The first graph portrays the 1968 federal minimum wage (true historical high point) to be just shy of $9/hr — using chained CPI-U since 2000 …
… chained yields about 10% inflation — via the dubious calculation that some buyers switch to lower priced goods when prices of some good go up; not, seemingly, taking into account that lower prices may be because they are worth less).
Dubious on its face is the claim:
“Averaging across all of these federal, state and local minimum wage laws, the effective minimum wage in the United States — the average minimum wage binding each hour of minimum wage work — will be $11.80 an hour in 2019. Adjusted for inflation, this is probably the highest minimum wage in American history.”
A few pennies higher hardly justifies optimism when per capita income has doubled since the highest minimum wage in our history (1968).
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CORRECTION(S) NEEDED?
Americans Are Seeing Highest Minimum Wage in History (Without Federal Help) By Ernie Tedeschi
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/upshot/why-america-may-already-have-its-highest-minimum-wage.html
The first graph portrays the 1968 federal minimum wage (true historical high point) to be just shy of $9/hr — using chained CPI-U since 2000 …
… chained yields about 10% inflation — via the dubious calculation that some buyers switch to lower priced goods when prices of some good go up; not, seemingly, taking into account that lower prices may be because they are worth less).
The BLS online inflation calculator — using CPI-U — finds that the 1968 federal minimum wage was worth $11.72/hr in today’s money.
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1.60&year1=196806&year2=201903 * * * * * *
Dubious on its face is the claim:
“Averaging across all of these federal, state and local minimum wage laws, the effective minimum wage in the United States — the average minimum wage binding each hour of minimum wage work — will be $11.80 an hour in 2019. Adjusted for inflation, this is probably the highest minimum wage in American history.”
A few pennies higher hardly justifies optimism when per capita income has doubled since the highest minimum wage in our history (1968).
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For why raising today’s bottom 40% wages doesn’t cut (or may even add to) jobs at that level, click here:
https://ontodayspage.blogspot.com/2019/04/if-you-have-four-flats-meaning-nlra-you.html
PS. Seattle study showed loss of 6,000 jobs under $19/hr — but a gain of 44,000 jobs overall (50,000 above $19/hr) which many seemed to miss at the time (just one column over).
https://ontodayspage.blogspot.com/2017/06/seattle-supposedly-anti-min-wage-study.html