(or RGFS, or some other trade organization or arbitral dispute body- i.e. special trade court) as an attempt to weasel out of our obligations to open up to foreign services firms, if they have to pay it. this is a longstanding dispute that goes back 20 years-

they actually do not want wage parity because they see "high" US (and other developed countries0 minimum wages as being used to keep their services firms- whose main compatitive advantage as being their low wages, out.

Also, trade deals have clauses- known as ratchet and standstill clauses, which limit "nonconforming measures" (broadly, all regulations just about can be framed as non-conforming, it sometimes seems) to those which existed at the signing of the agreements. 9they also have rollback clauses which can be utilized to roll back regulations to some earlier state- for example, they could be used with parts of the ACA) I know it sounds unreasonable and it is, but its been argued I think at least twice that any "regulation" which manipulates the conditions relating to workers employment which has an "adverse effect" on profitability of foreign multinational firms operating here as part of a multilateral trade agreement- would violate these agreements and that governments should pay for it- (See for example, Veolia Propreté v. Arab Republic of Egypt) This is the bizarre and horrid world of international investment deals. So, its possible that an organization like the WTO could decide to tell us how to pay workers if foreign firms here under special trade deals were made subject to US wage laws- the alternative- to let them have their workers work for anything they can agree on is to many equally odious-

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Nye Bevan

(25,406 posts)

6. "Puerto Rico’s crisis illustrates the risks of minimum wage hikes"

Reply to tenderfoot (Original post)

Fri Apr 1, 2016, 04:09 PM

Apr 2016

Prior to 1974, Congress held Puerto Rico’s minimum wage below that of the mainland, a sensible policy given the commonwealth’s lower level of economic development and labor productivity.

Then, with the best of intentions, lawmakers ordered Puerto Rico to equalize its rate with the federal figure; this was phased in by 1983, and the Puerto Rican minimum wage has moved in lock-step with the federal minimum ever since.

The results were sharply disruptive, according to a 1992 National Bureau of Economic Research analysis. They included “substantially reduced employment on the island” and mass migration of suddenly unemployable lower-skilled workers to the U.S. mainland.

....

In short, the minimum wage is a major reason for what a newly published report by two former and one current International Monetary Fund economists calls “the single most telling statistic in Puerto Rico”: Only 40 percent of the adult population on the island is employed or looking for a job — versus a U.S. labor force participation rate of 63 percent.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/puerto-ricos-lesson-for-the-mainland/2015/07/08/24e63970-25ad-11e5-b77f-eb13a215f593_story.html

Now it appears that Puerto Rico is likely to cut its minimum wage:

http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/31/investing/puerto-rico-congress-bill/

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