LP Media Release: Stop Destroying Jobs So The Economy Can Grow

From a media release sent to IPR by the Libertarian Party:

For Immediate Release
Tuesday, March 20, 2012







See the original article here.

7 thoughts on “LP Media Release: Stop Destroying Jobs So The Economy Can Grow

  1. Nate

    The unemployment rate and the federal minimum wage don’t really seem to have much corelation at all. Unemployment goes up and down, the minimum wage stays the same or goes up, the one doesn’t necessarily follow the other. Sometimes the minimum wage goes up 28% without unemployment rising at all, sometimes the minimum wage stays the same for a decade while unemployment skyrockets and then falls just as fast.

    Perhaps the minimum wage plays a tiny roll, but this is bull:


    It’s hardly surprising NOW, sure, after the fact. But could we have known based on how the minimum wage and unemployment rate have behaved in the past? I don’t think so.

    Minimum wage 1955 – 2011: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

    Unemployment rate 1948 – 2008: http://www.salary.com/Articles/ArticleDetail.asp?part=par1308

  2. George Phillies

    Blaming the current high unemployment rate on a 2007 increase in the minimum wage is not imbecilic; it is experimental evidence of negative intelligence quotients.

    Actually, there was a study of fast food restaurants in a state that ramped up the minimum wage. Nothing happened to unemployment, because all those fast food chains have done enormous time motion efficiency etc studies and get by with exactly the people they need, no more or less. When the wage went up, salaries went up, and other salaries had to go up a bit so people a couple of pay brackets up were not back at minimum wage, but the same people had the same jobs.

    Profits went down, or prices went up.

  3. Erik Viker

    There is no Constitutional authority for the federal government to accept responsibility for citizen employment or economic success. The assumption that we should make election decisions based on these indicators is one of the most enduring and damaging fallacies of modern times.

  4. Fix the LNC -- Stop Publishing Economic Nonsense

    The claims here that the Great Recession was caused by an increase in the minimum wage law are completely idiotic.

    If you wanted a sensible critique of the minimum wage law, focus on its differential effect on poorer and wealthier states. In Massachusetts, the Federal minimum wage law is almost but not quite irrelevant. The local cheap supermarket for much of the last decade had to pay baggers well above minimum wage.

  5. Michael H. Wilson

    Regardless of how much people are paid if they can’t get a ride they’ll never get the job and lack of transit is an opportunity killer.

    I have been focusing on the urban transportation issue since I ran for local office in 1983. I had this crazy idea that the LP could reach out to low income groups, women and minorities if we focused on that issue since lack of transit is a problem for many people in that demographic. Here are some figures from a study done some years ago about who is effected by inadequate transit. I’ll suggest that people might find more opportunities simply by opening the market to other services. Opening the market is not a cure all but in many cities it might make a big difference. With the present recession the problem has most likely increased since some cities have reduced services.

    Urban transportation should be an issue in the LP platform and it should also be listed in the issue section of the web site. The right to own, operate and maintain a transit business should not be restricted by local or state regulations. Access to jobs, goods, places of worship, and services is a civil liberty.

  6. Robert Capozzi

    Another reason to keep in mind that correlation does not imply causation!

    However, dogma does often lead to dark alley ways!

    Epic fail.

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