Posted on 01/09/2014 5:35:21 AM PST by Kaslin
CNN's Candy Crowley seems absolutely, positively astonished that Republicans could oppose raising the minimum wage and extending unemployment benefits.
To her Republican guest, Crowley asked this "question": "If I am an unemployed American ... or if I am a minimum wage worker and I see Republicans who say, 'You know what? It's artificial, it messes with the marketplace, it might mean some teens can't get into the job market,' why would I become a Republican?"
Crowley's "question" implies that raising minimum wages and extending unemployment benefits for the out-of-work are clearly positive no-brainers. After all, a recent Gallup poll found 76 percent of Americans support an increase, as do 58 percent of Republicans.
First, the minimum wage. Economist and Princeton professor Alan Krueger served as the chair of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. His famous Card-Krueger study is by far the most widely cited study in the last 20 years on the effect of minimum wage increases. Krueger and colleague David Card concluded that -- surprise, surprise -- an increase in minimum wage in New Jersey resulted in an increase
in employment, not a decline as anti-minimum wage foes predicted. Excited minimum wage advocates channeled Dr. Frankenstein: "It's alive! It's alive!"
But while the Card-Krueger study is the most widely cited; it is also one of the most widely restudied. Upon examination by peers, the study fails to hold up. In fact, it has been so broadly and credibly attacked, one wonders why so many still cite it.
The conservative think tank Heritage Foundation wrote "Liberals Laud Alan Krueger's Fatally Flawed Minimum Wage Study." Heritage said: "Subsequent reviews of the study showed fatal flaws that undermined its findings. In 1996, a review of the study by the Employment Policies Institute found that the data sets Krueger and Card used were so badly flawed that 'no credible conclusions can be drawn from the report.' Specifically, the study found, 'the data set used in the New Jersey study bears no relation to numbers drawn from payroll records of the restaurants the New Jersey study claims to cover. ...
"When David Neumark and William Wascher re-evaluated the study, they found that data collected using (actual payroll) records lead to the opposite conclusion. ...: 'Estimates based on the payroll data ... suggest that the New Jersey minimum wage increase led to a 4.6 percent decrease in employment in New Jersey relative to the Pennsylvania control group.' In other words, the New Jersey/Pennsylvania case study supports the basic economic notion that increasing the cost of hiring a worker will generally lead to fewer workers hired."
Economist Neumark, whom I recently interviewed on my radio show, examined the last 20 years of minimum wage research, over 100 papers. He said that "two-thirds" of the studies "show actual harm."
Second, unemployment benefits. Is it cruel not to extend them? Well, what if research shows that extending benefits simply prolongs the job search? What if studies show most unemployed people wait until their benefits are about to run out before they intensify their job search?
Recall professor and Obama economist Alan Krueger. Wrong on the minimum wage, he got it right on unemployment benefits. In 2008, he co-authored a study on unemployment benefits. Does extending them affect the initiative of those who are out of work?
Krueger said yes: "We find that time allocated to job search is inversely related to the maximum weekly benefit amount for (unemployment insurance) eligible workers. ... We also find that job search increases sharply in the weeks prior to benefit exhaustion." In short, Krueger found that the more generous the benefit, the longer the out-of-work remain out of work.
How about Lawrence Summers, former Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton and former Obama economics adviser? In 1999 he said: "(One) way government assistance programs contribute to long-term unemployment is by providing an incentive, and the means, not to work. ... Unemployment insurance and other social assistance programs (cause) an unemployed person to remain unemployed longer."
How about Larry Katz, the chief economist at the Labor Department during the Clinton administration? He argued that extending unemployment compensation benefits decreases the incentive to get out and look for a job. Workers, he insisted, are almost three times more successful in finding jobs when benefits are just about to run out.
Crowley wonders why an unemployed or minimum-wage worker would vote Republican. Well, jobs, for starters. The worst economic recovery in 80 years has given us millions of discouraged, dropped-out workers. The labor force participation rate -- the percent of American civilians 16 years and older, either working or actively looking for work -- has fallen from 66 percent in 2008 to 63 percent today, the lowest in more than 35 years. Add in the workers who simply gave up, and the current 7 percent unemployment rate rises to nearly 10 percent.
This explains why an unemployed or underemployed worker might, just might, think GOP. Jobs, jobs, jobs.
That is why I did not say Democrats or Republican. Every elected person from the time they get elected to the time they leave office has only one person’s best interest at heart, and that is themselves.
Now if it is in their best interest to follow the mandates of those that elected them, good. If not (as when they receive bribes, opps, I meant campaign funds from a special interest group, then they will support the side that gave them the most money.
Our entire system is corrupt, just think it only took us 200 plus years to reach this point. Other great civilizations managed to go on for thousands of years before corruption killed them off.
It would help if we had an honest press, but we don’t.
Here is an idea Mr. Media boss, how about a story on every member of congress that entered office as a middle class person with modest savings leaving office multimillionaires.
As you say...why stop? Why not raise the minimum to $25/hr and UI to $1000/week for all for life with a two week eligibility for the full benefit.
question for Crowley.. is there ANY limit on the length of time she thinks someone healthy and capable of work should be able to receive unemployment benefits?
2 years?
10 years?
50 years?
is there ANY limit to how long she is willing to pay to have perfectly healthy people sit at home on their butts?
Liberals tell me I should vote for what is in it for me.
Conservatives tell me I should vote for what is best for the nation.
My clarification on this obvious blithering; “If I am a selfish unemployed liberal, why would I vote for the party that insists that to extend unemployment benefits would require spending cuts in other places?”
A thoroughly repulsive dork .
Sometimes I think I love to see the Rinos counter-offer of $30 an hour minimum wage just to get the Democrats to vote against it.
(Or $50...whatever it takes)
They could talk about the heartless Democrats not wanting people to have a normal, middle-class life. In fact, they could use all the Democrat talking points against them.
This, of course, assume the Dems would oppose it as an idea that would be too costly.
You’re not actually requiring people to have actually found a job and worked it for 14 days to be eligible to collect the lifetime unemployment benefit are you?
That’s not fair. What if they were unable to look for a job because they were too busy selling drugs or working as prostitutes? What if the job interview time conflicted with the Oprah show?
People should not have to have actually worked to get unemployment. Unemployment Compensation is a Human Right!!!!!
And blame it on the Republicans
She’s 2 dorks in one
That’s what I asked.
They are obviously smart and know who protects them
Something like it
I know, I read the article yesterday
See the contents in the brackets after the title
Why would any GOP candidate now agree to have you moderate a debate?
Good question, but maybe they have no other choice because the left would accuse them of all kinds things
Well, if Christie does run, I wouldn’t mind if she moderated the GOP debate, since it would be good TV to have both of them on camera at the same time (note to camerman, bring a wide angle lens).
If you have watched his conference this morning where he was asked about it you would have noticed that he made it clear that the job for what he was elected and for which he has not been inaugurated yet (his own words) is more important to him then the other. So stop your speculation and concentrate on the midterm election and especially that we can take the majority from rats in the Senate in a huge margin, and increase our seats in the House.
Geez lighten up (lighten, he he, pardon the pun), I was just making a fat joke!
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