Ben Carson’s position on the minimum wage is hard to understand, because it seems to change month to month. In May he said the minimum wage should be higher. During the debate he said it shouldn’t be raised. Huh??? Ana Kasparian (The Point), John Iadarola (Think Tank), and Elliot Hill (The Lip TV), hosts of the The Young Turks, break it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.
“During a back-and-forth with the moderators, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson urged caution on raising the minimum wage, saying, “People need to be educated on the minimum wage. Every time we raise the minimum wage, the number of jobless people increases.”
We checked a similar claim by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md. In November 2014, Cardin made the opposite case, claiming that “every time we’ve increased the minimum wage, we’ve seen a growth in jobs.”
We rated Cardin’s claim Mostly False, after determining that during the 12 months following each of the 11 minimum wage increases since 1978, about half produced a net gain in jobs and about half produced a net loss of jobs.”*
Read more here: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-met…
Comments
Raising the minimum wage is one of many steps the government can take to strengthen our economy, reduce the need for government safety net benefits and, most important, feed our children.
The 5 dimensions of balance between capitalism and socialism:
1. What does government own and operate?
2. What controls should government have over corporations?
3. What control should corporations have over government [i.e. corruption]?
4. What benefits and safety net does government provide to all its citizens?
5. What services are provided to government by all its citizens?
The most important of these are the use of government controls to restore non-supervisory employee wages from the current 42% to the 50% of GDP we achieved during our golden age from 1948-1973.
We are not lazier or greedier than before — it is the IT revolution that has enabled productivity to race ahead of wages since 1972.
But wages are the economic fuel that enables purchases and growth.
The last time gross inequality occurred was 1890-1930 when rapid mechanization and electrification caused global economic collapse and the rise of demagogues.
2007-2008 was a portent of things to come — we have not yet addressed the underlying wage weakness and the worst is yet to come.
See http://www.middlerising.org