In New York City. Inveterate commenter Steven Kopits cites an article from some publication called “Liberty Nation”:
76.50% of full service restaurant respondents reduced employee hours, and 36.30% eliminated jobs in 2018, in response to mandated wage increases. 75% of limited service restaurant respondents report that they will reduce employee hours, and 53.10% will eliminate jobs in 2019 as a result of mandated wage increases that took effect on December 31, 2018.
This is a pretty faithful summary of the report by the NYC Hospitality Alliance. I thought that instead of citing (unweighted) statistics, it might be useful to look at data, to see what actually happened (as opposed to what restaurateurs thought would happen, at the end of December). So, below, are outcomes:
Figure 1: New York City minimum wage, in 2018$ (left log scale, blue), restaurant employees (full service, limited service), in 000’s, s.a. (right log scale, red). Deflation using CPI for NYC-Newark-Jersey City, n.s.a. Source: BLS, and author’s calculations.
If we focus on the 2019 increase — the topic of the Liberty Nation article — the prophesied calamitous drop in employment didn’t occur. In fact, employment jumped. Of course, the data will be revised, and the collapse could occur in the coming months. But, for now, no cataclysm (much like none in San Francisco, nor in Seattle, …
More broadly, the (log) level of restaurant employment rises with the (log) real level of the minimum wage. The first difference shows absolutely no significant association.
Bottom Line: Quote survey results from industry associations at your own risk.
Addendum 3/18: Corrected version 3/15 here.
My guess is if you want to show that increases in min wage have negative employment effects you have to look a places with stagnant or declining economies. Data from Seattle, San Francisco or New York ain’t gonna work for you.
“Princeton”Kopits just got b*tch slapped so hard, it’s bringing back memories related to Ted Cruz’s “No” vote on the resolution blocking donald trump’s emergency declaration.
https://youtu.be/WMONUR4N8YU?t=24
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/14/us/politics/senate-vote-trump-national-emergency.html
Yeh know, when Ted Crux got b*tch slapped so hard and then on Thursday said to donald trump “Daddy!!! Daddy!!! I want more!!! Please more Daddy”. Well……. I would say Ted Cruz is a cuck, but that just feels too awkward.
Steven,
This is what I’m talking about. Why subject yourself to personal abuse from these clowns? All you did was cite a survey. Menzie goes on the attack and Moses Herzog follows up immediately with his highly personal abuse. Pgl must be pre-occupied because he hasn’t personally attacked you yet.
What’s funny about this is that Menzie doesn’t even get the facts right in his so-called refutation. No, the minimum wage for restaurant employees did not jump to $11 in 2017, $13 in 2018, and $15 in 2019 as Menzie claims in his chart. NYC has a special tipped employee exemption. For tipped employees the allowance was $3.50 for 2017, $4.35 for 2018, and $5.00 for 2019., for employers with 11 or more employees. Thus, for this category, the minimum wage was actually $7.50 in 2017, $8.65 in 2018, and $10 in 2019. The tip allowances are a little different for under 11 employees.
Let’s see if Menzie has the guts to post my comment in a timely fashion instead of waiting several days so that people don’t see it or just losing it altogether as he typically does.
Rick Stryker: Of course, I didn’t say I was using the full-service restaurant specific minimum wage, because I was using the general one, which applies (by the way) to limited service restaurants even if it doesn’t always necessarily to full-service ones. In addition, I didn’t account for the rate that applies to smaller firms. To be perfectly correct, I should use the weighted average of appropriate minimum wage rates. I could not calculate this, so I used the expedient of using the general minimum wage for larger firms (and fast food restaurants). So, Rick Stryker is (once again) being disingenuous.
Give Rick at least some credit – he knows the difference between a survey and a study. Obviously Princeton Steven does not. But yea – the rest of his comment was really sad.
I’m merely saying that if you are going to attack someone for citing a survey, calling him a “self-professed policy analyst,” the least you could do is get your own facts right.
I’m also decrying the tone of the personal attacks against conservatives that happen on this blog. JDH claimed that the comment policy was that personal attacks or comments devoid of arguments were supposed to be omitted. Why are Moses and Pgl and others like them exempted then?
There’s a reason that conservatives have stopped reading and commenting on this blog.
Excuse me but it is Princeton Stephen that claims he is a policy analyst (even though he writes intellectual garbage 24/7) so self-professed policy analyst fits perfectly.
