Labor

The New York Times would like for you to know that, after attending the annual meeting of the American Economic Association where they sat in on multiple presentations on the economic impacts of minimum wage, they can now confirm what most of us have known for most of our adult lives, namely that basic economic supply/demand models actually work.

Apparently, the NYT was pleasantly surprised when the first presentation suggested that higher minimum wage didn't actually result in job losses, just lower hours, but then quickly realized it's basically the same thing.

As the City of Dallas continues to work with the Dallas Police and Fire Pension (DPFP) board on solutions to help close the pension's massive $4 billion funding hole, Standard & Poor's has finally decided that the "continued deterioration in the funded status" of the fund merits a downgrade.  As such, S&P has downgraded the city's general obligation bonds to "AA-" from "AA" and placed them on "negative watch."  Per the Dallas Business Journal:

With Amazon having an exponentially growing (if mostly part-time) work force, which as of Q3 amounted to just shy of 320,000 employees...

... not to mention a surging robotic support base, on Thursday the rapidly growing internet retailer issued a press release stating it "plans to create an additional 100,000 full-time, full-benefit jobs in the U.S. over the next 18 months."  Of course, it is likely that Amazon would have added that number of jobs anyway, simply by extrapolating its current growth rate.

Submitted by Brittany Hunter via The Mises Institute,

At the end of last year, Amazon unveiled, “Amazon Go,” a futuristic, fully-automated convenience store set to open its doors in Seattle, Washington, within the next few months. While this exciting new venture promises to make quick-stop shopping trips easier for busy consumers, critics are wary of this type of advanced automation, and fear its widespread use could jeopardize a vast amount of jobs.

There was some modest concern early this morning that the tenure of the new Italian cabinet of Paolo Gentiloni could be short lived, following a decision by Italy's constitutional court this morning, which might have approved a referendum on worker reinstatement rights.