Fairbanks Brief

LINCOLNDOUGLAS
DEBATE
January-February
2015

Dr. John F. Schunk, Editor

“Resolved: Just governments ought to
require that employers
pay a living wage.”

Sound Policy
1. LIVING WAGE ENABLES ONE TO PAY FOR BASIC NEEDS
SK/A01.01) Karen MacKintosh, CANADIAN DIMENSION, JanuaryFebruary 2014, p. 7, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. A
living wage is based on the principle that full-time work should provide
families with a basic level of economic security that reflects basic needs in a
particular community, including food, clothing, rent, transportation, childcare
and a basic extended health care plan.

SK/A01.02) Michael Lerner, TIKKUN, Spring 2014, p. 5, GALE CENGAGE
LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. According to the Living Wage Action
Coalition, a living wage is a "decent wage": “It affords the earner and her or his family
the most basic costs of living without need for government support or poverty programs.
With a living wage an individual can take pride in her work and enjoy the decency of a
life beyond poverty, beyond an endless cycle of working and sleeping, beyond the ditch
of poverty wages.” The seven factors that the coalition uses to calculate the basic cost of
a safe and decent standard of living are housing, food, child care, transportation, health
care, taxes, and other basic necessities (which in some cases include elder care or care for
immigrant families' overseas parents or children).

SK/A01.03) Editorial, THE NEW YORK TIMES, October 1, 2014, p. A26,
LexisNexis Academic. An executive order signed by Mayor Bill de Blasio
[Mayor of New York City] on Tuesday will greatly expand the number of
people covered by the city's living-wage law, and raise that wage to $13.13
an hour from $11.90. This promises to put much-needed cash into many
deserving pockets and to bolster the principle that someone who works hard
in a full-time job should at least be able to cover food and rent.

2. LIVING WAGE ENABLES PARTICIPATION IN CIVIC LIFE
SK/A01.04) David Wait, KAI TIAKI: NURSING NEW ZEALAND, May 2013,
p. 33, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. A living wage is
defined as the income necessary to provide workers and their families with the basic
necessities of life, to enable workers to live with dignity and to participate as active
citizens in society. This is more than just surviving--it's about participation and
opportunities, being able to send your children on a school trip, have a computer in the
home, or take your children swimming, things many of us would take for granted.

SK/A01.05) Joseph Valentine [U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics], MONTHLY
LABOR REVIEW, June 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded

Academic ASAP. Borrowing from Lawrence Glickman, a professor of history at
the University of South Carolina, Pollin [author of A MEASURE OF FAIRNESS:
THE ECONOMICS OF LIVING WAGES AND MINIMUM WAGES IN THE UNITED
STATES] essentially defines a living wage as "that which offers workers the
ability to support families to maintain self-respect and to have both the
means and leisure to participate in the civic life of the nation."

3. LIVING WAGE WAS THE ORIGINAL MINIMUM WAGE
CONCEPT
SK/A01.06) Lydia DePillis, WASHINGTON POST BLOGS, October 30,
2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. "Coming out of this long progressive history
in Wisconsin is this idea that the minimum wage ought to be linked to a living
wage," says Joseph McCartin, an historian of labor law at Georgetown
University. "Back when the concept of a minimum wage was being developed,
people often spoke interchangeably of them. As a country, over time, we've
diverged from the notion that the minimum wage ought to keep the people
who earn it above the poverty level."

4. WAGES CAN BE ADJUSTED TO DIFFERENT
GEOGRAPHICAL AREAS
SK/A01.07) Michael Lerner, TIKKUN, Spring 2014, p. 5, GALE CENGAGE
LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Dr. Amy Glasmeier, the Department
Head of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT, has developed a living wage
calculator that estimates a living wage for different cities based on the
current cost of living there. Glasmeier cautions that her calculator, which you
can access at livingwage.mit.edu, is designed to provide a bare minimum
estimate of the cost of living for low-wage families--not an estimate for a
middleclass standard of living.

SK/A01.08) Emily Jane Fox, CNN WIRE, January 22, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Amy Glasmeier, a professor
of economic geography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has
created a living wage calculator based on government data, which bears out
this argument. She breaks down the total cost of living, including food,
housing, transportation, child and health care, based on the county in which
people live. Glasmeier said the cost of living rises with the size of the city. For
instance, in places with fewer than 250,000 people, Glasmeier found that the
living wage would be between $12 and $15 per hour. In cities with 250,000 to
1 million residents, its $17, and in cities with more than one million residents,
it's $20 per hour.

K/2 Human Dignity
1. WORKING FULL-TIME IN POVERTY IS HUMILIATING
SK/A02.01) Charles M. Blow, THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 17, 2014,
pNA, LexisNexis Academic. No one should ever endure the kind of economic
humiliation that comes with working a full-time job and making a less-thanliving wage. There is dignity in all work, but that dignity grows dim when the
checks are cashed and the coins are counted and still the bills rise higher
than the wages.

SK/A02.02) Charles M. Blow, THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 17, 2014,
pNA, LexisNexis Academic. Most people want to work. It is a basic human
desire: to make a way, to provide for one's self and one's loved ones, to
advance. It is that great hope of tomorrow, better and brighter, in which we
can be happy and secure, able to sleep without hunger and wake without
worry. But it is easy to see how people can have that hope thrashed out of
them, by having to wrestle with the most wrenching of questions: how to
make do when you work for less than you can live on?

2. LIVING WAGE RESTORES HUMAN DIGNITY
SK/A02.03) STATES NEWS SERVICE, October 2, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. [Congressman Charles B.
Rangel:] "I'm proud that our Mayor [New York City] is leading the nation in
taking bold actions to give a pay raise to workers who deserve and need it to
survive. In America, the land of opportunity, no one who works full time
should be struggling to raise a family. Ensuring a living wage is not just about
providing fair compensation, but also preserving justice and dignity for
working families. Mayor de Blasio's executive order to ensure a livable wage
for every worker is necessary to combat the income inequality in our Great
City and help increase economic development within our Manhattan and
Bronx Congressional Districts."

SK/A02.04) David Wait, KAI TIAKI: NURSING NEW ZEALAND, May 2013,
p. 33, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. A living wage is
one which provides genuine security, dignity and the ability to participate in
society. It's worth working for.

3. IT IS UNJUST FOR FULL-TIME WORKERS TO LIVE IN
POVERTY

SK/A02.05) Rick Bell [managing editor], WORKFORCE, October 2014, p.
54, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. For the hundreds
of thousands of workers seeking a living wage, it's all about the paycheck.
Collaborative work environments and best practices in employee
engagement procedures are all well and good, but you want to talk bottom
line? A few more bucks in the pay envelope helps pay for clean diapers for
the baby's bottom. I hope they get what they are asking. Because it's
unconscionable that anyone who's able and willing to work full time can still
live in poverty.

SK/A02.06) Dan Fournier, UWIRE TEXT, January 31, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Of course, raising the
minimum wage to $15 and indexing it to inflation is not the end goal; the end
goal is the construction of an economic system wherein those who contribute
as much as they can are able to survive. Those who work a full work-week
should be able to earn a living wage - a wage conducive for them to pay their
rent, put healthy food on the table for their children, cover their energy and
transportation bills, and allow for enough recreational time and discretionary
buying-power.

4. CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS LONG CHAMPIONED THE LIVING
WAGE
SK/A02.07) Brian Roewe, NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER, August 30,
2013, p. 5, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The U.S.
Catholic church has championed a living wage in its past. In 1906, noted
labor priest Msgr. John A. Ryan published A Living Wage: Its Ethical and
Economic Aspects. In it, he argued that "wages should be sufficiently high to
enable the laborer to live in a mariner consistent with the dignity of a human
being," a belief he viewed as an "industrial, religious and moral fact."

SK/A02.08) AMERICA, March 11, 2013, p. 4, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING,
Expanded Academic ASAP. Because Congress must authorize every increase,
the minimum wage has gradually fallen behind the cost of living. "The
remuneration of work is not something that can be left to the laws of the
marketplace; nor should it be a decision left to the will of the more powerful,"
wrote Pope John XXIII.

MINIMUM WAGE IS INADEQUATE
1. MINIMUM WAGE IS NOT ENOUGH TO PAY FOR BASIC
NEEDS
SK/A03.01) Mark Trumbull, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR,
November 6, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. "This is not a partisan issue
for working folks, but a practical one," said Christine Owens, executive
director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), which supported the
wage hikes. "People understand that $7.25 is not nearly enough to make
ends meet."

SK/A03.02) Editorial, THE NEW YORK TIMES, October 12, 2014, p. SR10,
LexisNexis Academic. As for New York City, $13.13 an hour is well below the
self-sufficiency standards that budget experts use to gauge how much
families need to meet basic daily expenses. These standards show that a
family in the Bronx in 2010 with two adults and two young children needed
each adult to make at least $15.69 an hour; higher hourly minimums were
needed in most of Manhattan and the other boroughs.

SK/A03.03) Mark Bittman, THE NEW YIORK TIMES, July 26, 2013, p.
A23, LexisNexis Academic. The movement found an unwitting ally when
McDonald's offered its workers a sample personal budget that included such
laughable features as the need for a second job and budget lines for
''Heating'' (zero) and ''Health Insurance'' ($20). Per month. (The company,
which is worth $100 billion, give or take a few bucks, now says that heat
costs $50 a month. But only if you speak English; the Spanish language site
budgets heat at $30.)

2. MINIMUM WAGE IS WELL BELOW THE POVERTY LINE
SK/A03.04) STATES NEWS SERVICE, March 26, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. "Americans agree that no
one who works full time should ever have to raise a family in poverty," Rangel
[U.S. Congressman] pointed out. "And yet today a single mother with two
children, working full-time, year-round, and earning the federal minimum
wage of $7.25 per hour, makes only $14,500 a year, $5,000 below the
poverty line."

SK/A03.05) Michael Lerner, TIKKUN, Spring 2014, p. 5, GALE CENGAGE
LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. At the current minimum wage of $7.25

an hour, a full-time worker makes only $15,080 in a year--well below the
poverty line for a family of three.