Now, Rick, who would ever question JBH’s knowledge of the deep state or the explosive criminal indictments of traitors (coming soon, maybe, and pick a number as to how many there will be)? And who wouldn’t trust a Pakistani physicist’s expansive knowledge of America (wonder what he knows about Bakersfield?) and the conspirators here who are moving ahead with its destruction? Or who among us hasn’t also envisioned the numerous comparisons between economics and human physiology/anatomy? And how about those clandestine international bankers and financiers? No word yet on the Masons, the Illuminati, or the cheesy attempt to smear Robert Kraft. (Oh, that could be a bad choice of words)
But as I’ve said before, if you can’t impeach Earl Warren, just who can you impeach?
There are no conservatives any more. Just reactionaries.
“All you did was cite a survey.” Exactly right Rick! But Steven presented some self serving as actual evidence. Glad you are not this incredibly stooopid!
ahh yesss, rick stryker, of the “its ok for me and my friends to lie to get what we want” ilk suddenly grows a conscience?
“There’s a reason that conservatives have stopped reading and commenting on this blog.”
apparently that response is incorrect, as you are still reading ricky.
as for steven, i think you can acknowledge you intentionally introduced controversial information into the discussion as a means to provoke a response. you can’t poke a bear in the cage and then cry foul when you find the cage is open and he attacks you. that is more like rick stryker behavior.
Baffs –
Yes, of course, I threw in the topic because I thought it would stimulate debate. And it did. My objection was rather to attribution as having ‘predicted’ something. I didn’t predict anything. I make a lot of forecasts. I know when I make them. In this case, I didn’t so much as look at the source document to determine whether it was a survey or a study. Just threw it out there as a topic of conservation. I had no intention of discussing it. But then Menzie decided to run up the flag. Well, ok. I’ll fight my corner.
As for conservatives, I mean, what kind of respected academic would allow the personal attacks Menzie does on this site? One can only imagine what those other economists think of him.
And Rick is right. I don’t need to share this stage with pgl. He’s welcome to it.
Steven, it amazes me the hatred shown by the liberal segment, both here and elsewhere. That hatred so blinds them they can not see the actual effect of the employment in the NYC full service restaurant business. I would not ascribe all the change to the wage increase, but some is clearly due to the improved economy.
Ask a restaurant owner how hard it is to find and keep help in this economy. If we want to have an even more rousing discussion make the case that these job changes are due to Trump’s economic success. Another virulent example of the blindness and hatred of these crazies will erupt.
“If we want to have an even more rousing discussion make the case that these job changes are due to Trump’s economic success.”
you can thank obama for the dramatically improved employment numbers over the last decade. by the way, who had a larger decrease in unemployment rate, obama or trump?
“I had no intention of discussing it.”
so you were trolling? again, don’t present controversial material and then cry foul with the response.
Baffled, if you are going to quote, why did you miss this? “Another virulent example of the blindness and hatred of these crazies will erupt.” And you appear confirming my comment.
BTW, your trolling indicates cherries are early this year by your question. ” by the way, who had a larger decrease in unemployment rate, obama or trump?”
corev, were you beat with the stoopid stick too many times as a child? first, i did not “miss” your quote. it was simply silly and did not deserve any commentary. and you need to better understand the definition of trolling. you were trolling with your trump economy comment. i was simply responding to your inaccurate troll. you get rattled easily, and then comment incoherently corev. take a chill pill and relax for a bit.
Well, let’s start with the first point: I did not predict disaster. I quoted from an industry study.
So if you want to change the title to: “Self-Professed Policy Analyst Cites Industry Study which Predicts Minimum-Wage Induced Employment Disaster”, yes, sure, that’s true. What you wrote is not true.
Steven Kopits: In your first comment you cite (w/o caveat) what you then in your second comment defend as a “study” that predicts severe consequences, then I say (by transitivity) you did predict disaster.
No, I did not.
If I quote the EIA as saying that oil production will grow by 1.3 mbpd this year, that does not mean I personally think it will grow that amount this year. Often I either have no opinion or a different opinion. In this case, I had no opinion because I made no attempt to either verify the claim or develop a personal view. I put the quote out there purely because I thought it would make an interesting discussion topic, and apparently it has.
