> > . . . In practice, when the relatively
>> poor start to get more money, the better-off, who have more
>> power than they do, can be expected simply charge them and
>> each other more until the wage change is absorbed by inflation.
>> And this is what we seem to observe. It seems like a cruel
>> joke, in fact, but "only the poor will suffer, and they're
>> used to it."
>
>Max Sawicky:
>> Is this statement founded on some heretofore secret
>> evidence, or were we just feeling frisky today?
>
>What's secret about it? Is the minimum wage not absorbed by
>inflation? Do most people not charge as much for the goods
>and services they offer for trade as they can? Do some
>people not have more power than others? This doesn't seem
>like very frisky theorizing to me, tediously leashed to
>observation as it is. You should see _frisky_ sometime.
The minimum wage wasn't raised during the 1980s, and real wages at the low end declined. It was raised several times in the 1990s, and real wages at the low end rose (helped, of course, by a tight labor market, which helps everything). Correlation isn't causation, but still...
Doug