Category Archives: spending out of control

My March 5, 2021 letter to President Joe Biden, MILTON FRIEDMAN noted, “Congress has just acted to increase unemployment. It did so by raising the legal minimum-wage rate from $1.25 to $1.60 an hour, effective in 1968, and extending its coverage. The result will be and must be to add to the ranks of the unemployed.”

March 5, 2021 – 1:01 am

Ep. 4 – From Cradle to Grave [6/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)

March 5, 2021

President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

Thank you for taking time to have your office try and get a pulse on what is going on out here in the country. I wanted to let you know what I think about the minimum wage increase you have proposed for the whole country and I wanted to quote Milton Friedman who you are familiar with and you made it clear in July that you didn’t care for his views! Let me challenge you to take a closer look at what he had to say!

Disadvantages of Minimum wages

28 July 2019 by Tejvan Pettinger

A minimum wage is a legal minimum for workers. It means workers are guaranteed a certain hourly wage – helping to reduce relative poverty. However, a minimum wage could have potential disadvantages – in particular, there is the risk of creating unemployment as firms cannot afford to employ workers.

“It has always been a mystery to me to understand why a youngster is better off unemployed at $1.60 an hour than employed at $1.25.” – Milton Friedman (1966) “Minimum Wage Rates” Newsweek

1. Unemployment. If labour markets are competitive, a minimum wage could cause unemployment because firms will demand less labour, and higher wages may encourage more workers to supply their labour.

Diagram of Minimum Wage

minwage

In the above diagram, the NMW (Wtu) has caused a fall in employment of Q1-Q2.
The level of real wage unemployment at NMW is Q3-Q2

Firms in labour-intensive industries will be most affected. For example, hairdressers and cleaning companies will see a proportionately more significant increase in their wage bill.

Milton Friedman, a free market economist was critical of minimum wages. In 1966, he wrote a critique of the minimum wage

“Congress has just acted to increase unemployment. It did so by raising the legal minimum-wage rate from $1.25 to $1.60 an hour, effective in 1968, and extending its coverage. The result will be and must be to add to the ranks of the unemployed.”

Milton Friedman (1966) “Minimum Wage Rates” Newsweek

2. Firms may become uncompetitive. In some cases, a higher minimum wage could push up costs causing a firm to go out of business because they may not be able to afford wage costs. This might be a particular problem if the firm is competing in a global market and higher wage costs make them uncompetitive compared to low-wage cost countries. For example, a higher minimum wage may encourage firms to manufacture clothes in China or Taiwan where labour is cheaper than the UK.

3. Cost-push inflation. A minimum wage can cause cost-push inflation. This is because firms face an increase in costs which are likely to be passed on to consumers. This is even more likely if wage differentials are maintained.

4. Black market. A minimum wage may increase the number of people working on the black market so firms can avoid paying the legal minimum.

5. Poorest don’t benefit. A limitation of the minimum wage is that it doesn’t increase the incomes of the lowest income groups. This is because the poorest have to rely on benefits and are therefore not affected by minimum wages.

6. Limited impact on relative poverty. Many who benefit from the minimum wage are second income earners, and therefore the household is unlikely to be below the poverty line. A household with a single income earner just above the minimum wage is likely to be relatively poorer. But they will not benefit from the minimum wage.

Evaluation of Minimum Wages

The effect of a min wage on unemployment is uncertain, the structure of the labour market is very important. E.g. if the labour market is a monopsony, a minimum wage may not cause unemployment.
Empirical evidence from the US and the UK suggests that a moderate increase in the minimum wage doesn’t cause a fall in employment. Therefore the key question is how high the minimum wage can rise before causing unemployment.
The impact of the minimum wage on wage differential is important. For example, skilled workers just above the minimum wage may feel they deserve more. Therefore, an increase in the minimum wage may lead to wage increases for all pay grades. However, increasing the minimum wage tends to have limited impacts on wage differentials.
There may be a good case for a regional minimum wage because actual wages tend to be lower in the north than the south. In London, very few workers benefit from the minimum wage, and in this region, the minimum wage could increase.

Related

_____________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733

Williams with Sowell – Minimum Wage

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell – Reducing Black Unemployment

By WALTER WILLIAMS

—-

” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” /> Image result for milton friedman ronald reagan

Ronald Reagan with Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama | Comments (0)

My March 3, 2021 letter to President Joe Biden, MILTON FRIEDMAN: “insofar as minimum wage laws have any effect at all, their effect is clearly to increase poverty. The state can legislate a minimum wage rate. It can hardly require employers to hire at that minimum all who were formerly employed at wages below the minimum”

March 3, 2021 – 1:55 am

Ep. 4 – From Cradle to Grave [6/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)

March 3, 2021

President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

Liberty Quotation of the Day: Milton Friedman on Minimum Wage Laws

QUOTE POSTED ON APRIL 4, 2014 UPDATED ON APRIL 4, 2014

“Minimum wage laws are about as clear a case as one can find of a measure the effects of which are precisely the opposite of those intended by the men of good will who support it. Many proponents of minimum wage laws quite properly deplore extremely low rates; they regard them as a sign of poverty; and they hope, by outlawing wage rates below some specified level, to reduce poverty. In fact, insofar as minimum wage laws have any effect at all, their effect is clearly to increase poverty. The state can legislate a minimum wage rate. It can hardly require employers to hire at that minimum all who were formerly employed at wages below the minimum. It is clearly not in the interest of employers to do so. The effect of the minimum wage is therefore to make unemployment higher than it otherwise would be.”

Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom [1962]

_____________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733

Williams with Sowell – Minimum Wage

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell – Reducing Black Unemployment

By WALTER WILLIAMS

—-

” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” /> Image result for milton friedman ronald reagan

Ronald Reagan with Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama | Comments (0)

My March 1, 2021 letter to President Joe Biden, The Luddite fallacy seeks to boost jobs by eschewing labor-saving technologies. MILTON FRIEDMAN once heard a Third World bureaucrat, suffering from this fallacy, defend his decision to have poor workers dig a massive canal with shovels rather than earth movers because that meant more jobs. Friedman asked: Why don’t you replace their shovels with spoons?