And if you’re getting data from FRED, it should be attributed to FRED and not BLS, or at a minimum, BLS via FRED.
Steven Kopits: Well, then there should be an equivalent of “RT endorsement”. If you say it’s a survey, quote it, and then defend it as “a study”, well, I think reasonable people can make a guess of what you think.
I reject your assertion categorically. You are misrepresenting me. Please change the title.
Steven Kopits: Sure. When you stop saying the Harvard School of Medicine study was “garbage”.
Steven Kopits: After re-doing the post, I conclude the title is correct.
Well, my numbers on PR are on the record. I stand by them and by calling the MPR numbers garbage. They were and still are.
Frankly, your analysis here is pretty piss poor too — hence the need for a re-work.
Now, I made no predictions. I copy-and-pasted a comment is all I did. Since then, I have some extrapolations for 2018 — still no predictions for 2019.
Oh good grief. Check the footnotes at FRED – they even note it is BLS data. Hey Stephen – grow up.
“I quoted from an industry study.”
OMG – it was not a study. As Rick even noted – it was a survey. You still do not know the difference????
Lord Steven – if you do not appreciate the abuse, try manning up for what you wrote.
Could you provide the links to the data in the graph?
Steven Kopits: In FRED, under state data section for employment series, CPI. City minimum wage from various sources.
Menzie is not your RA. Try doing some real work for a change.
“not your RA” Got about 15 seconds of chuckles out of that one. Our panel says that was a 5-star comment.
People really don’t like being called out, do they?? Menzie gets attacked for organizing an educational event for the students attending his University (Economics all-stars that many other universities can only dream of having walk on their campus to interact with students). Menzie’s reward for working hard and getting those time and travel logistics worked out?? Cheap shots, from a joke of a human being, quoting restaurant association payola as a “study”. Well, Menzie put his metaphorical fists up in front of his face to defend himself. Wow, the “utter nerve” of Menzie. I bet if Menzie had a home burglary he wouldn’t even have the courtesy to put up a Welcome sign, wine, and hors d’oeuvres for the burglars even. The audacity……
Next thing we know “Princeton”Kopits will be quoting Hershey’s and Nestle funded “research” (what “Princeton”Kopits calls a “study”) that says chocolate cures all known types of cancer—and then start crying like a 5 year old if Menzie calls him out.
Did you see where Princeton Stephen DEMANDS that Menzie change the title. One thing we can say about Princeton Stephen – he refuses any accountability for his own intellectual garbage. Hey – that reminds me of Trump!
Look everyone, I found the “Princeton”Kopits version of sign language interpreters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=92&v=LvNPKwz4Ghw
You know I suppose I should keep my attack more “above board” (as I have just a tinge of guilt if my choice of words unfairly reflects back on Menzie in any shape or form). But why are Democrats forced to fight with gloves on when “conservatives” and Republicans continually fight with gloves off and a shiv hidden in their boxer shorts?? Democrats have lost battles fighting with our gloves on for many years—Example: Mondale telling the truth about taxes at the presidential debates, HW Bush saying “read my lips”. I’m way past fighting by Marquess of Queensberry rules, and if that upsets Republicans, tough shit. If that unfairly reflects negatively on Menzie, then I am sorry and feel guilty as relates Menzie but no one else with the possible exception of James Hamilton.
Lydia Callis is a superstar in my city. Thanks for this excellent youtube!
Our Self-Professed Policy Analyst is being treated poorly here – presenting actual data as opposed to his lobbyist spin. So unfair!
Research shows a higher minimum wage, e.g. $12 to $15 an hour, raises productivity.
In the fast food industry, productivity increased roughly 30%, since the real minimum wage was $10 an hour in 1968, which is a low rate of increase over 50 years.
Yet, many fast food workers earn much less than $10 or $13 an hour today.
Replacing workers or work hours with machines is inevitable, although people produce, service, and operate machines.
Milton Friedman said, if you just want to create jobs, give them spoons instead of shovels. Workers are better off working fewer hours for the same income or working the same hours for more income.
There is also a greater disconnect or disparity between high and low wage workers.
High wage workers can pay $1 for a hamburger, inexpensive food at the supermarket, many cheap items at the 99 cent store or Walmart, etc., but low wage workers would pay $1,000 for an iPhone, $800 a month for an apartment, $150 a month for auto insurance, etc..