SK/A03.06) Mark Trumbull, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR,
November 6, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. For the record, someone who
earns the federal minimum of $7.25 for 40 hours a week would have enough
income to be above the federal poverty line of $11,670 for an individual, but
not enough to be above the $15,730 poverty line for supporting a two-person
household.

3. MINIMUM WAGE IS NOT A LIVING WAGE
SK/A03.07) Emily Jane Fox, CNN WIRE, January 22, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. As the debate over the
federal wage floor heats up in Washington, experts are making the point that
the minimum wage does not equal a living wage.

SK/A03.08) Michael Lerner, TIKKUN, Spring 2014, p. 5, GALE CENGAGE
LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. In truth, we need more than just a
raise in the minimum wage: we need a living wage and a guaranteed annual
income for anyone who is unable to work, for whatever reason.

SK/A03.09) James McGovern [Massachusetts Representative]. STATES
NEWS SERVICE, June 9, 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded
Academic ASAP. We shouldn't be talking about a minimum wage, M. Speaker,
we should be talking about a living wage. Just look at my hometown of
Worcester, Massachusetts. The minimum wage is $8 an hour. But a living
wage for two childless adults is just under $15 an hour and it rises to $18.30
for two adults with one child. While I support an increase in the minimum
wage to $10.10 an hour, that's not going to cut it for a family of three.

U.S. WAGES ARE WAY TOO LOW
1. WAGES HAVE FALLEN DRAMATICALLY SINCE 1973
SK/A04.01) Michael Lerner, TIKKUN, Spring 2014, p. 5, GALE CENGAGE
LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. In an op-ed titled "Better Pay Now,"
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman made an impassioned plea for a
raise in the minimum wage. Even amid its Great Recession, America is a
much richer country now than it was forty years ago, Krugman argued, but
that wealth hasn't reached the hands of workers: "The inflation--adjusted
wages of non-supervisory workers in retail trade--who weren't particularly
well paid to begin with--have fallen almost 30 percent since 1973."

2. WAGES HAVE NOT KEPT PACE WITH PRODUCTIVITY
SK/A04.02) STATES NEWS SERVICE, March 26, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. "A majority of lower-wage
jobs are held by women. These Americans are working full-time, often
supporting families, and if the minimum wage had kept pace with our
economy's productivity, they'd already be earning well over $10 an hour
today. Instead, it's stuck at $7.25. Every time Congress refuses to raise it, it
loses value because the cost of living goes higher, minimum wage stays the
same." - President Obama, Remarks at Central Connecticut State University,
March 5, 2014

SK/A04.03) David Cooper [Economic Policy Institute], NATIONAL
JOURNAL, August 28, 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded
Academic ASAP. Those findings make it clear. One simple way that we could
significantly improve the lives of millions, help to spur wage growth, and
reduce the gender pay gap, would be to raise the federal minimum wage. The
minimum wage today is worth 25 percent less than its value in the late
1960s. Had the minimum wage grown at just one-fourth the speed of
productivity growth since then, it would now sit above $12 per hour.

SK/A04.04) Dan Fournier, UWIRE TEXT, January 31, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. If wages had always
increased at the rate of inflation, and taken aggregate national economic
growth and productivity into account as the value of the dollar rises, the
minimum wage would be hovering between $21-22 per hour. What does this
mean? It means that although the total value of your labor is equivalent to
that, the difference is being re-distributed upwards to the ruling class through
a backwards tax and wage system that does not give the everyday worker
the full value and product of his work.

LOW-WAGE WORKERS ARE BREADWINNERS
1. LOW-WAGE WORKERS ARE NO LONGER LARGELY
TEENAGERS
SK/A05.01) STATES NEWS SERVICE, March 26, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. "Most people who would get
a raise if we raise the minimum wage are not teenagers on their first job -their average age is 35.” - President Obama, Remarks at Central Connecticut
State University, March 5, 2014

SK/A05.02) Mark Bittman, THE NEW YIORK TIMES, July 26, 2013, p.
A23, LexisNexis Academic. In the old days you could say: ''So what? Those
workers are all teenagers. They live at home.'' But the median age of today's
fast-food worker is over 29, and many are trying to support families. One
estimate claims that a family of four needs nearly $90,000 a year to get by in
the nation's capital. That's six minimum-wage jobs.

2. LOW-WAGE WORKERS ARE NOW ADULT HEADS OF
HOUSEHOLD
SK/A05.03) James Surowiecki, THE NEW YORKER, August 12, 2013, p.
35, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Historically, lowwage work tended to be done either by the young or by women looking for
part-time jobs to supplement family income. As the historian Bethany
Moreton has shown, Walmart in its early days sought explicitly to hire
underemployed married women. Fast-food workforces, meanwhile, were
dominated by teen-agers. Now, though, plenty of family breadwinners are
stuck in these jobs. That's because, over the past three decades, the U.S.
economy has done a poor job of creating good middle-class jobs; five of the
six fastest-growing job categories today pay less than the median wage.
That's why, as a recent study by the economists John Schmitt and Janelle
Jones has shown, low-wage workers are older and better educated than ever.
More important, more of them are relying on their paychecks not for pin
money or to pay for Friday-night dates but, rather, to support families.

SK/A05.04) James Surowiecki, THE NEW YORKER, August 12, 2013, p.
35, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Forty years ago,
there was no expectation that fast-food or discount-retail jobs would provide
a living wage, because these were not jobs that, in the main, adult heads of
household did. Today, low-wage workers provide forty-six per cent of their
family's income. It is that change which is driving the demand for higher pay.

LOW-WAGE WORKERS ARE SUBSIDIZED BY
TAXPAYERS
1. HALF OF LOW-WAGE WORKERS ARE ON PUBLIC
ASSISTANCE
SK/A06.01) Liz Alderman & Steven Greenhouse, THE NEW YORK TIMES,
October 28, 2014, p. B1, LexisNexis Academic. By contrast, fast-food wages
in the United States are so low that half of the nation's fast-food workers rely
on some form of public assistance, a study from the University of California,
Berkeley found. American fast-food workers earn an average of $8.90 an
hour.

SK/A06.02) Schuyler Velasco, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR,
October 24, 2013, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. The video's release comes a
week after economists at the University of California Berkeley and the
University of Illinois released a study finding that fast food workers in the US
draw nearly $7 billion annually in taxpayer-funded federal aid, in the form of
food stamps ($1 billion), Medicaid ($3.9 billion), and earned income tax
credits ($1.9 billion). More than half of the 1.8 million "core" fast food workers
who work at least 11 hours per week and 28 percent of those who work full
time rely on some form of public assistance, according to the study.

SK/A06.03) Jessica Heppler, UWIRE TEXT, September 11, 2014, pNA,
GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. McDonald's has a
hotline to help employees sign up for food stamps and welfare and the
hotline specifically encourages full-time employees to sign up for public
assistance. A minimum wage--which ought to be a living wage--would not put
increasingly productive full-time workers below the poverty line and on public
assistance.

2. TAXPAYERS FOOT THE BILL FOR PUBLIC ASSISTANCE
SK/A06.04) Dan Fournier, UWIRE TEXT, January 31, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. There are numerous studies
that have come out over the past several years - from economists on the left
and right - showing that for every 100 employees Walmart hires, it costs the
city [Seattle] just over $2 million in taxpayer funds to provide public services
for the employees because they do not have a high enough income to obtain
them in the private market. These things include food stamps, subsidized and
public housing, low-income health insurance via Medicaid, and municipal
services.

SK/A06.05) Schuyler Velasco, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR,
October 24, 2013, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. The charge is that McDonald's
and other fast food giants who pay their workers less than what many
consider a "living wage" are letting taxpayers pick up the slack in the form of
public assistance. A video released Wednesday by the labor advocacy group
Low Pay is Not Ok drives the point home. In it, Nancy Salgado, a 10-year
McDonald's employee in Chicago and a mother of two, calls a worker helpline
called McResources, purportedly set up to help employees with financial
issues. During the call, which the group recorded and edited, the operator
suggests that Ms. Salgado apply for food stamps and Medicaid, giving her
numbers in the Chicago area to call.

SK/A06.06) Tony Castagnoli, UWIRE TEXT, September 24, 2014, pNA,
GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Want to know how
much the taxpayers are subsidizing the wages of low-income workers?
Between welfare, food stamps, and government-backed health care, nearly
$7 billion (according to a 2013 report released by the University of Illinois and
University of California-Berkeley Labor Center).

3. TAXPAYER SUBSIDIES FOR FULL-TIME WORKERS ARE
UNJUST
SK/A06.07) Tony Castagnoli, UWIRE TEXT, September 24, 2014, pNA,
GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Americans don't like to
see too many people living on government assistance, and it's a shared value
among conservatives and liberals that "hard work pays off." If this is so
agreed upon, then what is the deal with full-time minimum wage workers not
being adequately paid? Does it make any sense that they need government
assistance to supplement their lack of a living income? No, it really doesn't.

4. WAGE INCREASES WILL REDUCE PUBLIC ASSISTANCE
SK/A06.08) James McGovern [Massachusetts Representative]. STATES
NEWS SERVICE, June 9, 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded
Academic ASAP. We know that hunger is a subset of poverty. If people earned
enough money, they wouldn't need help making ends meet - they wouldn't
need Medicaid, SNAP, or housing assistance. The federal minimum wage is
currently $7.25 and hasn't been raised in five years. The real value of today's
minimum wage is less than two-thirds of what it was in 1968. The result of
such a low minimum wage is that many full-time workers live in poverty and
have to rely on public assistance programs in order to make ends meet.

SK/A06.09) James McGovern [Massachusetts Representative]. STATES
NEWS SERVICE, June 9, 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded
Academic ASAP. I'm a cosponsor of the bill to raise the federal minimum wage
to $10.10 an hour. Doing so wouldn't just result in increased wages for
American workers - although that's the most important result. Raising the
minimum wage to $10.10 would cut SNAP spending by $4.6 billion per year.

SK/A06.10) James McGovern [Massachusetts Representative]. STATES
NEWS SERVICE, June 9, 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded
Academic ASAP. A recent study commissioned by the Center for American
Progress documents this. They show that SNAP benefits decline 30 cents for
every $1 increase in family earnings. This report goes on to show that a ten
percent increase in the minimum wage reduces SNAP enrollment by between

2.4 percent and 3.2 percent and reduces SNAP spending by 1.9 percent. That
means that 3.5 million Americans would be cut from SNAP not because of
some arbitrary and hurtful policy but because they earn enough so they don't
need SNAP any longer.