March 1, 2021 – 1:56 am

Ep. 4 – From Cradle to Grave [6/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)

March 1, 2021

President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

Four Progressive Minimum Wage Myths Debunked

Democrats are just making things up to advance their job-killing cause.

SHIKHA DALMIA | 4.18.2016 10:30 AM

Progressives have gone crazy over the minimum wage.

President Obama got the ball rolling when he called for hiking the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per

hour. Now, bothDemocratic presidential candidates are trying to one-up him, with Bernie Sanders demanding a $15 federal wage and Hillary Clinton $12. Meanwhile, California and New York have already passed laws mandating the Bernie rate, and scores of cities across the country are clamoring to follow suit.

And all the while, minimum wage advocates are making increasingly fanciful claims on behalf of their beloved laws.

The left’s minimum wage obsession dovetails with a shifting academic consensus that until the 1990s considered such hikes a recipe for killing jobs, especially for low-skilled workers. For a long time, the generally accepted rule of thumb was that, all else remaining equal, every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage would decrease low-skilled employment by 1 to 2 percent, since the more employers had to pay these employees, the fewer jobs they could afford to provide.

This consensus began to fray with a 1992 study by economists David Card and Alan Kreuger, who found that New Jersey’s minimum wage hike—from $4.25 to $5.05—did not lead to expected job losses in the state’s fast food restaurants. This finding has been hotly contested, but even if it were true, it doesn’t mean there are no other downsides to minimum wage laws. For example, sometimes employers don’t respond to minimum wage hikes by laying off workers, but instead by raising prices for consumers. (Minimum wage opponents haven’t helped their case by hitching it almost exclusively to job losses while ignoring the other, equally pernicious, adjustment responses by businesses.)

There is only one scenario, according to Naval Postgraduate School economist David Henderson, under which a modest legally mandated minimum wage might do more good than harm: when employers enjoy monopsony power (a monopoly on the buying side) in the labor market, either because there are very few of them or because workers can’t leave for some reason. Employers then have a relatively free hand to hold wages down. A mandated minimum wage under those circumstances merely diverts the firm’s “excess profits” to the worker, something that would have happened automatically in a more competitive market. But it doesn’t diminish a company’s productivity or its incentive for additional hiring—thereby actually boosting job growth. But genuine monopsony isn’t common and would require a very finely calibrated and skillfully crafted minimum wage, which is not how blanket policies work in the real world.

America’s federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour works out to about 42 percent of its $17.40 hourly median wage. Even the most gung-ho academics only advocate raising it to 50 percent of the median — which means a little over $8.70. This in itself is a crude benchmark that lumps together high-wage service occupations with low-wage construction and other non-service ones whose market realities are completely different. Be that as it may, it is inconceivable that a $15 minimum wage—equal to 86 percent of America’s median wage, and the highest in the Western world—wouldn’t kill jobs, especially in small towns and cities where wages tend to be lower. Witness the chronic double-digit unemployment rate that a far less insane minimum wage has generated in France, Spain, Belgium, and other European countries.

And yet, minimum wage enthusiasts are abandoning all caution and making increasingly extravagant claims. Here are four of their sillier arguments:

False: Minimum wage hikes will lead to productivity-boosting automation

The standard rap against minimum wage laws is that by raising the cost of hiring workers, they prompt companies to invest in labor-saving technologies, throwing people out of work. But Matthew Yglesias claims that this would by no means be a “bad thing.” Why? Because productivity is the engine of economic progress. And if machines are more productive than people, then policies that prod employers to replace people with machines would mean more wealth without toil for everyone. This is the reverse of the Luddite fallacy that seeks to boost jobs by eschewing labor-saving technologies. Nobel laureate Milton Friedman once heard a Third World bureaucrat, suffering from this fallacy, defend his decision to have poor workers dig a massive canal with shovels rather than earth movers because that meant more jobs. Friedman asked: Why don’t you replace their shovels with spoons?

Increasing productivity is not simply a matter of increasing output, but doing so in the most cost-effective way. You do not encourage that with policies that force investments in capital equipment when labor is plentiful. Indeed, this raises the overall opportunity cost, rendering an economy less efficient. If Friedman were alive, he may well have asked Yglesias why, by his logic, he doesn’t just advocate a ban on all manual labor.

False: Minimum wage hikes helps firms make more money

This claim strains credulity. How would a $15 mandate that almost doubles a company’s labor costs actually boost profits? The argument that former Labor Secretary Robert Reich offers is that higher wages means happier employees and lower turnover, something that saves a company money. If so, the million-dollar question is why aren’t greedy companies doing this already? Are they too stupid or sadistic or both to pass up on a win-win deal for both themselves and their workers?

False: Minimum wage hikes will stimulate the economy

Michael Reich, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, claims not only that a $15 minimum wage wouldn’t produce job losses in the short run, but would actually stimulate the economy, resulting in job gains in the long run. “They’d (employees) have more money to spend, the overall level of demand for goods and services would be higher, and so would the level of employment,” he claims.

But shifting wealth around doesn’t generate real economic growth. Boosting productivity does. Indeed, ordering employers to give artificial raises means that they would have less money to spend or invest, cancelling out any extra spending by workers.

False: Minimum wage hikes will diminish the strain on welfare programs

Advocates of the minimum wage claim that without a suitably high minimum, low-income workers are forced to rely on food stamps and health care programs to make ends meet. In essence, they argue, welfare programs end up subsidizing McDonald’s low-wage workforce, which is hardly fair to taxpayers. Forcing companies to pay something resembling “living” wages would diminish low-wage workers’ dependence on government programs.

This assumes that boosting the minimum wage would hand more workers a raise than it would throw people out of work, of course — which is hardly a reasonable assumption, as pointed out earlier. Indeed, notesUniversity of California, Irvine’s David Neumark, the probability that a family will escape poverty due to higher wages will be offset by the probability that another will enter poverty because it has been priced out of the labor market.

The core fallacy in this line of reasoning is that employers can set wages based on employee needs rather than market forces. Hence, they can simply be forced to hand over more money to their workers. That, however, is not how things work, especially in a globalized world where forcing employers to cough up wages higher than the market can bear would undermine their competitiveness—not something that helps anyone in the long run.

This article originally appeared in The Week.

