Saturday, December 19, 2015

A Higher Minimum Wage Doesn't Reduce Welfare Costs To Taxpayers - Forbes


By Tim Worstall, Dec 18, 2015 Forbes

This might be one of those things about the minimum wage that people will have a hard time quite grasping. For it seems so obvious that if people working for low wages are getting welfare payments that the rest of us taxpayers have to cough up for them, if we raise the minimum wage, we’ll have to cough up less in taxes because welfare payments will go down. And it’s undoubtedly true that that could happen. The important question though is does this happen? And the truth of the matter seems to be that no, it doesn’t happen.

What’s missing is that sure, those people who keep their jobs and their hours with a higher minimum wage gain less in welfare payments. But some people don’t keep their jobs and their hours as a result of this higher minimum wage. And so what is important to the welfare bill is whether the incomes gained and reducing welfare outweigh those lost and replaced by welfare? The answer seems to be that it’s much of a muchness, no great effect either way.

 
Read More: http://www.forbes.com

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