Hi DG,
'free money' isn't being handed out when folks are WORKING for it.
a snippet:
A higher minimum wage will lead to a significant boost in incomes for the worst off in the bottom 30th percent of income, while having no impact on the median household.
As many economists have argued, the minimum wage ”substantially ‘held up’ the lower tail of the U.S. earnings distribution” through the late 1970s, but this effect stopped as the real value of the minimum wage fell in subsequent decades. This gives us an empirical handle on how the minimum wage would help deal with both insufficient low-end wages and inequality, and the results are striking.
Charles Darwin once wrote, “If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.” One of the key institutions of the modern economy, the minimum wage, could dramatically reduce the misery of the poor. What would it say if we didn’t take advantage of it?
Mike Konczal is a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, where he focuses on financial regulation, inequality and unemployment. He writes a weekly column for Wonkblog.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/04/economists-agree-raising-the-minimum-wage-reduces-poverty/
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