High wage workers benefit from low wage workers much more than vice versa, although society as a whole benefits, lifting all boats. Nonetheless, it’s almost like a master-slave society. Workers should be paid a subsistence wage and not rely on government, family, or working long hours just to exist.
You are still trying to quote Milton Friedman even if you never grasped what he meant? PeakStupidity can always be counted on for comic relief!
Pgl, maybe, you can write a book for Econ 0.01:
The Difference Between a Spoon and a Shovel in the Workplace
Lord Peaky – do you have to remind us that you are the dumbest person ever? I know what he meant with his irony in this piece but the village idiot in you thought he was seriously endorsing left wing union rules. If you think that – you are the most clueless person EVER!
I generally hate cited the right wing ultra free marketers at AEI but I must link to this little analogy from Milton Friedman who mocked government regulations and union rules:
http://www.aei.org/publication/milton-friedman-shovels-vs-spoons-story/
Why do I feel compelled to link to this story? Well the dumbest rock on the planet aka the Russian bot we know as PeakIdiot actually thinks Friedman’s little joke was serious policy advice. Yes – our Russian bot has an IQ in the single digits!
And, in case, I get wrongly accused of a contradiction again, there can be a general rise in living standards with some people gaining more than others.
After all, people are driving cars instead of horse and buggies.
And, unlike Western Europe, instead of providing government benefits that reduce work, the U.S. should make work more attractive, which can include a higher minimum wage.
The Russian bot goes on and on with unrelated and incoherent gibberish! Amazing!
This is how a biassed University economics instructor, remember he worked in ONE democratic administration, reacts to criticism. Exaggeration (claiming disaster and by transitivity), ridicule (Self-Professed Policy Analyst), generalization (because I was using the general one and City minimum wage). You might also note R Stryker’s description of Menzie’s other tricks (personal abuse, delaying posts, losing posts) and others have noted changing without notice his original article, his responses and other’s comments.
CoRev: (1) What is “biassed”? (2) I worked 7 months under a Democratic administration, 5 months under a Republican (GW Bush). Get your record straight. (3) If I’m delaying posts, a lot are delayed, not just the ones I disagree with (e.g., like today). Please get your paranoia directed to the right place.
Menzie, (1) “Biassed definition, a particular tendency, trend, inclination, feeling, or opinion, especially one that is preconceived or unreasoned:…” You might note many with biases don’t recognize their tendency or inclination. (2) Serving at the end of a Presidential term, lame duck period, is often considered CV padding by Govt insiders. Carrying over just 5 months of the new Presidential term indicates views out of step with the new administration. (BTW, another indication of bias.) (3) Paranoia? Just noting a tendency I and others have observed.
Also, Menzie, holding a grudge: “Steven Kopits: Sure. When you stop saying the Harvard School of Medicine study was “garbage”.” Is another indication of bias. The most obvious indicator is your unequal treatment of comment/commenters. Ignoring the blog’s comment policy for those who support you: “JDH claimed that the comment policy was that personal attacks or comments devoid of arguments were supposed to be omitted. Why are Moses and Pgl and others like them exempted then? ” If you can not see the personal attacks or comments devoid of arguments in their submissions is just another indication of your bias.
@ CoRev
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/ideas-are-not-the-same-as-race/
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/opinion/26krugman.html?hp
https://www.bradford-delong.com/2015/09/must-read-i-gotta-agree-with-paul-krugman-here-ylan-q-mui-is-smart-and-hard-working-but-she-is-not-doing-the-job-that.html
https://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2011/07/paul-krugman-the-centrist-cop-out.html
CoRev, Menzie’s job is not to coddle and baby your Republican/Trumpian fantasies. Menzie’s job is to cut through and get to the objective facts as best he can. If certain commenters here consistently and over numerous times present disinformation to the point of intentionally misleading readers, and Menzie calls them out, that is not making a “personal attack”. That is calling a spade a spade.
