zulater
06-14-2013, 08:43 AM
Do liberals hate Boston’s young black men?
If you knew nothing about politics but everything about economics and jobs, that’s what you’d think.
Under the leadership of Mayor Tom Menino, Gov. Deval Patrick and President Obama (the Mount Rushmore of Massachusetts-style liberalism), unemployment for black teenagers is around 40 percent — about 600 percent higher than overall joblessness.
And what are Beacon Hill Democrats pushing? An increase in the minimum wage to $11 an hour — aka “The ‘Hire Fewer Entry-Level Minority Employees’ Act of 2013.”
The Boston Globe-Democrat ran a misleadingly headlined story earlier this week claiming economists are “divided” on the impact of raising the minimum wage on employment. If you actually read the article (I don’t recommend it) you’ll find even they concede that they only dispute how much it hurts the job market.
“A research paper published in the Journal of Human Resources … concluded that when minimum wage rose, some low-wage workers’ hours and employment fell and their income declined as a result.”
Economist James Dorn writing in Forbes magazine is even more specific:
“There is abundant evidence that a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage leads to a 1 to 3 percent decrease in employment of low-skilled workers (using teens as a proxy) in the short run, and to a larger decrease in the long run, along with rising unemployment.”
That’s not stopping the local loony-lefties. Boston City Council candidate Seamus Whalen is having a rally tomorrow for a $15/hour minimum wage, and U.S. Sen. Liz Warren has suggested the ideal would be closer to $22/hour, if the minimum wage had kept pace with worker productivity.
While you’re at it, why not drive through low-income neighborhoods with a megaphone and shout “Just stay home! Don’t even bother looking for a job!”
- See more at: http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/opinion/op_ed/2013/06/libs_job_killing_trifecta#sthash.UVD8JzxM.axnTlAIt .dpuf
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And we haven’t even mentioned Obamacare, a system so expensive and unwieldy that congressional Democrats are desperately struggling to exempt their own staff from it.
Obamacare may or may not be good health care policy (it’s not), but nearly everyone agrees that it’s a lousy jobs policy. Investor’s Business Daily reported just last week that temporary jobs hit a record 2.68 million in May “as employers look to lighten the burden of Obama- care’s regulations and fines for failing to provide full-time workers health coverage.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce found 74 percent of small businesses say Obamacare will result in less hiring, and the Congressional Budget Office says it will result in 800,000 fewer Americans working by 2020.
Amnesty, wage hikes and Obamacare: If your goal were to keep young, black men out of the workforce, the late Alabama Gov. George Wallace couldn’t have come up with a better plan.
- See more at: http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/opinion/op_ed/2013/06/libs_job_killing_trifecta#sthash.UVD8JzxM.axnTlAIt .dpuf
If you knew nothing about politics but everything about economics and jobs, that’s what you’d think.
Under the leadership of Mayor Tom Menino, Gov. Deval Patrick and President Obama (the Mount Rushmore of Massachusetts-style liberalism), unemployment for black teenagers is around 40 percent — about 600 percent higher than overall joblessness.
And what are Beacon Hill Democrats pushing? An increase in the minimum wage to $11 an hour — aka “The ‘Hire Fewer Entry-Level Minority Employees’ Act of 2013.”
The Boston Globe-Democrat ran a misleadingly headlined story earlier this week claiming economists are “divided” on the impact of raising the minimum wage on employment. If you actually read the article (I don’t recommend it) you’ll find even they concede that they only dispute how much it hurts the job market.
“A research paper published in the Journal of Human Resources … concluded that when minimum wage rose, some low-wage workers’ hours and employment fell and their income declined as a result.”
Economist James Dorn writing in Forbes magazine is even more specific:
“There is abundant evidence that a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage leads to a 1 to 3 percent decrease in employment of low-skilled workers (using teens as a proxy) in the short run, and to a larger decrease in the long run, along with rising unemployment.”
That’s not stopping the local loony-lefties. Boston City Council candidate Seamus Whalen is having a rally tomorrow for a $15/hour minimum wage, and U.S. Sen. Liz Warren has suggested the ideal would be closer to $22/hour, if the minimum wage had kept pace with worker productivity.
While you’re at it, why not drive through low-income neighborhoods with a megaphone and shout “Just stay home! Don’t even bother looking for a job!”
- See more at: http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/opinion/op_ed/2013/06/libs_job_killing_trifecta#sthash.UVD8JzxM.axnTlAIt .dpuf
- - - Updated - - -
And we haven’t even mentioned Obamacare, a system so expensive and unwieldy that congressional Democrats are desperately struggling to exempt their own staff from it.
Obamacare may or may not be good health care policy (it’s not), but nearly everyone agrees that it’s a lousy jobs policy. Investor’s Business Daily reported just last week that temporary jobs hit a record 2.68 million in May “as employers look to lighten the burden of Obama- care’s regulations and fines for failing to provide full-time workers health coverage.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce found 74 percent of small businesses say Obamacare will result in less hiring, and the Congressional Budget Office says it will result in 800,000 fewer Americans working by 2020.
Amnesty, wage hikes and Obamacare: If your goal were to keep young, black men out of the workforce, the late Alabama Gov. George Wallace couldn’t have come up with a better plan.
- See more at: http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/opinion/op_ed/2013/06/libs_job_killing_trifecta#sthash.UVD8JzxM.axnTlAIt .dpuf