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Even More Research that Raising Minimum Wage is Good for Everyone

- Adam Clare

happy workers in a factory

Haters keep telling us that minimum wage is too high, which is really saying they would love free labour for private profits. Those haters are also not thinking about the economy at large. A new, massive, study on the impact of minimum wage concludes that minimum wage increases help people who aren’t currently being paid enough and that the benefits to that group cascade upwards on the economic ladder. Trickle down economics is a clear failure and trickle up economics looks rather effective!

The study is indeed impressive. Census researchers Kevin Rinz and John Voorheis used data from the bureau’s Annual Social and Economic Supplement, which surveys more than 75,000 households. The authors then link this data with administrative filings from the Social Security Administration on wages and track the changes between 1991 and 2013. The study stands out for covering such a large number of people over such an extended period.

“[R]aising the minimum wage increases earnings growth at the bottom of the distribution, and those effects persist and indeed grow in magnitude over several years,” the authors write. At the same time, there’s little indication that other people will lose their jobs as a result of the minimum wage—the outcome conservatives always warn about.

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Here’s an Optimistic Savings Chart

- Adam Clare

Retirement grid

Retirement is a dream too far away for people to think about. We’re all really bad at thinking about the future and we often don’t want to think about money. Four Pillar Freedom put together the early retirement grid to address these concerns, and indeed retirement is something you can achieve. As with most issues in our society you can start making a positive impact on the world by buying less and reusing things more.

The sweet spot of the grid is found in the line of light yellow and green squares that cut through the middle. Each of those squares is in the 16 to 28 years range. They represent how many years you would need to work if you saved between 30% and 50% of your after-tax income. For many people, saving that much is a tough but realistic goal.

Considering the average person works for over 40 years, getting that number down to 28 is no small feat! That represents 12 extra years of your life where you get to do what you want, when you want, on your own terms.

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African Development Bank is Going Green

- Adam Clare

solar

Banks have a reputation for being too greedy for the good of anyone outside themselves; however, some banks are thinking in the long term. The African Development Bank has announced a partnership with Green Climate Fund to push renewable energy and resilient systems. They figure that Africa is the best part of the world to achieve a sustainable economy because of the increasing investment in the continent and the ability to ‘leap frog’ older energy technology.

Together with the Green Climate Fund, we can do a lot to move the continent towards low-carbon and climate-resilient development.”

Approved as a GCF Accredited Entity in March 2016, AfDB is working on a series of mitigation and adaptation initiatives at the national and regional levels designed to enhance African countries’ access to GCF resources.

GCF Executive Director, Howard Bamsey said GCF’s partnership with AfDB will be key in unlocking the potential across the African continent to pursue climate resilient and low-emission growth.

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Use a Bot to Make Ethical Investments

- Adam Clare

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money

A new company, OpenInvest, wants you to use its bots to make your monetary life more ethical. A very popular way to invest in the market is to use index funds, which are a smorgasbord of stocks which will hopefully rise with the stock market as a whole. Most people don’t control what’s in their index fund because it’s managed by a large firm. However, OpenInvest (and others) want you to design your own index fund based on your morals. The fund is created by answering questions and proclaiming what you don’t want to invest in (like arms or mining). The service is only available in the USA at the moment so let’s hope that competitors pop up proving ethical investing like this.

But instead of buying stocks through index funds, as the other robos do, OpenInvest uses individual stocks. Users click through a series of menus to create an “issue profile,” checking boxes to select investment themes—such as gender equality or reduced carbon emissions—as well as groups of companies to exclude. The preset screens lean left. Users can nix weapons manufacturers, tobacco companies, and even those whose executives have backed Donald Trump.

Based on those preferences, OpenInvest creates a basket of more than 60 stocks that both jibes with its customers’ wishes and should, the company says, track the broader market. It balances factors such as size, sector, and each stock’s sensitivity to the market’s ups and downs. OpenInvest says it’s still passive because beating the market isn’t a goal.

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What Will We Think of the Banks in Years to Come?

- Adam Clare

IN this TED talk, Michael Metcalfe wonders how will we look back on banks in the future. Will we think of the banks as an unethical industry that contributed greatly to climate change or as a tool that can be used to help the environment.

Will we do whatever it takes to fight climate change? Back in 2008, following the global financial crisis, governments across the world adopted a “whatever it takes” commitment to monetary recovery, issuing $250 billion worth of international currency to stem the collapse of the economy. In this delightfully wonky talk, financial expert Michael Metcalfe suggests we can use that very same unconventional monetary tool to fund a global commitment to a green future.

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