About that Federal Minimum Wage
From the
Congressional Budget Office:
The Effects of a Minimum-Wage Increase on Employment and Family Income
Increasing the minimum wage would have two principal effects on low-wage workers. Most of them would receive higher pay that would increase their family�s income, and some of those families would see their income rise above the federal poverty threshold. But some jobs for low-wage workers would probably be eliminated, the income of most workers who became jobless would fall substantially, and the share of low-wage workers who were employed would probably fall slightly.
Some numbers:
Once fully implemented in the second half of 2016, the $10.10 option would reduce total employment by about 500,000 workers, or 0.3 percent, CBO projects (see the table below). As with any such estimates, however, the actual losses could be smaller or larger; in CBO�s assessment, there is about a two-thirds chance that the effect would be in the range between a very slight reduction in employment and a reduction in employment of 1.0 million workers.
This is just a summary -- the full 43 page
report is here (PDF)
No mention of the effects of the employers passing the additional costs on to the general public as higher prices. That money has to come from somewhere after all... So the worker gets a few bucks more in their paycheck but the price of a gallon of milk has gone from $2.99 to $3.59.
Posted by DaveH at February 19, 2014 12:58 PM