Former Joe Biden chief economist Jared Bernstein has a piece up at PostEverything extolling the virtues of the $20/hour wage rate paid to McDonald's employees -- and other fast food workers -- in Denmark. The base pay for a fast-food worker in Denmark is $20, and the pay package includes considerable non-wage benefits, including five weeks’ paid vacation, paid maternity and … [Read more...] about The Unappreciated Virtues of Low Prices
Economics
What Could Be Worse Than Raising the Minimum Wage?
I see that our mayor has proposed a city ordinance to raise Chicago's minimum wage to $13 an hour. The current minimum wage in Illinois is $8.25/hour, a buck over the federal minimum, so that amounts to a 58% hike. This follows Seattle's decision to increase their minimum wage to $15 a few months ago, and it's in step with attempts to raise both the Illinois and federal minimum … [Read more...] about What Could Be Worse Than Raising the Minimum Wage?
5 Years of the Business Cycle
I've been seeing this chart meme in a few places lately:The URL at the bottom indicates it's from the folks at "I love it when I wake up in the morning and Barack Obama is President." I'm assuming the numbers are accurate. There's no date on it, but with that Dow number it has to be fairly recent.Economic recessions are, by definition, deviations from the norm. The … [Read more...] about 5 Years of the Business Cycle
Gary Becker on Crime
One of the giant minds of economics, Gary Becker, passed away on Saturday. Among other things, he and Kevin Murphy were pioneers in the idea of rational addiction, which I wrote about last year. That was just one example of his approach to applying the tools of economic thinking to a wide variety of other fields such as discrimination, family life, politics, and crime.It's … [Read more...] about Gary Becker on Crime
An Argument From Envy
Over at In These Times, United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard has an opinion piece in which he purports to explain "Why the GOP Really Fears Minimum-Wage Hikes." Republicans in America suffer a crippling anxiety. It’s the terrible fear of corporations paying poor workers too much. I don't have any special claim to understanding why Republicans do the things they do, but … [Read more...] about An Argument From Envy