Wednesday, October 31, 2012

The Economic Consequences of Minimum Wage by D. Roosevelt

It's not clear where this smaller consensus on this trouble will lead. Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich states that he plans to wait on proposals to raise and index the minimum wage until the recovery is often a reality. It does look likely that a separate initiative--the Administration's high-skills career strategy--will lend a brand new factor to the debate. The high-skills argument has been created by economists for example former Labor Secretary Ray Marshall. According to Marshall, high interest rates drove up the true cost of capital inside 1970s and 1980s, creating an incentive to compete against overseas rivals over a basis of pay just as infant boomers and women flooded the labor market. This drove down the relative cost of labor, the effect of which was heightened by a dramatic drop inside the inflation-adjusted minimum wage, which remains at a historically low level (Bernstein, Del Valle & McNamee, 1993, p. 92).

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Marshall, in Considering for your Living, a book he co-authored, argues that competing on wages just isn't smart. The key to winning in world markets even though raising living standards domestically, according to Marshall, is to rely on higher-skilled, much more productive workers--and indexing the minimum wage will support to spur this transition. Even though this may perhaps hurt young workers, who are one of the most vulnerable minimum-wage employees, Marshall states that young people need to not be working in these career and must be in school.

Card created California his manage group. Like several states, California has its unique wage law, and in 1988 it raised its minimum to $4.25 an hour, though the federal level remained at $3.35. Once Card compared California with states where the minimum did not change, he observed no evidence that its career growth had slowed. This scenario was even much more startling for teenagers, who make up a third of all minimum-wage workers and are the very first being laid off if the wage rises. The employment-to-population ratio for California teens rose by 5.6 percent. In addition, Card found no negative effect within the low-wage retail trade industry.

Princeton University economist David Card recently proposed a controlled minimum-wage experiment. Although previous studies have identified low career growth primarily by producing statistical correlations in between minimum-wage hikes and national task levels, Card's technique provides no comparison sample to show what employment growth would be if the minimum wage was not raised (Bernstein, Del Valle & McNamee, 1993, p. 93; and Epstein, 1993, p. 41).

In conclusion, the debate about minimum-wage rates is most likely to continue. Business normally opposes any enhance in wages, and labor and its aid groups commonly want greater minimum wages. All economists agree, however, that the minimum wage does smaller to lift the unskilled worker out of poverty. Minimum-wage increases do decrease job in between teens and young adults (in most cases), but several analysts think that these workers ought to be in school or in apprenticeship programs in which they will understand skills which will give them opportunities for much better jobs. Greater minimum wages do not look to get a correlation to higher unemployment. Other causes inside economy, which are beyond the scope of this research, have a greater affect on the unemployment rates.

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