Topic: Media Research Center
Liz Thatcher uses a Feb. 15 Media Research Center Business & Media Institute article to complain the Huffington Post did an article about "a new study by the George Soros-funded Center for Economic Policy and Research" arguing that the "minimum wage should be $21.72 an hour to keep up with the increase of worker productivity." Thatcher responds by asserting that those calling for a higher minimum wage don't consider "how these increases affect the poor," then parrots a "Senior Policy Analyst in Labor Economics for The Heritage Foundation" who claims that "relatively few minimum wage workers are poor" and many are high school or college students not supporting themselves or a family on their income, and that “higher minimum wages cost some workers their jobs."
In fact, research shows that increasing the minimum wage has no discernable effect on employment, and that the vast majority of people currently earning minimum wage are over the age of 20, and half were over 25. Certainly not everybody over 25 isn't supporting themselves or a family, are they?
Thatcher also quotes a Wall Street Journal writer who claimed that a 2009 minimum wage hike "has driven the wages of teen employees down to $0.00" because numerous jobs were eliminated. But Thatcher fails to mention that the economy was cratering at that time, and the Journal writer fails to make the case that correlation equals causation.
