Minimum Wage
The minimum wage became an indelible aspect of the American policy landscape in 1938, with the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The minimum wage is the lowest amount an employer can pay a worker for her services. The federal minimum wage is set (or not) by Congress, although states, counties, and municipalities can set a higher (but not a lower) minimum wage than that mandated by the federal goverment.
Cry Wolf Quotes
The proposal is couched in the soothing and smarmy rhetoric of leftist populism….But if that's all it takes, why stop there? If a simple legislative act increasing the minimum wage to $7.75 is all that is needed to improve the lot of the working poor by just a little, then why not raise it to $10 an hour and get them to the poverty level? For that matter, why not raise it to $50 an hour, assuring every working Californian a comfortable living?
But where will employers obtain the money to pay for that increase? It is unrealistic to assume that somehow the increase will be squeezed out of profits….In plain fact, the burden of an increased minimum wage will fall heavily on those least able to bear it. The fringe employers, the unskilled worker, the young and the handicapped are those who will be priced out of the job market.
Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour are hard to resist. Fortunately, such families don't really exist.
A higher minimum wage will trigger thousands of layoffs in lower-paying jobs, hurting, rather than helping, Ohioans who need higher wages the most.
Evidence
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States with Minimum Wages above the Federal Level have had Faster Small Business and Retail Job Growth
The authors decisively disprove the argument that the minimum wage takes a particularly cruel toll on small businesses, which frequently employ low-wage workers (and operate on thin profit margins).
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The Wage and Employment Impact of Minimum-Wage Laws in Three Cities
The Economic Policy Research analyzes the effects of minimum wage increases in Santa Fe, San Francisco and Washington D.C., in comparison with their surrounding suburbs and nearby urban centers that didn’t experience similar wage hikes.
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The Minimum Wage Merry-Go-Round
Ezra Klein neatly dismantles the usual conservative arguments against the minimum wage.
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Making Work Pay: The Impact of the 1996-97 Minimum Wage Increase
The Economic Policy Institute study shows that the Clinton-era minimum wage increases mostly supported the wages of low-income adults.
Backgrounders & Briefs
Minimum Wage Policy Brief
By Professor Stephanie Luce
The idea of minimum wage laws has been around for more than a century. They are still a good idea.
Resources
Raise the Minimum Wage is a project of the National Employment Law Project. The effort is devoted to preserving the wage floor by raising the federal minimum wage.
