The great Krugtron the Invincible argues the minimum wage can be increased without much consequence. He says there’s “hardly any cost to raising it,” and that “we can raise these wages without losing lots of jobs.” Notice the weasel language. We can raise it without losing “lots” of jobs, but regardless of what he subjectively considers to reach the “lots of jobs” threshold, there will unarguably be a lose of some jobs.
Bringing in some data, Antony Davies at the Mercatus Center demonstrates that as relative minimum wages have increased, so to has unemployment rates for those with anything less than a college diploma.
So Krugman’s job is safe, but plenty of those poor folks he claims to champion will feel the warm, fuzzy benefits of his proposal all the way to the unemployment line.
In the latest episode of Hotnomics, host Emerald Robinson looks closer at the numbers and lays out the evidence against raising the minimum wage.
