems to have missed the main reason why I resorted to citing meta-studies in the first place -- it was to demonstrate that the literature on the MW-employment relationship is far too vast and divided to settle the issue through the presentation and refutation of individual academic studies. There are way too many variables involved for any single study to perfectly control for all of them in a way which produces definitively accurate results, which is why there exists academic criticism on virtually every study that has ever been published. For example, all I had to do was Google search "criticism of sabia minimum wage" to find a refutation of the study Pro cited from that researcher [1]. Pro's refutation of the Schmitt and Card/Krueger sources do nothing to contest the crux of my rebuttal -- there is too much empirical evidence on both sides of the debate for Pro's approach to work. The only meta-study Pro addresses is the one by Doucouliagos (which cited 64 studies). He claims that the conclusion of the study isn't what I said it is, but this is clearly false, as we can see from directly quoting the conclusion. .. "This paper re-evaluates the empirical evidence of a minimum-wage effect on employment. Several meta-regression tests corroborate Card and Krueger's overall finding of an insignificant employment effect (both practically and statistically) from minimum-wage raises. .. In the minimum wage literature, the magnitude of the publication selection bias is as large or larger, on average, than the underlying reported estimate. Overall, correcting for publication bias would transform a modestly negative average elasticity to a small positive employment elasticity" [2]Pro goes on to claim that both the CBO and Nuemark reviewed Doucouliagos's data and came to the conclusion that most studies are anti-MW. Let's take a look at Pro's sources for this claim. In the news article discussing what the CBO did, the only place that Doucouliagos is even mentioned is here: "In support of their decision, CBO analysts included a link to a paper by economists Hristos Doucouliagos and T. D. Stanley finding that, taken as a whole, 'the minimum wage effects literature is contaminated by publication selection bias'" [3]. This is a laughable instance of intellectual dishonesty and taking words out of context (on the part of the CBO) -- I just quoted the actual conclusion of the meta-study, which clearly states that publication selection bias is *against* the MW, and that an unbiased evaluation of the literature yields a slightly Pro-MW result. As for the Nuemark source, I did a control-F search of the words "Doucouliagos" and "Stanley", but nothing turned up. .. [4]. We are left with no reason to reject the results of this meta-study. Despite all the effort Pro put into this part of the debate, he has not actually been able to prove that MW hikes result in higher unemployment rates because his approach is fundamentally flawed. Our contradicting meta-studies reveal that the empirical literature is extremely divided -- given that, cherry-picking a bunch of studies that support our respective positions and proceeding to throw them back and forth achieves absolutely nothing. Since the statistical route fails to provide any real evidence that MW decreases employment, and since burden of proof was on Pro to demonstrate that, we must presume that no impact exists. I will be providing positive reasons to reject the unemployment effect within the defense of my case.2. GDP / IncomePro correctly shows that I have misinterpreted the point he was trying to make with his graphs. However, his actual argument is even weaker than what my misinterpretation of it was! There are quite literally thousands of factors which impact GDP growth, from technological innovation, to commodity prices, to interest rates; real wages are just one of those many, many factors [6]. Moreover, we can see from the graph that GDP growth in general tends to fluctuate quite erratically. Given that, Pro's attempts at associating MW hikes with dips in GDP growth, based on nothing more than the fact that some hikes and some dips occurred within the same year, are outrageously fallacious. GDP growth is dependent on far too many variables for any single one to cause such large fluctuations. Pro's graph proves nothing. This all applies to the second graph as well, since average income is similarly subject to influence from a multitude of factors. As for the Sabia study, let's take a look at its methodology -- Sabia first calculates the impact of MW hikes on employment, determines it to be negative, and THEN extrapolates the effect on GDP from there [7]. In other words, this is just an unemployment study in disguise, and therefore my rebuttal to the unemployment argument applies here, nullifying its conclusions. Pro has failed to demonstrate that an increase in MW would result in a decrease in GDP growth. == BENEFITS ==VOTE CON -- Pro has neglected to respond at all to what is by far the biggest advantage of increasing the MW to $15: a significant increase in the standards of living for 52 million workers and their families. Even according to Pro's estimates, the average MW worker earns a salary of $12900, so that's more than 1/6 of the country's population receiving a huge pay raise (roughly 35%). Even if you buy both of Pro's harms, it is arguable that the positive utility from increasing the standards of living for such an enormous population outweighs. But given that neither of Pro's harms are still standing, this impact alone is enough to negate the resolution several times over. Also, let's use Pro's $12900 number to re-calculate the cost to businesses of a MW hike:(17500-12900)*52,000,000 = -$239 billionNow onto my 3 arguments showing that, on balance, increasing the MW to $15 would result in a net profit gain for businesses. I'm not sure why Pro thinks that I dropped these arguments. .. I specifically stated I was using Round 3 as a rebuttal round, so it would have been out-of-place for me to defend my arguments there.1. Increased ConsumptionPro's rebuttal is based mostly on extending his harms, both of which have already been refuted. The other major point he makes is that an increase in prices usually follows MW hikes -- I agree, as that is actually an *affirmation* of this argument. If there is an increase in aggregate demand (i. e. consumption), then we would *expect* to see higher prices, in accordance with one of the most basic principles in economics -- when sales is going well, companies increase prices to try and maximize profits. Pro has just given us even more reason to believe that MW hikes boost revenues for businesses, alongside my (uncontested) evidence which quantified that boost at approximately +$212 billion.2. Higher ProductivityAgain, ignore Pro's extensions. To rebut this argument, Pro provides. .. a single study indicating that increasing wages "does not necessarily make workers more productive". Contrast that with the literature review I cited, which incorporates data from many different studies on the subject to show that the efficiency-wage hypothesis holds true across all industries. Additionally, I have actually explained a causal mechanism for *why* higher wages boost productivity, whereas Pro hasn't even attempted to do so. As for the point about slightly lowered school enrollment rates, Pro doesn't quantify this alleged "long-term loss of productivity", so there's no way to weigh that harm and thus it should be dropped from the debate. Meanwhile, I have put forth an (uncontested) calculation revealing that higher productivity from the MW hike will boost businesses' revenues by +$228 billion.3. Lower Corporate TaxesThis argument was not about who the nation's impoverished are -- it was about who receives the majority of government welfare benefits, and my source states that 73% of such benefits go to members of low-wage households. Nothing Pro said about how most MW workers don't live below the official poverty line contradicted that, and therefore this argument stands -- a MW hike allows the government to make huge corporate tax cuts and let businesses keep +$331 billion more of their revenue. As for Pro's alternative of EITC, the only advantage he provides is that it is better-targeted than the MW, but that is easily outweighed by the MW's advantages -- it doesn't cost the government anything (i. e. no tax hikes), and it generates substantial economic growth (see conclusion). == CONCLUSION ==I have demonstrated that raising the minimum wage to $15 would result in a net profit to businesses of $532 Billion, (thus enabling them to benefit the economy through more job-creation & investment), and would result in a large increase in the standards of living for more than 1/6 of the US population. On the other hand, not only has Pro failed to demonstrate any real harms coming from a MW hike, but both of his arguments seem completely absurd in face of the evidence presented that MW hikes *increase* businesses' profitsThe resolution is negated.