Install
Wages and Pay blog
Jobs Americans Won't Do Is an Argument About Wages, Not About Americans When an employer says Americans will not do a job, he is usually saying Americans will not do it at that price, and the price can change. Two Economists, One Boatlift, and the Fight Over Immigration and Wages Card said Mariel changed nothing for Miami's low-wage workers. Borjas said it hit them hard. Here is the story, the method fight and the fair verdict. The universal basic income idea keeps returning, and the evidence on work A guaranteed income sounds humane and simple. The big American experiments, Finland's trial and the arithmetic say otherwise, and so does the dignity of work. Seattle raised its minimum wage, and a city-funded study counted the hours The researchers Seattle paid to study its $15 wage found that cuts in hours outweighed the raise for low-wage workers. Here is the arithmetic and the fight. The minimum wage's 1938 birth and the workers it was meant to shut out Some early advocates openly wanted a wage floor to price the least productive out of work, and the 1938 law carried its cost to the same groups. Should the H-1B Lottery Give Way to Picking the Highest-Paid Offers First The H-1B visa is allocated by random draw, which favors volume filers over employers who value a worker most. A wage-ranked system is the better reform. Henry Ford's Five-Dollar Day and the Assembly Line That Built a Middle Class Ford turned the car into a worker's tool and then doubled pay to keep his workers, a lesson in productivity and wages with the stain on his record told plainly. Seven Myths About Blue-Collar Work That Steer Young People Away From the Trades Seven claims that steer young people from the trades, tested against how licensing, apprenticeship and contractor ownership really work, with a verdict on each. Inflation hurts the poor most, and the arithmetic of a fixed paycheck Inflation is a tax nobody voted on, and it falls hardest on wage earners, retirees and savers. The arithmetic, worked out on a labelled $50,000 paycheck. The Employer Who Hires Off the Books Is Breaking the Law, Not Helping Illegal hiring is the magnet behind illegal immigration. The 1986 sanctions, 8 U.S.C. 1324a, and why enforcement should start with the employer, not the worker. How World War II Wage Controls Tied Your Health Insurance to Your Job Employer-based health insurance was an accident of wartime wage controls that the tax code froze in place, and it still costs workers when they change jobs. Lochner v. New York Divides Conservatives More Than Progressives Admit Lochner struck down a bakers' hours law, and conservatives still split over whether it was activism or a defence of the right to earn a living. The EITC began as a conservative idea and now pays out billions in error The Earned Income Tax Credit rewards work, which is why conservatives backed it, but its design yields one of the highest improper-payment rates in government. Benefit cliffs can make a raise cost a single mother real money When means-tested benefits phase out together, a low-wage worker can face a higher effective rate than a millionaire. A labelled example, CBO, and fixes. The marginal rate is the one that decides whether you work the extra shift Your average tax rate is a statistic; your marginal rate is a decision. How brackets really work, and why the next dollar's rate shapes work, saving and risk.