Economics Topics
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Minimum Wage Rates
September 6, 2008, 10:44 am, 348144
An anonymous left today about this
CD post from June:
I own and operate a restaurant in a rural area of California (20,000 population) that is also a seasonal tourist destination and popular retirement spot. In the first three months of ...
September 3, 2008, 8:04 am, 346290
by Noni Mousa
Hmmm. $13 per hour minimum wage? I am CERTAIN that those dollars wouldn't go into savings -- instead they would go into paying bills and buying stuff, probably more pricey ...
August 26, 2008, 3:04 pm, 342843
When it comes to the employment prospects for U.S. teenagers in the current economy, the effect of increasing the federal minimum wage is rather like throwing a switch. All it would ...
August 12, 2008, 10:10 am, 335827
Here's a letter of mine published in the August 7 edition of the Baltimore Sun:
The Sun should rethink its editorial "Rethinking minimum wage" (Aug. 4).
The editorial's account of history is flawed; the federal minimum wage began in 1938, not in the 1950s.
More important, ...
August 12, 2008, 10:44 am, 335749
Teenage unemployment (16-19 years old, seasonally adjusted) for July (20.3%) was at the highest level in more than 15 years (see chart above,
data here). It seems like that ...
August 7, 2008, 12:07 am, 333114
I recently wrote about a Star Tribune article that documented the disappearance of jobs for teenagers with nary a mention of the increase in the minimum wage. Ironman at Political Calculations has dug up some data to see if my claim - that the increase in the ...
August 6, 2008, 7:04 pm, 332943
Teenage workers are disappearing from the U.S. workforce. Something appears to have happened to drive them out of the workforce in large numbers. Phil Miller and Doc Palmer say that the recent mandated hikes in the minimum wage very likely has something to do ...
August 3, 2008, 12:44 am, 330562
The job market has been getting tighter for all workers, but it's
becoming especially hard for those who are trying to get their first
paychecks.
The unemployment rate for working-age teens rose to 20.3 percent in
July, the U.S. Department of Labor disclosed late last week. That's
almost four times the overall 5.7 percent unemployment ...
August 2, 2008, 12:04 pm, 330498
In earlier post 2slugs comments about teen employment got me to look at the data.
2slugs pointed out that in June all the drop in employment was teens as ...
July 31, 2008, 10:02 pm, 329621
Art raises some good points about the minimum wage providing an impediment for disadvantaged. Earlier this summer Wilson and I wrote a paper (now under review--fingers crossed) on factors influencing reduced summer employment for teens, a trend that has gotten...
July 31, 2008, 10:56 am, 329200
The minimum wage went up last week. Among the stories I read about it I don't think I saw a single story about the unintended consequences. So I wrote this. The closing paragraph: During this period of economic downturn, the...
July 30, 2008, 12:04 pm, 328480
The second part of a multi-stage hike in the federal minimum wage takes effect July 24, raising the wage from $5.85 to $6.55 per hour. But many states and the District of Columbia are a step ahead of the federal government when it comes to guaranteeing a fair wage. This ...
July 24, 2008, 4:22 pm, 325105
Today's local fish wrapper inteviewed a local fast food owner about today's minimum wage increase. “It’s going to be costly to all retailers,” Ferrell said. “But I don’t disapprove of it. I feel like we need to be as fair...
July 24, 2008, 4:46 pm, 325017
Yesterday I
made an argument for ignoring the debate around the minimum wage. I said the number we should really care about is the median wage of workers paid by the hour. That figure, for the 75.9 million Americans paid hourly rates, is $11.95. (The mean is higher—$14.25—but the ...
July 24, 2008, 5:46 pm, 324904
The US federal minimum wage increases today by 70 cents on Thursday, to $6.55 per hour from $5.85. The increase will raise the minimum wage in 25 states; the other 25 have minimum wages higher than...
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July 23, 2008, 4:04 pm, 324263
The second part of a multi-stage hike in the federal minimum wage takes effect July 24, raising the wage from $5.85 to $6.55 per hour. But many states and the District of Columbia are a step ahead of the federal government when it comes to guaranteeing a fair wage. This ...
June 23, 2008, 3:57 pm, 310012
A good story here courtesy of Mark Perry’s blog from across the pond concerning fears that a fresh hike in the Michigan minimum wage from $7.15 to $7.40 per hour will create higher unemployment in a...
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June 23, 2008, 10:44 am, 309957
Michigan's May unemployment rate of 8.5% is the highest in the country, and
it's not even close: The state with the next highest jobless rate is Rhode Island at 7.2%, more than a full percentage point below Michigan. And compared to South Dakota, the state with ...
June 15, 2008, 6:04 pm, 306265
The other day I read an interesting comment at Division of Labor.
http://divisionoflabour.com/archives/004780.php
Art
Carden of Rhodes College wrote:
I've had a great time in Great Barrington, Massachusetts while I've been visiting the AIER. It's absolutely ...
June 9, 2008, 2:04 pm, 303373
It's amazing how any discussion of the minimum wage brings out all kinds of discussion and comments.
We have a school of thought that believes very strongly that increases in the minimum wage causes firms to fire minimum wage workers, so higher minimum wages harm ...
June 8, 2008, 10:41 am, 303094
Mark Perry wonders if the large jump in the US unemployment rate was driven in part by the recent surge in the minimum wage.
Accoding to BLS data
on unemployment rates by age, it looks like almost all ...
June 7, 2008, 12:44 pm, 302814
Accoding to
BLS data on unemployment rates by age, it looks like almost all of the .50% increase in May unemployment to 5.5% from 5% in April was due to ...
June 1, 2008, 5:35 am, 299811
It realizes that at least some people earning the minimum wage are not really poor.
Better late than never.
Link via Chris.
May 23, 2008, 7:03 pm, 296698
Here's
more on the effects of the minimum wage:
The Effect of
Minimum Wages on Immigrants’ Employment and Earnings, by Pia M. Orrenius and
Madeline Zavodny, FRB Dallas: Abstract This study examines how
minimum wage laws affect the employment and earnings of low-skilled immigrants
and ...
May 13, 2008, 8:52 am, 291111
Kathy G makes an heroic effort to attack economic fundamentalists’ opposition to the minimum wage. I fear, however, that this is the wrong ground for left economists to fight on, for two reasons.
First, rises in the minimum wage are a bad way to help the poor ...
April 2, 2008, 7:49 am, 270814
Businesses will support policies that benefit it by hurting its competition. Dan Hamermesh explains this in referring to an example of a minimum wage proposal from Germany.
One might wonder why a big employer is pushing a plan that might
raise its average variable cost. The reason is that the ...
