Politicians and Dumb Economic Ideas
Ray Keating, Chief Economist for the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, writes in today's Fact of the Week, "Dumb economic ideas never seem to go away, they just get picked-up by politicians at different levels of government. Conider the minimum wage. It has not been increased at the federal level since 1987. As a result, labor union and other left-wing activists have been pushing the states to hike their respective minimum wages above the federal level of $5.15 . . . In reality, a minimum wage winds up hurting many of the prople it is supposed to help. Young and low-skilled workers are priced out of the marketplace."
The same for the so-called living wage, also pushed by leftists, which is used to increase the mimimu wage at the local level. Arlington taxpayers will be dealing with this issue over the next month since the Manager's proposed FY 2007 budget (page 3, Manager's message) lists increasing Arlington's living wage by $986,000 as one unfunded alternate. If approved by the County Board, a good part of one cent of the real estate tax rate used to compute the taxes of every Arlington property owner's tax bill will be redistributed through the socialistic living wage."