Reduces Child Labor
1. CHILD LABOR IS AN INTERNATIONAL DISGRACE
SK/A07.01) AMERICA, September 29, 2014, p. 4, GALE CENGAGE
LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Toxic working conditions, no living
wage, 12-hour workdays--a sweatshop circa 1900? In fact, it is the economic
reality of 2014, not just for adults, but for children, and not just in the
developing world, but right here in the United States. A recent report about a
13-year-old girl working in North Carolina tobacco fields--under conditions
even an adult should not endure--is shocking. More shocking is that it is
perfectly legal for her to do so. Today young immigrants and children of
migrants often perform jobs no one else will do in order to help their families
survive in difficult economic times.

SK/A07.02) AMERICA, September 29, 2014, p. 4, GALE CENGAGE
LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The United States is not the only
country where child labor is an issue. One in 10 Syrian refugee children in
Turkey have to work to support their families. And while a U.N. convention
sets 14 as the minimum age for work, in July Bolivia became the first nation
to pass a law permitting 10-year-olds to work.

2. LIVING WAGE WILL REDUCE CHILD LABOR
SK/A07.03) AMERICA, September 29, 2014, p. 4, GALE CENGAGE
LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The global economy is becoming
increasingly complex, but one thing is clear: parents should make a living
wage, so their children will not have to work for a minimum one. Children
should not be exploited as economic tools for someone else's profit.

AT: Hurts Econ
1. STAGNANT WAGES HARM ECONOMIC GROWTH
SK/A08.01) Editorial, THE NEW YORK TIMES, October 12, 2014, p. SR10,
LexisNexis Academic. Stagnating wages and widening inequality are the
central economic challenges of our day. Without wage growth, the gains from
economic expansion -- as measured by income and wealth -- become
increasingly concentrated at the top of the economic ladder in a selfreinforcing process that makes broad prosperity impossible.

2. TAX BREAKS AND LOANS SHOULDN’T SUBSIDIZE LOW
WAGES
SK/A08.02) Brian Roewe, NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER, August 30,
2013, p. 5, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. A 2011
study from Good Jobs First, a national policy resource center, looked at the
use of public funds for economic development. In examining 238 subsidy
programs from all 50 states and Washington that cost taxpayers more than
$11 billion, it found that fewer than half imposed wage requirements for
subsidized workers, and even less tied wages to local market rates. Those
programs averaged an hourly rate of $14.76, while the study found programs
without wage requirements paid at a level that often forced workers to use
safety net programs, such as food stamps and Medicaid. "If you're going to
give a company a tax break or a cheap loan in a competitive market ... you
should require it to pay the wages that are the market-based wage rate in
that market and industry so you're not paying that company to pull those
wages down," said Greg LeRoy. Good Jobs First executive director.

3. LIVING WAGES DON’T HARM LOCAL ECONOMIES
SK/A08.03) Brian Roewe, NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER, August 30,
2013, p. 5, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. As for the
effectiveness of living wage ordinances, few studies have examined that
question, but others have found the parameters have not cost cities contracts
or harmed their economies, as critics have often suggested. While challenges
still exist, such as extending living wages to more workers, Conti said there's
no denying that people have received more pay under living wage laws than
without them. "Have they been the complete solution to the problem of lowwage work and income inequality? No. But have they worked? Absolutely,"
she said.

4. MOST ECONOMISTS FAVOR A LIVING WAGE
SK/A08.04) Mark Trumbull, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR,
November 6, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. Many economists embrace the
idea, too. One survey by the University of Chicago last year asked economists
about the idea of a more modest hike to $9 an hour. Even though the survey
participants were split on whether the move would mean fewer jobs for lowskilled workers, 47 percent said it would be a "desirable policy," because of
the pay benefits. Eleven percent thought it would be a bad idea, while 35
percent were uncertain or voiced no opinion.

AT: Hurts Businesses
1. MOST LOW-WAGE WORKERS DON’T WORK FOR SMALL
BUSINESSES
SK/A09.01) Charles M. Blow, THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 17, 2014,
pNA, LexisNexis Academic. Some say that raising the minimum wage could
hurt small businesses, though a Gallup poll in November showed that small
businesses were split on increasing the minimum wage, with roughly half for
and half against it. Furthermore, according to a report by the National
Employment Law Project, ''the majority (66 percent) of low-wage workers are
not employed by small businesses, but rather by large corporations with over
100 employees.''

SK/A09.02) Jay Goltz, THE NEW YORK TIMES BLOGS, January 23, 2014,
pNA, LexisNexis Academic. While these corporations try to hide behind small
businesses, the reality is that most of the people making minimum wage
work for large companies. That was the finding of a study by the National
Employment Law Project, an organization that supports raising the minimum
wage, and that's also been my personal observation.

2. MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE WOULDN’T RAISE PRICES
MUCH
SK/A09.03) Jessica Heppler, UWIRE TEXT, September 11, 2014, pNA,
GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Likewise, a group of
professional economists supported a Florida proposal to raise the minimum
wage to $10.50, estimating that fast food business costs would rise by
approximately 2.7 percent. To put this in perspective, McDonald's could cover
more than half of these extra costs by raising the price of a Big Mac from
$4.00 to a reasonable $4.05.

3. MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE DOESN’T REDUCE PROFITS
SK/A09.04) Jessica Heppler, UWIRE TEXT, September 11, 2014, pNA,
GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Corporations can take
steps to ensure that their employees--especially those working full-time-receive a living wage, many of which can learn something from Starbucks.
When the company raised prices by 1 percent last year, they still saw a 25
percent increase in profit.

4. LOW WAGES ACTUALLY HURT BUSINESS SALES
SK/A09.05) Hiroko Tabuchi & Steven Greenhouse, THE NEW YORK
TIMES, October 17, 2014, p. B3, LexisNexis Academic. Labor activists have
long denounced retailers like Walmart for employing an army of low-wage,
part-time workers to staff their stores. As retail sales flounder in an uncertain
economy, those activists -- and even a growing number of retailers -- are
linking those sluggish sales to the retailers' own low wages. On Thursday,
organizers of a group called Our Walmart took to the streets in New York,
Washington and Phoenix to draw attention to their campaign to change labor
practices in retailing and other low-wage industries like fast-food restaurants.
By not paying their workers a living wage, the activists say, such businesses
squeeze the very people they hope to sell to.

SK/A09.06) Hiroko Tabuchi & Steven Greenhouse, THE NEW YORK
TIMES, October 17, 2014, p. B3, LexisNexis Academic. Over all, a growing
number of retailers cited stagnating incomes and weak spending as a threat
to profits, the Center for American Progress said in a report last week. ''It's
simple. When Americans don't have disposable income, retailers don't have
customers,'' Brendan V. Duke, a policy analyst at the center, said last week.
''It's time for retailers and the rest of corporate America to connect the dots
and realize the only way our economy can sustain consumer demand is by
giving their workers a raise.''

5. LIVING WAGE RAISES EMPLOYEE MORALE & REDUCES
TURNOVER
SK/A09.07) Rick Bell [managing editor], WORKFORCE, October 2014, p.
54, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The reasoning for a
living, wage is not buried deep in the secret sauce. It draws a higher-skilled
workforce, provides better customer service and deals with less turnover,
which as we all know costs employers way more than it's worth. Other
traditional low-wage workplaces like The Container Store and grocery chains
Wegmans and Trader Joe's share a similar philosophy. The prevailing
argument for boosting minimum wage is: It's the right thing to do. That's
nice, but for a lot of organizations, it makes good business sense, too.

SK/A09.08) THE ECONOMIST, November 8, 2014, p. 30(US), GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Hermes is an investment
manager with rather more clout than Mr Stead. It manages [pounds
sterling]27.4 billion of assets and lobbies for companies to adopt the living
wage. Saker Nusseibeh, its chief executive, says businesses need to have a
purpose on top of simply making money. And, he says, treating the workers
well can be good for the company. "Paternalistic companies like the Quaker
groups of Cadbury and Fry survived and prospered in the 19th century by
treating their workers well." This is a key part of the campaigners' argument.
They say workers who are paid the living wage have better morale, making
them more loyal and more productive. Barclays, a bank, found that its
catering-staff retention increased from 54% to 77% following the introduction
of the living wage, and its retention rate for cleaning staff rose from 35% to
92%.

SK/A09.09) Guy Opperman [Conservative Member of Parliament, Great
Britain], NEW STATESMAN, August 9, 2013, p. 17, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING,
Expanded Academic ASAP. Businesses and organisations that have
committed to paying the living wage include everyone from the big corporate
beasts such as Deloitte and Barclays to Aquila Way, a housing association in
Gateshead, north-east England. I have met with some of these accredited

firms and they all talk of improved morale and productivity. One firm
increased staff retention in one department by 65 per cent.

SK/A09.10) Rick Bell [managing editor], WORKFORCE, October 2014, p.
54, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Here's some
simple math for those with a soulless calculator: A living wage + a good
workplace = a thriving, profitable business.

AT: Unemployment
1. WAGE INCREASES HAVE LITTLE EFFECT ON
EMPLOYMENT
SK/A10.01) David Cooper [Economic Policy Institute], NATIONAL
JOURNAL, August 28, 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded
Academic ASAP. Of course, opponents of raising the minimum wage claim
that raising the wage floor will do more harm than good, forcing businesses to
reduce staff or cut hours. But rigorous peer-reviewed research synthesized by
think tanks such as the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the
Economic Policy Institute has shown again
(http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02.pdf) and
again (http://www.epi.org/minimum-wage-statement/) that modest increases
in the minimum wage, such as the proposed increase to $10.10, have little to
no effect on employment. Even the Congressional Budget Office concluded
that the policy would be beneficial for 98 percent of affected workers.

SK/A10.02) Michael Lerner, TIKKUN, Spring 2014, p. 5, GALE CENGAGE
LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. He [Paul Krugman, NEW YORK TIMES
columnist] added that raising the minimum wage has been shown to have
"little or no adverse effect on employment, while simultaneously increasing
workers' earnings."

