Labor Day Confidential: The Misguided Logic Behind Minimum-Wage Hikes - Hit & Run : Reason.com

Labor Day Confidential: The Misguided Logic Behind Minimum-Wage Hikes - Hit & Run : Reason.com

Hikes in the minimum wage are routinely sold as a quick and easy way to increase the income of the working poor, but it's actually a really rotten way to do that. That's partly because so few people earn the minimum wage (only 3 percent of all workers) and they rarely earn it for very long (most min wage workers earn more after a year on the job). And then there's the simple fact that people earning the minimum wage aren't necessarily poor (in fact, a sizable chunk belong to households making north of $100,000). As economist and Reason contributor David Henderson has noted, a study of the effects of minimum-wage hikes between 2003 and 2007 found no evidence that the increases "lowered state poverty rates."