'Not Enough': Critics say Obama's $9 Minimum Wage Too Small

[freefalldolphin 0]

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Supporters of a higher wage say that repeated Republican claims that better wages hurt the employment rate find no evidence to support their rhetoric.

As John Schmidtt, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, recently noted: “Congressional proposals to raise the minimum wage to above $10 per hour or President Obama’s call for a minimum wage of $9 per hour are well within the range of historical increases and would still leave low-wage workers behind reasonable historical benchmarks based on cost-of-living or productivity growth.”

And Schmitt's colleagues at CEPR, Dean Baker and Will Kimball, argue that because the link between productivity growth and minimum wage ended in the 1970s, "If the minimum wage had kept pace with productivity growth it would be $16.54 in 2012 dollars.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/02/28-7

[billvon 2,406]

>Supporters of a higher wage say that repeated Republican claims that better wages
>hurt the employment rate find no evidence to support their rhetoric.

Short term, agreed - they do not hurt the employment rate.

Long term, higher minimum wages drive offshoring and inflation. We should be lowering the minimum wage to (legally) attract more workers from other countries.

[kawisixer01 0]

I work in machine automation....a raise in the minimum wage would likely drive a significant increase of business in my field. Whatever industry non-service work minimum wage folks are still working in would be driven into automation or off shoring even more. I have seen many automation projects delayed or put off due to not hitting a targeted return on investment by just a couple of percentage points. Any significant forced raise in labor costs would easily increase those roi to the level sought to move forward on those projects. Talking to the folks I know in the service industry, their profit margins are very small already, any forced wage raises in service industries would be directly passed to the customer. So how exactly does that help people? A raise followed immediately with a comeasurate raise in cost of living does nothing to help people.

[wolfriverjoe 1,346]

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[freefalldolphin 0]

Quote

>Supporters of a higher wage say that repeated Republican claims that better wages
>hurt the employment rate find no evidence to support their rhetoric.

Short term, agreed - they do not hurt the employment rate.

Long term, higher minimum wages drive offshoring and inflation. We should be lowering the minimum wage to (legally) attract more workers from other countries.

You have unemployment so surely you have enough workers already? And if the minimum wage goes down surely that will deter workers from other countries?