Here’s a little more on the living wage debate.

I ordered it without onions but guess what?

I ordered it without onions but guess what?

I found today’s St Louis PostDispatch article  $15 minimum wage:  Fairness or a job killer? helpful in presenting both sides of the issue.  Would an increase in wage result in a decrease in jobs?  Perhaps not, according to a study by Andrajit Dube.  But that is countered by David Neumark’s conclusion that a 10% increase would result in 1 – 3% reduction in employment for those earning the least.  Both Dube and Neumark are economists in the University of California system.  Go figure.

I really do not like the comments posted for this Post-Dispatch article.  Pretty much ugly and an Ebenezer Scrooge socio-economic analysis of poverty.   Those of us who have personally and extensively worked with low income families and in their neighborhoods have come to realize the enormously complex and wearying challenges they face.  Helps us from making too many ignorant opinionated comments.

At this point I am tending to suspect there is merit to raising the minimum wage.  If Neumark is correct, it would give me more reason to pass up my occasional McDonalds cheeseburgers.  no onions, please.

Oh, also take a look at the side bar articles –

A wide gap in pay limits the ability of poorer and middle-income Americans to improve their living standards, the economists say. About 80 percent of stock market wealth is held by the richest 10 percent of Americans. That means the stock market’s outsize gains this year have mostly benefited the already affluent.