Jeff Madrick: America’s Jobless Generation

While some mainstream economists support fiscal stimulus, many rail against an increase in the minimum wage. Their main argument assumes that wages have been set in a fair market undistorted by corporate power or other market imperfections. But much empirical work suggests higher minimum wages would help, not hurt, employment levels, by creating demand for products absent in the economy. As for teens, a far higher proportion worked in the past when the minimum wage was higher, adjusted for inflation. Indeed, the minimum wage in 1963, when Martin Luther King led his historic march, would be almost $13.40 an hour in today’s dollars, and the unemployment rate in 1963 was under 6 percent. The federal minimum wage is today is $7.25 and the unemployment rate is 7.4 percent.

Mein Blog befasst sich in einem umfassenden Sinn mit dem Verhältnis von Wissen, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft. Ein besonderes Augenmerk richte ich dabei auf die Aktivitäten des Medien- und Dienstleistungskonzern Bertelsmann und der Bertelsmann Stiftung.