_____________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733

Williams with Sowell – Minimum Wage

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell – Reducing Black Unemployment

By WALTER WILLIAMS

—-

” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” /> Image result for milton friedman ronald reagan

Ronald Reagan with Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama | Comments (0)

My February 27, 2021 letter to President Joe Biden, LARRY ELDER: Speaking of “systemic racism,” Democrats want to INCREASE the minimum wage to $15. Economist Milton Friedman called the minimum wage law “the most anti-Negro” law on the statute books.

February 27, 2021 – 1:46 am

Ep. 4 – From Cradle to Grave [6/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)

February 27, 2021

President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

Larry Elder — Joe Shalmoni Photography (C)2014 All Rights Reserved

Rapper/actor Ice Cube is on the brink of understanding the left-wing con.

He appears on the verge of understanding the fake product that the Democrats and the media have been peddling: that America remains guilty of “systemic racism.”

In a video Cube posted on social media, he wondered what Blacks are getting in return for their virtually unquestioned loyalty to the Democratic Party. In explaining why he recently met with Democrats and Republicans, Cube tweeted: “Every side is the Darkside for us here in America. They’re all the same until something changes for us. They all lie and they all cheat but we can’t afford not to negotiate with whoever is in power or our condition in this country will never change. Our justice is bipartisan.”

I sent him a series of tweets to assist him in his journey of political discovery:

Dear Ice Cube,

Urge Blacks to follow your lead and that of your parents! You were raised by two parents and were voluntarily bused to a better school rather than attending the nearby inferior public school. Like your parents, you raised your own kids in a nuclear intact family.

Democrats’ policies hurt Blacks. Welfare causes fatherlessness. Unskilled illegals compete with unskilled Blacks for jobs. Democrats oppose school choice. For votes, Democrats play the race card to keep Blacks angry.

IT’S A … SCAM!

The No. 1 problem in the Black community is that 70% of Black kids are born without the father married to their mom. Barack Obama said kids growing up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty, nine times more likely to drop out of school and 20 times more likely to send up in prison.

Blame government welfare.

“There’s no more important ingredient for success, nothing that would be more important for us reducing violence than strong, stable families – which means we should do more to promote marriage and encourage fatherhood.” -Barack Obama, Feb. 15, 2013.

“I know for a fact that had I had a father, I’d have some discipline … more confidence. Your mother cannot calm you down the way a man can … can’t reassure you the way a man can … You need a man to teach you how to be a man.” – Tupac Shakur.

“Don’t blame the system (for Black incarceration). It starts at the home. It starts at home. … It starts with how you raise your children. If a young man doesn’t have a father figure, he’ll go find a father figure.” – Denzel Washington, November 2017.

Of the 1,000 people killed by cops each year, less than 4% are white cop/unarmed Black. Half of all homicide victims are Black, almost all killed by Blacks. It isn’t poverty or “systemic racism.”

During the Great Depression, Black unemployment was 50%, with a lower murder rate.

Speaking of “systemic racism,” Democrats want to INCREASE the minimum wage to $15. Economist Milton Friedman called the minimum wage law “the most anti-Negro” law on the statute books.

“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about a robbery. Then (I) look around and see someone white and feel relieved.” – The Rev. Jesse Jackson, 1993.

Of the approximately 1,000 people killed by police each year, most resisted with a weapon or resisted violently.

Half are white. Less than 4% of the 1,000 involve a white cop and an unarmed Black. More unarmed whites are killed by cops each year than unarmed Blacks.?

“White police officers were less likely than Black or Hispanic officers to shoot unarmed Black suspects. … ‘An Empirical Analysis’ … by (a Black) Harvard economics professor … (found) zero evidence of racial bias in police shootings. … Note also that police officers face an 18.5 times greater chance of being killed by a Black male than an unarmed Black male has of being killed by a police officer.” – Heather Mac Donald, Manhattan Institute, July 12, 2016.

In 2018, the FBI reported 748 interracial homicides between Blacks and whites.

Homicides committed by Blacks (13% of population) against whites: 514. Homicides committed by non-Hispanic whites (60% of population) against Blacks: 234.

In 2018, there were more than 600,000 interracial violent victimizations (excluding homicide) between Blacks and whites, with 90% committed by Blacks against whites, and 10% by whites against Blacks.

In 2018, Blacks, at 13% of the population, committed 24% of “hate crimes.”

Whites, at 60% of the population, committed 54% of hate crimes.

A 1997 Time/CNN poll asked Black teens if racism was a big, small or no problem in their own lives, and 89% said small or no problem. More Black teens than white teens called “failure to take advantage of available opportunities” a bigger problem than racism.

Ice Cube is starting to get it.

Hopefully all this information helps him. Racism has never been a less important factor in success. For votes, Democratic politicians say otherwise to keep Blacks angry. Mr. Cube, bring others to the light.

Larry Elder is a bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio talk show host. Follow him on Twitter @LarryElder.

_____________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733

Williams with Sowell – Minimum Wage

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell – Reducing Black Unemployment

By WALTER WILLIAMS

—-

” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” /> Image result for milton friedman ronald reagan

Ronald Reagan with Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama | Comments (0)

My February 23, 2021 letter to President Joe Biden, MILTON FRIEDMAN observers, “In 1956, the minimum was raised from 75 cents to a dollar—a very substantial rise. The unemployment rate among male teenagers was about the same for blacks as for whites. Both were about 8% when the over-all unemployment rate was about 4%. In the late Fifties, after the minimum-wage rate was raised from 75 cents to a dollar, the unemployment rate of black teenagers shot up from 8% to something like 20 to 25 percent!”

February 23, 2021 – 1:19 am

Ep. 4 – From Cradle to Grave [6/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)

February 23, 2021

President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

Milton Friedman on the minimum wage

Written by John Phelan

in Economy

on May 04, 2018

All too often, the policy debates of today are simply refights of the battles of yesteryear. As a result, old arguments often retain a striking relevance.

In February 1973, economist Milton Friedman gave an interview to Playboy magazine. It was a wide ranging interview, covering topics from monetary policy to political philosophy. Friedman was an economist with a rare gift for translating technical arguments into clear prose (as you will find in his books Capitalism and Freedom and Free to Choose). His remarks on the minimum wage, as given in that interview, are startlingly contemporary.

