Maybe a higher minimum wage isn't so bad for job growth after all.
The 13 U.S. states that raised their minimum wages at the beginning of this year are adding jobs at a faster pace than those that did not, providing some counter-intuitive fuel to the debate over what impact a higher minimum has on hiring trends.
Many business groups argue that raising the minimum wage discourages job growth by increasing the cost of hiring. A Congressional Budget Office report earlier this year lent some support for that view. It found that a minimum wage of $10.10 an hour, as President Obama supports, could cost 500,000 jobs nationwide.
But the state-by-state hiring data, released Friday by the Labor Department, provides ammunition to those who disagree. Economists who support a higher minimum say the figures are encouraging, though they acknowledge they don't establish a cause and effect. There are many possible reasons hiring might accelerate in a particular state.
"It raises serious questions about the claims that a raise in the minimum wage is a jobs disaster," said John Schmitt, a senior economist at the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research. The job data "isn't definitive," he added, but is "probably a reasonable first cut at what's going on."
So to sum up Obamacare is NOT a job killer, raising the minimum wage is NOT a job killer, and despite conservative attacks to the contrary President Obama has been steadily increasing jobs in this country since he took office. But just not fast enough to make them happy of course.
And while we are poking holes in Republican talking points perhaps it is a good time to point out that trickle down economics do not work, lowering taxes does not increase jobs, and big businesses are not humanitarian organizations dedicated to making their employees lives more enjoyable.
You help the employee earn a decent wage, you help build business, energize the economy, and move more Americans out of poverty.
Thank you, President Obama! You are doing an outstanding job in spite of the Republican/Teabagger obstruction!
ReplyDeleteAnd, we know it is killing them to see the amount of success he is having! Yea! Vote them out of office in November across the country and especially in the U.S. Congress beginning w/McConnell of Kentucky!!!
This news will only make the Repubs more angry -- their default reaction when they know they have been proven wrong!
ReplyDeleteAnd IN the wrong.
Obama could never increase jobs fast enough to make them happy because the only thing that would make them happy is NO JOB GROWTH. They just want to blame Obama for everything they can possibly think of. So every time he takes away a negative talking point, they are pissed.
ReplyDelete8 years of pissed.
I so want Hillary to run so we can continue the Repub1%can't downward spiral. Eventually some of the stupids will accept that the Republicans in Congress are the enemy; obstructing movement and only catering to their elite 1%er puppetmasters.
OH. MY. GOD.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88tWn26bh3M
Really?
DeleteWould you mind providing some, you know, INFORMATION about the video at the link so people know what it is before they click on it (or not)?
THE HETEROSEXUALITY EXPERIMENT
DeleteThe guy goes around in Texas and asks people if they would vote for a heterosexual. The people have no idea what a heterosexual is.
And hilarity ensues Great link!!!
DeleteOTOH, President Obama wants to raise the minimum wage. That's very good.
ReplyDeleteOTOH, President Obama wants to fasttrack approval of the TPP agreement, which will SCREW workers BIG-TIME. That's very, very, VERY bad.
Just as the president's recent opening of the eastern seaboard to off-shore drilling will SCREW the environment (while making the likes of Sarah Palin cackle with glee at how Obama emulated her at the expense of the environment and of his supporters who value the environment).
So it's beyond me why so many of you want to canonize President Obama regardless. He's good on a few issues, but his position on others that are just as important is the exact same that you would fucking CRUCIFY Bush for holding.
ZOTOH, we're not crucifying 45th President Mitt Willard Romney, so there's that.
DeleteNobody's "canonizing" him. So would it kill you to give credit where credit is due, ESPECIALLY when you consider the republican alternative? Don't you think he gets enough criticism from republicans? Does the left really need to add to the vitriol when he does something they don't like and completely forget about all the things they do like?
Delete3:43, sorry you missed the part in my post where I DID give Obama credit. And please spare me the "Republicans are worse" crap. In many cases Democrats are EXACTLY as terrible as Republicans. And yes, the left needs to scream loud and long where the president who owes his office to us so casually screws us over. And by "us," I mean the water we drink and the air we breathe and the land we live on, too. All those things will suffer because of Obama, and they'll suffer even more if he approves the Keystone pipeline, which he's dragged his heels on for years instead of giving it the shitcanning it deserves.
Delete1:21
Spoken like a true Nader 2000 voter.
DeleteIf conservatives had their way,there would be no minimum wage,and we would all be working for a dollar an hour.
DeleteTurns out University of Texas Economics Professor Daniel Hamermesh was wrong when he predicted Obama's $9/hour minimum wage hike suggestion during his January 2013 SotU address would be a sure job-killer and was "a slightly harmful idea".
ReplyDeletehttp://www.businessinsider.com/charts-obama-9-dollar-minimum-wage-historical-2013-2
Harmful maybe to the right-wing propagandists. Gotta hand it to those right wing Texans - they're whiffing pretty consistently.
People who work deserve a living wage. Raising the minimum is a great first step. The extra money they make doesn't end up somewhere that one needs a passport to count, it stays in the community, helps businesses and working people by increasing spending and helping people get into the middle class over time.
ReplyDeleteThe Unions used to ensure a living wage and other protections, but most of them have been busted by the rich who need to get richer on the backs of the poor.
President Obama's reaching behind and helping others make it on their own by raising the minimum wage.
How much do hair cutters get in Alaska?
ReplyDeleteI am posting as anonymous because I do not like the alternatives. That said my name is jack. As anyone who lives in a so called "right to work" state already knows,the only way minimum wage workers will EXER get a raise is if the minimum is raised. I livr in Tucson Arizona. The cheapskate employer capitol of North America. No matter how good you are,no matter how reliable,productive,loyal. The chances that you will ever be offered a raise by this city full of tightwads is ZERO. When you are finally forced to crawl to your boss and beg for a raise,(which no valued worker,who has proven his or her worth,should ever HAVE to do) there is a very great chance you will be fired for your audacity,blackballed,and likely be denied unemployment when your boss lies to the unemployment office about why you were fired. Plus all you folks who whine about "takers' on food stamps and Medicaid,has it ever occurred to any of yoy that if those people were paid a dignified wage,they would not have to apply for any kind of public aid? Or does that just make too much sense to wrap your conservative little brain around,considering you have difficulty with words containing more than two syllables?
ReplyDelete