The historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, who died last Monday, had some thoughts on morals and society in her 1995 Wall Street Journal op-ed.
What She Said
Reply
Category Archives: jobs
Wage Growth
It’s been almost entirely missed by Progressive-Democrats and almost entirely ignored by the Left and its NLMSM.
Rank-and-file workers are getting bigger raises this year—at least in percentage terms—than bosses.
Wages for the typical worker—nonsupervisory employees who account for 82% of the workforce—are rising at the fastest rate in more than a decade, a sign that the labor market has tightened sufficiently to convey bigger pay increases to lower-paid employees.
Another Welfare Cliff Example
A small business owner having direct experience with employees, hiring, and welfare schema, wrote in his Letter in a recent Wall Street Journal:
We are seeing a segment of the workforce, usually single mothers, who want to work but can’t work too many hours because they would lose their federal, state and local subsidies.
This is by the design of the Progressive-Democrats: their goal is to keep these unfortunates trapped in their welfare cage, dependent on Progressive-Democrat politicians’ handouts because…votes.
The letter-writer went on:
Minimum Wage Mandate Outcomes
A National Bureau of Economic Research-sponsored Georgia Institute of Technology study by Sudheer Chava, Alexander Oettl, and Manpreet Singh tells a tale.
For each $1 increase in the minimum wage, the authors estimate that loan amounts dropped 9% more in the affected states. The risk of default was 12% higher. The average credit score for small companies in those states showed “a sharp decline.” Business entries fell 4% in the year the minimum wage went up. A year later, business exits rose 5%.
These results, the authors say, hold throughout various statistical analyses, such as while controlling for local economic conditions. The effects are stronger in businesses like restaurants and retail, which rely on low-skilled labor. Smaller and younger companies are more severely affected as well. In short, the authors conclude: “We find that increases in the federal minimum wage worsen the financial health of small businesses in the affected states.”
Head in the Sand?
Volkswagen is building cars in Xinjiang, People’s Republic of China. You know Xinjiang, the “semi-autonomous” region of the PRC that’s home to tens millions of Muslims and to President Xi Jinping’s “reeducation” camps, Mao-ist internment camps for millions of those Muslims, a people of whom Xi disapproves.
VW thinks all of that is jake.
Speaking with DW on Tuesday, the company said its 2012 decision to open the Urumqi facility was “based purely on economics.” VW says it expects “further economic growth in the region over the coming years.”
How Terrible Is That?
Jeremy Corbyn, British Labour Party’s MFWIC, has “accused” British PM Boris Johnson of pushing for US-style deregulation of health care. The horror.
As the UK election campaigns got underway, Corbyn said his rival wanted to “unleash Thatcherism on steroids” once the country was no longer bound by EU trading treaties and regulations.
Channeling our own Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT), Corbyn thinks “capitalism” is a dirty word.
He went further:
Corbyn also said…that Johnson wants to strike a trade deal with US President Donald Trump to sell off parts of the UK’s National Health Service, or make it easier for US pharmaceutical firms and medical companies to sell into the UK healthcare market.
Boeing and Foolish Questions
In a Wall Street Journal article on the tortuous path to criminal prosecution that prosecutors would have in bringing Boeing to criminal trial over its 737 MAX crashes, Andrew Tangel, Jacob Gershman, and Andy Pasztor asked what seems to me to be a very narrow, short-sighted question.
Should prosecutors weigh Boeing’s importance to the economy and national security when deciding how to proceed with a criminal case over the 737 MAX crashes?
Of course prosecutors should—must—not. What’s truly important is the concept of weighing the risks to liberty and to national security of criminals being too big to be punished. We can never allow such a thing to enter even the run-up to criminal prosecutions.
Some Economic Data
From the October jobs report as summarized by The Wall Street Journal.
- 131,000 new jobs
- exceeded expectations
- despite some 42,000 jobs lost to the union strike against General Motors
- upward revisions of 95,000 jobs in August and September
- job growth averaged 176,000 in the last three months, more than the 167,000/mo for all of 2019
- overall labor force participation rate rose to 63.3%, which is rising despite baby boom retirements
- employment ratio for prime-age workers, age 25 to 54, rose to 80.3%, highest since January 2007—since before the Panic of 2008
A Teachers Union Struck Chicago
The Chicago Teachers Union struck Chicago (closing out the children of the city from 11 days of education; although, that may have been a net benefit for the kids, given the lack of education the city’s public education institution provides), and it got everything it demanded.
- A new joint class size council will be created to address overcrowding. The council will get weekly updated data and will have $35 million per year to address situations on a case-by-case basis
- The contract will run for 5 years, giving the board time to implement some of the massive changes in staff
A Strike “Template”
That’s what the UAW hopes to use its bludgeon of GM as when the union turns to Ford and Fiat Chrysler.
The United Auto Workers will use the agreement at GM as a template that is expected to reach similar terms on wages and benefits in separate contract talks with Ford Motor Co and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles….
However, there’s no reason for Ford or Fiat Chrysler to succumb to this. These are three separate companies, with separate goals, revenue streams, and cost structures; there should be three separate contracts with the UAW.