Establishment press pundits often wring their hands over how supposedly far to the right the Republican Party and conservatives in general have moved since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, that flaming moderate, to the point of claiming that Reagan would never be accepted by today's "wingnuts." They seem to actually believe this amusing nonsense.
In a classic example demonstrating where the real ideological shifts have taken place, the New York Times Editorial Board on Saturday expressed its wish to impose a $15-an-hour minimum wage on the entire nation. That really isn't a surprise to those who have seen so-called "progressives" move ever further to the left and out of the realm of common sense in recent times. But it might surprise many readers that the Times advocated a minimum wage of zero — that's right, expressed as "$0.00" for emphasis — in January 1987, during Reagan's second term.
Far-left heads throughout the land must have exploded when they saw the following almost 29 years ago (the 1987 editorial, obtained from ProQuest's library database, and the 2015 editorial are both presented in full for fair use and discussion purposes; HT Mark J. Perry via News Alert and an emailer's tip):
Note the utterly logical points the 1987 Times Editorial Board made:
- "there's a virtual consensus among economists that the minimum wage is an idea whose time has passed. Raising the minimum wage by a substantial amount would price working poor people out of the job market." In 2015, there still is such a consensus.
- "it would increase unemployment: Raise the legal minimum price of labor above the productivity of the least skilled workers and fewer will be hired." Study after study has shown this to be the case, up to and including a 2014 effort by the Congressional Budget Office which projected that President Barack Obama's proposed $10.10-per-hour minimum wage "would reduce total employment by about 500,000 workers, or 0.3 percent."
- "(A higher minimum wage for current workers) would justify the sacrifice of the minority who became unemployable. The argument isn't convincing. Those at greatest risk from a higher minimum would be young, poor workers, who already face formidable barriers to getting and keeping jobs." This passage reflects true compassion for those who would be left behind. It would appear that those advocating a $15 minimum wage today have run out of genuine compassion.
- "It's time to put this hoary debate behind us, and find a better way to improve the lives of people who work very hard for very little." Sadly, the government has found ways to increase dependency during the past quarter-century.
Sadly, the current members of the Times Editorial Board have completely lost their way. Note their utter failure to even attempt a substantive argument (bolds are mine):
New Minimum Wages in the New Year
In five states and nine cities — including California, New York, Oregon and Washington, D.C. — voters and lawmakers will consider proposals in 2016 to gradually raise minimum wages to $15 an hour.
The ballot initiatives and pending legislation will build on momentum from this year, in which 14 states and localities used laws, executive orders and other procedures to lift wages for all or part of their work forces to $15 an hour.
In New York City, for instance, the minimum wage for workers in fast food and state government will rise to $10.50 on New Year’s Eve, and to $15 by the end of 2018. In the rest of New York, the minimum for those workers will reach $15 an hour in mid-2021. In Los Angeles County, including the city of Los Angeles, the minimum wage for most workers will rise to $10.50 by mid-2016 and to $15 by mid-2020. Seattle and San Francisco are also phasing in citywide minimums of $15 an hour, while five other cities — Buffalo and Rochester in New York; Greensboro, N.C.; Missoula, Mont.; and Pittsburgh — are gradually raising their minimums to $15 for city workers.
Minimum-wage raises are examples of states and cities leading in the absence of leadership by Congress, which has kept the federal minimum at $7.25 an hour since 2009. State and local increases are also potent shapers of public perception. It was only three years ago that a walkout by 200 or so fast-food workers in New York City began the Fight for $15, now a nationwide effort to raise pay and support unions. Two years ago SeaTac, Wash., home to an international airport, voted in the nation’s first $15-an-hour minimum for some 6,500 workers in the city, on and off airport property. Since then, $15 an hour has gone from a slogan to a benchmark.
These state and local increases, though important, are no substitute for a robust federal minimum because they don’t affect places that will never act on their own to lift minimum wages. Currently, 21 states do not impose minimums higher than the federal rate, and that includes the poorest states, like Alabama and Mississippi, where it takes nearly $20 an hour to meet living expenses for one adult and one child. Even in states that have raised their minimum wages, the levels are still not high enough to meet living expenses for typical workers and families.
Sooner or later, Congress has to set an adequate wage floor for the nation as a whole. If it does so in the near future, the new minimum should be $15.
Summarized in a few words, the Times is telling the world: "We want what we want — facts, experience, decades of research and Econ 101 be damned."
That said, let's not kid ourselves. There is a clumsy method to the Times's madness, and the giveaway is its reference to states in the South. Alarmed at how productive people are abandoning liberal states like New York and heading to more economically hospitable places, the Times knows that a $15-an-hour minimum wage imposed nationally will hurt employers in lower-cost red states far more than those in higher-cost blue ones, perhaps helping to stem that disastrous outflow.
The establishment press should spare us from having to endure their garbage about who has done the philosophical and ideological shifting over the past several decades. Like Reagan himself, genuine conservatives have generally kept their outlook moored to the plain meaning of the U.S. Constitution and common-sense economics, while the house organ of the left and the Democratic Party has devolved into a motley group of know-nothings who have complete contempt for the Constitution, while abandoning all vestiges of economic common sense.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
