{"id":52,"date":"2004-12-04T09:25:20","date_gmt":"2004-12-04T09:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.195.124.246\/~wisecon1\/blog\/?p=52"},"modified":"2004-12-04T09:25:20","modified_gmt":"2004-12-04T09:25:20","slug":"raise_the_minim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/?p=52","title":{"rendered":"Raise the Minimum Wage?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Working Families<\/a> party called the other night soliciting a contribution for their campaign to raise the minimum wage<\/a>.  The New York State minimum wage is currently set at $5.15 an hour–a proposal in Albany would raise it by $2 to $7.15 an hour.  I’d given them a contribution for this cause before, but the act sent me back to my microeconomics textbook–wasn’t raising the minimum wage one of those policies that hurt more than it helped?  <\/a> <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

According to Pindyck and Rubenfeld of MIT and Berekely<\/a>,
\nrespectively, when the government imposes a minimum price, the workers
\nwho find work enjoy a higher wage, but some who want to work will be
\nunable to.  The policy increases unemployment.   What’s a good liberal
\nto do?  Pay some people more money, but at the expense of leaving
\nothers without jobs?  Not a very good tradeoff.<\/p>\n

\nBut a study conducted in the 90s by other economists found an
\n*increase* in employment after New Jersey raised its minimum wage.  Of
\ncourse, other economists disagreed with their findings, which is why
\npolicy making, like life, remains interesting–there are many choices
\nand the outcomes that result from choices are not always clear.  Does
\nincreasing the minimum wage increase unemployment?  Maybe.  Would
\nincreasing the wages of someone making $5.15 an hour to $7.15 an hour
\nmake their lives better?  Absolutely.  It would mean more food on the
\ntable, perhaps a new pair of gloves or a scarf.  The economic data is
\nopen to interpretation and morality tips the argument in favor of
\nincreasing the wage.   I gave a few dollars to the cause.  <\/p>\n

\nRelated Links:<\/p>\n

Debating the Minimum Wage<\/a> from the Economist.<\/p>\n

What is the Poverty Level in the United States<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Working Families party called the other night soliciting a contribution for their campaign to raise the minimum wage.  The New York State minimum wage is currently set at $5.15 an hour–a proposal in Albany would raise it by $2 to $7.15 an hour.  I’d given them a contribution for this cause before, but the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}