Minimum Wage
Jan. 24th, 2007 01:26 pmMinimum Wage Rises, Sky Does Not Fall
By Barbara Ehrenreich, AlterNet, January 23, 2007
When I flew to Seattle last week, airport security gave me trouble over the four-pound ham I was carrying. Several TSA officials gathered to consider the question of whether ham is a "gel," to which I retorted: If ham is a gel, so am I. I suggested that they biopsy it for hidden box-cutters. I offered to divide it into 21 three-ounce chunks, each appropriately stowed in a Ziploc baggie. But no deal.
So I broke down and told them I was flying into what I had been warned would be a food-free zone: Washington, with the highest minimum wage in the country ($7.63 an hour), could hardly be expected to have affordable restaurants or a functioning economy of any kind. Notable conservative economists have almost unanimously predicted that an increased minimum wage would result in wild price increases and mass unemployment, and I had a suitcase full of clippings to prove it.
( Read More )
By Barbara Ehrenreich, AlterNet, January 23, 2007
When I flew to Seattle last week, airport security gave me trouble over the four-pound ham I was carrying. Several TSA officials gathered to consider the question of whether ham is a "gel," to which I retorted: If ham is a gel, so am I. I suggested that they biopsy it for hidden box-cutters. I offered to divide it into 21 three-ounce chunks, each appropriately stowed in a Ziploc baggie. But no deal.
So I broke down and told them I was flying into what I had been warned would be a food-free zone: Washington, with the highest minimum wage in the country ($7.63 an hour), could hardly be expected to have affordable restaurants or a functioning economy of any kind. Notable conservative economists have almost unanimously predicted that an increased minimum wage would result in wild price increases and mass unemployment, and I had a suitcase full of clippings to prove it.
( Read More )