SK/A10.03) David Wait, KAI TIAKI: NURSING NEW ZEALAND, May 2013,
p. 33, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. A challenge
frequently raised against paying a living wage is that it will cost jobs. Again,
the evidence doesn't support this. Studies looking at the impact on
employment of the living wage in Los Angeles and San Francisco found the
impact to be minimal--less than one per cent in the case of Los Angeles and
in San Francisco it promoted employment.

SK/A10.04) CALIFORNIA BOOKWATCH, June 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE
LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Beginning in the late 1990s through
2008, San Francisco enacted nearly a dozen laws to raise pay, improve
benefits, and help low-wage city residents and workers who were being
hammed by the high cost of living in the City. As a result, over one in five San
Francisco workers now receive good benefits. These new labor standards
have improved living conditions across the city for low-wage workers and
have not hurt employment at all: this account [WHEN MANDAES WORK,
edited by Michael Reich et al.] follows the 15-year experiment San Francisco
fostered, and considers its lasting impact and the myths and worries that
didn't come true.

SK/A10.05) Arturo Bris [Professor of Finance, International Management
& Development Institute, Switzerland]. STATES NEWS SERVICE, May 1, 2014,
pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. But in general
there is no conclusive evidence of a negative relationship between
employment and minimum wages. Among the hundreds of articles that have
empirically analyzed the link, some find a positive impact and some a
negative relationship. In some settings, when the minimum wage is way
below the equilibrium wage of the economy, the impact of minimum wage
legislation can be negligible.

2. WAGE INCREASES HAVE NEVER INCREASED
UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
SK/A10.06) Tony Castagnoli, UWIRE TEXT, September 24, 2014, pNA,
GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Anyway, the argument
that raising the minimum wage would hurt the economy is outdated and
misguided. There is no proof that this will happen; unemployment rates have
never increased when the minimum wage was increased in the past. This is
because instituting a greater cash flow for low-income workers results in
higher rates of consumer spending in local economies, thus allowing more
opportunities for businesses to hire because of an increase in customers.

3. HIGHER JOB CREATION ACCOMPANIES MINIMUM WAGE
INCREASES
SK/A10.07) Jessica Heppler, UWIRE TEXT, September 11, 2014, pNA,
GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Critics should note
that a recent study by the Center for Economic Policy and Research found
that job creation was faster in states that raised the minimum wage in
January 2014.

Denmark Proves
1. DENMARK’S LIVING WAGE MAKES LIFE AFFORDABLE
SK/A11.01) Liz Alderman & Steven Greenhouse, THE NEW YORK TIMES,
October 28, 2014, p. B1, LexisNexis Academic. In interviews, Danish
employees of McDonald's, Burger King and Starbucks said that even though
Denmark had one of the world's highest costs of living -- about 30 percent
higher than in the United States -- their $20 wage made life affordable.

2. LIVING WAGE DOES NOT HURT BUSINESSES
SK/A11.02) Liz Alderman & Steven Greenhouse, THE NEW YORK TIMES,
October 28, 2014, p. B1, LexisNexis Academic. If Danish chains can pay $20
an hour, why can't those in the United States pay the $15 an hour that many
fast-food workers have been clamoring for? ''We see from Denmark that it's
possible to run a profitable fast-food business while paying workers these
kinds of wages,'' said John Schmitt, an economist at the Center for Economic
Policy Research, a liberal think tank in Washington.

SK/A11.03) Liz Alderman & Steven Greenhouse, THE NEW YORK TIMES,
October 28, 2014, p. B1, LexisNexis Academic. But as Denmark illustrates,
companies have managed to adapt in countries that demand a living wage,
and economists like Mr. Schmitt see it as a possible model. Denmark has no
minimum-wage law. But Mr. Elofsson's $20 an hour is the lowest the fast-food
industry can pay under an agreement between Denmark's 3F union, the
nation's largest, and the Danish employers group Horesta, which includes
Burger King, McDonald's, Starbucks and other restaurant and hotel
companies.

SK/A11.04) Liz Alderman & Steven Greenhouse, THE NEW YORK TIMES,
October 28, 2014, p. B1, LexisNexis Academic. Danish law does not require
fast-food companies or their franchisees to adhere to the wages required by
the agreement with the 3F union. But they do, because employees and
unions pledge in exchange not to engage in strikes, demonstrations or
boycotts. ''What employers get is peace,'' said Peter Lykke Nielsen, the 3F
union's chief negotiator with McDonald's.

Most Americans Support
1. OVERWHELMING MAJORITY FAVORS RAISING MINIMUM
WAGE
SK/A12.01) Charles M. Blow, THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 17, 2014,
pNA, LexisNexis Academic. According to a Gallup poll last year, 71 percent of
adults (91 percent of Democrats, 68 percent of independents and 50 percent
of Republicans) said they would vote for a law that would raise the federal
minimum wage to $9 an hour on Election Day if they could.

SK/A12.02) Mark Trumbull, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR,
November 6, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. In polls, most Americans say
they support President Obama's call for a higher federal minimum wage of
$10.10 an hour. A September CBS News/New York Times poll found 70
percent of US adults were in favor of that idea, and 28 percent opposed.

SK/A12.03) Jim Hightower, THE PROGRESSIVE, April 2013, p. 46, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Seventy percent of
Americans--including a majority of Republican women (but not men)--favor
raising the minimum wage above $10 an hour, according to a poll last June.

2. VOTERS HAVE SOUNDLY ENDORSED WAGE RAISES
SK/A12.04) Mark Trumbull, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR,
November 6, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. Even in a year when voters
went heavily Republican in their selection of elected officials, voters in four
generally conservative states opted to support one of President Obama's top
economic priorities: higher pay levels for workers at the bottom rung of the
wage ladder. The minimum wage votes mean higher pay for hundreds of
thousands of Americans. Wage-hike advocates say the votes - which affect
Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota - signal strong public backing
nationwide for boosting minimum pay in an economy where inflation has
been outpacing pay for many workers.

SK/A12.05) Mark Trumbull, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR,
November 6, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. The argument that the
minimum wage should also be a "living wage" resonated in cities as well as
states. Voters in San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., voted to raise their local
minimums Tuesday, even though the idea failed in another California city,
Eureka.

SK/A12.06) Harry Bruinius, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR,
September 30, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. "I applaud Mayor de Blasio
for raising wages for thousands of New Yorkers who are working hard every
day to make ends meet," said US Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez, in a
statement. "Since President Obama first called on Congress to raise the
national minimum wage, 13 states, Washington, D.C., Seattle, San Diego, and
other cities have acted to boost wages for those at the bottom of the income
ladder." Seattle became the first major American city to raise its minimum
wage to $15 this past June. Cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago also have
proposed raising their minimum wages.

3. LIVING WAGE ORDINANCES HAVE BEEN WIDELY
ADOPTED
SK/A12.07) Joseph Valentine [U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics], MONTHLY
LABOR REVIEW, June 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded
Academic ASAP. According to Pollin [author of A MEASURE OF FAIRNESS: THE
ECONOMICS OF LIVING WAGES AND MINIMUM WAGES IN THE UNITED
STATES], no fewer than 140 different municipalities enacted living-wage
ordinances between 1994 (when the movement began in Baltimore) and
2007.

****

LIVING WAGE IS AN UNSOUND POLICY
1. LIVING WAGE CANNOT BE ADEQUATELY DEFINED
SK/N01.01) Joseph Valentine [U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics], MONTHLY
LABOR REVIEW, June 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded
Academic ASAP. Many people will read A Measure of Fairness and recall the
fast-food worker strikes that took place in the summer of 2013. In several
major cities, workers walked out of fast-food restaurants to begin striking for
an hourly compensation rate of $15--what they believed to be a living wage.
But $15 in Detroit is not the same as $15 in New York City or Los Angeles;
likewise, cities in different regions are subject to unique price and wage
pressures that can subtly or drastically shift the living-wage discussion. To
some, this basic fact may call into question the very notion of a "living wage"
in the absence of a concrete definition; for others, it is less of an issue.

2. MOST LIVING WAGE BENEFICIARIES ARE NOT IN
POVERTY
SK/N01.02) STATES NEWS SERVICE, January 14, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. In reviewing the effect of
living wages on poverty, the report notes a study of seven major U.S. cities
that found 72 per cent of workers benefitting from living wage laws were not
actually poor. Of the 28 per cent who were considered poor, only one-third
moved above the poverty line. "Living wage laws often don't help the most
poverty-ridden families, in part, because the overwhelming proportion of
those benefitting from living wage laws tends not to be poor," Lammam
[Fraser Institute, Canada] said.

3. LIVING WAGE CONCEPT IS FATALLY FLAWED
SK/N01.03) Travis Toth, UWIRE TEXT, June 11, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Really, the whole concept of
a minimum wage puts far too much emphasis on guaranteeing a basic
standard of living through gainful employment. To me, that's something we
should be providing for everyone regardless of their employment standing.
I'm a firm believer in the basic income program. Essentially, the government
would pay citizens a monthly stipend, perhaps equivalent to our current
minimum wage, purely for being citizens. Then, everyone would be free to
explore their field of interest without having to worry about keeping a roof
over their head and food on the table.

LIVING WAGE VIOLATES FREEDOM OF
CONTRACT
1. FREEDOM OF CONTRACT DEMANDS WAGE
NEGOTIATIONS
SK/N02.01) Ben Lodge [Adam Smith Institute], STATES NEWS SERVICE,
June 14, 2012, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP.
Firstly, exploitation is subjective. For those who are 21 years old or over, the
national minimum wage [in Britain] is currently u6.08 - do we really believe
that the moment they earn u6.07 they are being exploited? Why should it be
left to government bureaucrats to arbitrarily decide what constitutes
exploitation? Payment should be between the employer and employee. If the
employee doesn't like the offer being made they are free to refuse it and if
they are willing to accept it, then it's not for anybody else to label it
exploitation.

