Truman almost doubled the minimum wage. A year later, the unemployment rate was dramatically lower.

[n2doc]

John Nichols


f course Dr. Ben Carson was wrong when he claimed in the fourth Republican presidential debate that “Every time we raise the minimum wage, the number of jobless people increases.”

The Pulitzer Prize–winning analysts at PolitiFact rated that statement “false”—with no qualifiers or wiggle words like “mostly.”

Minimum-wage hikes are not always associated with immediate spikes in employment; especially in recessionary moments. But PolitiFact notes that “[of the] five minimum wage hikes that occurred when a recovery was under way, joblessness declined four of those times.”

The PolitiFact rebuke was even more stark than the response from Egypt’s antiquities minister to Carson’s claim that the pyramids were built as grain silos—“Does he even deserve a response? He doesn’t.”

more

http://www.thenation.com/article/ben-carson-is-as-wrong-about-wage-hikes-as-he-was-about-the-pyramids/

[Travis_0004]

1. Its not really a good comparison

There wasn't really global competition. We just spent a few years bombing every manufacturing plant in Europe, so everybody had to rebuild, and the only economy who was fully functional was the USA, so we could make parts that other countries could not, and export them.

This was our competition


I'm not against raising the minimum wage, but you can not compare 2015 to 1948

[Munificence]

3. Oh

but look at any "brown skinned country" and the pic will be the same.

We controlled manufacturing and technology for nearly 50 years since the rest of the developed world was blown to peaces and had to rebuild. They have.

To me it is now all about the control of energy. It takes a pretty big military to control the energy. The ones that control the energy will rule over manufacturing.

And just what do all those "brown skinned" countries have under their feet, way down below the rubble?

Only downfall - jobs. Hopefully we'll make enough from controlling the energy that all of us simply get a check mailed to us monthly after we serve 45 years in the military and retire.

[Recursion]

5. Errr...

That's in Uttar Pradesh, I think

[hobbit709]

2. It's strange how none of the people against minimum wage are working for minimum wage.

You don't hear a person making $8/hr and working maybe 30 hrs/wk claim they're making too much.

[ryan_cats]

6. I have

I have zero problems with the minimum wage. Without it, companies would pay a pittance due to supply and demand.

I have worked minimum wage to get through college so spare me the lecture.

I am against people clueless about how the real world works and based on their feelings, spout off about a $15 an hour wage.

If your whining is about how a family of four can raise it's kids on minimum wage, then I don't care. Don't have kids you can't afford.

What the h*ll, why not pay everyone $100k a year?

[brentspeak]

8. So, you complained to your boss that you made too much money?

Sure you did.

Your right-wing talking points are amusing.

[ryan_cats]

11. Come

Come now, it's Reich wing.

Aaaand since I have always reliably voted for the Democratic candidate since Carter, I'm hardly beholden to the corporate interests the right is although I would say the people in power no matter their political affiliation are so beholden.

You're right, I should complain about making too much money since others don't and until that disparity, all disparity is erased, I'll work for free.

Harrison Bergeron much?

[LanternWaste]

14. Reductio ad absurdum fallacies are indicative of "people clueless about how the world works..."

"until that disparity, all disparity is erased, I'll work for free..."

Reductio ad absurdum fallacies are indicative of "people clueless about how the world works..."

(insert rationalization below to maintain pretense you do indeed, know what you're talking about.)

[ryan_cats]

15. Again

Again with the Latin describing a logical phallacy you don't understand.

Twas brillig...

[hobbit709]

10. I don't know where you live but in this town

even 40 hours at minimum wage won't even get you a room in a slum apartment for a single person.

I'd say you're the one that's clueless and if you're not clueless then you are devoid of sympathy for those less fortunate than you.

[ryan_cats]

12. I

I am devoid of sympathy for those less fortunate, although I don't hold them down, as I am fresh out of sympathy for anyone unless they are animals.

If we enact your policies, although it will make you feel virtuous, it will, in the end, hurt those you claim to care for.

[former9thward]

4. It was lower because of the Korean War.

War always lowers the unemployment rate.

[brentspeak]

7. Unemployment increased in the first few years of the Iraq War

Last edited Thu Nov 12, 2015, 02:21 AM - Edit history (2)

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104719.html

[former9thward]

16. The Iraq War was tiny compared to Korea.

It was a major war with about 40,000 U.S. deaths. 4.500 U.S. deaths in Iraq. Barely 10%. Did you even look at your link? Unemployment went down after the Iraq War started. Did not go up until the recession.

[pipoman]

9. We have to be close to establishing that Carson is a jester and fool....

That said, a national minimum wage is a complete waste of time if not tied to regional cost of living....

[NuclearDem]

13. Carson's wrong, of course, but the unemployment rate dropping during Truman's presidenct

probably has more to do with a surge of veterans returning home to the only viable manufacturing base in the developed world that boomed to meet the production demands of East Asia and Western Europe as well as some fairly ambitious domestic infrastructure programs.