Raising the minimum wage creates more jobs
by David Atkins
It’s almost as if conservatives are wrong about everything:
New data released by the Department of Labor suggests that raising the minimum wage in some states might have spurred job growth, contrary to what critics said would happen.
In a report on Friday, the 13 states that raised their minimum wages on Jan. 1 have added jobs at a faster pace than those that did not. The data run counter to a Congressional Budget Office report in February that said raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, as the White House supports, would cost 500,000 jobs.
Even if it weren’t true that a higher minimum wage creates jobs due to the stimulative demand-side effect, American minimum wages are so low that at a certain point jobs that pay worse than that aren’t worth creating. Most people who work minimum wage aren’t teenagers living at home looking to make a few extra bucks to save up for an iPod. They’re middle-aged people, often with families.
The minimum wage needs to be a living wage. The business-side discomfort with raising the wage would be more understandable if every sector was hurting. But it isn’t. The rich are richer than ever, corporate profits are at record highs, the stock market is soaring. We don’t need to coddle McDonalds and WalMart by paying their employees less than living wages.
But in any case, raising the minimum doesn’t hurt the economy at all. It actually creates more jobs.
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