March 2, 2015

Policy Brief: The Impact of a $10.10 Minimum Wage in Ohio

Recently, State Senator Kenny Yuko introduced legislation to raise Ohio’s minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, from its current amount of $8.10. Proponents argue that a minimum wage increase will, on net, be a benefit for Ohio employees. However, in a study last year, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated…
February 5, 2015

San Francisco’s $15 Minimum Wage Claims Another Victim

The specter of a $15 minimum wage is haunting San Francisco’s Valencia Street. Borderlands Books, located between 19th and 20th Street, announced this week that it is closing its doors, citing the impending wage hike as a driving factor. The announcement comes on the heels of Abbot’s Cellar, an…
December 22, 2014

Santa’s Advice to Labor Department: Check Your Math Twice

The beloved holiday movie A Christmas Story was co-opted this week by the Department of Labor to argue that the minimum wage is worth 20% less than it was in November 1983 when the film was released. But the Department’s number-crunchers should have should followed Santa’s lead in checking…
News December 10, 2014

New Research: Wage Hikes Harm Employees’ Job Prospects and Income Growth

Politicians like to say that “America needs a raise.” That might be true, but new research suggests that raising the minimum wage is not the best way to give them one. Researchers at the University of California-San Diego studied the effects of the 40 percent federal minimum wage increase…
November 5, 2014

Seeing No Evil on the Minimum Wage

Last month, Pastor Jack Mosley was forced to close his Hillsdale, Michigan restaurant, Tastes of Life because Michigan’s recent minimum wage increase made it impossible for him to stay in business. Proponents of raising the minimum wage say that cases like Pastor Mosley’s don’t exist. The labor union-backed National…
October 30, 2014

South Dakota Think Tank: Minimum Wage Hikes Cost Jobs

With the exception of hardline minimum wage advocates and their message mavens at PR firm BerlinRosen, most rational onlookers admit that a minimum wage hikes cost jobs. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the nation’s Chief Financial Officers, the country’s largest private staffing firm, and even Bill Gates—all agree that…
October 30, 2014

Denmark’s Dollar Forty-One Menu

Proponents of raising the minimum wage often point to Scandinavian countries like Denmark as models for American labor policy. But the devil is in the details. Take this week’s New York Times profile of the comparatively high Danish minimum wage, for example. The authors ask, if the Danes can…
October 23, 2014

The Misleading CEO/Employee Pay Gap Lament

Our recent Wall Street Journal op-ed highlights some of the problems with the notion that the CEO/employee pay gap is too big, a popular lament from union-backed groups who argue that the gap is justification for increasing the minimum wage. In the piece, we highlighted the case of Yum…
News October 20, 2014

New Analysis: 80 Percent Tipped Wage Hike in New York to Cost Thousands of Jobs

When New York legislators passed an increase in the state’s minimum wage in 2013, they demurred on whether to increase the tipped minimum wage. A three-member Wage Board was appointed by Governor Andrew Cuomo earlier this year to consider this question, and the board is now touring the…
September 18, 2014

Politico Ad: Sen. Warren’s War on Common Sense

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has been a vocal proponent for a higher minimum wage, and not just the $10.10 figure that President Obama has supported. In a commentary for ABC News written earlier this year, Warren argued that if the “minimum wage had kept up with increases in productivity, it…