PLAYBOY: How can you be sure that the minimum-wage law is the cause?
FRIEDMAN: In 1956, I think, the minimum was raised from seventy-five cents to a dollar—a very substantial rise. In the early Fifties, the unemployment rate among male teenagers was about the same for blacks as for whites. Both were about eight percent when the over-all unemployment rate was about four percent. In the late Fifties, after the minimum-wage rate was raised from seventy-five cents to a dollar, the unemployment rate of black teenagers shot up from eight percent to something like 20 to 25 percent. For white teenagers, it shot up to something like 13 percent. From that day to this, the rates for both black and white teenagers have been higher than before 1956. When they start to decline, a new rise in the minimum-wage rate comes along and pushes them up again. The black teenage rate has been very much higher than the white teenage rate, for reasons that are highly regrettable and that we ought to be doing something about: Blacks get less schooling and are less skilled than whites. Therefore, the minimum-wage rate hits them particularly hard. I’ve often said the minimum-wage rate is the most anti-Negro law on the books.

PLAYBOY: Couldn’t those who are hurt by minimum-wage legislation be trained for more skilled jobs at better wages?
FRIEDMAN: The minimum wage destroys the best kind of training programs we’ve ever had: on-the-job training. The main way people have risen in the labor force is by getting unskilled jobs and learning things. Not merely technical skills: They learn such things as being at a job on time, spending eight hours a day at a job rather than standing around on street corners, having a certain element of responsibility, letting their employer know when they’re not going to come in. All of those traits are very important. In an attempt to repair the damage that the minimum wage has done to traditional on-the-job training, you now have a whole collection of programs designed to take up the slack. The great proliferation of governmental programs in which employers are subsidized to provide on-the-job training gives employers an incentive to hire people and then fire them in order to get other people for whom they can get more subsidies.

John Phelan is an economist at the Center of the American Experiment.

_____________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733

Williams with Sowell – Minimum Wage

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell – Reducing Black Unemployment

By WALTER WILLIAMS

—-

” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” /> Image result for milton friedman ronald reagan

Ronald Reagan with Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama | Comments (0)

My February 17, 2021 letter to President Joe Biden, The advice of the renowned University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman: “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”

February 17, 2021 – 2:08 am

Ep. 4 – From Cradle to Grave [6/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)

February 17, 2021

President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

Thank you for taking time to have your office try and get a pulse on what is going on out here in the country.

I read this article on January 15, 2021 about your announcement the previous night concerning your first proposal to Congress. Biden’s $1.9 Trillion COVID Relief Package Includes More Stimulus Checks, State Government Bailout, $15 Federal Minimum Wage

I wanted to let you know what I think about the minimum wage increase you have proposed for the whole country and I wanted to quote Milton Friedman who you are familiar with and you made it clear in July that you didn’t care for his views! Let me challenge you to take a closer look at what he had to say!

Paging Milton Friedman: How the big minimum wage hike could hurt Illinois workers

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

EDITORIALS REFLECT THE OPINION OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD, AS DETERMINED BY THE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD, THE EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR AND THE PUBLISHER.

FEB 07, 2019 AT 4:35 PM

Gov. J.B. Pritzker delivers remarks along with state Sen. Kimberly Lightford, left, on Senate Bill 1, a bill sponsored by Lightford to raise the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, after it passed the Illinois Senate on Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019. — Gov. J.B. Pritzker delivers remarks along with state Sen. Kimberly Lightford, left, on Senate Bill 1, a bill sponsored by Lightford to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, after it passed the Illinois Senate on Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019. (Justin L. Fowler/State Journal-Register)

A bill speeding through the Illinois General Assembly and expected to land soon on Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk wraps a slew of political, socioeconomic and generational debates into one issue: raising Illinois’ minimum wage.

More than 20 states in 2019 are on course to implement higher minimum wages. The Illinois Senate on Thursday passed a bill raising the minimum wage from the current $8.25 an hour to $15 an hour by Jan. 1, 2025. The House was expected to follow and Gov. J.B. Pritzker has said he would sign it into law. But what are the broader implications of a higher minimum wage in a state already struggling with a challenging environment for employers and young job-seekers? Not good.

Progressive-leaning lawmakers dominate the legislature. They speak with empathy about the social justice implications of a minimum wage. Today a full-time minimum wage worker earns roughly $17,160 per year. You can’t escape poverty on that, they say. A $15-an-hour minimum wage would push that income closer to $31,200.

But wait, say conservatives who dislike overbearing government and embrace free markets. The minimum wage never was designed to be household income. It helps entry-level, less skilled and often teenage workers get a start. Nearly doubling it will keep some of those people out of the workforce, or penalize businesses that hire them.

Illinois elected officials would be wise to consider the advice of the renowned University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman: “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” We realize there aren’t enough Friedman economists in Illinois politics to fill a baby pool. But jacking up the minimum wage can hurt the intended beneficiaries. A study on Seattle’s $15-an-hour minimum wage pointed to earnings drops for some workers: To control overhead, businesses reduced their hours

That will happen here too. There will be businesses that won’t survive. Think coffee shops, nonprofits, family-owned restaurants, home health care providers, auto repair shops. There will be businesses that cut employees’ hours. And there’ll be businesses that move toward automation. Have you seen all those self-serve kiosks at fast-food restaurants?

In a high-exodus state, raising the minimum wage is particularly unwise. But if it’s inevitable, Democrats should be hypersensitive to minimizing the damage. They could hurt the very people they’re trying to help.

_____________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733

Williams with Sowell – Minimum Wage

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell – Reducing Black Unemployment

By WALTER WILLIAMS

—-

” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” /> Image result for milton friedman ronald reagan

Ronald Reagan with Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama | Comments (0)

Dan Mitchell article Everything You Need to Know about Fixing the Budget Mess in Washington

February 17, 2021 – 12:17 am

—

–

Everything You Need to Know about Fixing the Budget Mess in Washington

The 21st century has been bad news for proponents of limited government. Bush was a big spender, Obama was a big spender, Trump was a big spender, and now Biden also wants to buy votes with other people’s money.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that there is still a simple solution to America’s fiscal problems. According to the just-released Budget and Economic Outlook from the Congressional Budget Office, tax revenues will grow by an average of 4.2 percent over the next decade. So we can make progress, as illustrated by this chart, if there’s some sort of spending cap so that outlays grow at a slower pace.

