> The jobs that can go overseas are pushed overseas regardless.
No. For every increase in the minimum wage, some incremental amount of jobs get pushed overseas.
What is true, though, is that those jobs were pretty crummy jobs. You can make a case that we didn't want them anyway. And if we had better jobs to replace them with, I think I'd agree. We don't, though, at least not at the moment.
> >You want to protect against cheap imports (created by cheap workers) with tariffs? Well, you just made everything everyone buys from overseas more expensive
> When that's offset by rising wages, the people at the bottom end aren't bothered. They're happy, in fact.
That's probably true. It probably hurts the middle class, though. Hurting the middle class to help the bottom isn't really the trade-off we want. We want the pain to go more to the upper- or upper-middle class.
^^^ What gets threatened by lobbyists fighting minimum wage increases.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/b9602ba0-3c91-11e6-8716-a4a71e8140... (Push for higher wages squeezes US corporate profits)
^^^ What actually happens in reality
>That's probably true. It probably hurts the middle class, though. Hurting the middle class to help the bottom isn't really the trade-off we want
^^^ What politicians say when Bernie Sanders proposes raising taxes on people earning over 200k / year.
There isn't much of a middle class left in America these days. The people who would be helped are in the majority.
The jobs that can go overseas are pushed overseas regardless.
The jobs that can't be pushed overseas? Turns out fighting for higher wages works well, as the fight for 15 can testify to.
>You want to protect against cheap imports (created by cheap workers) with tariffs? Well, you just made everything everyone buys from overseas more expensive
When that's offset by rising wages, which, in the absence of underpriced competition it will - the people at the bottom end aren't bothered. They're happy, in fact.
Besides, what eats up most people's paychecks these days? Not plastic crap from China - student loan repayments and rent/mortgage payment to keep a roof over your head.
>The world is a much more complicated place than it was in the 1920s.
Yet some things never change.