From CafeHayek:
Pres. Obama insists that raising the hourly U.S. national minimum wage
by 39.3 percent – from its current $7.25 to $10.10 by July 2016 – will
have (as described by two members of Mr. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, Jason Furman and Betsey Stevenson) “little or no negative effect on employment.”
So here’s a challenge that I (and others) have posed before but believe
to be sufficiently penetrating to pose again. This challenge, of
course, is posed to supporters of this hike in the minimum wage:
...name some other goods or
services for which a government-mandated price hike of 25 percent will
not cause fewer units of those goods and services to be purchased.
Beer? Broccoli? Bulldozers?...Or does low-skilled labor just happen to be the one good or service in
the entire world for which a government-mandated 25-percent rise in the
price that its buyers must pay for it will not diminish buyers’
willingness to buy it?
This is a great example of a piece written in theoretical terms that can make us think empirically about public policy debates.
Yes.
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