Bad arguments for minimum wage (all of them) are like bad arguments against climate change. Overgeneralizing a claim about how the minimum wage didn’t hurt employment among these workers when it was raised by this much from that level that one time is the equivalent of declaring all climate change science bunk because today is as cold as it has ever been on a Wednesday in Squirty Moss Hollow, NC.
That the cherry-picking on this issue knows no bounds is illustrated nicely in a series of slides titled What Minimum Wage Haters Won’t Say. The slideshow comments themselves are all ridiculously stupid in a number of ways that I won’t pick at now. However, even in journalism this bad, it’s rare that you encounter contradictions so blatant as the one collectively produced by images 5 and 10. In case you don’t feel like opening it up, here are the images along with their associated commentary:
“Though Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) recently warned that raising the minimum wage would be “inflationary,” prices apparently don’t rise in response to minimum wage hikes. For example, fast food restaurants in Texas did not raise prices in response to federal minimum wage increases in 1990 and 1991, according to one study.”
“The erosion of the minimum wage has contributed to growth in U.S. obesity by making fast food cheaper and more popular, according to one study. Meanwhile, healthy food has become more expensive.”
The minimum wage is damn near magical! Raising it will only raise the price of goods that are bad for you.
Update
Scholarly Gentleman points out in the comments that slides 3 and 4 are equally bad:
“A number of studies have found that raising the minimum wage does not reduce total employment by a meaningful amount.”
“The minimum wage has kept teens in high school longer by reducing the number of low-wage jobs available to them, according to one study.”
So, raising the minimum wage only reduces employment opportunities for people who are better off in school. Again, magical.