SK/N02.02) Donald J. Boudreaux [Professor of Economics, George
Mason U.], PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE REVIEW, February 12, 2013, pNA,
LexisNexis Academic. The market is a vast and complex pattern of voluntary
choices and exchanges - including the taking of financial risks - that emerge
when each individual is free to produce, to sell and to buy according to his or
her own individual lights. The only constraints upon such exchanges are the
rules of private property and of freedom of contract. If I want your pet frog or
your productive factory, I can get it only if I agree to give you something that
you voluntarily accept in exchange.

2. LOW-SKILL WORKERS ARE NOT WORTH LIVING WAGE
RATES
SK/N02.03) Steven Gillard, UWIRE TEXT, September 10, 2014, pNA,
GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Minimum wage jobs
are minimum wage because they require minimal skill. It would be ludicrous
for me to walk up to my boss and demand $15 an hour for scooping popcorn,
yet fast food workers are demanding the exact same thing and this belief is
somehow recognized as legitimate. Demanding $15 an hour for pushing
buttons on a computer terminal and flipping burgers is laughable. And no,
"working hard" is not defined as long, unforgiving hours at a thankless job.
Working hard is acquiring skills to put yourself in a position of success;
working hard is going above and beyond and setting yourself apart from the
rest.

SK/N02.04) UWIRE TEXT, September 6, 2013, p. 1, GALE CENGAGE
LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Before labeling the current minimum
wage rate as "unfair," consider the reasoning, or lack thereof, behind this
number. Rather than reflecting the value of the work done by low-level
workers, the current rate simply represents an arbitrary amount deemed
fitting by the government.

SK/N02.05) Debra Burke [Professor of Law, Western Carolina U.] et al.,
GONZAGA LAW REVIEW, 2010-2011, LexisNexis Academic, pp. 675-676.
Similarly, if a minimum wage rate exceeds the contribution of some
employees to the firm's revenue, the firm can either terminate some
employees or subsidize their employment, and if they are subsidized, then
the firm likely will forego hiring some persons it otherwise would have hired,
and aggregate employment, thus, will be reduced.

MINIMUM WAGE IS NOT TOO LOW
1. FEW WORKERS EARN THE MINIMUM WAGE
SK/N03.01) Hiroko Tabuchi & Steven Greenhouse, THE NEW YORK
TIMES, October 17, 2014, p. B3, LexisNexis Academic. The federation
[National Retail Federation] argued that retail workers earn above-average
pay if temporary workers, including those hired for holiday sales, are
excluded. Retail workers ages 25 to 54 who work full time for at least three
consecutive months make an average of $38,376 a year, slightly more than
full-time workers in nonretail jobs, the group said.

SK/N03.02) Hiroko Tabuchi & Steven Greenhouse, THE NEW YORK
TIMES, October 17, 2014, p. B3, LexisNexis Academic. And speaking to
reporters after a conference call Wednesday, Douglas McMillon, Walmart's
chief executive, stressed that less than 6,000 workers of its American work
force of 1.3 million currently made the minimum wage, and that the retailer
intended to eventually move them off that wage level.

2. MINIMUM-WAGE WORKERS ARE QUICKLY PROMOTED
SK/N03.03) Hiroko Tabuchi & Steven Greenhouse, THE NEW YORK
TIMES, October 17, 2014, p. B3, LexisNexis Academic. Walmart also stressed
that many of its workers were quickly promoted to better-paying jobs. ''At
Walmart, it doesn't take too long to advance beyond the minimum wage
level,'' said Kory Lundberg, a spokesman for Walmart. He said that Walmart
had promoted 170,000 people last year to jobs with higher pay. ''It's
obviously a very important debate, but starting wage isn't the main issue,''
he said. ''The main issue is the opportunity you have to grow and advance
and take home higher pay.''

3. MOST MINIMUM-WAGE WORKERS ARE NOT
BREADWINNERS
SK/N03.04) Debra Burke [Professor of Law, Western Carolina U.] et al.,
GONZAGA LAW REVIEW, 2010-2011, LexisNexis Academic, pp. 673-674.
Commentators question how the minimum wage can be effective in
promoting economic independence since the majority of minimum wage
earners are no longer the primary wage earners in a household.

4. MINIMUM WAGE HAS RISEN SUBSTANTIALLY

SK/N03.05) UWIRE TEXT, September 6, 2013, p. 1, GALE CENGAGE
LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The discrepancy between minimum
wage and the mean hourly rate paid to employees nationwide has shrunken
dramatically. When McDonald's was founded in 1948, the minimum wage rate
was only four percent of what the average American employee received.
Today, that percentage is over 30 percent.

5. MINIMUM WAGE AMOUNTS TO A LIVING WAGE
SK/N03.06) Lydia DePillis, WASHINGTON POST BLOGS, October 30,
2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. The group [Jobs Now] started by filing
complaints with the [Wisconsin] Department of Workforce Development from
100 low-wage workers, charging that the minimum wage was nowhere near
enough to support a decent standard of living. Walker's administration
rejected them, ruling that there was "no reasonable cause to believe that the
wages paid to the complainants are not a living wage" - and based its
decision on a study from the restaurant industry charging that a higher
minimum would economically damage the state. A spokeswoman also told
the Wisconsin State Journal that the governor was trying to "help employers
create jobs that pay far more than the minimum wage or any other proposed
minimum."

6. MINIMUM WAGE PROTESTS HAVE FIZZLED OUT
SK/N03.07) Katie Lobosco, CNN WIRE, November 28, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. But Walmart spokeswoman
Brooke Buchanan said as of Friday afternoon, no employees at any location
had come into work and then walked off the job. The company had received a
handful of notices from workers who said they were planning to strike today,
she said, but an official tally of employees who didn't show up for work was
not yet available. Only one Walmart worker, Barbara Gertz, spoke at the rally
outside the New Jersey store, and she actually works in Colorado. The unionbacked groups often cover travel costs for workers who come to protest. Most
of the protesters in New Jersey were not workers, but members of unions
including the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and the American
Postal Workers Union.

LIVING WAGE WILL NOT HELP THE POOR
1. LIVING WAGE MERELY REDISTRIBUTES INCOME AMONG
THE POOR
SK/N04.01) Debra Burke [Professor of Law, Western Carolina U.] et al.,
GONZAGA LAW REVIEW, 2010-2011, LexisNexis Academic, pp. 674-675. One
study suggests that the minimum wage does not help in the war against
poverty but merely serves to redistribute income among low-income families
rather than to them.

SK/N04.02) David Neumark [Professor of Economics, U. of California,
Irvine] et al., ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, November 2013, SAGE
JOURNALS, p.278. Overall, the results show that although the number of
workers receiving wage increases is considerably higher than the number of
workers experiencing job losses, the aggregate effect on the distribution of
income is negligible. In other words, the simulations suggest that the living
wage mandate would mainly redistribute income from some low-skilled
workers who lose jobs to other low-skilled workers who earn higher wages.

SK/N04.03) STATES NEWS SERVICE, January 14, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. As more Canadian
municipalities consider adopting so-called living wage laws, a new report
published today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan
Canadian public policy think-tank, concludes these laws can actually hurt lowpaid workers. The report, The Economic Effects of Living Wage Laws, reviews
scholarly research on living wage laws in the United States, where more than
140 municipalities have the legislation, and spotlights the effects on
employment, wages and poverty.

SK/N04.04) STATES NEWS SERVICE, January 14, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. "The best available evidence
from the U.S. serves as a cautionary tale for us in Canada about adopting
living wage laws. When governments try to legislate wages, there's typically
a trade-off-while some workers may benefit from a higher wage, their gain
comes at the expense of others who lose as a result of fewer employment
opportunities," said Charles Lammam, study author and resident scholar in
economic policy at the Fraser Institute.

2. WAGE GAINS ARE OFFSET BY DECLINES IN ASSISTANCE

SK/N04.05) David Neumark [Professor of Economics, U. of California,
Irvine] et al., ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, November 2013, SAGE
JOURNALS, p. 279. Finally, Table 3 also reports the changes in aggregate
earnings and benefit amounts that are implied by simulating the impact of
the living wage. Based on the simulated effects, family earnings would
increase by approximately $11.6 million. Referring back to Table 2, these
increases come from the approximately 34,000 workers who experience a
wage increase, whereas approximately 6,000 workers experience reduced
earnings due to disemployment. SNAP [food stamp] benefits decline only
slightly, whereas EITC [Earned Income Tax Credit\] benefits would decline by
approximately $4.6 million, offsetting over one third of the income gains.

3. LIVING WAGE WILL DECIMATE CHARITABLE
INSTITUTIONS
SK/N04.06) Suzanne Perry, CHRONICLE OF PHILANTHROPY, May 22,
2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The
National Human Services Assembly, a nonprofit coalition, has not taken a
position on the minimum wage, says Irv Katz, its chief executive. But, he
says, "I'm going to guess a lot of my colleagues in human-services
organizations are really divided on this. We recognize that unskilled workers
haven't had a raise in years, and they deserve one. But going from sevensomething an hour to 10-something an hour is a huge leap and would almost
necessarily result in reduced levels of service."

SK/N04.07) Suzanne Perry, CHRONICLE OF PHILANTHROPY, May 22,
2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Nonprofits
that rely on state reimbursements to provide services say it would be difficult
for them to absorb a minimum-wage increase.

4. LIVING WAGE FAILS TO REDUCE WELFARE CASELOADS
SK/N04.08) Debra Burke [Professor of Law, Western Carolina U.] et al.,
GONZAGA LAW REVIEW, 2010-2011, LexisNexis Academic, p. 675. Another
study documents that an increase in welfare caseloads accompanied a
minimum wage hike, suggesting that minimum wage policies are not
effective in securing financial independence for low-income workers.

LIVING WAGE CAUSES INFLATIONARY SPIRAL
1. LIVING WAGE WILL CAUSE BIG JUMP IN PRICES
SK/N05.01) UWIRE TEXT, September 6, 2013, p. 1, GALE CENGAGE
LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Regardless of how well-intentioned
those striking fast-food workers are, the fact still remains that a rise in
minimum wage will only burden the consumer with increasingly expensive
menu items. Customers are fickle creatures and an increase in prices will do
little, if anything, to lure them toward the Golden Arches. Nor will increased
operating costs encourage restaurants to hire more workers.

