The Minimum Wage

From Max Sawicky. We have, in relative terms, cut the minimum wage enormously over the past generation (and have not seen any significant improvement in employment). The question is whether we should continue to let inflation and productivity growth cut the relative value of the minimum wage further, or be satisfied with the relative cuts we have already seen.

Max Sawicky quotes Dean Baker:

MaxSpeak, You Listen!: ARE YOU NEED ARE TWO SENTENCES: Courtesy of Deano, apparently posted at 5:16 a.m. (was this before he went to bed, or after he got up?), why we should raise the minimum wage:

The minimum wage bill currently being pushed by Senator Kennedy would raise the minimum wage to $7.25 by 2009. By comparison, the minimum wage was almost $8.00 an hour (in 2006 dollars) in the late sixties. This means that if Kennedy's bill were approved, the real value of the minimum wage in 2009 would still be more than 10 percent lower than it was in the late sixties, even though productivity will have increased by more than 120 percent over this period...