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Hilarious!
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CUT AND PASTE (seem to be doing more of that these days) of an open letter to Oakland’s mayor on what’s really keeping people from looking for work in the inner city: wages so low that no American-born worker — black or white — will even show up for them.
Open letter to Oakland mayor Jean Quan:
The only legislation that can realistically end gun violence in Oakland – and Chicago – is a labor law: doubling the minimum wage to $30,000/yr. The Crips and the Bloods could not whip a decent paying Ronald McDonald.
Crackpot? More than doubling the federal minimum wage from $7.25/hr to $15/hr ($600/wk) would cause all of 3.5% direct inflation — almost no tradeoff at all:
Average $8000 raise X 2000 hours times 70 million employees ($15 is 45 percentile wage + 5% AT minimum wage who will double increment) = $560 billion out of $16 trillion economy = 3.5% increase in overall prices — not going to put 45% of employees out of work. 🙂 LBJ’s median wage was only 25% higher than his minimum – high minimum wages often approach median level in other economies).
Oakland won’t educate its way out of poverty and crime. Catch 22: political scientist Martin Sanchez-Jankowski, from neighboring UC Berkeley — who spent nine years in five poor New York and Los Angeles neighborhoods (and ten years before that researching street gangs) — explains in his 2008 book Cracks in the Pavement that ghetto schools don’t work mostly because students (and teachers!) don’t expect anything decent awaiting for them in the labor market, so think it pointless to put out extra effort.
In 1956 majority leader LBJ steered an $8.50/hr ($1/hr nominally) minimum wage bill through the US Senate. In 1968 (with wage increments and retail workers added in years between) president LBJ piloted a minimum wage of $10.75/hr ($1.60/hr nominally) into law — per capita income having expanded 25% in the dozen years intervening.
Per capita income has doubled in the two generations since 1968.
If a Hells Angels chapter won the lottery they would build a bigger club house. Half the Crips and the Bloods would go to college.
Once in a while the NY Times, at least one or a few of their contributors, gets it right. I like this discussion of Ryan’s ignorance by Charles Blow, in today’s edition: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/22/opinion/blow-paul-ryan-culture-and-poverty.html?ref=opinion&_r=0; “Paul Ryan, Culture and Poverty.” I especially like this portion: “But this is in part the problem, and danger, of people like Ryan: There is an ever-swirling mix of inspiration and insult, ****where the borders between the factual and the fudged are intentionally blurred and cover is given for corrosive ideas****.”
That last phrase (****) should become the mantra of the Democrat’s election efforts for both the mid-terms and 2016. REPUBLICANISM. WHERE THE BORDERS BETWEEN THE FACTUAL AND THE FUDGED ARE INTENTIONALLY BLURRED to give cover to a corrosive and divisive ideology.
I suggest Ruben Bolling and Jack go to whitehouse.gov and search for Remarks by the President regarding My Brothers Keeper Initiative, February 27,2014. I wonder if Mr. Blow thinks the President is ignorant?
LJ,
http://wavenewspapers.com/news/article_c94786a0-b064-11e3-9e14-0017a43b2370.html
Sort of like cautious optimism of maybe support versus…
“My Brother’s Keeper” = $350 million = 1/3 of one billion dollars.
I have critiqued the E.I.T.C. as a “mere” $55 BILLION dollars = 1/3 of 1% of GDP (of our entire economic output) = not exactly going to turn the world upside down (per person output grows over 1% a year most years!).
A $15 an hour federal minimum wage would transfer $560 billion dollars (average $8000 a year X 70 million employees — $15 is the 45 percentile wage, but, 5% would get a full 16000 increase) = still only 3.5% of our $16 trillion GDP, but everyone could be earning at least $30,000.
PS. Don’t worry; 45% of our workforce is not going to be laid off over a 3.5% price increase. Consumers will certainly still need what these people produce. There are good arguments that this is not a zero-sum game; that a large minimum wage will raise employment (in our demand starved economy) all around. See (my stuff, of course):
http://ontodayspage.blogspot.com/2014/02/on-bottom-end-of-wage-scale-we-may-find.html
http://ontodayspage.blogspot.com/2014/01/raising-minimum-wage-for-45-of.html
You are missing the point. The President expresses concern over inner city youth and he’s labeled as providing “maybe support”, while Ryan says very similar things and is accused of racism.
Little John,
I wouldn’t accuse Obama of racism — just of being so totally obsessed with getting every last 1/100th of every last voter cohort in every last county that he never took time to learn even the eighth-grade math of how to rebuild America’s ghettos (meaning America’s labor market).
Elizabeth Warren for president (definitely not a racist)!
LJ,
Perhaps you could point out the parts of Ryan’s statement that are similar to Obama’s, cause other than talking about kids of color I see nothing like you intimate.
Tell me who said what. “There are a lot of people slipping thru the cracks in America…” “We know young black men are twice as likely to be “disconnected” -not in school, not working.” “We’ve got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working…””We can keep them from falling thru the cracks.”
I could go on with this amusing game for probably ten more quotes, each! But it is tedious.