SK/N05.02) UWIRE TEXT, September 6, 2013, p. 1, GALE CENGAGE
LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Some of the hardest hit would be the
50 million Americans who order from a fast-food restaurant on a daily basis.
The sustainability of more than just the McDonald's Dollar Menu would come
into question. Fast-food companies would undoubtedly scale back the number
of persons employed if faced with a doubling or near-doubling of all low-level
workers' salaries.

2. HIGHER PRICES HURT THE POOR
SK/N05.03) Paul Davidson, USA TODAY, August 29, 2013, p. 1A,
LexisNexis Academic. Corporations, however, say forcing them to raise wages
will mean fewer jobs and higher prices, hurting those with lower incomes in
particular.

SK/N05.04) Aaron C. Davis, THE WASHINGTON POST, September 15,
2013, p. A1, LexisNexis Academic. Mayor [of Washington, DC] Vincent C.
Gray's decision this week to veto a law requiring Wal-Mart to offer higher pay
pitted support for a "living wage" against a desire to spur investment and job
growth in the city. But for Pegues and thousands like him who cross the city
line every day on their way to the Landover Wal-Mart, the battle was about
something more basic: low prices. Gray's decision brought focus to the flip
side of the living-wage debate: Wal-Mart's customers are often as
economically disadvantaged as those who scrape by on its hourly wages.

3. A VICIOUS INFLATIONARY WAGE-PRICE SPIRAL WILL
RESULT

SK/N05.05) Debra Burke [Professor of Law, Western Carolina U.] et al.,
GONZAGA LAW REVIEW, 2010-2011, LexisNexis Academic, p. 676. Finally, the
increase in labor costs can spur inflation and undercut the real minimum
wage, precipitating an endless spiral.

SK/N05.06) Travis Toth, UWIRE TEXT, June 11, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The city of Seattle is
planning on increasing its minimum wage to $15 an hour as part of the "Fight
for 15" campaign, according to The American Prospect. Raising an arbitrary
standard will lead to prices increasing to balance the economy. This change
then necessitates an even higher minimum wage. It's a vicious cycle, really.

LIVING WAGE WILL HARM BUSINESSES
1. LIVING WAGE WILL WIPE OUT BUSINESS PROFITS
SK/N06.01) Steven Gillard, UWIRE TEXT, September 10, 2014, pNA,
GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The Heritage
Foundation calculated that raising the minimum wage in the fast food
industry to $15 an hour would lead to a 77 percent decrease in profits, as well
as a 38 percent increase in prices. Essentially, paying employees $15 an hour
would wipe out the profit margin of fast food companies and make it more
difficult for those who rely on cheap fast food for meals to afford them.

SK/N06.02) James Surowiecki, THE NEW YORKER, August 12, 2013, p.
35, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Today, the
country's biggest employers are retailers and fast-food chains, almost all of
which have built their businesses on low pay--they've striven to keep wages
down and unions out--and low prices. This complicates things, in part
because of the nature of these businesses. They make plenty of money, but
most have slim profit margins: Walmart and Target earn between three and
four cents on the dollar; a typical McDonald's franchise restaurant earns
around six cents on the dollar before taxes, according to an analysis from
Janney Capital Markets. In fact, the combined profits of all the major retailers,
restaurant chains, and supermarkets in the Fortune 500 are smaller than the
profits of Apple alone. Yet Apple employs just seventy-six thousand people,
while the retailers, supermarkets, and restaurant chains employ 5.6 million.
The grim truth of those numbers is that low wages are a big part of why these
companies are able to stay profitable while offering low prices.

SK/N06.03) Jay Goltz, THE NEW YORK TIMES BLOGS, January 23, 2014,
pNA, LexisNexis Academic. That said, there is a limit to how much businesses,
of any size, can afford to pay in minimum wages. While the current minimum
is certainly too low, I get nervous when I hear people talking about increasing
it to $15 an hour. Some people may consider that a "livable wage" - but I
believe that a $15-an-hour minimum wage would create huge problems for
businesses.

SK/N06.04) Joseph Valentine [U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics], MONTHLY
LABOR REVIEW, June 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded
Academic ASAP. Interestingly, although estimates vary between fast-food and
more leisurely dining establishments, research shows that demand for food
prepared away from home is highly elastic. This high elasticity of demand
suggests that cost increases are unlikely to be passed on to consumers via
higher prices. So, can restaurants (a notoriously shaky industry to begin with)

raise prices without a corresponding decline in demand and therefore
revenue?

SK/N06.05) Suzanne Heller Clain, ATLANTIC ECONOMIC JOURNAL,
September 2012, p. 315, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic
ASAP. The political obstacles to the passage of living wage legislation can be
gleaned from the news coverage of ongoing or failed living wage campaigns
and from some of the evaluations of the prospective impacts of the
legislation, written by hired economic consultants. It is clear from news
reports that businesses that could be subject to the legislation are concerned
about the associated rise in labor costs and the ultimate impact on
profitability. As a redistributive tool, the legislation does have the potential to
impact businesses negatively.

2. COST OF LIVING WAGE WILL BE BORNE BY SMALL
BUSINESS
SK/N06.06) Debra Burke [Professor of Law, Western Carolina U.] et al.,
GONZAGA LAW REVIEW, 2010-2011, LexisNexis Academic, pp. 672-673.
Nevertheless, concerns persist about the effectiveness, as well as the
unintended consequences of the FLSA's minimum wage provision. For
example, it is argued that the economic brunt of the legislation is borne, not
by society as a whole as a means of insuring a living wage for workers, but
instead by small business owners who employ unskilled labor.

LIVING WAGE WILL HARM THE ECONOMY
1. LIVING WAGE WILL OVERBURDEN TAXPAYERS
SK/N07.01) STATES NEWS SERVICE, January 14, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Finally, the report cautions
that the cost of living wage laws may be passed on to taxpayers. "With higher
labour costs for city contractors, there is the potential for living wage laws to
result in larger city budgets and higher municipal taxes," Lammam [Fraser
Institute, Canada] said.

2. LIVING WAGE WILL STIFLE LOCAL ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT
SK/N07.02) David Neumark [Professor of Economics, U. of California,
Irvine] et al., ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, November 2013, SAGE
JOURNALS, pp. 280-281. Moreover the larger report (Charles River Associates,
2011), of which our labor market research was one component, also studied
how the real estate market in New York City was likely to be affected by the
proposed living wage law. The real estate analysis suggested potentially quite
adverse effects on real estate development in New York City owing to the
coverage of the living wage law, to whom liability would have been extended,
and the penalties for noncompliance, which include repayment of the
financial assistance received. Because labor markets and real estate markets
are closely related, were these adverse effects on real estate development to
occur, the labor market impacts could be worse than the relatively modest
impacts suggested by our labor market analysis.

SK/N07.03) Kris Hart, THE WASHINGTON POST, September 7, 2013, p.
A14, LexisNexis Academic. The District [of Columbia] has made so much
progress in business development and local neighborhood revitalization. This
conversation about a "living wage" is ridiculous and will only further slow our
economy. Are all workers in the city to be paid a "living wage"? I own several
small businesses in Washington. The Large Retailer Accountability Act reveals
a lack of understanding among city leaders about fundamental economics.
Jobs create jobs. Development creates better neighborhoods.

SK/N07.04) Nancy Ploeger [President, Manhattan Chamber of
Commerce], THE NEW YORK TIMES, January 3, 2012, p. A24, LexisNexis
Academic. ''A Living Wage, Long Overdue'' (editorial, Dec. 26) did not
mention New York City's own failed experience with a so-called living-wage
law: the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx. Rather than a bustling retail center
creating thousands of jobs, the armory sits embarrassingly empty after

politicians demanded wage requirements more than two years ago. Today, no
serious plan is in sight for Kingsbridge, and the community is deprived of
good jobs.

SK/N07.05) Editorial, DAILY NEWS (New York), January 15, 2012, p. 34,
LexisNexis Academic. What Quinn [New York City Council] came to
understand, first, was the insanity and unfairness of subsidizing, say, the
developer of a mall and then trying to require tenants, who got no benefit, to
boost their wages. That's what living-wage supporters tried to force on the
Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx. Related Cos., the developer, planned to
spend $300 million to turn the hulking white elephant into a retail shopping
mall, creating 1,000 construction jobs and 1,200 permanent positions. The
builder tried to explain that national retailers would never agree to change
countrywide pay scales in order to do business in the city. The living-wage
diehards, led by Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, refused to listen. They
gave Related an ultimatum. Related killed the project as economically
impossible. Infamously, Diaz declared he'd rather have no jobs than the jobs
the mall would have generated. And that's exactly what he got in the
borough with the city's highest unemployment: no jobs.

LIVING WAGE WILL HURT LOW-INCOME AREAS
1. LIVING WAGE WILL HURT DEVELOPMENT IN LOWINCOME AREAS
SK/N08.01) Aaron C. Davis, THE WASHINGTON POST, September 15,
2013, p. A1, LexisNexis Academic. On Thursday, Gray [Mayor of Washington,
DC] vetoed the so-called Large Retailer Accountability Act, which would have
required retailers with corporate sales of $1 billion or more and operating
District stores of at least 75,000 square feet to pay their employees a "living
wage" - no less than $12.50 an hour in combined wages and benefits. The
mayor said the measure would have harmed District residents, depriving
them of access to Wal-Mart's inexpensive groceries and other sale items. He
said it would have blocked hundreds of jobs planned for Wal-Mart's new
stores - and turned off other retail chains that might have decided the cost of
doing business in the District was too high.

SK/N08.02) Aaron C. Davis, THE WASHINGTON POST, September 15,
2013, p. A1, LexisNexis Academic. Rebekah Peeples Massengill, author of
"Wal-Mart Wars: Moral Populism in the Twenty-First Century," said she was not
surprised the living-wage effort appeared headed for failure [in Washington,
DC]. "For people in underserved areas, Wal-Mart can bring goods that would
not otherwise be available, and the trade-offs for what that means for
workers at those stores is a very complex moral discussion," she said.