Wow, CoRev, when did you and Kopits become Republican snowflakes?? So sensitive. Have you been hiding out at the “AEI” campus, “insulated” from the real world like all those “Republitards”?? Does the host of this blog need to create a “safe space” for you on this blog now?? Have you been “triggered” CoRev?? Have you become weak and soft like all those “Republitards”?? Hmmmm, which political suasion created and deals and trades in similar style terms?? I seem to have forgotten……
You could learn a lot from this Tweet CoRev. Can you honest to God tell me the last book you read from start to finish?? Front to back cover. I really wanna know.
https://twitter.com/alachia/status/1106316997518856198
BTW, if I was you CoRev and had embarrassed myself as many times as you have on this blog by making ignorant and false comments, including but not limited to soybean prices and international trade, I’d be sad Menzie hadn’t blocked or filtered any of my comments. Is that what you’re sad about?? That Menzie lets everyone here see the real you?? Or were you the same as “Princeton”Kopits and looking for a pro bono research editor??
The Usual Suspects need to get together for a WHINE party!
Just because Dr. Chinn continues to beat you over the head with facts–and your lack of understanding of numerous topics– is no reason to continue being all whiney, CoRev. Although I have to say, the role of the downtrodden, mistreated red headed step child seems more suited to you as time goes by.
Just remember that Rick Stryker was the one who said he had meg-pixel, giga-pixel pictures proving that Trump was correct in saying he had the largest inaugural crowd ever.
That is all you need to know about Stryker in a nutshell.
Lyin’ Joseph lies again. I actually said there were good reasons to suppose that Obama’s inaugural crowd was bigger than Trump’s.
You never try refute what people actually are arguing about in the present–because you can’t. Instead you lie about the past in an attempt to distract.
It would seem reasonable for government to set minimum wage levels for persons 18-years old and older since those people would be eligible for various welfare benefits if they lost their jobs due to some businesses not being able to afford to pay that wage (plus benefits?). One would have to determine the cost to taxpayers for the additional demand for government support versus the benefit (and additional taxes, if any, collected by government) to the economy. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/44995
The impact would not be homogeneous throughout the country. Perhaps it is best left to the individual states. Theoretically, if a state’s minimum wage was significantly lower than an adjacent state’s, low-income people should move to the adjacent state. Realistically, that might not be an option and if the people of the lower wage state really wanted the higher minimum wage, they can vote in representatives who will support that.
Everything you wanted to know about the industry.
https://upserve.com/restaurant-insider/industry-statistics/
Perhaps the worst thread by Professor Chinn; in an attempt
to sally a poster’s reputation.
And those whom support any form of minimum wages are either
advancing their dogma and or demagoguery.
Hans: Thanks. I think you mean “sully” not sally. And “those who support” rather than “those whom support”. Do you really mean anybody who supports a minimum wage is a dogmatist or demagogue? I just want to make sure I understand you clearly.
Thank you for the corrections, Professor Chinn!
I have remanded myself to study hall.
That’s survey hall.
Uh dude – this is another industry lobbyist group. Yea their only agenda is accurate discussions of the effect of higher costs for their patrons. Snicker!
If demand for restaurant meals is rising because incomes are rising in the community, why would the owners reduce employment or hours? Do these owners want their customers to receive worse service? Do they want customers to go to their competitors?
Yes, if economic conditions are deteriorating, then reducing employment and/or hours makes sense, but that always makes sense under those conditions.
Does the restaurant industry think we are all stupid?
Every fast food joint locally is advertising for help. One, which has gone through workers like a warm knife in soft butter, is advertising a starting wage of $13/hr. And I’m not in SoCal or the Bay Area.
Yes the market is setting fast food wages at levels above the legal minimum wage. Anyone who knows even Econ 101 would get that a wage floor below the market wage has no effect. But not Princeton Stephen – it is crystal clear he never took even the basic community college class in economics.
Good point. In Manhattan, the likely incidence of all of this would be on the owners of the property who charge sky high rents. Now if our Usual Suspects really think the Manhattan landlords need to charge higher rents – let me suggest that they do not move here and express this view. New Yorkers can get really enraged on this topic.
Moses mailed this by finding out who put together this self serving survey:
https://thenycalliance.org/about
Doug Griebel is a name I recognized as I have been to his Rosa Mexicano near Union Square. Nice place and I love Mexican food. Last time I was there, the Pollo Abobado was nice but note it costs $24. Yes food in Manhattan can be expensive. But if Princeton Stephen thinks the cost of the cook and the waitress is why, he has never been to New York City. Try the very high rent. I have to rate his abuse of this survey as if it were a study about the food service business in my city the most incredibly stupid comment of all time!
