Acton Institute Powerblog

Promoting free societies characterized by liberty & religious principles

10 Things You Should Know About the Minimum Wage Debate

Since 1938, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt introduced the first federal minimum wage in the U.S., a debate has raged about whether wage floors help or hurt workers. But thanks to a radical economic experiment in California, we may be only a few years away from having a definitive answer. Continue Reading...

The Cruelty of the Minimum Wage

If the goal is to improve the economic fortunes of the least-advantaged workers and families, says economist Don Boudreaux in this short animated video, then the minimum wage is a terrible idea. Continue Reading...

Why Minimum Wages Increases Don’t Target Poverty

If you ask most people why they support raising the minimum wage they’ll says it’s because it helps the poor. But as David Neumark, a scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco notes, numerous studies have shown that there is no statistically significant relationship between raising the minimum wage and reducing poverty. Continue Reading...

Are You Pro-Union or Pro-Minimum Wage?

During CNN’s Democratic debate, presidential candidate, senator from Vermont, and self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders promised that if elected he would work to “raise the [federal] minimum wage to $15 an hour.” Continue Reading...