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Increasing Minimum Wage Would Impact Employment
April 2013 · Michael Saltsman · The Iowa Gazette
Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin argued that a 39 percent increase in the federal minimum wage would have no impact on employment (“Minimum wage increase is a necessity,”April 7 guest column). The senator’s claim is at odds with 85 percent of the most credible economic research on the subject from the last three decades. But it’s not just economists who know the senator’s wrong — local Iowa businesses… -
Unhelpful Wage Hike
April 2013 · Michael Saltsman · Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A recent Post-Gazette editorial claims there “is no reason not to raise the minimum wage” (“Raise the Wage,” April 4). Here’s one: Raising the minimum wage won’t achieve the editors’ desired goal of reducing poverty. Twenty-eight states — including Pennsylvania — increased their minimum wages between 2003 and 2007, and economists from Cornell and American University found no associated reduction in poverty. This was due in part to… -
Minimum Wage a Bad Compromise
April 2013 · Michael Saltsman · Utica Observer-Dispatch
The New York Legislature’s minimum wage deal is a compromise of the worst kind, where a terrible policy is paired with token tax breaks in the hope that the latter will minimize the damage of the former. This approach has been tried before. Federal lawmakers tied the 2007-09 minimum wage increase to a series of temporary tax breaks for businesses. Yet economists at Miami and Trinity Universities… -
Wage Battle not Biblical
March 2013 · Michael Saltsman · New York Daily News
Washington: Unfortunately for Cornel West (“A higher minimum: The Christian way,” Op-Ed, March 13), the Bible is silent on the wisdom of a higher minimum wage. Fortunately for New York policymakers, the overwhelming consensus of economic literature is not. Eighty-five percent of the most credible studies on the subject from the last two decades point to a loss of job opportunities following a wage hike. Most recently,… -
Ross Wrong on Minimum Wage
March 2013 · Michael Saltsman · San Francisco Chronicle
Instead of digging up a statement from the National Association of Manufacturers from the 1930s, Andrew S. Ross (“Good timing in push to lift minimum wage,” Business, March 6) should have paid attention to recent history. A lot has happened since the 1930s – we cured polio, put a man on the moon, and discovered that the minimum wage has a harmful effect on jobs. For instance, a study by David Neumark… -
Minimum Wage Hike a Bad Idea
March 2013 · Michael Saltsman · Houston Chronicle
Regarding “GOP nickel-and-diming in minimum-wage clash” (Page B10, Sunday), columnist Bill King says he believes a higher minimum wage is a good thing. Unfortunately for him, the vast majority of economists believe otherwise. And in the latter case, that belief is based on hard empirical fact. Peer-reviewed research from the past decade shows that minimum wage hikes disproportionately hurt teenagers (with even worse effects for minority teenagers), fail to…