This is a “local” story, but it highlights a negative aspect of private schools (or voucher schools) around the nation. They get taxpayer funding, and then they mistreat or exclude certain segments of children, and also swipe money away from nearby public schools:
https://www.okgazette.com/oklahoma/chicken-fried-news-needs-improvement/Content?oid=5826091
I’m thinking maybe if we had better public schools where funding and resources weren’t siphoned off by private “voucher” schools, maybe commenters on this blog could better decipher the difference between what an objective study is and industry association propaganda.
Menzie dazzles but in point of fact snows readers with this chart. It of course leaves out the most important explanatory variable of restaurant employment which is income. As anyone knows, income is the driver of eating out. There is no monthly NYC income data series. But there is a monthly coincident economic activity index for NY (see FRED). From Jan 2010 to Dec 2018, this activity index explains 96% of the variation (change since 2010) in all employees at full service and limited service restaurants in NYC (FRED). Adding in the minimum wage variable deflated by the NYC-Jersey City CPI (FRED) then raises the explanatory power to 98%. Quite an accomplishment given how much of the variation was already explained.
The t-ratio on the real minimum wage variable is of course negative and statistically significant, at -10. For each real dollar (Dec 2018=$1) increase in the minimum wage, twelve thousand NYC restaurant workers will be put out of work. New York City restaurant owners are hyper aware of this. They are on the ground with their livelihoods at stake in a tremendously competitive market. Qualitatively, this is exactly the expected result they anticipate in the survey Kopits cited that was posthaste denigrated by one of the least knowledgeable commenters here.
Macroeconomics is a magnitude more complex than microeconomics. The lesson here is when someone is this wrong on micro his posts on macro are suspect and should, by the casual reader, be taken with a comparably large-magnitude grain of salt.
What’s the status of those 252,012 indictments? Will they be delivered before or after the burning of the Capitol?
“As anyone knows, income is the driver of eating out.”
Take this to the next level. Yes some in Manhattan have high incomes so they are willing to pay more for eating out. Which is why landlords get to charge insanely high rents. The cost of labor relative to the price of the meal is actually very low. So all this fuss over minimum wages is not well placed.
Professor Chinn,
Given the contentiousness of this post, you may not be in the mood to share the FRED data that you used. I found the three data series shown below, but these may not be correct. I had to add the three series together to seemingly agree with the magnitude of the presented employment data, however, my chart has a bit different shape. Also, I notice that the right scale is identified as a log scale, “Figure 1: New York City minimum wage, in 2018$ (left log scale, blue), restaurant employees (full service, limited service), in 000’s, s.a. (right log scale, red). Deflation using CPI for NYC-Newark-Jersey City, n.s.a. Source: BLS, and author’s calculations.”
I would have thought that the “All Employees” category would have been the sum of the other two data series, but as mentioned, I had to add the three data series together to try to agree with the presented data.
All Employees: Food Services and Drinking Places in New York City, NY (SMU36935617072200001SA)
Employees: Full-Service Restaurants in New York City, NY (SMU36935617072251101SA)
All Employees: Leisure and Hospitality: Limited-Service Restaurants and Other Eating Places in New York City, NY (SMU36935617072259001SA)
Thanks
I forgot to mention that I could not get the report by the NYC Hospitality Alliance to open on my computer.
You know – FRED has a lot of data. And it is all free and available. Maybe you should stop expecting Menzie to be your RA like the rest of the Usual Suspects do.
Request for data series is not requesting RA services. Knowing the exact data series enhances learning.
Why the need to always be snarky?
Menzie may not be totally explicit at all times but his sourcing data far exceeds what we normally see either from our whiney Usual Suspects or right wing hacks. And yes I have at times differed from what he said and at all times I have tried to provide my sources. Not always perfectly. Now if your sourcing is 100% explicit – I bow down to your research and communication skills.
AS,
I noticed that too but wasn’t going to bother to mention. Since you asked, the number of restaurant employees in full and limited service restaurants seems to be significantly overstated. If you look at labor statistics for the nyc region, specifically at the spreadsheet in “NYC Current Employment Statistics Latest Month,” you see that in Jan 19, full service restaurants had 161.3 thousand employees while limited service restaurants had 103.6 thousand employees, for a total of 264.9 thousand. Menzie has almost 600K employees, so something seems very wrong.
AS: Thanks for the tip. I finally got to check. You are right! New corrected post up.
