Democrats’ Minimum Wage Hikes Have Hit Minorities, The Poor Hardest

Proof • November 28, 2009

Obama came in to office promising that his policy would reflect science. Unfortunately, his economic policies haven’t reflected the realities of economic research. The minimum wage hike (passed by Democrats in 2006 with Obama voting in favor) is a good example of that:

Economic theory predicts that raising the minimum wage will cause those employees who are least productive to lose their jobs. If we raise the minimum wage from, say, $6 to $7, it’s the same thing as saying “any worker who cannot produce $7 worth of value each hour is not worth hiring.” Younger workers are, of course, among the least skilled in the economy. In addition, thanks to poor schools and historical discrimination, young workers of color are over-represented in this category. Higher minimum wages should disproportionately affect young workers and especially ones of color.
The empirical evidence to support this theoretical claim is abundant. Hundreds of studies of this relationship have been done by economists and they are nearly unanimous that higher minimum wages are associated with some level of increased unemployment among lower-skilled workers. Whatever consensus there might be among climate scientists about global warming, that among economists about minimum wage laws is at least as great (and, as we discovered recently, we don’t need to rig the computer code to make our models reconstruct pre-historic data to come out the way we want). Despite what the science says, the Obama Administration supported a minimum wage increase last July.
The results are as theory predicts: unemployment among whites age 16-19 is at by far the highest rate in 10 years: 25.3% in October, up 28% from 6 months earlier and 36% from a year ago. Among African-Americans of the same age group, the unemployment rate is an intolerable 41.3%, up 19% from April and up 25% from a year earlier. The Hispanic or Latino youth unemployment rates are 35.6% (October), 26.5% (April), and 28.3% (October 2008).

Another contributing factor to our nation’s burgeoning unemployment rates are the expansions of unemployment benefits passed by Congress. One was passed in the “stimulus” spending spree, and another was passed by Congress earlier this month.
Not only have these unemployment benefits, funded by taxes on employers (you know, the people we want to be hiring these unemployed workers) but expanding unemployment benefits makes it easier to to be unemployed. Meaning less impetus to return to the work force.
Inflating wages with government policy is a dumb idea. So is making it easier to be unemployed at the expense of employers.
But, for some reason, the reality of these idiotic policies just doesn’t seem to sink in on the left.

Tags: Asshats, Domestic Issues, Politics

http://Array sayanything-203

2cv, what a car.

Several years ago, Road and Track magazine ran a cover story on the 100 most noteworthy cars ever. Astonishingly, the C2V made the list, amid the assorted Porsches, BMWs, Ferraris, Mustangs, and Corvettes. Go figure!
sayanything-203

blockquote>We don’t have a productivity problem we have, an employment problem.

True! But then why would you advocate a policy that would severely reduce both American productivity and employment?

And why would Obama and the Dems put in place policies which are hurting the country’s chances for increased economic growth and more employment?
sayanything-203

If the current 10.2% unemployment rate (actually 17.5%) sends a thrill up your leg, you’d go orgasmic with a federal law that mandates overtime for anyone working over 30 hours per week. The exodus of businesses out of the US would be breath-taking.

And given the ineptitude of Obama’s economic policy team, it’s kinda surprising they haven’t started talking up this 30 hour week idea before now.

Stay alert, WOOF! You could be getting a call from Christy Romer any day now.
AKA WOOF

I’m not married to the idea.

2cv, what a car.
AKA WOOF

The history of hours of employment
says we can work less and make more.
AKA WOOF

This is why there are unions and strikes.
Agreement is difficult.

“The most productive use of labor is that which is agreed to by both the business and the worker… individually.”
sayanything-203

The history of hours of employment
says we can work less and make more.

WOOF,

You aren’t Dino. And you certainly aren’t Hannitized. You’re too smart to take this sort of drivel seriously… much less expect others to do likewise.
http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

Rob: Remember back during the campaign, when Hillary talked about a poor woman who had her hours cut in half because of a raise in the minimum wage? (That, of course, wasn’t the lesson she was trying to teach!)

http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/hillary_gives_an_unwitting_lesson_about_the_minimum_wage/
sayanything-203

WOOF,

The very options you list prove Rob’s point. The most productive use of labor is that which is agreed to by both the business and the worker… individually. To set an artificial standard for all, any sort of standard, is unproductive.

