Opponents of minimum-wage laws have long argued that companies have only so much money and, if required to pay higher wages, they will employ fewer workers. Now there is evidence that such concerns, never entirely sincere, are greatly overstated. Over the past five years, a wave of increases in state and local minimum-wage standards has pushed the average effective minimum wage in the United States to the highest level on record. The average worker must be paid at least $11.80 an hour — more after inflation than the last peak, in the 1960s, according to an analysis by the economist Ernie Tedeschi.
Tag Archives: poverty
HOUSTON — The baby’s lips were turning blue from lack of oxygen in the blood when his mother, Kristin Johnson, rushed him to an emergency room here last month. Only after he was admitted to intensive care with a respiratory virus did Ms. Johnson learn that he had been dropped from Medicaid coverage.
Banks don’t like lending in lower-income neighborhoods, even as they profit from deposits taken from those same communities. Since 1977, the Community Reinvestment Act has forced the issue, requiring banks to provide mortgages, small-business loans and other services in all areas where they operate. The current crop of federal banking regulators, picked by President Trump, is now proposing to let banks pump less money into lower-income communities, and even to claim credit for lending that does not benefit those communities. One egregious example: Banks could count loans for improvements to stadiums that happen to sit in poor neighborhoods. Yes, you read that right: Under the proposal, the banks that financed the new sound system at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore could claim credit for investing in the community.
