Jan 18

President elect Joe Biden proposes a $15 minimum wage claiming it will lift 1 million people out of poverty.

Clearly, it is not possible to pay current rents working full time at the current minimum wage. That needs to be addressed. I said similarly in New York Times interviews in 1991 and 2010:

“On $673 a month, how do you buy tennis shoes for the kids, clean shirts for school and still pay your rent?” Mr. Ballering said.
($673 was the W2, WI’s welfare program, cash payment in 2010)

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/us/19evict.html

I do not think increased minimum wage is the answer though. Such programs will cause rapid inflation, leaving those making minimum wages in a similar position in a few years as they are today. A better answer is something like FoodShare for Housing, which addresses the needs without rampant inflation.

The person with some skills who is making $15 dollars an hour today is not going to accept the person with no skills making the same amount, they will demand more. Now that the former $15 an hour person is making $25, the one-time $15 an hour person will expect $40—this causing the costs of goods and services to rapidly increase.

The other factor is it will result in far less lower-paid jobs, as companies will move work overseas and automate all that can be done by a machine. But you can’t replace the hamburger flipper … oh wait, they just did. Miso Robotics Flippy robot for $30,0000 replaces 3-4 employees, produces better quality and works 100,000 hours between major servicing. 24/7 staff for 30¢ an hour, no overtime, no worker comp, no paid holidays, no calling in sick because there was a Packer Game last night…

At many fast food places, when you talk into the drive-through speaker, you are speaking to someone that is in an off-site call center. When was the last time you were at Home Depot or or the large grocery chain store that the checkout person was not you? 😉

The winners of the increased minimum wage programs will be people who own hard assets when the increase becomes law. THe more you own at the beginning of an inflationary cycle, the more you win at the end.

The biggest winners will be those with a fixed rate mortgage. Let’s say you own a $100,000 duplex with a $75k loan. Today you have $25k and 25% equity. Ten years at 7% inflation, and it is worth just shy of $200k. Now you have $125k and 62% equity, plus your principal paydown. If inflation hits 12%, you reach those numbers in 6 years.

Crazy- This will never happen. But it did. From 1973 to 1981, we saw an average of 9.25% inflation, with three years over 12%. Mortgage interest rates in 1981 were north of 18%. Interest rates were over 8% for the entire period of 1973 to 1992.

If they pass a new minimum wage, the smart answer might be to buy as much highly leveraged real estate as you can manage, unless, of course, the inflation it causes and the trillions spent on COVID relief crash the entire economy…

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