For instance, "A 2004 study of available literature, "The Effect of Minimum Wage on Prices,..... found that firms tend to respond to minimum wage increases not by reducing production or employment, but by raising prices. Overall, price increases are modest: For example, a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage would increase food prices by no more than 4 percent and overall prices by no more than 0.4 percent, significantly less than the minimum-wage increaseIn a 2010 study published in Review of Economics and Statistics, scholars Arindrajit Dube, T. William Lester and Michael Reich also looked at low-wage sectors in states that raised the minimum wage and compared them with those in bordering areas where there were no mandated wage changes. They found "strong earnings effects and no employment effects of minimum-wage increases."
.economicrt.org reports: "America has lost ground on the intent declared by Congress when the Fair Labor Standards Act was enacted in 1938, that workers will receive wages sufficient to maintain "the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being." The federal minimum wage had the greatest value in 1968. Set at $1.60 an hour, it had a value of $10.51 in 2012 dollars. The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 is worth 31 percent less. This wage attrition is part of most people's every day experience:
- Three-quarters of the full-time labor force residing in the City of Los Angeles earn less than comparable workers 30 years ago.
- Wage erosion was greatest for workers in the bottom half of the wage scale. From 1979 to 2011, annual pay dropped 14 percent for workers in the 50th percentile -- the median or typical worker, and 26 percent for workers in the 25th percentile -- the working poor.."
In the same period, the salaries and wealth of the top 1% has increased by nearly 300% Since 1989, median wages have fallen by 1/3. Median wage in 1989 was $21K; today it is $26K. Adjusting for inflation, as salaries of the top tier rose 300%, the median wage today, if it just stayed flat, would be $41,000, and household income would be $100,000.
What a booming economy we would have, for all classes, if wages had only stayed flat. If median wages had risen the same as the top 1%, the median wage (which today is under the poverty floor) would be $120,000. (using BLS inflation calculator).
This is what we have lost since Reagan tore down the support system for the working class, by destroying the private sector union movement and cutting taxes by 70% on the rich while raising it 11 times on the middle class.
This loss is what demagogue Trump used to fake out tens of millions of economic losers, offering fake panaceas (I will bring the jobs back home) and scapegoats (the most defenseless populations) such as immigrants denied legal protection and Muslims.
Using the Nixon Southern Strategy (ie pandering to white racists) and the Madman theory (keep them guessing whether you are lying or just crazy) and the appeal to the "forgotten Americans," the "silent majority (actually a minority)".....and offering them false hope, someone to blame, and the honor of being recognized parallel with the disgrace of being suckered. The method was the propaganda Big Lie, repeated over and over. In March, 2016, Trump was asked what he meant by the reactionary motto "Make America Great Again."
He answered that people want a "fantasy" and he gave it to them. He flatout admitted that he uses exaggeration and fantasies to sell his products, and his product is Donald Trump.
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