SK/N08.03) Mike DeBonis, THE WASHINGTON POST, July 13, 2013, p.
B1, LexisNexis Academic. The District's top economic development official
warned Friday that a "living wage" bill passed by the D.C. Council could
reverberate well beyond Wal-Mart, threatening developments in which the
retail giant is not taking part. Victor L. Hoskins, deputy mayor for planning
and economic development, would not say whether he would recommend
that Mayor Vincent C. Gray veto the legislation, which would require some
large retailers to provide minimum wages and benefits of $12.50 an hour. But
he said its passage into law would have a "chilling impact" on retail growth in
the city, driving away not only Wal-Mart - which has said it will abandon three
of six planned stores should the bill become law - but also other national
retailers considered more desirable by residents and elected officials.

SK/N08.04) Mike DeBonis, THE WASHINGTON POST, July 13, 2013, p.
B1, LexisNexis Academic. "What they're doing is, they're killing the golden
goose," Hoskins [deputy mayor, Washington, DC] said of city lawmakers,
citing figures of 3,000 permanent jobs, 1,000 construction jobs and untold tax
revenue lost over the next 18 months should the bill pass and Wal-Mart follow
through on its ultimatum. Although lawmakers may think they are targeting

Wal-Mart, he added, other retailers are "concerned it may one day turn on
them."

2. LIVING WAGE WILL PRODUCE URBAN FOOD DESERTS
SK/N08.05) Aaron C. Davis, THE WASHINGTON POST, September 15,
2013, p. A1, LexisNexis Academic. But in an interview following the veto,
Gray [Mayor of Washington, DC] said the city's lack of available and
affordable groceries and retail - including at the boarded-up Skyland shopping
center, where after pressure from Gray, Wal-Mart would put a store near the
mayor's longtime family home - outweighed any urge he had in setting a
national precedent. "One city," said Gray, using his slogan for city unity, "is
being able to have reasonable access for people wherever they are, wherever
they live, and nobody can make that argument, frankly, about access to
some of these amenities. You look of areas of Ward 7 and 8, they are really
food deserts, retail deserts."

3. LIVING WAGE WILL IMPAIR AFFORDABLE HOUSING
SK/N08.06) David Seifman, THE NEW YORK POST, November 22, 2011,
p. 21, LexisNexis Academic. Legislation requiring companies receiving city
subsidies to pay the "living wage" would endanger the city's affordablehousing plan for half a million New Yorkers, the Bloomberg administration
warned last night. "[The legislation] would be put in jeopardy because the
ground-floor retail that many developers use to subsidize affordable housing
would no longer produce the necessary financial benefits," Deputy Mayor
Robert Steel said in a letter addressed to "interested parties."

LIVING WAGE WILL INCREASE UNEMPLOYMENT
1. STUDIES SHOW LIVING WAGE DECREASES EMPLOYMENT
SK/N09.01) STATES NEWS SERVICE, January 14, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Although activists claim
living wage laws can increase wages with minimal costs, the reality is quite
different. According to the best available research, a 100 per cent increase in
the living wage (for example, going from an hourly minimum wage of $10 to
$20) reduces employment among low-wage workers by between 12 and 17
per cent.

SK/N09.02) David Neumark [Professor of Economics, U. of California,
Irvine] et al., ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, November 2013, SAGE
JOURNALS, p. 275. Applying this elasticity to the increase in the wage floor
from the New York state minimum wage of $6.75 to the $10 living wage that
the law would entail, a 48.1% increase implies an employment decline of
2.65% (0.055 × 0.481 × 100) among those earning less than $10 per hour.

SK/N09.03) Mark Trumbull, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, August
20, 2013, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. But when two other economists, David
Neumark of the University of California at Irvine and William Wascher of the
Federal Reserve Board, surveyed studies that have been done over the past
two decades, they found the evidence weighted toward the view that
boosting the minimum wage has at least modest negative effects on job
creation.

SK/N09.04) Debra Burke [Professor of Law, Western Carolina U.] et al.,
GONZAGA LAW REVIEW, 2010-2011, LexisNexis Academic, pp. 662-663. The
paper then reports the results of a study completed by the authors which
analyzed the unemployment rates in contiguous counties with different
minimum wage rates in the Pacific Northwest. It compared unemployment
rates in geographically contiguous counties of the two states that had the
largest difference in minimum wage rates, both in absolute terms ($ 2.48)
and as a percentage of the federal minimum wage (48%). The study
examined this gap in the context of a consistent increase in one state's
minimum wage rate over several years, while the other state's wage rate
remained unchanged. The analysis of the data reveals that, from an
economic perspective, there is a strong correlation between a higher
legislated minimum wage rate and a higher unemployment rate.

SK/N09.05) Debra Burke [Professor of Law, Western Carolina U.] et al.,
GONZAGA LAW REVIEW, 2010-2011, LexisNexis Academic, pp. 683-684. While

the effect of minimum wage legislation on unfair competition remains largely
anecdotal, its effect on employment has been the subject of both criticism
and empirical analysis. The study reported in this paper validates that
criticism, at least with respect to situations where increases in the minimum
wage rate are large enough to be binding. The results of this study suggest
that, while the marginal effects of typical minimum wage rate increases tend
to be small, unusually large and consistent increases do produce a
disemployment effect, and as a result, may frustrate the economic and social
goals advanced as their justification.

SK/N09.06) Editorial, THE NEW YORK POST, May 13, 2011, p. 28,
LexisNexis Academic. Take the living wage: In a preliminary study released by
the city [New York City] this week, economists pegged job losses at as much
as 100,000, should the living-wage bill become law. That's because the costs
of the higher wage would wipe out the benefits of city aid, which is meant as
an incentive for developers and businesses to expand. Thus, there'd be fewer
projects, fewer businesses . . . fewer jobs.

2. IT’S THE BASIC ECONOMIC LAW OF SUPPLY AND
DEMAND
SK/N09.07) Debra Burke [Professor of Law, Western Carolina U.] et al.,
GONZAGA LAW REVIEW, 2010-2011, LexisNexis Academic, p. 675. Aside from
concerns about its effectiveness in advancing the economic status of wageearners, is the concern that the minimum wage rates, along with increases in
its legislated amount, adversely affect employment. Critics contend that the
data provide that "an artificial increase in the price of [labor necessarily]
causes less of it to be bought," a predictable outcome in the law of supply
and demand.

SK/N09.08) Mark Trumbull, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, August
20, 2013, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. A big question, though, is whether
pushing up the minimum wage would dim the employment prospects of
many who need jobs the most: young or unskilled workers. In economics, the
general rule is that if something becomes more expensive, people will buy
less of it. In this case, critics warn that minimum-wage hikes will cause
employers to scale back on hiring - using alternatives such as automation or
foreign outsourcing wherever they can.

SK/N09.09) Dr. Eammon Butler [Adam Smith Institute], STATES NEWS
SERVICE, April 18, 2012, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded
Academic ASAP. When you fix prices, you get shortages. By fixing the price of
labour too high, the minimum wage causes a shortage of jobs. It is hardly a
difficult thing to understand. It may sound harsh, but we should scrap the
minimum wage.

SK/N09.10) Paul Davidson, USA TODAY, August 29, 2013, p. 1A,
LexisNexis Academic. Angelo Amador, vice president of labor and workforce
policy for the National Restaurant Association, says "a lot of jobs could
disappear" if wages rose to $15 an hour. Some franchisees, he adds, likely
would choose not to expand in regions where labor costs increase.

SK/N09.11) Suzanne Perry, CHRONICLE OF PHILANTHROPY, May 22,
2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. But
debates over the impact of wage increases have been playing out at state
and local levels. Hard-line opponents-generally conservative and employers
groups-say the requirement would hurt workers by forcing businesses to cut
their payrolls or set up shop in other parts of the country.

SK/N09.12) Debra Burke [Professor of Law, Western Carolina U.] et al.,
GONZAGA LAW REVIEW, 2010-2011, LexisNexis Academic, p. 676. Further,
economists note that evidence of negative employment effects is sufficiently
strong, and caution that raising the minimum wage rate is likely to harm the
availability and characteristics of jobs for those workers whose wages are
likely to be most impacted.

3. CRITICISMS OF THESE STUDIES ARE BOGUS
SK/N09.13) David Neumark [Professor of Economics, U. of California,
Irvine] et al., INDUSTRIAL & LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW, Spring 2014,
LexisNexis Academic, p. 644. In particular, echoing long-standing concerns in
the minimum wage literature, Dube et al. (2010) and Allegretto et al. (2011)
attempted to construct better counterfactuals for estimating how minimum
wages affect employment. When they narrowed the source of identifying
variation--looking either at deviations around state-specific linear trends or at
within-region or within-county-pair variation--they found no effects of
minimum wages on employment, rather than negative effects. Based on this
evidence, they argued that the negative employment effects for low-skilled
workers found in the literature are spurious and generated by other
differences across geographic areas that were not adequately controlled for
by researchers. The analysis we present here, however, provides compelling
evidence that their methods are flawed and lead to incorrect conclusions. In
particular, the methods they advocate do not isolate more reliable identifying
information (i.e., a better counterfactual).

SK/N09.14) David Neumark [Professor of Economics, U. of California,
Irvine] et al., INDUSTRIAL & LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW, Spring 2014,
LexisNexis Academic, pp. 644-645. Moreover, when we let the data determine
the appropriate control states to use for estimating the effects of state
minimum wage increases in the CPS data, we find strong evidence of
disemployment effects, with teen employment elasticities near -0.15. The
findings from similar analyses of restaurant employment in the QCEW data
are a bit more mixed, but the weighted estimates again point to negative
employment effects (with smaller elasticities of around -0.05). Thus, our
analysis substantially undermines the strong conclusions that ADR and DLR
draw--that there are "no detectable employment losses from the kind of
minimum wage increases we have seen in the United States" (DLR 2010, p.
962), and that "Interpretations of the quality and nature of the evidence in
the existing minimum wage literature . . . , must be revised substantially"
(ADR 2011: 238).

SK/N09.15) Sally Goldenberg, THE NEW YORK POST, May 12, 2011, p.
2, LexisNexis Academic. An economist lauded by anti-Walmart activists for his
study of the retailer's impact on the city economy has now come under fire
from the same groups. David Neumark, in a study commissioned for Mayor
Bloomberg, is critical of the "living wage" bill being debated in the City
Council. Anti-Walmart and pro-living-wage groups share many of the same
members - including elected officials, unions and other operatives - making
their two positions on Neumark's work curious, a Bloomberg spokesman said.
"It's disappointing and obviously hypocritical when advocates hail an
academic when his research fits their theory and then trash his reputation

when his research conflicts with their agenda," said spokesman Andrew
Brent.

