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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (26113)	2/15/2008 12:33:01 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

The one position I don't get of his is that he is advocating increasing the unemployment among blacks. Well it seems that one of these ideas probably explains that. I don't know which one. What's your guess? 1 - He believes there will be no significant harm. He honestly believe it won't increase unemployment. Many Democrats believe this. The more sophisticated ones point to a study by David card and Alan B. Krueger, about workers in New Jersey when the minimum wage was increase and unemployment didn't increase, and according to Card and Krueger the increase had no negative effect on employment. But the majority of economic studies find that increases in minimum wage do have a negative effect on employment (which doesn't necessarily mean it rises, if other factors are pushing it down it may go down, but not as much as it would have without the wage increase). Even if you assume Card and Krueger's study was correct, that would only seem to imply that the minimum in NJ was below the market clearing rate for unskilled labor. To give a more extreme version of this to demonstrate the point. Imagine a minimum wage of a dime per hour, now increase it to twenty cents per hour. You double the wage but its unlikely to have any significant effect on employment in today's economy. 2 - He recognizes that it will harm some, but thinks the benefit for those that do keep their jobs and get more will outweigh this harm. 3 - He thinks that its immoral to pay anyone less than what he considers a minimum living wage, and he isn't concerned about, or at least isn't focusing on the practical results. 4 - He's just following a standard Democratic talking point without a lot of thought. 5 - He recognizes its causing him harm, but figures it will be politically advantageous of him to push the idea, so he makes the cynical decision to push it.