In 1938 the United States set the federal minimum wage at 25 cent an hour. Since then, the minimum wage has been making small discrete jumps to today’s rate of $7.25 an hour. But after adjusting for inflation, the minimum wage has been decreasing ever since the peak value (in today’s dollars) on February 1968 at $11.09 per hour. The lowest …
Following the suggestion of a reader, I re-plotted the worldwide minimum wage vs. unemployment. Before you skip ahead to the chart below, keep in mind the lesson I learned from my last post which was that international economies are vastly different from America’s, and examining the extremes doesn’t translate easily back to American circumstances. In the …
The minimum wage rate is one of the polarizing points between Democrats and Republicans. Both parties point to studies claiming that raising the minimum wage will either increase inflation, negating the benefits, or it will lead to stronger purchasing power among the poorest consumers, improving the economy. Both sides make strong points. And into this confusing fray, I throw my own …
This post is related to NPR’s Planet Money’s podcast “Episode 472: The One-Page Plan To Fix Global Warming“. In the podcast, Alex Blumberg and David Kestenbaum describe their approach to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the chief cause of global warming. Their one step approach is to tax emissions. It’s an interesting podcast, well worth the …
For a moment, suspend fairness to honest, prudent homeowners. Forget about providing “correct” market incentives. And disregard any other emotional or political problems that accompany this particular idea. It is widely agreed that the “Great Recession of 2006” was caused by the failing of mortgage-backed securities. So it seems like a simple approach to restoring normalcy …
