In his speech yesterday, Obama once again proposed increasing the minimum wage. Douglas Holtz-Eakin opposes the idea: According to recent American Action Forum research, 80 percent of minimum wage workers are not actually in poverty, increasing the federal minimum to $10, as some have proposed, wouldn’t benefit 99 percent of the people in poverty. Myriad research indicates that raising … Continue reading Does Raising The Minimum Wage Make Cents?
Nick Hanauer wants to raise it to $15: True, that sounds like a lot. When President Barack Obama called in February for an increase to $9 an hour from $7.25, he was accused of being a dangerous redistributionist. Yet consider this: If the minimum wage had simply tracked U.S. productivity gains since 1968, it would be $21.72 an … Continue reading Should We Maximize The Minimum Wage?
As the minimum wage debate gains attention in DC, Spencer Woodman shines a spotlight on spending cuts to the agencies responsible for enforcing minimum wage laws: Budget cuts are no surprise in an era of austerity. Yet the effect of these cuts on wage-and-hour investigative units—charged with examining and settling wage disputes—has seriously compromised an … Continue reading Skirting The Minimum Wage
Friedersdorf traces them: In 1912, Massachusetts enacted America’s first minimum wage law, but it only applied to women and children. Unlike men, they were deemed weak, and in need of protection from employers. As an empirical matter, their wages were much lower and their working conditions more dismal. There was also social unease with the … Continue reading The Sexist Origins Of The Minimum Wage
In the above video, Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee worries that raising the minimum wage will keep teenagers out of the workforce, preventing them from gaining valuable experience: I remember my first job, when I was working at a retail store, growing up down there in Laurel, Mississippi, I was making like $2.15 an hour. … Continue reading Debating The Minimum Wage, Ctd
Contra Barro, Noah Millman believes that raising the minimum wage is superior to increasing the EITC. Among other arguments: [A] hike in the minimum wage creates incentives to improve productivity, while a hike in the EITC has the opposite effect. A hike in the EITC makes it more possible for employees to continue to work, and survive, … Continue reading An Alternative To Raising The Minimum Wage, Ctd
Increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a more effective and cheaper response to poverty than raising the minimum wage. Josh Barro explains why tinkering with the EITC isn’t on the table: The big reason is that a bigger EITC would grow the federal budget deficit, while a minimum wage increase is “free.” Of course, it’s not really free — … Continue reading An Alternative To Raising The Minimum Wage, Ctd
Mark Perry points out that relatively few workers make the minimum wage: The notion that there are millions of full-time workers struggling to raise a family, but are stuck in jobs paying the minimum wage for long periods of time is more myth than fact. Almost all full-time workers (99.4%) are earning more than the … Continue reading The Minimum Wage Minority
A reader quotes me from last night: Does [Obama] believe that raising the minimum wage would have no impact on jobs growth? Does he believe it would actually increase employment and growth? Here are three sources – 1, 2, 3 (pdf) -showing that changes in the minimum wage have little effect on employment, and the little effect … Continue reading Debating The Minimum Wage
Evan Soltas suggests increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit: Liberal arguments for increasing the minimum wage have a fundamental flaw: They restrict the set of policy choices to either a minimum wage increase or doing nothing. That means they overlook the single most important federal policy for the poor: the Earned Income Tax Credit. The EITC is a measure … Continue reading An Alternative To Raising The Minimum Wage
