Word: wage
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...like so many other Ec. 10 models, it doesn't work in real life. Of all the increases in the minimum wage since 1938, not one has resulted in increased unemployment. Raising the minimum wage increases the purchasing power of the poorest workers, who tend to spend most of their paychecks. The resulting boost in demand keeps the economy buoyant...
Another common objection is that higher wages mean that American firms will be less competitive in international markets. "America's competitive position could be jeopardized by the minimum wage bill," warns Richard Bernman, chairman of the Minimum Wage Coalition to Save Jobs, a collection of business groups opposed to the bill...
...most firms that pay the minimum wage are not engaged in international competition. Almost two-thirds of minimum wage recipients work in retail or personal and domestic services. Less than 8 percent work in manufacturing...
Conservatives also contend that raising the minimum wage will not really help the poor, but only middle-class teenagers who work at Burger King on the weekends. The facts suggest otherwise. Only 30 percent of minimum wage recipients are teenagers, and 34 percent are full-time workers. Twenty-five percent are spouses, and another 25 percent are heads of households. Clearly, the working poor stand to benefit from an increase in the minimum wage...
EVEN when they concede that point, conservative critics insist that a sub-minimum, or "training wage" is needed so that unskilled teenagers can gain experience in the job market. Businesses, the argument goes, would hire and train more teenagers if only their labor were cheap enough. Of course, as the minimum wage stagnated, the cost of teenage labor declined dramatically in real terms since 1981, but teenage employment rates have not risen...