Multiple studies have found that raising the minimum wage does not lead to job loss, according to institutions such as the University of California-Berkley, the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and the government watchdog, Integrity Florida.
The cost of raising the minimum wage is small relative to most firms. Companies would not have to raise prices of goods to keep their profit margins. Workers armed with more spending power will purchase more goods than they would have when they were barely surviving on the current minimum wage.
The higher wage puts money in the worker’s wallets creating higher demand, which creates more opportunities to hire more workers. Higher wages also make it easier to attract applicants, resulting in less employee turnover, and lowering costs to employers.
However, this opinion piece is not a rebuttal. No meaningful debate or conversation on this topic can reasonably be held in a weekly publication. Rather, this column is an admonishment of your use of a certain source.
In your column about the “facade” of raising the minimum wage, you cited The Heritage Foundation as a source. Joseph Coors of Coors Brewery and heir to a billionaire oil fortune Richard Mellon Scaife founded the company in order to advocate for economic deregulation and an extremely interventionist foreign policy.
Ignoring a political lobbying history of adamant lie, the Foundation has no ground to talk about poverty in America and has consistently manipulated their studies to support their right-wing nonsense.
Most, if not all, their studies have had their statistical information pulled out of thin air. The Foundation is a mouthpiece for misinformation, funded by oil companies to deny climate change, drug and medical companies to fight against Medicare for All, and finance and insurance companies to keep those in poverty below the line.
I recommend that everybody, student or professor, follow the money trail behind these “think-tanks,” and see their true intentions.
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