Incidentally, who exactly was responsible for “forcing” the 40 hour work week on the country by regulation?
sayanything-3417

Don’t know why this should be a surprise… no matter what libs believe the pots of money from which employees are paid don’t magically get any bigger when the minwage is increased. Instead, the pot is divided into fewer, bigger portions.

When the minwage increase went into effect, my employer laid off a percentage of workers equal to that of the increase. Not because they wanted to. But because they had to. It’s not different than any other responsible purchasing. When the cost of something goes up, then you cannot afford as much of it as you did before.

The sad part of this is that those making minwage aren’t smart enough to understand how minwage increases hit them the hardest. All they see is liberals giving them raises, and therefore buying their votes.
AKA WOOF

FDR 1938. was responsible for “forcing” the 40 hour work week .
Made anything over 40 hours time and a half.
sayanything-12

AKA WOOF:

The 40 hour week was forced on the country by regulation ,

That doesn’t apply to “exempt” workers, such as myself. My pay is based on performance, not the number of hours I’m in the office.

And 40 isn’t a set number. Until recently (he’s over 60), my father-in-law regularly worked close to 100 hours a week (he just got time-and-a-half and double-time for it).
AKA WOOF

I’m not being facetious.
The 40 hour week was forced on the country by regulation ,
the country flourished.
Would we be more productive working 12 hour days,
6 days a week?
Would 6 hour days 3 days a week , with twice as many workers be better?
sayanything-203

My apologies for the missing bracket.
AKA WOOF

That’s a statist view, based on the idea that productivity and employment are limited.
why would you advocate a policy that would severely
reduce both American productivity and employment?
AKA WOOF

Americans are the most productive workers in the world.
We don’t have a productivity problem we have,
an employment problem.
aka Woof

If the 40 hour week is good,
why not the 30 hour week?
2cv

France tried to lower unemployment a few years ago by lowering the hours full time employees worked and not letting employers lower there total full time pay. They quickly discovered it cost more jobs, not the intended consequence of each employer having to hire more employees to produce the same amount of goods or services. One of the reason Sarkozy is place today.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

You really need to learn how to read.

Bat 1 isn’t saying that our capacity for employment is limited by anything but population. He’s wondering why you would want to fix an employment problem by burdening those who do the employing?

Honestly, Poodle. You seem to think that you can demonize and punish employers and then just turn around and expect them to shell out for every big government policy you want in place.

And you have the temerity to call other people “statist.”
sayanything-1317

FDR did a lot of things that were borderline retarded. Which is why the economy sucked for over a decade. And, in some cases, the unemployment went down only when FDR implimented procedures to take people out of the workforce.

Like redefining millions of teenagers, some of whom had families and were breadwinners, or helpers in their families, as children and removing them from the workforce, or cutting their hours.

Or when we started WW2, and shipped hundreds of thousands off to die on the battlefields of Europe, which opened up more jobs.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

How about the number of hours we work per week be determined by employers and employees who each have motivations to be poductive.

You pretend like American prosperity is the result of the government enforcing a 40 week. That must be convenient for your politics but it is hardly reality.
sayanything-4808

Liberals only think that more money = better which is EXACTLY what they accuse conservatives of. You can put the studies in front of them all you want, they will NEVER see beyond that simplistic idiocy. Raise the low end, those already at that need/want a raise to distinguish them, those they raise up to need a raise, wages go up across the board and business has to exact the money from the market and its own people to do it. Prices go up and people are laid off so that the remainder can have their raises which never keep pace with the rise of the prices, AND do MORE work which cancels out the raises altogether. If I agree to X pay for Y work and get X*1.05 pay for Y*1.65 work after that, do the math. The relationship is blown.

Liberals don’t care. They only think in jingoistic terms, pure emotion, nothing else, and its everything they accuse everyone else of. It’s all about money money money to them. Not respect, not sanity, not anything but more money without regard to the fact that in forcing it artificially, they reduce the number of workers, and their buying power.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

So your idea for fixing the unemployment problem is to lower the bar for productivity?

Brilliant.

While we’re at it, why don’t we jack up the minimum wage to $100/hour too. If a $2.00/hour governemnt-mandated pay hike is ok, why not a $92.75/hour government-mandatd pay hike?

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Democrats’ Minimum Wage Hikes Have Hit Minorities, The Poor Hardest

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