The ideal fiscal goal should be reducing the size of government, ideally down to the level envisioned by America’s Founders.

But even if we have more modest aspirations (avoiding future tax increases, avoiding a future debt crisis), it’s worth noting how modest spending restraint generates powerful results in a short period of time. And the figures in the chart assume the spending restraint doesn’t even start until the 2023 fiscal year.

The main takeaway is that the budget could be balanced by 2031 if spending grows by 1.5 percent per year.

But progress is possible so long as the cap limits spending so that it grows by less than 4.2 percent annually. The greater the restraint, of course, the quicker the progress.

In other words, there’s no need to capitulate to tax increases (which, in any event, almost certainly would make a bad situation worse).

P.S. The solution to our fiscal problem is simple, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy. Long-run spending restraint inevitably will require genuine reform to deal with the entitlement crisis. Given the insights of “public choice” theory, it will be a challenge to find politicians willing to save the nation.

P.P.S. Here are real-world examples of nations that made rapid progress with spending restraint.

P.P.P.S. Switzerland and Hong Kong (as well as Colorado) have constitutional spending caps, which would be the ideal approach.

Schumer Is Wrong About Debt. Congress Must Take Debt Danger Seriously, Not Spend Recklessly.

David Ditch / @davidaditch / February 01, 2021

Calling for stimulus spending in response to COVID-19, Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., stated on Jan. 28, “The dangers of undershooting our response are far greater than overshooting it.” (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc./Getty Images)

The combination of unified control of the federal government along with the COVID-19 pandemic has seemingly caused some elected officials to think there are no consequences to new spending proposals. However, they must wake up to the dangers posed by recklessly adding to the national debt.

On Thursday, Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., exemplified this mindset by saying, “The dangers of undershooting our response are far greater than overshooting it. We should have learned the lesson, from 2008 and 2009, when Congress was too timid and constrained in its response to the global financial crisis.”

>>> What’s the best way for America to reopen and return to business? The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, a project of The Heritage Foundation, assembled America’s top thinkers to figure that out. So far, it has made more than 260 recommendations. Learn more here.

This is wrong on several fronts.

The Left has declared war on our culture, but we should never back down, nor compromise our principles. Learn more now >>

First, the stimulus spending that took place in the wake of the Great Recession was ineffective at creating jobs, and in some ways slowed the economy by creating perverse incentives and crowding out private activity.

Second, despite the difficulties associated with the pandemic, the economy is currently in much better shape than it was during the last recession.

The national unemployment rate hit 10% in October 2009 and stayed above 8% through August 2012. In contrast, the COVID-19 recession caused unemployment to spike to 14.8% in April 2020, but it fell below 7% by October.

Third, Congress has already approved over $4 trillion in response to the pandemic, much of which is still available or in the process of being distributed. The idea that Congress has been “undershooting” the response is ridiculous.

Most importantly, Schumer and other leftists in Congress are ignoring the very real danger posed by adding to the $27.8 trillion federal debt, which is over $210,000 for every U.S. household.

Even after the pandemic is over and the economy returns to normal, we will face serious problems as a result of the federal government’s broken finances.

Over $21 trillion worth of federal debt obligations are traded on the open market. While interest rates are low today, Congress has no control over what those rates will be as the debt turns over and requires refinancing.

Credit rating agencies are growing concernedabout the sustainability of America’s finances. If demand for our debt goes down, that will force the Treasury to offer higher interest rates.

Higher interest rates on so much debt would add up very quickly, which makes this a serious risk to economic growth and future prosperity. That means we need to put an end to massive deficits and eventually shrink the debt, either in absolute terms or in relation to the size of the economy, to reduce the risk to current and future generations.

This will be impossible unless legislators address the driving force behind long-term debt and deficits: unsustainable benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Major trust funds will run dry all too soon. Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) goes broke in 2024, Social Security Disability Insurance in 2026, and the Social Security retirement fund in 2031. These are programs that tens of millions of people rely on, and trust fund insolvency would cause serious upheaval, especially for Social Security.

Annual deficits for the federal government and these major benefit programs are too large to close overnight. Deficits were already high during the years of strong economic growth prior to the pandemic, and then exploded in 2020.

Reforms aiming to slow the growth of spending on Social Security and Medicare can have a significant effect, but only if those reforms are in place several years before the trust funds run out. The longer we wait, the more drastic the necessary changes become.

Besides reforming large benefit programs, there are many other ways for Congress to improve the nation’s financial health. These include refocusing the federal government on core priorities, eliminating wasteful spending, returning to a regular budget process, and strengthening economic growth.

What would not help this massive and growing problem is spending trillions of dollars we don’t have on more “relief” legislation that would do little to help the economy. Hopefully Congress will come to its senses and recognize that it has a responsibility to use taxpayer dollars wisely.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we will consider publishing your remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature.

—-

March 31, 2021

President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

Please explain to me if you ever do plan to balance the budget while you are President? I have written these things below about you and I really do think that you don’t want to cut spending in order to balance the budget. It seems you ever are daring the Congress to stop you from spending more.

President Barack Obama speaks about the debt limit in the East Room of the White House in Washington. | AP Photo

“The credit of the United States ‘is not a bargaining chip,’ Obama said on 1-14-13. However, President Obama keeps getting our country’s credit rating downgraded as he raises the debt ceiling higher and higher!!!!

Washington Could Learn a Lot from a Drug Addict

Just spend more, don’t know how to cut!!! Really!!! That is not living in the real world is it?

Making more dependent on government is not the way to go!!

Why is our government in over 16 trillion dollars in debt? There are many reasons for this but the biggest reason is people say “Let’s spend someone else’s money to solve our problems.” Liberals like Max Brantley have talked this way for years. Brantley will say that conservatives are being harsh when they don’t want the government out encouraging people to be dependent on the government. The Obama adminstration has even promoted a plan for young people to follow like Julia the Moocher.

