Nathan Newman has a series of excellent posts on the minimum wage:
- Illinois Raises Minimum Wage
- Why Minimum Wage Beats EITC
- Popularity of Raising Min Wage to $8/hr
- How Minimum Wage Increases Employment
- Who Pays for the Minimum Wage?
Here is the killer factoid:
In real dollars, the minimum wage is lower than it’s been since the 1950s and 30% less than its peak in 1968 when no one was supposed to make less than about $7.40 per hour.
Hence, raising it to $8 would restore it to 1968 levels. Nathan Newman has lots more to say, including an interesting discussion about why “labor markets are not like commodity markets,” and a critique of relying on wage subsidies instead of real wages. Go read!
UPDATE: Two more posts: Why Job Losses from Min Wage Don’t Matter, and, Politics of the Minimum Wage
