But Economists Say . . . .

One of the reasons I'm so critical of economists is their devotion to dogma in the face of contrary evidence. Evitably when someone proposes an increase in the minimum wage, rather than recognize that putting more money into more people's hands would increase economy activity through the multiplier effect, some economist will be quoted saying that the increase will end up hurting the beneficiary because employers will have to fire people to pay it. The fact that that outcome has never accompanied minimum wage increases in the past never seems to faze them. Well, good on Governing for this post on the impact of OR's 2oo2 indexing of its state's minimum wage which, omigod, ended up coinciding with an 8% increase in private, nonfarm payrolls, increased wages overall, job growth in min wage industries, and a drop of 2.2% in the state's unemployment rate.

Next week we'll review how stagflation is impossible.