David Ramsey demonstrates in his Arkansas Times Blog post of 1-14-13 that very point:

Arkansas Politics / Health Care Arkansas’s share of Medicaid expansion and the national debt

Posted by David Ramsey on Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 1:02 PM

Baby carrot Arkansas Medicaid expansion image

Mark Herreid
Baby carrot image via Shutterstock

Imagine standing a baby carrot up next to the 25-story Stephens building in Little Rock. That gives you a picture of the impact on the national debt that federal spending in Arkansas on Medicaid expansion would have, while here at home expansion would give coverage to more than 200,000 of our neediest citizens, create jobs, and save money for the state.

Here’s the thing: while more than a billion dollars a year in federal spending would represent a big-time stimulus for Arkansas, it’s not even a drop in the bucket when it comes to the national debt.

Currently, the national debt is around $16.4 trillion. In fiscal year 2015, the federal government would spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.2 billion to fund Medicaid expansion in Arkansas if we say yes. That’s about 1/13,700th of the debt.

It’s hard to get a handle on numbers that big, so to put that in perspective, let’s get back to the baby carrot. Imagine that the height of the Stephens building (365 feet) is the $16 trillion national debt. That $1.2 billion would be the length of a ladybug. Of course, we’re not just talking about one year if we expand. Between now and 2021, the federal government projects to contribute around $10 billion. The federal debt is projected to be around $25 trillion by then, so we’re talking about 1/2,500th of the debt. Compared to the Stephens building? That’s a baby carrot.

______________

Here is how it will all end if everyone feels they should be allowed to have their “baby carrot.”

How sad it is that liberals just don’t get this reality.

Here is what the Founding Fathers had to say about welfare. David Weinberger noted:

While living in Europe in the 1760s, Franklin observed: “in different countries … the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”

Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee (15 October 1747 – 5 January 1813) was a Scottish lawyer, writer, and professor. Tytler was also a historian, and he noted, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.”

Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Milligan

April 6, 1816

[Jefferson affirms that the main purpose of society is to enable human beings to keep the fruits of their labor. — TGW]

To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, “the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.” If the overgrown wealth of an individual be deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree; and the better, as this enforces a law of nature, while extra taxation violates it.

[From Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Albert E. Bergh (Washington: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), 14:466.]

_______

Jefferson pointed out that to take from the rich and give to the poor through government is just wrong. Franklin knew the poor would have a better path upward without government welfare coming their way. Milton Friedman’s negative income tax is the best method for doing that and by taking away all welfare programs and letting them go to the churches for charity.

_____________

_________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733

Williams with Sowell – Minimum Wage

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell – Reducing Black Unemployment

By WALTER WILLIAMS

—-

” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” /> Image result for milton friedman ronald reagan

Ronald Reagan with Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5

Welfare Spending Shattering All-Time Highs

October 29, 2012 – 11:59 am

We got to act fast and get off this path of socialism. Morning Bell: Welfare Spending Shattering All-Time Highs Robert Rector and Amy Payne October 18, 2012 at 9:03 am It’s been a pretty big year for welfare—and a new report shows welfare is bigger than ever. The Obama Administration turned a giant spotlight […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)

We need more brave souls that will vote against Washington welfare programs

September 27, 2012 – 5:51 am

We need to cut Food Stamp program and not extend it. However, it seems that people tell the taxpayers back home they are going to Washington and cut government spending but once they get up there they just fall in line with everyone else that keeps spending our money. I am glad that at least […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)

Welfare programs are not the answer for the poor

September 13, 2012 – 2:37 pm

Government Must Cut Spending Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Dec 2, 2010 The government can cut roughly $343 billion from the federal budget and they can do so immediately. __________ Liberals argue that the poor need more welfare programs, but I have always argued that these programs enslave the poor to the government. Food Stamps Growth […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)

Private charities are best solution and not government welfare

September 6, 2012 – 6:38 am

Milton Friedman – The Negative Income Tax Published on May 11, 2012 by LibertyPen In this 1968 interview, Milton Friedman explained the negative income tax, a proposal that at minimum would save taxpayers the 72 percent of our current welfare budget spent on administration. http://www.LibertyPen.com Source: Firing Line with William F Buckley Jr. ________________ Milton […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)

The book “After the Welfare State”

September 5, 2012 – 6:58 am

Dan Mitchell Commenting on Obama’s Failure to Propose a Fiscal Plan Published on Aug 16, 2012 by danmitchellcato No description available. ___________ After the Welfare State Posted by David Boaz Cato senior fellow Tom G. Palmer, who is lecturing about freedom in Slovenia and Tbilisi this week, asked me to post this announcement of his […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Uncategorized | Edit | Comments (0)

President Obama responds to Heritage Foundation critics on welfare reform waivers

August 8, 2012 – 12:58 pm

Is President Obama gutting the welfare reform that Bill Clinton signed into law? Morning Bell: Obama Denies Gutting Welfare Reform Amy Payne August 8, 2012 at 9:15 am The Obama Administration came out swinging against its critics on welfare reform yesterday, with Press Secretary Jay Carney saying the charge that the Administration gutted the successful […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, President Obama, spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)

Welfare reform part 3

August 8, 2012 – 12:49 pm

Thomas Sowell – Welfare Welfare reform was working so good. Why did we have to abandon it? Look at this article from 2003. The Continuing Good News About Welfare Reform By Robert Rector and Patrick Fagan, Ph.D. February 6, 2003 Six years ago, President Bill Clinton signed legislation overhauling part of the nation’s welfare system. […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)

Welfare reform part 2

August 8, 2012 – 12:46 pm

Uploaded by ForaTv on May 29, 2009 Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/05/18/James_Bartholomew_The_Welfare_State_Were_In Author James Bartholomew argues that welfare benefits actually increase government handouts by ‘ruining’ ambition. He compares welfare to a humane mousetrap. —– Welfare reform was working so good. Why did we have to abandon it? Look at this article from 2003. In the controversial […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)

Why did Obama stop the Welfare Reform that Clinton put in?

