Until you realize it would in fact hurt most the working poor, those who supposedly would reap the greatest benefits of a boosted minimum wage.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics' own data show that just 1.4% of all hourly workers made at or below the current minimum wage.
If even those privileged workers are losing their jobs, just how secure will the jobs be at the bottom end of the pay scale after a government-imposed 134% hike in the minimum wage?
Whatever the minimum wage would be raised to - the last effort in 2021 boosted it to $15 an hour, but now Sanders wants $17 an hour - those under that new wage would be in serious jeopardy of losing their jobs entirely.
As Cato Institute senior fellow and economist Alan Reynolds noted during the union-backed "Fight for $15" debate three years ago, "Every increase in the federal minimum wage in the past 40 years resulted in an average of a million more people being pushed into jobs paying below the federal minimum wage. Millions of tiny businesses are inescapably exempt from the law, as are many low-wage occupations."
By the way, Reynolds adds that minimum wage hikes have a funny way of going into effect just before recessions - as they did "In 1969-70, 1974-75, 1980-81, 1990-91 and even 2007-2008." Timing for a minimum wage hike, for the struggling poor, couldn't be worse.
Sure, a big hike in minimum wage might not hurt low-wage workers as much in economically vibrant cities where labor demand is strong and prevailing local wages are already above $17 an hour.
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