Fox News is losing its sh*t now that the $15 minimum wage is law in California, New York, and a dozen major cities across the United States. They’re trotting out senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano to say it is a way to “bribe the poor for votes.”
Napolitano appeared on two Fox programs on April 7, where he claimed “poor people will lose their jobs because they simply are not worth” a $15 wage, that it would trigger price increases on consumer goods, and increase the poor’s reliance on public assistance programs.
It just isn’t so. Here’s why:
- Minimum wage increases don’t buy votes: This often-used claim by the right-wing media that Democrats support policies trying to alleviate poverty as a way to win votes isn’t supported by the facts. For instance, more Republican politicians than Democrats represent constituents who use food stamps. So with more money in their pockets, reliance on this program would go down, not up.
- Minimum wage increases have little effect on jobs or price inflation: Cornell University researchers found that raising the wage of tipped and regularly paid workers “have not had large negative effects” on how many are working in the industry. And according to the Big Mac Index, a 4.3 percent increase in the cost of a Big Mac in the United States would be roughly just 22 cents.
- Minimum wage increases won’t increase dependence on welfare: Numerous studies have shown that raising the wage would have the opposite effect, such as a February 2014 report by the Congressional Budget Office. It estimated that raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 would bring almost a million Americans out of poverty, easing the strain on taxpayers that have to support these programs to the tune of $7 billion annually.
And guess what? Fifteen dollars an hour isn’t even a living wage in California and New York. It’s $22 an hour, and has been for some time. So, Fox News, chew on that. The fight is just beginning.
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