Should we laugh or cry?
All over the country, jurisdictions are adopting the $15 minimum wage in an attempt to appease the Fight for $15 crowd and showcase their ignorance of basic economics.
One of the common responses to a higher minimum wage is this: if you think there are zero negative consequences of a higher minimum wage then why not raise it to $50, $100 or $150 an hour? The usual reply is either ignoring the recommendation or saying that it’s not what leftists are demanding.
Well, one economics blogger is taking the challenge.
Vox‘s Matthew Yglesias has suggested over the weekend that the United States establish an hourly minimum wage of $150. No, that is not a typo.
Here is the tweet on Sunday:
Maybe we should just go to a $150/hour minimum wage with no phase-in period and let the Fed figure out how to make it work.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) 3 July 2017
“Maybe we should just go to a $150/hour minimum wage with no phase-in period and let the Fed figure out how to make it work.”
Ugh.
Perhaps he was tweeting in jest or perhaps he was being facetious. If Yglesias was being serious about a $150 minimum wage then maybe it’s time that he go back and read some basic economics, or even a Paul Krugman textbook that warns about a higher minimum wage.
The higher minimum wage is already shedding jobs in San Diego, reducing low-wage workers’ total pay, causing businesses to accelerate their automation efforts and preventing jobs from being created. A $150 minimum wage would destroy the country.
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