Wages & Prices

The American economy is doing great as reflected in the fact that blue collar wages are surging. However, please don't give President Donald Trump any credit for this. He is merely the passive recipient of "fortunate timing." That is the theme of the November 14 story in The Economist that can't even get around to giving Trump even begrudging credit for the economic growth that has taken place…

One of the most challenging and important jobs for an economics professor is to teach students how little we know and can possibly know. My longtime friend and colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell says, "It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." Nobel laureate Friedrich August von Hayek admonished, "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little…

The U.S. unemployment rate dropped to the lowest level in seventeen years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ October jobs report. The report also showed 261,000 jobs added, but ABC didn’t bother covering the good economic news on Nov. 3. World News Tonight ignored the report, but found time to cover a study blaming fossil fuels for “man-made” global warming.

Target announced it will raise its starting wage for employees to $11 an hour by October, to better compete for holiday workers. But Fight for $15 activists are trying to claim it as a victory of their own. The retail giant also said that starting pay would be $15 by 2020.  

That the problems of today's black Americans are a result of a legacy of slavery, racial discrimination and poverty has achieved an axiomatic status, thought to be self-evident and beyond question. This is what academics and the civil rights establishment have taught. But as with so much of what's claimed by leftists, there is little evidence to support it.

The largest threat to our prosperity is government spending that far exceeds the authority enumerated in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. Federal spending in 2017 will top $4 trillion. Social Security, at $1 trillion, will take up most of it. Medicare ($582 billion) and Medicaid ($404 billion) are the next-largest expenditures. Other federal social spending includes food stamps,…

Once upon a time, brothers-in-law William Procter and James Gamble sold candles and soap. Their 19th-century family business grew into the largest consumer goods conglomerate in the world -- launching the most recognizable brands on our grocery shelves, including Tide, Pampers, Crest, Nyquil and Old Spice. Now, Procter & Gamble want to conquer a new market: identity-politics pandering.

After a six-month respite, the Associated Press has started aggressively going after Donald Trump and his administration over conditions in the U.S. economy. In an opening salvo at 1:25 p.m. on Tuesday, the AP criticized as "not completely accurate" the following completely accurate Trump tweet: "Highest Stock Market EVER, best economic numbers in years, unemployment lowest in 17 years, wages…

The White House declared the week of July 16, “Made in America” week to celebrate U.S. manufacturing -- a continuance of President Donald Trump’s “America First” campaign focus. But ABC, CBS and NBC evening news shows minimized the administration’s focus, mentioning it only one night of the week and used it to criticize Trump.

Amid the endless media obsession with Trump scandal allegations, important policy issues are getting short shrift. Considering that the left is happy with the status quo -- the autopilot advancement of statism -- this can only please Democrats. Based on the overwhelming trend of national and state elections since 2010, the nation now firmly rejects liberal policies. Whether or not Democrats get…

There are political movements to push the federal minimum hourly wage to $15. Raising the minimum wage has popular support among Americans. Their reasons include fighting poverty, preventing worker exploitation and providing a living wage. For the most part, the intentions behind the support for raising the minimum wage are decent.

At Fox Business Network on Monday, Stuart Varney interviewed Zane Tankel, the Chairman and CEO of Apple-Metro Inc., the New York City metro area Applebee's franchisee. While discussing the impact of minimum-wage laws on his business, he effectively brought up another law, the one in economics known as supply and demand, informing Varney that "We have 1,000 less servers this time this year than we…

April Ryan has been a frequent subject this year at NewsBusters, given her proclivity to see racism where there is none, her failure to understand the difference between a person's annual income and their net worth, and her criticism of center-right news sites allowed into White House briefings as "fake news peddlers." Naturally, Ryan's next move after that final item was to join serial fake news…

In late June, economists at the University of Washington published a study that showed just how harmful the $15/hour minimum wage hike was for the city of Seattle. And despite that evidence, CBS ran a story Wednesday evening bemoaning how the city of St. Louis was planning to reverse their $10/hour minimum wage hike back down to $7.70/hour. “Well, cities all over America have been boosting their…