(First posted at Sound Politics) Mark Perry, a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus, has been looking at Seattle’s employment numbers and noticed that following the April increase in the minimum wage to $11, we experienced the largest one month drop in restaurant jobs since the Great Recession. As […]
The (relative) unimportance of inequality
The topic of income inequality has received a lot of media attention, primarily because it has been a feature of president Obama’s recent speeches, including this week’s State of the Union. It’s a shame, because as a metric it’s pretty lousy for both determining sound policy prescriptions and measuring their success. It’s easy to illustrate […]
Minimum wage raises hurt the poor and unemployed
Minimum wages are back in the headlines as a result of initiatives in states, proposals in some cities, as well as efforts by President Obama to raise the federal rate. The way to think about whether or not raising the minimum wage is a good idea is to consider who is supposed to benefit from […]