What's the right minimum wage?

I'll bet you don't know!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j01L69eXdI&feature=youtu.be

SEATTLE, WA: Employees are asking for REDUCED hours so that "jacked-up" minimum wage won't cost them subsidized housing!

I just heard from a friend of mine that Seattle employees are asking for REDUCED hours so that "jacked-up" minimum wage won't cost them subsidized housing: Gee, who could have seen this coming...?

Now this is downright funny. They scream for a higher minimum wage, then, when they get it they complain because they make too much money to qualify for the free stuff, go figure. By jacking up minimum wage, Seattle has provided a valuable lesson in liberal economics. The plan has now backfired.

Nora Gibson, executive director of Full Life Care, told Seattle’s KIRO 7 TV she saw a sudden reaction from workers when Seattle’s phased minimum-wage ordinance took effect in April, bringing minimum wage to $11 an hour. She said anecdotally, some people feared they would lose their subsidized housing so they have asked that their work hours be reduced to remain eligible for all government subsidies.

It doesn’t stop at $11/hour. The law puts it up to $15 starting January 1, 2017, they will have to reduce their work hours even more to remain eligible for handouts.

Good thing the minimum wage wasn’t raised even higher, most would not work at all, they prefer to be spoon fed and remain on the government plantation.

So now workers work fewer hours, but for the same take home pay, business' labor costs increase so prices increase, buyers (workers) pay more and no one is better off, and subsidies stay the same.

Remember free market capitalism? Under that system, the harder and smarter you worked, the higher your standard of living. But that was found to result in income inequality, so now we have a system where wealth is bestowed by bureaucrats, and working harder doesn’t always make sense. And yet the taxpayer is still on the hook to support these non-workers.

The hidden history of the minimum wage in America

Mark J. Perry is concurrently a scholar at AEI and a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan's Flint campus. He is best known as the creator and editor of the popular economics blog Carpe Diem. At AEI, Perry writes about economic and financial issues for American.com and the AEIdeas blog.

Don [George Mason University economics professor Don Boudreaux] has emphasized a very important, but usually overlooked or neglected reason that some empirical studies fail to find negative employment effects following increases in the minimum wage government-mandated wage floor that guarantees reduced employment opportunities for America’s teenagers and low-skilled workers (especially minorities). That reason has to do with the fact that the minimum wage has been in effect for almost 80 years since the Fair Unfair to Unskilled Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938, and it’s been increased 27 times since then. Therefore, the government’s mandated market-suppressing, artificial wage for low- and un-skilled workers has been around for such a long time, and it’s been raised so many times, that the distortionary effects of the minimum wage have long ago been “internalized” by employers who hire unskilled workers.

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Don Boudreaux’s ongoing, excellent coverage of the minimum wage issue

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE:

No one has more steadfastly, consistently and vigorously brought economy sanity, logic and reason to the issue of the minimum wage law government-mandated wage floor that guarantees reduced employment opportunities for America’s teenagers and low-skilled workers (especially minorities) than George Mason University economics professor Don Boudreaux. On his Café Hayek blog, Don has for many years regularly covered the minimum wage issue with his wisdom, wit, and keen economic thinking, and I applaud his ongoing efforts to educate his readers, students and (hopefully, some day maybe) policymakers about an important economic issue.

In several recent posts, Don has emphasized a very important, but usually overlooked or neglected reason that some empirical studies fail to find negative employment effects following increases in the minimum wagegovernment-mandated wage floor that guarantees reduced employment opportunities for America’s teenagers and low-skilled workers (especially minorities). That reason has to do with the fact that the minimum wage has been in effect for almost 80 years since the Fair Unfair to Unskilled Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938, and it’s been increased 27 times since then. Therefore, the government’s mandated market-suppressing, artificial wage for low- and un-skilled workers has been around for such a long time, and it’s been raised so many times, that the distortionary effects of the minimum wage have long ago been “internalized” by employers who hire unskilled workers. Don explains that phenomenon in a recent blog post where he schools Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein about his “simply poor economic journalism,” and provides this additional commentary:

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Here's a look at how other nations' hourly rates stack up against each other...

"In Northern Europe, social partners are reluctant to the introduction of a minimum wage because they want to keep control of wage setting."

Voters in Switzerland overwhelmingly struck down a proposal to set the country’s minimum wage at what would have been the highest in the world at about $25 an hour, or 22 Swiss francs…This would have been Switzerland’s first federally mandated minimum wage. Other countries without minimum wages include Denmark, Germany, Italy, Norway and Sweden, all where there is more collective bargaining between employers and workers to establish pay.

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Video: How minimum-wage increases kill job creation

From the Center for Freedom and Prosperity via HotAir.com

Chart: Direct relationship between teenage unemployment rate and minimum wage increases

Courtesy of GatewayPundit