I had a letter to the editor published in the Wall Street Journal today regarding the connection between the minimum wage and public assistance programs:

If raising the minimum wage didn’t reduce poverty, then it wouldn’t be shown to shrink public-assistance programs. Yet economists Rachel West and Michael Reich have illustrated how a raise to $10.10 would save taxpayers $4.6 billion in food-stamp outlays. This is in sharp contrast to Mr. Neumark’s proposal to only increase the EITC, which, though an admirable program, would result in more corporate welfare—taxpayers subsidizing the poverty wages of profitable mega-corporations. In the words of conservative Ron Unz: “Doesn’t it make more sense for employers to pay their workers than the government?”

Pete Davis

Time for a Raise Campaign

Center for Study of Responsive Law

Washington, D.C.