LIVING WAGE WILL DECIMATE LOW-SKILL
WORKERS
1. EMPLOYERS WON’T HIRE LOW-SKILL WORKERS
SK/N10.01) STATES NEWS SERVICE, January 14, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The report notes that
employers also respond to living wage laws by hiring more qualified workers
and passing over those with fewer skills thereby reducing the opportunity for
less-skilled workers to participate in the labour market. "Less-skilled workers
are presumably among the very people living wage laws are supposed to
help, but the evidence suggests these laws particularly hurt less-skilled,
lower paid workers," Lammam [Fraser Institute, Canada] said.

SK/N10.02) Mark Trumbull, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, August
30, 2013, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. Supporters advocate a 'living wage' for
fast-food jobs. Opponents say it would distort a free market and could easily
backfire by wiping out many jobs now held by workers with few skills.

SK/N10.03) Dr. Eammon Butler [Adam Smith Institute], STATES NEWS
SERVICE, April 18, 2012, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded
Academic ASAP. Indeed, minimum wages make it harder for jobless people to
find a job. Particularly young people without experience, other people without
skills, not to mention women and ethnic minorities against whom employers
commonly discriminate. It has a particularly bad effect for young people,
without job experience or who lack skills or the habits of work. Quite simply,
they are not worth so much to an employer; and if employers figure they are
not worth the minimum wage - plus national insurance, pension benefits and
everything else that has to be added in to the employment bill - then they
simply won't get hired.

SK/N10.04) Mark Trumbull, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR,
November 6, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. Higher pay for low-income
workers won't, by itself, solve America's economic challenges. The move can
make entry-level jobs harder to come by, some academic research finds. And
wage gains at the bottom don't necessarily do much for stagnant pay in
middle-tier jobs.

SK/N10.05) MENA REPORT, April 2, 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE
LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The National Retail Federation today
called Senate legislation aimed at increasing the federal minimum wage by
40 percent an anti-job tax that would lead to higher labor costs for employers
and fewer opportunities for young and entry-level workers.

SK/N10.06) MENA REPORT, April 2, 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE
LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Raising the standard of living for lowskill, low-wage workers is a valid goal, NRF [National Retail Federation] Senior
Vice President for Government Relations David French said in a letter to the
entire Senate. But there is clear evidence that mandated wage hikes
undermine the job prospects for less skilled and part-time workers.

SK/N10.07) David Neumark [Professor of Economics, U. of California,
Irvine] et al., INDUSTRIAL & LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW, Spring 2014,
LexisNexis Academic, p. 610. The ILRR symposium launched a new body of
contemporary research on the minimum wage, much of which was
summarized in the Neumark and Wascher book Minimum Wages (2008). In
that book, our evaluation and summary of the evidence concluded that
"[M]inimum wages reduce employment opportunities for less-skilled workers,
especially those who are most directly affected by the minimum wage"
(Neumark and Wascher 2008: 6).

2. LOW WAGES PROVIDE OPPORUNITY TO LEARN
VALUABLE SKILLS
SK/N10.08) UWIRE TEXT, September 6, 2013, p. 1, GALE CENGAGE
LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Basic economic theory states that
when a price floor is set on a certain good, the supply of that good usually
outstrips the demand for it. The government imposes difficulties on
employers and those actively searching for work by imposing a price floor on
the cost of labor. Without such a barrier, companies such as McDonald's
would be able to hire more people and thus provide a larger segment of the
population with the skills necessary to progress in a competitive labor
market. Skill-building should be the primary goal among fast-food workers,
not increased salaries.

SK/N10.09) Ben Lodge [Adam Smith Institute], STATES NEWS SERVICE,
June 14, 2012, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. An
important factor in this debate that is often overlooked is that those earning
less than the minimum wage would be gaining valuable experience and
learning new skills. The importance of this is not to be underestimated thousands of young people in this country are willing to take on unpaid
internships in order to gain these benefits.

SK/N10.10) Dr. Eammon Butler [Adam Smith Institute], STATES NEWS
SERVICE, April 18, 2012, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded
Academic ASAP. Many young people are prepared to work for less than the
minimum wage simply in order to get some experience and to have a positive
reference on their CV. We see that all the time with Parliamentary interns,
whom MPs are very willing to take on as unpaid dogsbodies. And for hundreds
of years, apprentices have been paid little or nothing, but have struggled
along anyway because they knew that they were learning a trade. When we
raise the minimum wage, we prevent these people being taken on at all. So
they don't learn a trade. They learn how to live off benefits, which is exactly
the wrong lesson.

SK/N10.11) Star Parker [Center for Urban Renewal and Education],
STATES NEWS SERVICE, March 25, 2013, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING,
Expanded Academic ASAP. Let's get going with ideas like urban enterprise
zones -- championed by the late Congressman Jack Kemp and now by
economist Arthur Laffer -- and give preferential tax treatment to employers
and employees in blighted urban areas. Abolish the minimum wage in these
areas and give kids a chance at entry-level jobs and learning critical job skills.
The possibilities are only limited by our courage and imagination. But only
one theme will save our large, urban cities and their poor minority citizens.

3. LIVING WAGE WILL RESULT IN LESS JOB TRAINING
SK/N10.12) STATES NEWS SERVICE, January 14, 2014, pNA, GALE
CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. "Employers respond to living
wage laws by cutting back on jobs, hours and on-the-job training. As a result,
some workers lose employment income and the ability to gain valuable skills
and experience," Lammam [Fraser Institute, Canada] said.

SK/N10.13) Debra Burke [Professor of Law, Western Carolina U.] et al.,
GONZAGA LAW REVIEW, 2010-2011, LexisNexis Academic, p. 673.
Predominately, the literature since the early 1990s on the employment
effects of minimum wages 1) points "to a reduction in employment
opportunities for low-skilled and directly affected workers," 2) reports
"virtually no evidence that minimum wages reduce the proportion of families
with incomes near or below the poverty line [and may] adversely affect lowincome families," and 3) suggests that "minimum wages appear to inhibit skill
acquisition by reducing educational attainment and perhaps training,
resulting in lower adult wages and earnings."

OTHER COUNTRIES PROVE FAILURE OF LIVING
WAGE
1. MINIMUM WAGE LAWS HAVE FAILED IN MANY
COUNTRIES
SK/N11.01) Dr. Eammon Butler [Adam Smith Institute], STATES NEWS
SERVICE, April 18, 2012, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded
Academic ASAP. International studies show that minimum wages have a
negative effect on employment, and are associated with worse terms and
working conditions - since tightening terms and conditions, or spending less
on the work environment, is one way that employers can offset the extra cost
imposed by the hourly minimum. And that it is young people and minorities
who are worst affected.

SK/N11.02) Arturo Bris [Professor of Finance, International Management
& Development Institute, Switzerland]. STATES NEWS SERVICE, May 1, 2014,
pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. - For countries or
regions with a minimum wage already in place, increasing the minimum wage
leads to more unemployment among less skilled workers.

SK/N11.03) Philip Booth [Institute of Economic Affairs], STATES NEWS
SERVICE, January 10, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded
Academic ASAP. Abolish the minimum wage. There is no EU [European Union]
requirement to have a minimum wage and it simply serves to increase
unemployment by automatically pricing many workers out of the market.

SK/N11.04) Sam Bowman [Adam Smith Institute], STATES NEWS
SERVICE, February 17, 2012, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded
Academic ASAP. No wonder unemployment is so bad [in Britain] - minimum
wage laws effectively ban unskilled (read: low paid) jobs. That means that
people cannot get on-the-job training and skills unless they take unpaid
internships or work experience. The bizarre result of the minimum wage is
that Tesco can hire people for u6.08 an hour, or u0.00 an hour, but nothing in
between. Combined with the fact that working means you have to forgo
benefits that may be worth more than your wage, it's hard to think of policies
that could make long-term unemployment more attractive. There is a solution
that could appeal to a broad base of people and fix most of the broken
incentives that unemployed people face: Abolish the National Minimum Wage
so that unskilled jobs can be created. This will allow more "first foot on the
ladder" jobs to be created and give unskilled people a way out of
unemployment.

SK/N11.05) David Smith, SUNDAY TIMES (London, England), November
9, 2014, Business News, p. 4, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic
ASAP. Nobody has looked more closely at the mechanics of wages than the
Low Pay Commission, which advises on the minimum wage. In its 2014 report
it noted, perhaps surprisingly, that "the wages of the lowest paid are now
higher relative to those of other workers than they have been for several
decades". Also, and more tellingly, it warned that bigger increases at the
lower end would be very likely to cost jobs in the absence of a general
recovery in real wages and productivity. The risk of a widely adopted living
wage is that many more people will find themselves living on benefit.

2. DENMARK IS NOT COMPARABLE TO THE US
SK/N11.06) Liz Alderman & Steven Greenhouse, THE NEW YORK TIMES,
October 28, 2014, p. B1, LexisNexis Academic. Many American economists
and business groups say the comparison is deeply flawed because of
fundamental differences between Denmark and the United States, including
Denmark's high living costs and taxes, a generous social safety net that
includes universal health care and a collective bargaining system in which
employer associations and unions work together. The fast-food restaurants
here are also less profitable than their American counterparts. ''Trying to
compare the business and labor practices in Denmark and the U.S. is like
comparing apples to autos,'' said Steve Caldeira, president of the
International Franchise Association, a group based in Washington that
promotes franchising and has many fast-food companies as members.

SK/N11.07) Liz Alderman & Steven Greenhouse, THE NEW YORK TIMES,
October 28, 2014, p. B1, LexisNexis Academic. America's restaurant industry
predicts a wave of woe if pay were to jump toward Denmark's levels. An
increase to $15 would ''limit employment opportunities'' by making fast-food
restaurants reluctant to hire, said Scott DeFife, an executive vice president at
the National Restaurant Association. ''More than doubling the starting wage
will dramatically increase costs in an industry that exists on very narrow
margins.''