Should we raise prices for more than 300 million Americans to help
550,000 minimum-wage workers? Yes, we should, according to most
media reports.
According to Federal Reserve data there are 550,000 workers over the
age of 25 being paid the minimum wage. There are no data on how many
work for large and presumably evil corporations and how many work
for small businesses. There are no data showing how many businesses
can afford to increase wages and still continue to operate.
The only data we really have are that 550,000 of the 129.5 million
people over the age of 25 who are employed make the minimum wage.
This might be a problem, but there are other problems that affect
far more people.
Even if the low wages of 0.4 percent of workers is a serious
problem, should we mandate a solution that could force some
businesses to close? That would create worse problems for the newly
unemployed that would then make $0 per hour instead of $7.25.
Debate over the minimum wage demonstrates that policy is made by
sound bites and sad stories in the media rather than economic
principles. Until debate is driven by intellectual discussion rather
than emotion, deficits will continue to spiral out of control,
regulations will increase unemployment and there will be more and
more sad stories for the media to cover.