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The Center for American Progress reports:
Think a higher minimum wage is a job killer? Think again: The states that raised their minimum wages on January 1 have seen higher employment growth since then than the states that kept theirs at the same rate.
The minimum wage went up in 13 states Arizona, Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington either thanks to automatic increases in line with inflation or new legislation, as Ben Wolcott reports in his analysis at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The average change in employment for those states over the first five months of the year as compared with the last five of 2013 is 0.99 percent, while the average for all remaining states is 0.68 percent.
Digging deeper, all but one of those states are experiencing increases in employment, and nine of them have seen growth above the median rate.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Tuesday July 08 2014, @01:35PM
You'll have to take my word for it, but I'm rolling my eyes. You can live on a lot less than minimum wage. Buy bulk food, live with a bunch of people, etc. In addition, low wages aren't a permanent state of affairs. If you can show that you're a good worker and you pick up some skills, then you can earn more than bottom of the barrel wages. OTOH, if you're a shitty worker who can't be bothered to learn the basics like how to show up to work on time or when not to take recreational drugs, then I can't be bothered to care.
It's worth noting that there are a fair number of people who can actually afford to work for less than starvation wages. That's because they have a second income source. Most teenagers fall into this category (their parent(s) work), for example.
Further, we need to remember that the actual minimum wage is zero dollars per hour. If you're not working at all, then you can't pay for your own food, place to live, etc and you're even more stuck than if you have a job that at least makes ends meet.
Of course not. Because I don't have to and I'm pretty cheap to feed as well.
Well, you have to put the people who aren't worth hiring at minimum wage somewhere. Prison is one of the big places where the perpetually unemployed go.