August 6, 2012 – 6:54 am

Thomas Sowell If the welfare reform law was successful then why change it? Wasn’t Bill Clinton the president that signed into law? Obama Guts Welfare Reform Robert Rector and Kiki Bradley July 12, 2012 at 4:10 pm Today, the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an official policy directive rewriting the welfare […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Bill Clinton, President Obama, spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)

“Feedback Friday” Letter to White House generated form letter response July 10,2012 on welfare, etc (part 14)

August 3, 2012 – 7:05 am

I have been writing President Obama letters and have not received a personal response yet. (He reads 10 letters a day personally and responds to each of them.) However, I did receive a form letter in the form of an email on July 10, 2012. I don’t know which letter of mine generated this response so I have […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Cato Institute, President Obama | Tagged Dan Mitchell | Edit | Comments (0)

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, Current Events, Economist Dan Mitchell, Founding Fathers, Milton Friedman, President Obama, Taxes | Comments (0)

My February 15, 2021 letter to President Joe Biden, Milton Friedman argued – the resulting unemployment hits African Americans particularly hard. Raising the minimum wage worsens things as employers – confronted by higher labor costs – pare back on working hours offered to their now pricier employees!

February 15, 2021 – 1:57 am

Ep. 4 – From Cradle to Grave [6/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)

February 15, 2021

President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

Thank you for taking time to have your office try and get a pulse on what is going on out here in the country.

The winners and losers of a minimum wage hike

Opposing a federal hike isn’t just about political philosophy. It’s about practicality too

Ashley Nunes

27 July 2019 7:25 PM

Millions of Americans could get a pay hike if a Democrat wins the White House. Most of President Trump’s 20-plus challengers have vowed to raise the minimum wage to $15, up from $7.25 today. Front-runner Joe Biden said the move was long overdue. Elizabeth Warren opined that doing nothing threatens the survival of the American family. And Bernie Sanders – who has long championed raising national pay standards – said it’s time companies pay their workers, ‘a living wage.’

The idea isn’t new. Wage hikes have already been approved by lawmakers in several blue states including California, Illinois and Massachusetts (Massachusetts’s minimum wage is set to always be higher than the federal average). Yet while Democrats see raising the pay floor as a moral imperative (New York city mayor and presidential candidate Bill de Blasio said his campaign is boycotting McDonald’s until the fast food chain pays its workers a $15 minimum wage), Republicans worry about government overreach. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said he would oppose any such proposal. House Republican Steve Scalise quipped the $15 figure was, ‘picked out of thin air and is not supported by any reasonable economic analysis.’ His colleague Rep. Kevin McCarthy said the strength and prosperity of American economy should not be jeopardized through more regulation. Put another way, socialism – an effective political bogeyman for the right – isn’t the answer.

Opposition to the minimum wage isn’t just about political philosophy. It’s about practicality too. Conservatives say the minimum wage forces employers to pay workers more than their work is worth. This discourages the hiring of these workers altogether. Milton Friedman famously criticized the minimum wage because – he argued – the resulting unemployment hits African Americans particularly hard. Raising the minimum wage worsens things as employers – confronted by higher labor costs – pare back on working hours offered to their now pricier employees.

_____________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733

Williams with Sowell – Minimum Wage

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell – Reducing Black Unemployment

By WALTER WILLIAMS

—-

” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” /> Image result for milton friedman ronald reagan

Ronald Reagan with Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama | Comments (0)

My February 13, 2021 letter to President Joe Biden, Politicians continue to push the idea that minimum wage laws are somehow helping the young “earn a decent wage.” It is important to remember the underlying motives behind pushes for higher minimum wage rates. Milton Friedman characterized it as an “unholy coalition of do-gooders on the one hand and special interests on the other; special interests being the trade unions.”

February 13, 2021 – 1:49 am

Ep. 4 – From Cradle to Grave [6/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)

February 13, 2021

President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

Thank you for taking time to have your office try and get a pulse on what is going on out here in the country.

Minimum Wage: The End of Teenage Work Experience?

report from JP Morgan Chase & Co. finds that the summer employment rate for teenagers is nearing a record low at 34 percent. The report surveyed 15 U.S. cities and found that despite an increase in summer positions available over a two year period, only 38 percent of teens and young adults found summer jobs.

This would be worrying by itself given the importance of work experience in entry-level career development, but it is also part of a long-term trend. Since 1995 the rate of seasonal teenage employment has declined by over a third from around 55 percent to 34 percent in 2015. The report does not attempt to examine why summer youth employment has fallen over the past two decades. If it had, it would probably find one answer in the minimum wage.

Most of the 15 cities studied in this report have minimum wage rates above the federal level, with cities such as Seattle having a rate more than double that. Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics seen in the chart show exactly how a drastic rise in the minimum wage rate affects the rate of employment.

Seattle has experienced the largest 3 month job loss in its history last year, following the introduction of a $15 minimum wage. We can only imagine the impact such a change has had on the prospects of employment for the young and unskilled.

Raising the minimum wage reduces the number of jobs in the long-run. It is difficult to measure this long-run effect in terms of the numbers of never materializing jobs. However, the key mechanism behind the model—that more labor-intensive establishments are replaced by more capital-intensive ones—is supported by evidence. That is why recent research suggesting that minimum wages barely reduce the number of jobs in the short-run, should be taken with caution. Several years down the line, a higher real minimum wage can lead to much larger employment losses.

Nevertheless, politicians continue to push the idea that minimum wage laws are somehow helping the young “earn a decent wage.” It is important to remember the underlying motives behind pushes for higher minimum wage rates. Milton Friedman characterized it as an “unholy coalition of do-gooders on the one hand and special interests on the other; special interests being the trade unions.”

Several empirical studies have been conducted over the course of more than two decades, with all evidence pointing toward negative effects of minimum wage rises on employment levels among the young and unskilled. A study conducted by David Neumark and William Wascher in 1995 noted that “such increases raise the probability that more-skilled teenagers leave school and displace lower-skilled workers from their jobs. These findings are consistent with the predictions of a competitive labor market model that recognizes skill differences among workers. In addition, we find that the displaced lower-skilled workers are more likely to end up non-enrolled and non-employed.”

Policy makers who continuously raise the minimum wage simply assure that those young people, whose skills are not sufficient to justify that kind of wage, will instead remain unemployed. In an interview Milton Freidman famously asked “What do you call a person whose labor is worth less than the minimum wage? Permanently unemployed.”

The upshot: Raising the minimum wage at both federal and local levels denies youth the skills and experience they need to get their career going.

