Posted on 08/03/2006 11:38:52 AM PDT by freemarket_kenshepherd
As Congress debated sending a minimum wage increase to President’s Bush desk for signing, ABC’s Betsy Stark promised “A Closer Look” at the issue but delivered anything but.
In her August 2 “World News Tonight” story, Stark stacked the deck in favor of the wage increase, using five sound bites either in favor of an increase or critical of the current $5.15 federal wage floor. What’s more, Stark left viewers with the impression that economists are unanimous in believing the wage hike would have little or no negative impact on the poor.
Stark aimed to knock down that anti-increase argument by consulting economist Bill Cheney of financial service firm John Hancock. “If you go back in time to the earlier occasions when we raised minimum wages, it's clear that you can't find in the data any clear evidence of significant job losses,” Cheney argued.
Lost jobs are just one measure of how minimum wage increases can hurt the poor, and plenty of economists have a view different from Cheney’s, but Stark failed to feature them in her story.
“A survey published in the Winter 2005 Journal of Economic Perspectives, an academic publication, reports that 71 percent of economists at America’s top universities agree with the statement ‘a minimum wage increases unemployment among the young and unskilled,’” wrote The Heritage Foundation’s Tim Kane in a March 4, 2005, research brief.
“About one-third of the economists agree outright, and another third agree with reservations,” Kane added, noting “the consensus among top economists is that the very existence of a minimum wage harms those who, according to its supporters, need it most.”
[for full story, click on link to article]
(Excerpt) Read more at businessandmedia.org ...
How much should you pay someone that has no experience and how much are you spending to teach them a job.
I think part of the minimum wage caculation is the employers cost to actually teach people a job.
If these Leftists had any compassion at all they'd raise the minimum wage up to $50/hr.
As usual, this is all just soundbites from the Left, that provide a diservice to the working poor.
Employers who provide some health and retirement benefits should be given a waiver or allowed a lower cash wage. However, that would just clutter their soundbites, so the folks who would gladly accept these benefits in lieu of cash lose out.
He worked hard and earned a raise to $5.50 in July 2005.
He worked hard and earned a raise to $6.00 in January 2006.
He worked hard and earned a raise to $6.50 in July 2006.
So, if this law passes, he gets bumped to $7.00, or whatever the Kennedys and Kerrys decide is a "fair" wage.
But he's gotta watch the next guy coming in, just as green as he himself was two years ago, and get the same amount.
Or, the employer could offer him $9.00, because he's a few steps above the entry lovel (not likely).
Any guesses how this guy's going to feel?
I would suggest peeking at Betsy Stark's W-2 to answer that question.
Let's say you start them off at two thirds of the going rate with a progressing step raise that ends after four years. If they last long enough and you feel that they learned the job everyone wins.
It would be extra nice if there was an outsider that picked up that difference either in classroom work or the wage difference.
$50 an hour? Can't do that, those doctors and lawyers make more. We need to bump it up to $500 an hour. Give everybody a nice level playing field...
Shut down the border and eliminate Nafta, Cafta and the WTO and we won't need minimum wage...
Everyone here on FR says the economy is doing great...Wages are up...Buying power is up...That translates to small businesses making a killing...
If an employer makes more, no reason not to pass on a little to the employess...
You're on to something there and I think that's another negative impact of the minimum wage increase.
They should just make the damn minimum wage $100 an hour and we'll all be rich! Yeah, that's it!
False dichotomy. Free trade helps to promote a lower cost of living, higher standard of living, and international cooperation which lessens potential for conflict.
Keep in mind it was rabid anti-free-trade sentiment that sparked Smoot-Hawley which exacerbated the Great Depression as other countries erected heavy barriers to US trade in reply to our protectionism. This in turn aggravated the Great Depression and made it worse than it had to be and that led to economic discontent and sowed some of the seeds for fascist regimes to arise in Italy, Japan, and Germany.
Free trade and free enterprise have been a beneficial glue post-World War II that have bound the US and our allies together. As opposed to us politically as some of our allies can be, we are great trading partners and that ultimately helps keep them in our corner (Canada, Australia, UK, Italy, etc.).
As Bastiat said: when goods can't cross borders freely, armies will.
Free trade unleashes the best in economic competition and makes the world economy efficient and extremely productive, which in turn is the rising tide that lifts everyone's boat.
whatever both sides agree to.
I am in favor of everyone getting CEO pay!
But that's because their economies are similar to ours...
Free trade unleashes the best in economic competition and makes the world economy efficient and extremely productive, which in turn is the rising tide that lifts everyone's boat.
I don't see that being the case...And your analogy I believe is wrong...It's not a tide...It's a wave...The third world economies are at the bottom of the wave...We and the countries stated earlier are at the top of the wave...The globalists are trying to flatten the wave...While those in the bottom of the swell will rise, we have no choice but to go down...
False dichotomy. Free trade helps to promote a lower cost of living, higher standard of living, and international cooperation which lessens potential for conflict.
I wish that were true...However, Congress is getting a 'cost of living' raise of $3000.00 plus...This is based on the gov't's Cost of Living Index...
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