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To: Ilaine who wrote (105557)	5/30/2001 1:12:04 PM
From: Don Lloyd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

CB - Lots of stuff - input "minimum wage black teenagers" on google. You'll probably agree with Holmes Eleanor Norton - so what if the minimum wage increases unemployment among black teenagers, it helps their mothers and fathers. To which I would respond, their mothers and fathers don't work for minimum wage. Raising the minimum wage doesn't affect other wages, just wages for entry level workers. Helps preserve the status quo for those who already have jobs. Doesn't matter to me - I haven't worked for minimum wage in 34 years, and even teenagers around here get paid at least $7/hr. The people who believe in the legal minimum wage always try to justify it with the correct observation that even a full time worker paid the minimum wage would seem to have an impossible time providing any kind of adequate living standard for a family. This true as far as it goes, but no attempt is made to figure out how they get along. My suspicion is that the families that actually stay together and off welfare and crime are actually working 2,3 or 4 minimum wage jobs. If this is true, I cannot understand how increasing the minimum wage and making some or all of those jobs illegal represents any kind of improvement. amazon.com Rewarding Work : How to Restore Participation and Self-Support to Free Enterprise by Edmund S. Phelps Editorial Reviews George Soros "In this important book Edmund Phelps argues that the breakdown of basic societal norms is a consequence rather than a cause of economic disadvantage. His proposal of wage subsidies blends a pro-capitalist preference with a strong concern for social values and justice. This book is an important contribution to the debate on how to deal with economic disadvantage." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. Lawrence Summers "Edmund Phelps' ideas are always new, always interesting, and always worthy of serious study. Creating work for all may be our greatest social problem. Phelps' strategy deserves serious consideration and debate." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. Book Description Since the 1970s, a gulf has opened between the pay of low-paid workers and the pay of the middle class. No longer able to earn a decent wage in respectable work, many have left the labor force, and the job attachment of those remaining has weakened, also reducing employment. For Edmund Phelps, this is a failure of political economy whose ill effects have spread widely and are undermining the free-enterprise system itself. His solution is a graduated schedule of tax subsidies to enterprises for every low-wage worker they hire. As firms hire more of these workers, the labor market would tighten, driving up their pay levels as well as their employment. Ingram Political economist Edmund Phelps underscores the importance of earning a respectable wage to foster self-worth and responsibility. However, the wide gulf between the wages of low-paid workers and those of the middle class, along with the availability of welfare, has resulted in lack of loyalty or incentive among common workers. Phelps calls for re-engineering our economic system to help low-wage American workers achieve self-sufficiency and self-respect. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From the Back Cover [Phelps] takes the view that many Americans have been driven out of working life, and deprived of all the physical and psychological succor that work provides, simply because their wages are too low, especially when the amount they are able to earn is compared with the amount they can 'earn' in payments and kind via the welfare system by doing no work at all ... Phelps makes his economic case with forensic clarity.-Peter David, Wall Street Journal About the Author Edmund Phelps is McVickar Professor of Political Economy, Columbia University. He is also the author of Structural Slumps (published by Harvard) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. Regards, Don