It is now believed by many economists that hikes in minimum wage have little or no negative effects.
This is, of course, absolutely wrong.
But first, there is the question longshort keeps asking -- why not set the MW at $100/hour? The answer, of course, is that it is a matter of basic economics that it would disrupt the economy. We know that. You should have learned that in any economics course you have taken.
The principal argument in favor of a MW at all is that on balance, the poor are better off than without it. It costs jobs, but to a point, that is more tolerable than having plenty of low-wage jobs.
In fact, until the work of Card & Kruger in the early 90s (conveniently, coincidental with Clinton's claim that increasing the MW doesn't reduce employment), practically NOBODY would have argued the point, because almost EVERY economist knew that increasing the MW would reduce employment. And frankly, the work of Card & Kruger is a bit inexplicable, and thus, is of questionable validity.
35 years ago in grad school, we did a survey of this subject, and even then, the research on this subject was indisputable. There were 100s of articles on the subject, and almost all showed conclusively that increasing the MW reduced employment.
You are way, way, way off base on this claim. |
