The Orange Path

The Tories need a rethink on the minimum wage - Telegraph

You can’t persuade, cajole or incentivise people off welfare benefits into jobs that don’t exist for the simple reason that minimum wage legislation makes them illegal.

via www.telegraph.co.uk

New Video: Minimum Wage Brings Minimum Jobs

John Stossel's Take, 08/31/2009

Minimum wage laws actually kill off the entry-level jobs most needed by poor people to break into the job market.

Unemployment and the minimum wage: the government cannot escape responsibility

John Meadowcroft, IEA Blog, Sep 17th 2008

in a period of sustained economic growth, a minimum wage has negligible positive or negative effect; but in a period of recession a minimum wage is likely to deepen that recession by preventing labour markets from clearing

Papers on minimum wages

at Alan Manning's personal website

Is raising the minimum wage a good idea?

So the minimum wage does not look like a very good programme for fighting poverty, especially compared to alternatives
Jane Galt, March 5th 2006

Have You No Respect for the Law (of Demand)?!

Will Wilkinson, CATO@Liberty
16th June 2006
Link here

If you want to say that a wage floor is not going to throw some low-wage workers out of their jobs (or prevent them from getting jobs), you’ve got to say, in a principled way, why not. The burden is on those who predict an exception to an immensely reliable regularity.

Mimimum wage workers

Tim Worstall, Jan 24th 2008

The BLS numbers are reporting what employers paid employees, not what people are actually earning. So we might in fact say that while the number being paid the minimum wage or less is 2.2% of the workforce, the number actually earning that figure is more like 0.5%.

Thousands show up for shot at Wal-Mart job

Division of Labour, January 2008

They came in droves — high school students, retirees, young moms, the unemployed — all for a shot at a job at a new Wal-Mart on Memorial Drive in central DeKalb County.

In just two days, and with virtually no advertising or even any signs, a staggering 7,500 people filled out applications for one of the 350 to 400 available jobs.

Delois Zeigler was among those who packed a meeting room Tuesday at Saint Philips AME Church near Avondale Estates, hoping to soon be wearing Wal-Mart's trademark blue uniform.

"I need a job," said Zeigler, who has held temporary cleaning and cooking jobs since moving to metro Atlanta two months ago. "I'm open to anything."

The big turnout speaks volumes about the state of the local economy, said Bruce Kaufman, a Georgia State University economics professor. While the unemployment rate in the area remains relatively low, Kaufman said the large number of job-seekers suggests that many people are either under-employed or had stopped looking for work.

"People are trying to upgrade to a better job," he said.

...For the fourth consecutive day, people waited in long lines Thursday for a shot at a job at a new Wal-Mart in DeKalb County, pushing the total number of applicants beyond 10,000.

What sets wages

Russ Roberts, Jan 23 2008

I often ask students or people attending my lectures to guess the proportion of the US work force that earns the Federal minimum wage or less. The median guess is usually around 20%. In 2006 (the latest numbers available), the BLS reports that the answer was 2.2%:

Minimum wage, minimum benefit

Free Exchange, The Economist Blog
27th May 2008

Most of those weighing in on the topic readily acknowledge that for small increases in the wage level, disemployment effects are likely to be insignificant, but that for larger increases, employers are indeed likely to create fewer jobs.The debates then centre on the issue of how large an increase is feasible without fuelling growth in unemployment and whether such an increase could make a material difference in the lives of wage earners.
[http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2008/05/minimum_wage_minimum_benefit.cfm]