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

[kpete]

Ben Carson Is As Wrong About Wage Hikes As He Was About the Pyramids
Truman almost doubled the minimum wage. A year later, the unemployment rate was dramatically lower.
By John NicholsTwitter YESTERDAY 4:59 PM
...............

Truman recognized a mandate when he saw one. And he moved quickly to implement a “Fair Deal” program that sought to extend on the progress made by FDR’s “New Deal.” One of the 33rd president’s boldest proposals was a major minimum-wage increase; he sought to raise the base wage from 40 cents an hour to 75 cents an hour.

Corporate interests howled, as did Republicans in Congress—and even some conservative Democrats.


..........

Congress approved the increase. Truman signed the legislation and on January 24, 1950, he announced: “At midnight tonight the lot of a great many American workers will be substantially improved. Today the minimum wage is 40 cents an hour. Tomorrow the new 75-cent minimum rate goes into effect for the 22 million workers who are protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act, our Federal wage-hour law. Another amendment to that law will provide greatly increased protection for our young boys and girls against dangerous industrial work.”


“We shall not relax in our efforts to provide a better life for all our people.”
—Harry Truman on wage hikes


When the wage hike was implemented, in January 1950, the unemployment rate was 6.5 percent.

One year later, in January 1951, the unemployment rate was 3.7 percent.



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

[LiberalArkie]

1. I think they miss the whole thing. When the people at the bottom have some money left over that

they can spend, they spend it. When you give that money to people at the top, they send it to the Cayman Islands. When the person at the bottom spends their money, businesses make more money and can hire more people and buy more equipment etc. The Cayman Islands do not buy that much with the money from the 1%.

The more money the people at the bottom have to spend, the more the economy expands. It has to.

[Travis_0004]

2. 2015 is not 1948

In the late 40's and early 50's there was a lot of government spending, and the removal of ww2 era price controls which casued rapid inflation.

We also went to war with korea about 6 months after the increase which caused a reduction in unemployment, and lets not foget, that the 1950's was a global economy, and lets not forget, that we just spend a few years bombing every factory in Europe. They will still a need to rebuild, and their economies were not yet at 100%, and their only choice of goods was the US.

So, if you want to declare war, bomb a few factories. Give them time to rebuild. Increase minimum wage, then declare war on Korea, I will buy the comparison.

But I think Ben Carson is an idiot for talking about wage hikes, and I think the author is wrong if he thinks today is anything like 1950.