I had another dream, I had another life
Time for yet another study on the minimum wage, this time by economist Charlene Marie Kalenkoski from March of this year. Do minimum wage laws have negative effects on youth employment and income? Wait for it… … Yes. Yes they do. Kalenkoski writes, Policymakers often propose a minimum wage as a means of raising … Read more
I was reading a Facebook thread recently in which a commenter was complaining about Walmart’s supposedly “evil” business practices and low wages compared to, say, Costco. This same commenter then advocated for the now-popular $15 minimum wage. Readers of Difficult Run are well aware that some of us here have little love for minimum wage laws. … Read more
The New Republic has an excellent article by a Stanford doctoral student in economics that argues against the fallacies of minimum wage proponents: The first fallacy is that changes in the minimum wage do not affect the behavioral response among firms and individuals. The second fallacy is that higher wages will force companies to innovate … Read more
My friend Chris Smith recently authored a piece over at Approaching Justice on how minimum wage opponents get it wrong on economics. As I commented elsewhere, providing nuance to the discussion by pointing out some studies that find no effect on employment or by discussing trade-offs is important. But I think it is quite a stretch to say … Read more
Here at Difficult Run, we just can’t get enough of the minimum wage. Yet, that seems to be because there is so much good stuff to post about it. The Economist, for example, has a recent article that looks at three different studies regarding the long-term effects of the minimum wage: In the first Isaac … Read more
In the spring of 1940, a young Jewish scholar disembarked in New York, and was deeply affected by what he saw- a black shoeshine. What was so shocking? Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel came to the United States as a refugee fleeing Hitler. His mother and his sister were imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto , eventually … Read more
If you read Difficult Run with any frequency, you know that we really, really don’t like the minimum wage. There are lots of reasons for this, but one of the biggest is that there’s a better solution to the problem that the minimum wage is supposed to tackle, which is helping the working poor. It’s … Read more
Economist Mark Perry has an interesting blog post summing up the Bureau of Labor Statistics report “Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers, 2014.” The following provides the percentages of different groups earning the minimum wage or less: Age: 16-19 (15.3%), 25+ (2.5%). Education: Less than high school (7.3%), High school graduates (3.5%), Associate’s degree (2.2%), Bachelor’s degree … Read more
Nathaniel recently pointed to a new study that reported the drop in unemployment benefit duration in 2014 led to an increase in job creation. An NBER study toward the end of 2014 on minimum wage hikes complements this research. The abstract reads as follows. We estimate the minimum wage’s effects on low-skilled workers’ employment and income … Read more
On the heels of Nathaniel’s latest minimum wage post, I thought I’d point to a brand new NBER working paper titled “More Recent Evidence on the Effects of Minimum Wages in the United States.” As one summary explains, For years, [David] Neumark has battled claims by other economists, such as University of Massachusetts professor Arindrajit … Read more