I am sure some of you have already seen this, but I thought it worthy of a post.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/column-claim-wages-go-jobs-will-go-isnt-theory-scam
In short, Hanauer presents a compelling argument that the oft-heard claim – that raising the minimum wage will cause job losses – is nothing more than a scam, unconnected to the actual facts.
Here are a few teasers from the article:
“Minimum wage opponents continue to deride every proposed increase as a surefire job killer, while reporters and pundits reliably characterize the passage of every minimum wage ordinance and statute as a dangerous experiment that threatens to harm the very people it’s intended to help. “California makes itself a guinea pig in a massive and risky minimum wage experiment,” tweeted the New York Times’s Noam Scheiber. “Raising minimum wage risky,” the Lexington, Kentucky Herald Leader’s headline tersely warned its readers following $15 victories in faraway California and New York. “Raising minimum wage hurts low-skill workers,” the Detroit News bluntly chimed in. “Even left-leaning economists say it’s a gamble,” Vox solemnly cautioned (without actually managing to cite a single left-leaning economist willing to pejoratively editorialize $15 as a “gamble.”)”
But then actual facts are looked at:
“Through various sophisticated statistical techniques, researchers have attempted to separate the minimum wage signal from the economic noise, and while economists never agree on anything, they have produced a range of consistent results: from zero to zip to nada to a very small effect.”
And then this:
In a first-of-its-kind study, economist William Lester from the University of North Carolina, in cooperation with researchers from the National Employment Law Project, pored over employment data from every federal increase since the minimum wage was first established, making “simple before-and-after comparisons of job growth trends twelve months after each minimum-wage increase.” And the paper’s title says it all: “Raise Wages, Kill Jobs? Seven Decades of Historical Data Finds No Correlation Between Minimum Wage Increases and Employment Levels.””
Even more compelling are these findings:
“Of the nearly two dozen federal minimum wage hikes since 1938, total year-over-year employment actually increased 68 percent of the time. In those industries most affected by the minimum wage, employment increases were even more common: Fully 73 percent of the time in the retail sector and 82 percent in low-wage leisure and hospitality.”