Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Wednesday, January 08, 2014

Attacking Those Who Can’t Fight Back

There’s little debate among academic economists about the effect of minimum wages. University of California, Irvine economist David Neumark has examined more than 100 major academic studies on the minimum wage. He reports that 85 percent of the studies “find a negative employment effect on low-skilled workers.” A 1976 American Economic Association survey found that 90 percent of its members agreed that increasing the minimum wage raises unemployment among young and unskilled workers. A 1990 survey reported in the American Economic Review (1992) found that 80 percent of economists agreed with the statement that increases in the minimum wage cause unemployment among the youth and low-skilled. If you’re searching for a consensus in a field of study, most of the time you can examine the field’s introductory and intermediate college textbooks. Economics textbooks that mention the minimum wage say that it increases unemployment for the least skilled worker. The only significant debate about the minimum wage is the magnitude of its effect. Some studies argue that a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage will cause a 1 percent increase in unemployment, whereas others predict a higher increase.

More

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any author, like the who wrote this post, claiming some type of slam dunk linkage between UE and MW are fool of crud. But I guarantee most of you have made up your mind before even reading the actual work performed by Neumark in any detail.

Anonymous said...

fool of crud?

Anonymous said...

I disagree with the article.
There is a lot of debate to MW and this article references studies done 37 years ago.
Automation was inevitable, so to pin it on MW is bogus.
And to say that most MW workers are young uneducated black and latinos is false.
Teen unemployment is high because everyone is fighting over jobs, well paying or not.

There are an abundance of studies that debunk this fools article. And there are now 21 states with higher MW requirements.

This fool is simply stirring the racism pot.


Anonymous said...

307-And those 21 states are no better off. You think a Professor at UC Irvine isn't leaning towards the left? More than likely, he personally is. But the facts are legit, MW icreases do nothing for GDP, do nothing for poverty alleviation, but does increase unemployment among minimally skilled workers.

Anonymous said...

6:22, bullcrap