OK, I get it. In the greatest economy this country has ever experienced (just ask any Trumper)—with “Help Wanted” signs posted at every restaurant in town and wages rising like crazy (ask the same Trumpers), any increase in the minimum wage will devastate said economy, cripple the restaurant bidness, force the layoffs of millions, and send us back into recession.
In a nutshell, the quality of “econbrowser” is going down the drain,
some kind of “left-wing-breitbart” is on the horizon.
Jim is looking forward to his retirement, less posts from him – what now ?
Paul the Kroogman? Yes we have a Donald Luskin style troll!
Maybe, for the California haters, Dr. Hamilton deserting the mean streets of La Jolla for someplace more comfortable and more sophisticated with better weather like Wichita or Texarkana?
O’noneconomist
Texarkana? Ugh. I was stationed there for a year. We used to call it Murder, USA because it seemed like every week they’d find a body on one side or the other of State Line Ave. Baptist Bible book stores on the Texas side of the road directly across from the drive-thru liquor stores. For culture you went to Bossier City, LA.
Presumably Dr. Hamilton is busy working on his NCAA bracket competition.
@ 2slugbaits
Eaten a 2–3 times in Texarkana and driven through TONS of times. Probably a relatively long time after you were there. Truckstop where the ground was off-kilter. It was a “hole-in-the-wall” type place, but most truckstops are, I actually liked it. The food was good and the waitresses were kind. Just a smile and some courtesy from an attractive waitress can mean a lot when you drove 550–600 miles in one day. I’m kinda weird, outside of maybe the darkest parts of Detroit or the more “unnerving” parts of Baltimore, etc, I kinda like those places with some “character” in them. Of course that’s easy to say when you’re only visiting them. Trying to sell your house to get out….. might be a different story. That area, (because it is right near the state line, has, kind of, hard to find the right word, not “magical” but an odd quality to it—my lexicon fails me at the moment. And I agree the Arkansas side tends to be “weirder”, shall we say. I would try to pick up local papers back then, which usually went unread because the work, but I remember one story about an Arkansas minister who was sexually abusing a significant portion of his “parish” (more like cult). Those areas have tons of those stories that never make the national news. Ozarks is also a weird place (but more friendly than that area around Texarkana I would say). I don’t personally believe in ghosts, and I believe that demons do in fact exist but are very rare “in our times” if that makes any sense. Those areas, though again, I do not believe in ghosts, can have a powerful kind of suasion into making a person think that ghosts do in fact exist. There is just something “hanging in the air” there. A feeling like many dark things have happened and still have some kind of “lingering”. Many crimes are committed near interstate highways because homeless, prostitutes, hitchhikers, beggars, journeyman laborers, on and on and on. Women will use their babies to get sympathy for drug money. Many women will hold their baby up to your personal space and claim they need food money to feed the child, when a large % (though not all) have no intention of using it for food money. And it’s really demoralizing and killing to the soul telling these women “No” when you know 2 out of the 10 asking may actually be sincere and need the money for food. I have done that, and it sticks with you long afterwards. Interstate highways also provide quick “getaway” routes after crimes are committed. That area is fascinating.
YUP!
Can you feel the love people??
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6006079300001/#sp=show-clips
Finally….. an objective, “fair and balanced” media source for “Princeton”Kopits
https://youtu.be/3zWsTnSl9hk?t=8
Princeton Stephen finally got a “news organization” to take his intellectual garbage seriously? OK it was racist and dishonest Faux News but let’s give him a little credit. Nice suit and nice delivery of his usual crap! Dick Cheney made a habit of going on Faux News too as he knew he could lied serially without no interruptions.
Now that I listened to this and it is amazing that the morons at Faux News are so much smarter than Princeton Stephen. A strong job market is a reason to apply for asylum? That people are fleeing death in Central America is not a reason. Oh Lord – is Princeton Stephen the dumbest person on the planet? It seems so.
OK the whole premise is that half a million BROWN people might cross the border is horrible. It is a “black market” with drugs and prostitution. Yes at his core Princeton Stephen is even more a racist than Trump. I guess that is why Faux News invited this racist idiot on!
