Minimum Wage

Life is getting in the way of blogging with more and more frequency.  So I'm going to try quicker posts, in the hope I can get more up, more regularly.  President Obama's recent call for an increase in the federal minimum wage is a good topic with which to start.  Most conservatives and, as I understand it, most economists believe that an increase in the minimum wage will have some negative impact on employment.  Want less of something?  Make it more expensive.  That is true of a variety of things, including labor.

Of course, most of us want poorer workers to receive more for their labor.  We can imagine how difficult it is to live off the minimum wage.  It makes us feel bad to think of their plight.  And these feelings are good.  I likely wouldn't have started this blog if some emotional response to others' poverty didn't trigger my wanting to think through the issue.

But as my first post said, one of my operating principles here is that we don't help the poor just by feeling bad, and we don't help them by doing things that make us feel better.  We help by doing things that actually, you know, help.  Raising the minimum wage makes us feel good, and it helps those who keep their minimum wage jobs, but it seems likely to drive down employment in our country and unmistakably sends jobs to other countries with lesser wage regulation.

One fears that this is just another wedge issue for the President, rather than a real legislative goal.  That's harmless as far as it goes, but it distracts from measures that could really help the poor (and everyone else).

Here are some recent conservative responses to calls for a minimum wage increase, with an emphasis on its impact on the poor:

Mark J. Perry - AEI

John Fund - NRO

As Fund and even former Obama advisor Christina Romer (whom he quotes) suggest, the real way to help the poor is to promote economic growth, not to monkey around in the labor markets.

More on the Politics of Conservatism and Poverty

Life has been getting in the way of blogging for me, but conservative commentary on poverty continues.  Two good columns on the topic were published Monday.  Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute advanced a theory in the Wall Street Journal that's gotten some attention on this blog - namely, that talking about their approach to poverty issues would benefit conservatives politically.  Brooks starts by pointing out the perceived "caring" gap between President Obama and Mitt Romney during the recent presidential campaign, and then writes:

Conservatives are fighting a losing battle of moral arithmetic. They hand an argument with virtually 100% public support—care for the vulnerable—to progressives, and focus instead on materialistic concerns and minority moral viewpoints.

The irony is maddening. America's poor people have been saddled with generations of disastrous progressive policy results, from welfare-induced dependency to failing schools that continue to trap millions of children.

The column was an outgrowth of ideas set forth in Brooks' terrific 2012 book, The Road to Freedom.

Also on Monday, Matt K. Lewis wrote in The Week that conservatives are too quick to seek to be the opposite of President Obama at each turn, reactively embracing "radical individualism" and "selfishness" in response to his collectivism and plans to redistribute wealth.  Instead, Lewis writes, conservatives should embrace the "compassionate" wing of their camp, as the founders did:

Our founders believed self-imposed responsibility was essential to the preservation of freedom. An immoral majority will eventually discover that they can vote "themselves largess from the public treasury." But a nation's elite must also be moral — which is to say, not greedy. As Ed Morrissey noted, "Any society with a large class of exploited poor will have no end of social difficulties and instability, the costs of which in a properly ordered system would far exceed the assistance extended." That's the invisible hand at work.

Compassion isn't just right. It's also a matter of self-preservation.

Lewis seems to agree with Brooks (and me) that conservatives not only do right, but also benefit politically, by talking about poverty, evincing concern for the poor, and advancing the idea that conservatism is best for all 100% of our countrymen.