minimum wage
105 pieces tagged “minimum wage”, newest first.
$15 an Hour. Why Not $30? Why Not $100?
There is a single thought that unites the political parties of the left all over the world (from welfare state liberals to socialists and communists) and it is this: incentives don't matter. And since prices are the mechanism that coordinates incentives and clears markets, it follows that prices don't matter either. What other explanation can there be for something senseless that is about to happen in California: A $15 minimum wage, soon to be mandated for almost every employee in the state?
Minimum Wage Dishonesty
Michael Hiltzik, a columnist and Los Angeles Times reporter, wrote an article titled "Does a minimum wage raise hurt workers? Economists say: We don't know." Uncertain was his conclusion from a poll conducted by the Initiative on Global Markets, at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, of 42 nationally ranked economists on the question of whether raising the federal minimum wage to $15 over the next five years would reduce employment opportunities for low-wage workers.
Walmart Wage Hikes Come With a Steep Price
The retail giant raised its own minimum wage.
Minimum Wage Effects Already Evident in Seattle
Some workers got a raise, but others lost their paychecks altogether.
Seattle CEO Experiences Fallout of $70K Minimum Wage
Life is rough when Economics 101 gets in the way.
Good Intentions and Unintended Effects of the Minimum Wage
In November 2016, District of Columbia voters may get a chance to vote on a proposal to raise the hourly minimum wage to $15. If approved, the measure would lift D.C.'s minimum wage to be on a par with those in such liberal cities as Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. But though the $4.50 jump from its current level might help a few workers, it would hurt many others, alongside consumers and businesses in some parts of the city. On the surface, this might seem like a way to increase the standard of living for lower-income workers in the district, but in reality, the policy would most likely backfire. For instance, research by economists David Neumark of the University of California, Irvine, William Wascher of the Federal Reserve Board and Mark Schweitzer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland shows that minimum wages increase poverty — and hence poverty reduction shouldn't be expected as a benefit of raising the minimum wage. That's because, contrary to common belief, the relationship between low wages and poverty is extremely weak.
How to Kill the Summer Job
I had a lot of summer jobs. I was a foot messenger in New York for a couple of summers. I worked as a receptionist and mail room flunky. Before my junior year of high school, I briefly sold ice cream snacks — sort of yuppie bonbons — on the street for a company called Love Bites. The uniform was a tight red T-shirt (with a cupid over the heart), a straw hat, cane and snug brown shorts. When my manager asked me to work weekend nights in the (famously gay) West Village, I defected to a company that sold Italian ices. First, I didn't want to work nights. But at 16, I also wasn't ready to say, "Hey mister, would you like a Love Bite?" to the gang leaving the Stonewall Inn. Truth be told, all I wanted out of most of these gigs was beer money. Today, however, psychologists, educators and economists all talk about the benefits of summer jobs in the context of acquiring "life skills."