News March 21, 2013

Get the Facts: $10.10 is a Dead End

Proposals before Congress to increase the minimum wage by 39 percent to $10.10 will do little to reduce poverty while being actively harmful to the entry-level job market. Here are the facts on a $10.10 minimum wage. Click here to view a PDF version of the document.
News March 13, 2013

Roll Call Ad Warns of Lost Opportunities from Minimum Wage Hikes

Tomorrow, the Employment Policies Institute (EPI) is running a full-page ad in Roll Call on the importance of entry-level jobs and how minimum wage hikes reduce them. The ad highlights how Senator Harkin, Representative Miller, and President Obama have relied on unpaid interns themselves, even while demanding that private employers…
News March 5, 2013

Labor Secretary Seth Harris Needs a Labor Economics Class

Acting Secretary of Labor Seth Harris has been visiting numerous cities around the country to rally support for President Obama’s minimum wage hike proposal, which would increase the current wage by 24 percent. The content of the speeches suggests he should have brought along an economics textbook for…
News February 26, 2013

POLITICO Ads Warn of Consequences of Minimum Wage Hikes

This week, the Employment Policies Institute (EPI) is running three full-page ads in POLITICO on the dangers of raising the minimum wage by 24 percent to $9 an hour.       The three ads will focus on the overwhelming economic consensus that minimum wage…
News February 25, 2013

The Facts About President Obama’s $9 Minimum Wage

In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama called for a 24 percent increase in the minimum wage, from $7.25 an hour to $9 an hour, arguing that “this single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families.” But economists haven’t been nearly as optimistic.
News February 19, 2013

New York Times Ignores “Compelling” Evidence That Wage Hikes Reduce Employment

Yesterday, the New York Times editorialized (again) in favor of a higher minimum wage, making the following argument: “Over all, the argument that a higher wage will kill jobs has been debunked by a range of studies showing that a higher minimum wage boosts pay without…
News February 13, 2013

President Obama’s Minimum Wage Hike Proposal is Wrong

During last night’s State of the Union address, President Obama called for a 24 percent increase to the minimum wage to $9 per hour, and to tie future increases to changes in the Consumer Price Index. The President’s goal is to help those in poverty, but his policy would do…
News February 8, 2013

Poorly Designed Poll Leads to Skewed Results

According to a recent Quinnipiac Poll, 80 percent of New Yorkers support increasing the state’s minimum wage to $8.75 from $7.25. It’s a result policymakers should take with a grain of salt. Polls like this one bank on emotion and ignore the fine print. Take a poll conducted by ORC…
News January 30, 2013

Liberal Advocacy Group Hypocritically Attacks Nationally-Renowned Economist

Dr. David Neumark is a noted economist and minimum wage expert from the University of California-Irvine. He’s often cited by groups across the ideological spectrum for his unbiased research on the minimum wage and other economic issues. Yet one labor union-backed advocacy group, the National Employment Law Project (NELP), has…
News January 23, 2013

Maryland’s $10 Wage Hike Proposal Will Hurt Businesses and Employees—Especially Teenagers

Yesterday, Maryland Senate Majority Leader Robert Garagiola (D) and the advocacy group Progressive Maryland launched a campaign to increase the state’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $10—a 38 percent increase. If successful, the supporters of the effort will end up hurting the very employees they intend to help. According to…