Congress votes to raise minimum wage in steps to $15 per hour by 2025

The US House of Representatives passed HR 582 on Thursday, July 18th, 2019 to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 dollar per hours by 2025. The vote was 231 to 199. It also abolishes the "tipped" wage.  The bill, called "The raise the wage act" would raise the wage in steps over a six year period to $15.00, tie future wage increases to median wage growth and repeal the "tipped" and "training" wages for all workers.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/18/house-passes-raise-the-wage-act-15-per-hour-minimum-wage-bill.html

The Congressional Budget Office predicted 17 million people would be directly affected by the measure.  Ten million more are expected to be a bump up if they are near $15 dollars already.

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In related news, The Congressional Budget Office release a report on July 8th, 2019, examine the effects of the "Raise the Wage Act." They determined that the bill would increase the wages of about 17 million people directly and 10 million more indirectly.  It would lift 1.3 million people out of poverty.  The report estimates that 1.3 million people would lose their jobs. The economy creates about 2 million new jobs each year.

Report said the wages would come from decreased business profits and higher prices.


Interestingly, a couple states have no minimum wage: South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Louisiana.

While Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Indiana, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Wisconsin pay the federal minimum wage of $7.25.

Heidi Shierholz has been working on this issue for years.  She was chief economist in the department of labor under the Obama administration. She is currently a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. Michael Farren is at the Mercator center.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?462584-4/washington-journal-heidi-shierholz-michael-farren-discuss-efforts-raise-federal-minimum-wage

They argue about the studies on minimum wages for a little bit. Both debate the quality of the studies used by the CBO for the estimate.

Darren argues that economic supply and demand will set wages based on a workers value to the firm. Shierholz discusses that employers are suppressing wages, so we can raise the minimum wages without increasing unemployment.

Both economists agreed that raise the wage would also push up other wages. Sheirholz noted it would increase demand as well.

Sheirholz stated she was not afraid of automation while Farren worried about the effect of the wage.

A caller mentioned that raising the minimum wage would lessen the dependency on federal and state programs..

Top computer stories we are following July 2019

Here are some interesting computer and software finds...

Skippable Introduction

Federal Reserve Chairman Powell recently testified that the Phillips Curve has broken down and has not worked in 30 years. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez ask powell about the Phillips Curve.

Many people suspect the breakdown is due to changes in the global economy supported by information technology. (For more, read about Solow's productivity paradox.)

If your an Information Technology(IT) or ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) junkie, like me, you know whats' been going on for the past 20 years. Some of the system I implemented led to hundreds of layoffs including my own. But they also led to huge increases in productivity especially white collar, indirect-cost type of productivity that does not show up in statistics.

I still keep one eye on some of the latest offerings in the HR, scheduling and ERP market because of the large effect they have had on reshaping the economy.

A secondary reason to look at some of the IT products is because of the knowledge and business best practices built into the software.  You can learn new things from other peoples software programs.



Software Finds

The latest find is something called Pubmatic. It's an on-line advertising management tool. The tool lets on-line ad buyer pick their spots then serves up the ads. It really gives you a window into how sophisticated on-line advertising has become. Check it out here at https://pubmatic.com/.

Unfortunately, it does not look like a good place to work for minorities.  I could zero visible minorities (Black and Hispanic) in their US photos. I saw two people over 40 years of age.  Lot's of young people with beards or blonde hair.  I did see one Asian woman featured prominently but she could be a model. But I digress...

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On the smaller end, we also spotted ShiftPixy, a restaurant human resource scheduling app to manage a contingent workforce.  It let's employers fill shifts with freelance employees. It also handles Human Resource compliance issues.

and finally

Test Driven Development

The nice feature is that you are no longer afraid of making an update.

Test Drive Development

We are reading Eric Elliott's great column in Medium. I wish I had done some of this when I first started programming.  I try to write unit test stub modules but I am so lazy.

Top Education Stories for July 2019

Learn how how on-line advertising works

Google offers an on-line marketing training over the internet called Google Academy for Ads

They also have an on-line Google Marketing Challenge where they give away $10,000 in ads to academic teams.  The teams produce on-line advertising for non-profits.  Google then gets free publicity and marketing content.

Link is here.

Another on-line advertising training site

A google advertising rival, Wordstream pay per click, has free training materials on web advertising. Link is here.

The Gig Economy under pressure after California court ruling: Court applies ABC Test from April, 2018

Even though the story is from April, 2018, we thought the story was so important we are bringing it up again.

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The Gig Economy under pressure after California court ruling from San Francisco Chronicle. Link is here.

The California's supreme court ruled that many contractors should be classified as employees.  The state also presumes a person is an employee and puts the burden of proof on the employer justify the classification as a contractor.  The state should use the ABC test to determine if a contract is actually and employee.

A) The worker is free from the "direction and control" of the employer in accomplishing tasks.

B) The work is outside the "usual course of business": i.e., a non-core activity. So a FedEx delivery driver performs a "core" function while a plumber fixing a leak at a FedEx warehouse does not.

C) The worker is "customarily engaged" in an independent profession. Again plumbing not picking in an amazon warehouse.

If the employer cannot  prove all three then the worker is an employee.

The court also "threw out" the current contractor determination language that businesses use to evade Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) rules and classify employees as contractors.

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The corporate perspective is mostly about how to comply with the law or avoid issues.

Here is a typical corporate legal web site from "Epstein, Becker and Green" which runs the "Wage and hour defense blog".  There law firms usually work for large, low ware employers and help HR departments comply with the wage regulations.

California Supreme Court adopts ABC test for Independent Contractors

What we are reading July 13th, 2019

Article round up for July 13th, 2019


Michigan is one of the worst states for Black student enrollment and success the Detroit News reports here. The article compares the Black rate of public college enrollment to the Black general population.

The article on Michigan's under performance references a report by The Education Trust called "Broken Mirrors:Black Student Representation at Public State Colleges and Universities"

Here's the Link

It looks like the only states with large Black populations and Black public college enrollments are Massachusetts, New York and North Carolina.

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Pennsylvania's Great Working-Class Colleges

Pennsylvania is struggling with college affordability. The link is here.

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An old Study from 2006 in the Journal of Black in Higher Education found on 13 Black economists in Major Universities. Here's the link. We have to look for an update.


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California proposes legislation to classify contractors as employees

Salon has the story here.

An here is the court case that started the whole thing.

Gig Economy under pressure after California court ruling from San Francisco Chronicle. Link is here.

From April, 2018. The California's supreme court ruled that many contractors should be classified as employees.

Where has the Evil Black Economist been ??

Working.  The Evil Black Economist had to take a break in March.  I have been teaching high school math and business classes. 

I have also spent time developing a business simulation game as a teaching tool for business class.  The game is based on running a food truck.

However, we are off for the summer, so we are going to start posting again.

Thanks for your patience

EBE Staff