George Will wrote a decent column calling for the end of the federal minimum wage.  I’m not saying I could do better, but I have seen more compelling arguments against the minimum wage.  His ultimate conclusion is sound, though: let the states decide.

A federal minimum wage is an idea whose time came in 1938, when public confidence in markets was at a nadir and the federal government’s confidence in itself was at an apogee. This, in spite of the fact that with 19 percent unemployment and the economy contracting by 6.2 percent in 1938, the New Deal’s frenetic attempts had failed to end, and perhaps had prolonged, the Depression.

Today, raising the federal minimum wage is a bad idea whose time has come, for two reasons, the first of which is that some Democrats have an evidently incurable disease — New Deal Nostalgia. Witness Nancy Pelosi’s “100 hours” agenda, a genuflection to FDR’s 100 Days. Perhaps this nostalgia resonates with the 5 percent of Americans who remember the 1930s.

…

Most of the working poor earn more than the minimum wage, and most of the 0.6 percent (479,000 in 2005) of America’s wage workers earning the minimum wage are not poor. Only one in five workers earning the federal minimum lives in families with earnings below the poverty line. Sixty percent work part time, and their average household income is well over $40,000. (The average and median household incomes are $63,344 and $46,326, respectively.)

Personally, I’m sick of journalists tossing softball questions towards Dems about why the minimum wage should be increased.  The questions are usually prefaced with a statement such as, “the minimum wage hasn’t been increased since 1997, the longest period ever without an increase,” that all but guarantee the answer they want.  I would like to see journalists ask politicians why we even need a minimum wage.  I think the answers would be very telling.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Friday, January 5th, 2007 at 7:17 am and is filed under Government, News & Opinion, Social Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.