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How public policy supports low-wage workers and the high cost of the minimum wage

There’s no dearth of good analysis on the effects of raising the minimum wage. Let me call attention to a few of them here. First, a look at the income supports available to low-wage workers, as shown in this graph from a short and incisive AEI blog post.   AEI fellow Robert Doar concludes, So […]

Bill Gates on raising the minimum wage: "I worry about what that does to job creation"

So should we all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkh6ovLgUWE Additional comments from Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post.  

Teen employment in Seattle area among nation's lowest, says Brookings Institution. We knew that.

The Seattle Times reports this morning on a new study from the Brookings Institution. The employment rate for teens 16 to 19 in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area fell from 45.8 percent in 2000 to 25 percent in 2012, according to Brookings. That 20.8 percentage-point decline represents the 14th-deepest drop nationwide and puts Greater Seattle in the […]

Minimum wage lessons for Seattle's $15 won't be learned by looking at other cities

Earlier we looked at the wrangling over the effects of raising the minimum wage. When theory fails to provide clarity, a look at reality is appealing. So it’s not surprising that the Seattle Times seeks to learn lessons from San Francisco’s highest-in-the-nation $10.74 municipal minimum wage. The Times interviewed economists who have studied the effects, […]

Regional economist sets a low bar. Says a $15 minimum wage is "not outrageous." It's also not a good idea.

Regional economist Dick Conway told KPLU that a $15 minimum wage is “really not that outrageous.” Conway has been on record before; he was the economist Gov. Inslee cited by name at AWB’s legislative day (about 41 minutes in). As a benchmark for setting public policy affecting thousands of businesses and tens of thousands of employees, […]

Seattle's $15 minimum wage debate heats up; Jordan Royer article in Crosscut provides needed perspective

The Seattle City Council and the Mayor’s Income Inequality Advisory Committee held a joint public hearing last night on the $15 minimum wage proposal. The Seattle Times has the story. It sounds like quite a show. About 700 people, many wearing red T-shirts with “15” on the front, cheered calls to enact a pay increase […]

Warren Buffet says $15 minimum wage would hurt jobs, Speaker Chopp says no vote on $12 minimum this year, and more

Warren Buffett weighs in on the federal minimum wage. “If you could have a minimum wage of $15 and it didn’t hurt anything else, I would love it,” he said. “But clearly that isn’t the case.” However, he added, he wouldn’t argue with President Obama’s proposal for a more modest increase, to $10.10 an hour […]

The political risk of defined benefit pensions

The Economist writes about the “plan of adjustment” filed by Detroit as part of its bankruptcy proceedings: In order to shed much of its $18 billion debt, Detroit proposes giving unsecured bondholders, including holders of general-obligation debt, 20 cents on each dollar. Pensions will be cut, too. General pensioners will receive only 66% of their […]

Minimum wage, the cost of living and the cost of doing business, even nonprofit businesses

As Mark Perry, AEI scholar and University of Michigan economist, points out, there’s no science to setting a minimum wage. But where does a minimum wage of $10.10 (or $9) per hour come from? Economic theory? Economic reasoning? Economic logic? Regression analysis? No. It comes from….. well it comes from….. OK, to be really honest, […]

Does CBO underestimate job losses caused by minimum wage increase? Former Labor Dept. chief economist thinks so.

People – and by people I mean pundits and economists – can’t seem to quit talking about the CBO minimum wage report. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist of the U.S. Department of Labor, has one of the tougher takes on the analysis. In Market Watch, she suggests that CBO seriously underestimates the job losses that […]