AUSTIN – Dr. Vance Ginn, economist with the Center for Fiscal Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, has joined more than 500 economists in an open letter against raising the federal minimum wage.

“It is an honor to join Nobel laureates and distinguished economists to warn federal policy makers against raising the minimum wage,” said Ginn, “A higher federally-mandated minimum wage discourages employers from hiring, particularly 16- to 19-year-olds who can ill afford fewer jobs with their current unemployment rate of 21.4 percent. With fewer opportunities to find a job, they will lose valuable on-the-job training and skills necessary to move up the income ladder over their lifetime.

“Furthermore, as Texas has the tenth-lowest cost-of-living nationwide, the higher cost of a one-size-fits-all minimum wage increase will especially hurt Texans. A minimum-wage hike therefore achieves the exact opposite of what its proponents intend: decreasing employment and harming those at the lower end of the income scale. If we are to assess policies by their effects upon the neediest among us, then raising the minimum wage surely fails that test.”

For more, see Dr. Ginn’s recent commentary “The Seen and Unseen Costs of the Minimum Wage.”

 

Vance Ginn, Ph.D., is staff economist with the Center for Fiscal Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin.


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