OpinionJournal has an excellent editorial on the lunacy of Kerry's proposed minimum wage hike. It begins with some good teaser questions that can be used in debates with people who maintain that such increases are compassionate:
John Kerry says he wants to raise the minimum wage to $7 an hour from $5.15, and his proposal has us thinking: Why stop there? Why not $10 an hour, or $20, or for that matter whatever a U.S. Senator makes? If Mr. Kerry thinks government is obliged to guarantee Americans a certain level of income, why not simply elevate everyone at least into the middle class?
The answer, as I mentioned last weekend, is that rising minimum wages price more and more poor, unskilled workers out of the labor market. "This is one of the most settled propositions in economics," says the Journal, adding:
The debate is over how many poor people Mr. Kerry would throw out of work.
Just so. Mr. Kerry, in the interests of clarity, perhaps you might do us the favor of announcing your unemployment target in this matter.
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