The minimum-wage debate - bad idea. President Obama, left, delivers the State of the Union address to a joint… (Charles Dharapak / Bloomberg ) In announcing his wrongheaded proposal to increase the minimum wage to $9 an hour, President Obama spoke in lofty terms: "In the wealthiest nation on Earth," he said in his State of the Union address last month, "no one who works full time should have to live in poverty. " If the debate proceeds as it has -- many times -- in the past, then most Democrats will embrace the president's message and back the proposal, while most Republicans will oppose it, on the grounds that higher labor costs will lead to higher unemployment.
For The Record Los Angeles Times Tuesday, March 12, 2013 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 11 Editorial Desk 0 inches; 18 words Type of Material: Correction Minimum wage: In a March 10 Op-Ed article, coauthor Kevin A. Hassett's surname was misspelled in the byline. But we shouldn't rely on political opinions in this debate. Why? Counterpoint: Minimum Wages are Unwarranted Economic Interference: Points of View Reference Center Home. Why a Minimum-Wage Hike Can't Help the Poor: Points of View Reference Center Home. Raising the minimum wage is but a bad magic trick: Points of View Reference Center Home. Minimum wage hike good for economy, taxpayers.
Through a translator, Bernardo Chimoro, of Central Falls, tells Kate Brewster, of the Economic Progress Institute, and congressmen David Cicilline and Jim Langevin why raising the minimum wage would help him and others in his community. (Photo by Bob Plain) If corporate America was still run by businessmen like Henry Ford, we probably wouldn’t need to have a minimum wage law. Ford, said Congressman Jim Langevin recently, “wanted his workers to earn a wage that was sufficient for them to buy an automobile that he produced.
He recognized with a strong middle class, with a strong working class, that the economy does better, and his company did better.” Of course, somewhere along the way the business ethic of Henry Ford was subverted by that of the Koch brothers – making a meaningful minimum wage more important than ever to the American economy. “Raising the minimum wage is trickle down economics that actually works,” Langevin said. Share. The Minimum Wage Debate: Who's Right? WALMART CAN SOLVE THE INEQUALITY PROBLEM: Points of View Reference Center Home. Why We Should Raise the Minimum Wage | Raise The Minimum Wage. With the worst recession in a generation still being felt across the nation, state and federal leaders are focused on getting their economies moving again while helping working families make ends meet.
Raising the minimum wage is a key strategy for doing both and should be part of an economic recovery agenda. This briefing paper details the positive impact of raising the minimum wage – and indexing it to inflation so that it does not continue to fall in real value every year – on working families, local businesses and state economies. By boosting pay in the low-wage jobs on which more families are relying than ever, a stronger minimum wage will help restore the consumer spending that powers our economy and that local businesses need in order to grow. A robust minimum wage is a key building block of sustainable economic recovery. For more information, please download our January 2011 Briefing Paper. Obama throws support to minimum wage movement in economy speech | World news. Barack Obama warned that a "relentless, decades-long trend" of growing inequality and social immobility posed a fundamental threat to the American dream on Wednesday, throwing his support behind a grassroots movement to address chronically low wages across the US.
Attempting to regain the political momentum after a calamitous two months in which his healthcare reforms were plagued by website failures, the president said reversing the growing gap between rich and poor was "the defining challenge of our time". In a speech delivered in one of the poorest areas of Washington DC, Obama said: “The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American dream, our way of life and what we stand for around the globe.” The federal minimum wage currently stands at $7.25 an hour, or about $15,000 a year. "That’s why it’s well past the time to raise a minimum wage that, in real terms right now, is below where it was when Harry Truman was in office.
" Raising the Minimum Wage: An Overview: Points of View. Should Congress Increase the Federal Minimum Wage and Index It to Inflation...: Points of View Reference Center Home. Raising American Wages…by Raising American Wages. With Americans still trapped in the fifth year of our Great Recession, and median personal income having been essentially stagnant for forty years, perhaps we should finally admit that decades of economic policies have largely failed.
The last two years of our supposed recovery have seen American growth rates averaging well under 2 percent. [i] Although our media often pays greater attention to the recent gains in stock market and asset prices, such paltry growth means that many of the millions of jobs lost in 2008 and 2009 will never be regained, and the broadest measures of American unemployment and underemployment will remain stuck in the vicinity of 15%. [ii] Meanwhile, an astonishing 93% of the total increase in income during the recovery period has been captured by the top one percent of earners, who now hold almost as much net wealth as the bottom 95 percent of our society. Consider that only 20% of current jobs require even a bachelors’ degree. Graphic by New America Foundation. Point: The Minimum Wage Should be raised. South-Western: Increase in the Minimum Wage. Policy Debate: Does an increase in the minimum wage result in a higher unemployment rate?
Issues and Background Minimum wage laws in the U.S. were first introduced during the 1930s in response to the Great Depression. This period was characterized by falling output, falling prices, and falling employment. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933 attempted to stop this downward spiral by encouraging the formation of trade association agreements that established price floors and minimum wages. This was the first national attempt to introduce minimum wages in major industries. Those firms that participated in the trade association agreements were able to display a "blue eagle" logo in their establishments.
In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) established a national minimum wage of $0.25 an hour. Introductory economics textbooks usually first introduce the minimum wage as an application of demand and supply analysis. Monopsony models, and efficiency wage models.