_____________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733

Williams with Sowell – Minimum Wage

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell – Reducing Black Unemployment

By WALTER WILLIAMS

—-

” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” /> Image result for milton friedman ronald reagan

Ronald Reagan with Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama | Comments (0)

My February 11, 2021 letter to President Joe Biden, Article by Dan Mitchell “Trump Vs. Biden On The Minimum Wage”

February 11, 2021 – 1:41 am

Ep. 4 – From Cradle to Grave [6/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)

February 11, 2021

President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

Thank you for taking time to have your office try and get a pulse on what is going on out here in the country. This article below does trouble me:

Biden’s $1.9 Trillion COVID Relief Package Includes More Stimulus Checks, State Government Bailout, $15 Federal Minimum Wage

Trump Vs. Biden On The Minimum Wage

Daniel J. Mitchell | October 23, 2020

In another display of selfless masochism, I watched the Trump–Biden debate last night.

The candidates behaved better, for whatever that’s worth, but I was disappointed that there so little time (and even less substance) devoted to economic issues.

One of the few exceptions was the brief tussle regarding the minimum wage. Trump waffled on the issue, so I don’t give him any points, but Biden fully embraced the Bernie Sanders policyof basically doubling the minimum wage to $15 per hour.

This is very bad news for low-skilled workers and very bad news to low-margin businesses.

The economic of this issue are very simple. If a worker generates, say, $9 of revenue per hour, and politicians say that worker can’t be employed for less than $15 per hour, that’s a recipe for unemployment.

Earlier this month, Professor Steven Landsburg on the University of Rochester opined for the Wall Street Journal on Biden’s minimum-wage policy.

It isn’t only that I think Mr. Biden is frequently wrong. It’s that he tends to be wrong in ways that suggest he never cared about being right. He makes no attempt to defend many of his policies with logic or evidence, and he deals with objections by ignoring or misrepresenting them. …Take Mr. Biden’s stance on the federal minimum wage, which he wants to increase to $15 an hour from $7.25. …So why does Mr. Biden want to raise the minimum wage…? He hasn’t said, so I have two guesses, neither of which reflects well on him. Guess No. 1: He’s dissembling about the cost. …The minimum wage…comes directly from employers but indirectly (after firms shrink and prices rise) from consumers. A minimum wage is a stealth tax on eating at McDonald’s or shopping at Walmart. …Mr. Biden should acknowledge the cost of wage hikes and argue for accepting it. Instead he’s silent about the cost, hoping he can foist it on people who won’t realize they’re footing this bill. Guess No. 2: He’s rewarding his friends and punishing his enemies. New York is going to vote for Mr. Biden. The state also has a high cost of living and high wages—so New Yorkers would be largely unaffected by the minimum-wage hike. Alabama is going to vote against Mr. Biden. Alabama has a low cost of living and relatively low wages—so under the Biden plan Alabama firms would shrink, to the benefit of competitors in New York. Alabama workers and consumers would pay a greater price than New Yorkers.

And Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute recently highlighted some of the adverse effects for unskilled workers.

It’s an economic reality that workers compete against other workers, not against employers, for jobs, and higher wages in the labor market. And it’s also true that lower-skilled, limited-experience, less-educated workers compete against higher-skilled, more experienced, more educated workers for jobs. …If the minimum wage is increased…, that will…take away from unskilled workers the one advantage they currently have to compete against skilled workers – the ability to offer to work for a significantly lower wage than what skilled workers can command. …Result of a minimum wage hike to $15 an hour? Demand for skilled workers goes up, demand for unskilled workers goes down, and employment opportunities for unskilled workers are reduced.

Since I recently shared videos with Milton Friedman’s wisdom on both taxes and spending, here’s what he said about the minimum wage.

Milton Friedman on Minimum Wage
https://youtu.be/ca8Z__o52sk

Let’s share one last bit of evidence. Mark Perry’s article referenced some new research by Jeffrey Clemens, Lisa Kahn, and Jonathan Meer.

Here’s what those scholars found in a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

We investigate whether changes in firms’ skill requirements are channels through which labor markets respond to minimum wage increases. …Data from the American Community Survey show that recent minimum wage changes resulted in increases in the average age and education of the individuals employed in low-wage jobs. Data on job vacancy postings show that the prevalence of a high school diploma requirement increases at the same time. The shift in skill requirements begins within the first quarter of a minimum wage hike. Further, it results from both within-firm shifts in postings and across-firms shifts towards firms that sought more-skilled workers at baseline. Given the poor labor market outcomes of individuals without high school diplomas, these findings have substantial policy relevance. This possibility was recognized well over a century ago by Smith (1907), who noted that the “enactment of a minimum wage involves the possibility of creating a class prevented by the State from obtaining employment.” Further, negative effects may be exacerbated for minority groups in the presence of labor market discrimination.

So why do politicians push for higher minimum wages, when all the evidence suggests that vulnerable workers bear the heaviest cost?

Part of the answer is that they don’t understand economics and don’t care about evidence.

But there’s also a more reprehensible answer, which is that they do understand, but they want to curry favor with union bosses, and those union bosses push for higher minimum wages as a way of reducing competition from lower-skilled workers.

P.S. Here’s my CNBC debate with Joe Biden’s top economic advisor on this issue.

P.P.S. Here’s a rather frustrating discussion I had on the minimum wage with Yahoo Finance.

P.P.P.S. But if you’re pressed for time, don’t listen to me pontificate. Instead, watch this video.

_____________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733

Williams with Sowell – Minimum Wage

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell – Reducing Black Unemployment

By WALTER WILLIAMS

—-

” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” /> Image result for milton friedman ronald reagan

Ronald Reagan with Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama | Comments (0)

	SLIMJIM on FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART…
	mosckerr on RFK Jr: “If Trump is kep…
	mosckerr on “Now whether the 14th Am…
	Everette Hatcher III on “Now whether the 14th Am…
	Everette Hatcher III on RFK Jr: “If Trump is kep…

Category Archives: spending out of control

Diagram of Minimum Wage

Evaluation of Minimum Wages

Democrats are just making things up to advance their job-killing cause.

Milton Friedman on the minimum wage

–

Posted by David Ramsey on Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 1:02 PM

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Categories

Meta