All Posts Tagged With: "minimum wage"
Raising the Minimum Wage Will Discourage Migration? It Just Aint So!
In “Raise Wages, Not Walls,” an op-ed in the July 25 New York Times, Michael Dukakis and Daniel Mitchell make a proposal that is breathtaking in its misunderstanding of basic economics. After showing problems with the various congressional proposals to limit illegal immigration, they give their own solution: increase the minimum wage. They write, “If [...]
1Nov2006 | David R. Henderson | 2 comments | ContinuedWhat Is Going on in France?
Pierre Garello is a professor of economics at Aix-Marseille University, France. It is sometime painful for a liberal—I will be using that word in its old, continental, sense—to live in France, especially in southern France: so much light, so many beauties given by nature, and at the same time so much wealth wasted! Riots; strikes; blockage [...]
1Oct2006 | Pierre Garello | 0 comments | ContinuedNo Jobs for Young People?
In “The Young and the Jobless,” New York Times columnist Bob Herbert recently wrote that “American workers, especially younger workers, remain stuck in a gloomy employment landscape. . . . The simple truth is that there are not nearly enough jobs available for the many millions of out-of-work or under-worked men and women who need [...]
1Sep2005 | Alan Reynolds | 0 comments | ContinuedDecency Requires a Minimum-Wage Law?
The libertarian cliché that “at least the Republicans are right on economic policies” suffered another setback on the August 11, 2003, Los Angeles Times op-ed page, where Republican Douglas MacKinnon argues that anyone who cares about the poor should be ashamed of the failure of the Senate to raise the minimum wage. His essay is [...]
1Mar2004 | Aeon J. Skoble | 3 comments | ContinuedNickel and Damned: Barbara Ehrenreich’s View of America
When Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America came out last year, I knew it would be the perfect foil to another book I used in my classes, The Millionaire Next Door, by Thomas Stanley and William Danko (1996). Don’t ever say that academics don’t have a sense of humor. [...]
1Jul2002 | Larry Schweikart | 1 comment | ContinuedWhat Protects Consumers and Workers?
Baltimore Sun political writer H. L. Mencken once warned, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” As saviors, politicians then announce an array of government programs to safeguard a [...]
1Jul2002 | Walter E. Williams | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Living Wage Folly
As of July 2001, 62 municipalities (cities, counties, and government school districts) in 24 states had enacted “living wage” regulations affecting all private and nonprofit enterprises with which they do business. California, Michigan, and Wisconsin have more living-wage ordinances (LWOs) than other states, but LWOs are spread widely over the entire country. Moreover, there are [...]
1Jun2002 | Charles W. Baird | 4 comments | ContinuedThe Luckiest Generation
W. Michael Cox, senior vice president and chief economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Richard Alm, a business writer, are co-authors of Myths of Rich and Poor: Why We’re Better Off Than We Think. Meet the Luckiest Generation. When it comes to the material facts of life, the young men and women [...]
1Mar2001 | W. Michael Cox | 1 comment | ContinuedFreedom of the Price
Last month I explained why our liberties will be steadily eroded without a genuine commitment to liberty in general. Fortunately some liberties are widely recognized as crucial and have influential interests protecting them from political violation. An interesting example is freedom of speech—freedom against government censorship. Recent examples of the censorship of politically incorrect speech [...]
1May2000 | Dwight R. Lee | 2 comments | ContinuedConflicting Visions
People generally share common goals. Most of us want: poor people to enjoy higher standards of living, greater traffic safety, fewer wars, greater racial harmony, cleaner air and water, and less crime. Despite their common goals, more often than not we see people grouped into factions, fighting tooth and nail to promote differing government policies. [...]
1Oct1999 | Walter E. Williams | 0 comments | ContinuedWorkers Exploited?
The late Nobel laureate economist George Stigler rightly insisted that anecdotes are not reliable data on which to base judgments about the state of the world. Labor lawyer Thomas Geohegan either never heard or ignores Stigler’s wise warning. Geohegan relies on a handful of anecdotes to argue in the January 24, 1999, New York Times [...]
1Jun1999 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | ContinuedThink Tank Wars and the Minimum Wage
True to form, Senator Edward Kennedy is pushing legislation to hike the minimum wage 41 percent, to $7.25 per hour by September 2002. President Bill Clinton has naturally jumped on the bandwagon, though he only wants to go to $6.15 an hour. He declared before last November’s election: “We are fighting hard for the dignity of living wage [sic] in the face of partisanship that refused us last time.”
1Apr1999 | Doug Bandow | 0 comments | ContinuedNight of the Living Wage
For years, FEE has stressed the supremacy of sound economics over the political process. If people understand how markets work, and the vital link between free markets and personal liberty, they will support the right policies and the men and women in public office who implement those policies. Those who stress politics first, and concentrate [...]
1Mar1999 | Lawrence W. Reed | 0 comments | ContinuedIlluminating the Unseen
The good effects of laws are often easily seen. The bad effects, unseen. So observed Frederic Bastiat 150 years ago. His basic insight remains true today. We live in busy times. Information bombards us. In such a world, even that which is seen is often overlooked. The unseen is that much more elusive. If we [...]
1Mar1999 | Russell Roberts | 0 comments | ContinuedBrutes in Suits
Statists on the left habitually congratulate themselves on their humanity. They croon on endlessly about peace, harmony, cooperation, community, mutual understanding, tolerance, and diversity. They profess to abhor violence and cruelty. They apparently regard candlelight vigils—featuring dozens of people swaying in unison and singing about love—as the most transcendent form of self-entertainment. Statists on the [...]
1Mar1999 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | ContinuedPrice Floors, Surpluses, and the Minimum Wage
Last month I discussed the distorting effects of government-imposed price ceilings. Not content to limit the disruptive impact on economic decisions to price ceilings, governments are also quite willing to impose floors under which prices cannot legally fall. Like price ceilings, price floors disrupt market cooperation and have consequences quite different from those advertised by [...]
1Dec1998 | Dwight R. Lee | 30 comments | ContinuedAnother Minimum-Wage Clash
Richard McKenzie teaches economics in the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Irvine. It happened again. Republicans and Democrats recently locked political horns over President Clinton’s proposed one-dollar increase in the minimum wage. The political partisans repeated past claims with self-righteous fervor, but once again were off base on the consequences of [...]
1Nov1998 | Richard B. McKenzie | 1 comment | Continued-
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