Imagine how smooth Hitler’s propaganda people were at the beginning of the party takeover in Germany. It all starts with guys in suits on TV or films speaking in code. The translation is “Let’s get rid of all these dirty hispanics and latinos”. But that’s harder to explain than using the code that “Princeton”Kopits has self-educated himself on. The same as incorrectly using statistics terminology and mathematical protocol sounds better than “Puerto Ricans are not people, so it doesn’t count when they die needlessly”. When you’re feeding poison to the masses you can’t really say “Here’s some arsenic”, you add it in the V-8 juice and tell them it’s beta-carotene.
Rick Stryker: ” I actually said there were good reasons to suppose that Obama’s inaugural crowd was bigger than Trump’s. “
Here are Stryker’s actual words regarding Trump’s claim that his crowd was the biggest in history: “I’ve looked at this more closely and I think at this point it’s much more clear that the NY Times did not make an honest mistake but is in fact being dishonest.”
You said there were gigpixel pictures that prove it. Yet it was pointed out that there was minute by minute video of the entire day of Trump’s inauguration that show there was no sudden surge of late Trump arrivals. As the pictures showed, there was mostly empty space before Trump. The crowd was quite small compared to Obama – not even debatable by anyone with at least one good eye.
Nowhere does Stryker say “there are good reasons to suppose [suppose?!] that Obama’s inaugural crowd was bigger than Trump’s.”
Stryker has been in the bag for Trump literally from day one, the inauguration, of his administration. He will do and say anything to debase himself before his Dear Leader defending Trump’s lies. And don’t get me started on the time Stryker got exercised about ninja terrorists attacking the U.S. from Canada across Lake Erie on Jet Skis.
It’s useful to realize he is just a sycophantic nut because it saves a lot of time debunking his gibberish.
remember joseph, rick stryker has accepted that trump lies (or any lies for that matter) are acceptable as long as they promote his world view. rick stryker really does believe that alternative facts exist in the universe.
Lyin’ Joseph lies again. How do I know he’s lying? Because he’s made this allegation before and I’ve then linked to my exact words before to correct him. He knows that but keeps lying. For those who don’t want to follow the link, here’s what I actually said:
“VOX speculates that the number is between 250K and 1.5 million. Who knows, but I’d think there are a number of reasons to think that Obama’s 2009 inauguration had more people:
1) Obama’s inauguration was an historic event, and many people probably attended who didn’t support him
2) Although many Republicans disagreed with Obama, they have too much respect for the law and the office of the Presidency to protest violently as progressives did on inauguration day and too much decorum to plan a large march against Obama. Trump supporters who wanted to attend the inauguration had to compete with protesters and marchers for plane seats, train seats, hotel rooms, etc. There are only so many to go around. Also, there were reports that progressives might get violent, and that no doubt deterred some people from coming to the inauguration.
3) Obama had strong support in the East Coast states close to DC. It’s a short trip for them and they didn’t have to compete with protesters for transportation and hotel rooms. Trump had strong support in states much farther away, in the midwest, etc, so it’s a more arduous trip for them.”
just to be clear, those are not facts. they are rick stryker’s opinions, expressed as excuses, for why trump had such a poor inaugural showing. and they are pretty poor excuses. they almost sound like whining.
Ha, ol’ Rick. Rick’s first response to Trump’s lie about his inaugural crowd was to call the New York Times the liar and Trump the truth teller. It was only later, after the ridiculousness of his position became irrefutable that Stryker then began to backtrack.
So next, he claimed that Trump never said what he obviously said. But that argument didn’t hold up long as the Trump tweets poured out and Trump ordered his press secretary to lie directly to the press.
So Stryker then switched to making ridiculous excuses for why Trump’s crowd was so much smaller than Obama’s — it was because anti-Trump protestors had bought up all the plane tickets and hotel rooms so that Trump supporters couldn’t get there. I’m not joking. That was Stryker’s argument.
And note that this argument does nothing to address Trump’s lie, the one that Stryker initially defended. It just diverts to finding excuses for Trump’s pathetic crowd turnout.
There is simply no limit to how far Stryker will debase himself in defense of his Dear Leader.
Shouldn’t we all be cheering on one of Econbrowser’s
alums making Fox & Hound? Congrats to Mr Kopits!
I cannot wait to see either, Baffling; Moses; Notorious PGL
or Slugbaits, make CNN with Don “I am a” Lemon.
Professor Chinn, would be an excellent fit on Bloomberg
network.
Hans: Sure, kinda like Brezhnev being interviewed by TASS. Although perhaps unfair to Brezhnev…