Protests that began on Wall Street and spread to cities across America have now reached the pristine halls of Harvard. That’s right, the country’s oldest university is experiencing walkouts by students sympathizing with the “Occupy” movement. The source of their frustration: Students don’t like the content presented in an introductory course in economics. The professor, Greg Mankiw, is one of the world’s best-known economists and served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bush. Never mind those credentials, however. According to some students, Mankiw is indoctrinating America’s …
Catching you up on clips, commentary and news of the day. Sign up for the daily email update from Scribe. Sorting out the Postal Service’s future – Rep. Darrell Issa, The Washington Times Minimum Wage – Another Example of Good Intentions Gone Wrong – James Sherk, FoxNews.com Pakistan must pay – Peter Brookes, The New York Post Japan Muddies Water in South China Sea Debate – Simon Roughneen, The Irrawaddy Declaring Haqqanis Terror Organization May Backfire on U.S. – John Walcott and Viola Gienger, Bloomberg Businessweek Not all Google employees …
Alan Krueger, President Obama’s nominee as chair of the White House Council on Economic Advisors, received accolades from liberals yesterday for his stances on a number of major economic issues, including his support for a cap and trade regime, and value added tax, and the Cash for Clunkers program. But few of his contributions to economics are more widely hailed by the left than a single study he published with David Card in 1993 which purported to show that a higher minimum wage does not necessarily lead to greater unemployment, …
State governments across the nation are looking for ways to tighten their belts in the face of declining tax revenues and growing budget shortfalls. In Pennsylvania, legislators have offered a measure that would, they claim, dramatically reduce the state’s construction costs on public works projects by bringing contractors’ wages in line with the prevailing market rates. On Thursday, the Pennsylvania Assembly’s Labor and Industry Committee debated a measure offered by Rep. Ron Miller (R) that would bring the prevailing wage – or the wage contractors must pay workers when working …
Economist Walter Williams knows that minimum wage laws are hurting poor, African-American teenagers and his new book, “Race and Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination?”, attempts to dispel the myth that higher minimum wage laws help. Simple economics recognizes that if the price of labor increases, employer demand for labor decreases. When the minimum wage increased from $5.15 to $7.25 between 2006 and 2009 – a dramatic 40% rise – unemployment noticeably took a turn for the worse and the trend continues today. Thanks to the minimum wage; …
When studying Isaac Newton’s laws of motion in high school, we all learn that every action has a reaction. I was recently reminded of that simple truth of physics at a symposium addressing poverty. Last week, as part of a two-day forum sponsored by The Heritage Foundation at the University of Mobile, Jay Richards spoke about why “Good Intentions Aren’t Good Enough.” His main point was that well-meaning government policies often end up hurting those they are designed to help. In other words, what seem like compassionate actions can have …
Last week, George Mason University economics professor Daniel Klein wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed summarizing an study he did for Econ Journal Watch: “Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country—liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.” Some of the questions Klein et al asked included: “1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree). 2) …
Liberals, and especially unions, frequently claim that raising the minimum wage helps workers and the economy. They contend that if people earn more money through a higher minimum wage, then they will be able to spend more as well, creating more jobs, and making everybody better off as a consequence. Now two U.S. territories are putting these theories to the test. The Federal minimum wage increase passed in 2007 also applied to American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). The law incrementally raises the minimum wage …
The latest attempt by Congress to wrestle the high unemployment rate is the HIRE Act, which is little more than a tax holiday for companies who hire additional workers. Even if this Act works as intended and encourages businesses to hire more workers, which in and of itself is not a guarantee, then other measures undertaken by the Obama Administration have the opposite effect, by actually stifling hiring by business. Some of the measures that counteract intentions of the HIRE Act are the minimum wage increases of the last few …
Today, another burden is being placed on America’s small businesses. Effective on this date is the third installment of the increase of the minimum wage that was passed in 2007. Once again, our federal government has provided not a help, but a hindrance to our economic recovery. When the three-phase minimum wage increase was initially signed into law in May 2007, the unemployment rate was 4.5%, and when the first phase went into place, the unemployment rate was 4.6%. Today it stands at 9.5%. At a time of record deficits, …
