Tag Archives: Black

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New study: raising minimum wage hurts young, minority workers most

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This report is from the libertarian Cato Institute.

Except:

A new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that significant minimum wage increases can hurt the very people they are intended to help. Authors Jeffrey Clemens and Michael Wither find that significant minimum wage increases can negatively affect employment, average income, and the economic mobility of low-skilled workers. The authors find that significant “minimum wage increases reduced the employment, average income, and income growth of low-skilled workers over short and medium-run time horizons.”  Most troublingly, these low-skilled workers saw “significant declines in economic mobility,” as these workers were 5 percentage points less likely to reach lower middle-class earnings in the medium-term. The authors provide a possible explanation: the minimum wage increases reduced these workers’ “short-run access to opportunities for accumulating experience and developing skills.” Many of the people affected by minimum wage increases are on one of the first rungs of the economic ladder, low on marketable skills and experience. Working in these entry level jobs will eventually allow them to move up the economic ladder. By making it harder for these low-skilled workers to get on the first rung of the ladder, minimum wage increases could actually lower their chances of reaching the middle class.

Most of the debate over a minimum wage increase centers on the effects of an increase on aggregate employment, or the total number of jobs and hours worked that would be lost. A consensus remains elusive, but the Congressional Budget Office recently weighed in, estimating that a three year phase in of a $10.10 federal minimum wage option would reduce total employment by about 500,000 workers by the time it was fully implemented. Taken with the findings of the Clemens and Wither study, not only can minimum wage increases have negative effects for the economy as a whole, they can also harm the economic prospects of  low-skilled workers at the individual level.

With that in mind, I have some bad news for everyone who likes the idea of young people of color finding work.

The Daily Signal explains: (H/T Dad)

At the stroke of midnight today, 19 states increased their minimum wage. Residents of three more and the nation’s capital can expect hikes later on this year.

[…]Federal legislation was met with resistance. though. Republicans argued raising the minimum wage would cause an increase in prices for consumers and low-wage workers likely would face layoffs as companies grappled with the higher costs associated with hiked wages.

Some of those concerns were validated last month by a University of California, San Diego, study. For three years, researchers followed low-income workers residing in states that saw wage hikes and those that did not. The study found that minimum wage hikes had negative impacts on employment, income and income growth.

[…]“Minimum wage supporters have good intentions, but those good intentions cannot repeal the law of unintended consequences,” James Sherk, an expert in labor economics at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. He added:

Minimum-wage increases reduce the total earnings of low-wage workers — the higher pay for some workers gets completely offset by the nonexistent pay of those no longer employed.

In its study, UCSD researchers found that after minimum-wage increases, the national employment-to-population ratio decreased by 0.7 percent points between December 2006 and December 2012.

In addition, the study found that minimum-wage increases hindered low-skilled workers’ ability to rise to lower-middle -lass earnings.

So we need to be really careful about setting economic policy based on emotions. Things that sound nice, which we feel will help the poor, actually hurt the poor. We have to have evidence-driven public policy, not feelings-driven public policy. People’s lives are depending on it.

News

Coalition of African American Pastors: impeach Attorney General Holder

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First, let’s see what Eric Holder is doing with respect to gay marriage.

CNS News explains.

Excerpt:

State attorneys-general who refuse to defend state laws banning same-sex marriage won’t face any objection from the nation’s top law enforcement official. In fact, Attorney General Eric Holder will applaud them.

According to Holder, “decisions at any level not to defend individual laws must be exceedingly rare. They must be reserved only for exceptional – truly exceptional – circumstances.’

He said that state laws banning same-sex marriage rise to that “truly exceptional” standard — because they do not “advance the values that once led our forebears to declare unequivocally that all are created equal and entitled to equal opportunity.”

Holder told a gathering of state attorneys-general at the Justice Department that they are sworn, not just to win cases, “but to see that justice is done” and to “seize the opportunities that are before us.”

The legal system exists, he said, not just to settle disputes and punish wrong-doers, “but to answer the really fundamental questions about fairness and about equality that have always determined who we are and who we aspire to be, both as a nation and as a people.”

Holder explained that those “really fundamental questions’ prompted him and President Obama to decide in early 2011 that Justice Department attorneys would no longer defend the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

Holder said he and Obama were “motivated by the strong belief that all measures that distinguish among people based on their sexual orientation must be subjected to a heightened standard of scrutiny…and therefore this measure (DOMA) was unconstitutional discrimination.”

But a group of black pastors are not taking this lying down.

CNS News explains.

Excerpt:

A coalition of black pastors announced on Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. that they are launching a campaign to gather one million signatures on a petition calling for the impeachment of Attorney General Eric Holder for violating his oath of office by trying “to coerce states to fall in line with the same-sex ‘marriage’ agenda.”

“President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have turned their backs on the values the American people hold dear, values particularly cherished in the black community: values like marriage, which should be strengthened and promoted, rather than weakened and undermined,” says a statement by the Coalition of African American Pastors that has been posted online with their impeachment petition.

“Our nation calls for the building up of a healthier marriage culture; instead, our elected leaders are bent on destroying marriage, remaking it as a genderless institution and reorienting it to be all about the desires of adults rather than the needs of children,” says the coalition.

“In pursuing this intention, the president and his administration are trampling the rule of law. Attorney General Holder in particular has used the influence of his office and role as the chief law enforcement figure in our nation to try to coerce states to fall in line with the same-sex ‘marriage’ agenda,” says the coaltion. Millions of voters in 30 states have voted to defend marriage as the union of one man and one woman, but Attorney General Holder is attempting single-handedly to throw those votes away!

“For abandoning the oath he swore in taking office and his duty to defend the common good, Attorney General Holder should be impeached by Congress,” says the coalition. “CAAP is calling on all men and women of good will to sign the following petition urging Congress to take action against the Attorney General’s lawlessness today!”

I am happy this sort of bold leadership from black pastors. Although 94% of black Protestants voted for Obama in 2008, and thus for gay marriage, at least there is a remnant of courageous black Protestant leaders who are still under the authority of the Bible. It makes me wonder why their defense of traditional marriage is not shared by 94% of their flocks – at least in the ballot box (where it counts). There must be some huge gulf between Protestant leaders and the laity.

News

First black president: unemployment rate up for blacks and women since Obama’s election

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From CNS News.

Excerpt:

 Unemployment for both women and African-Americans is higher today than it was when President Barack Obama first took office in 2009, according to federal government data.

Despite an economy that has technically been in recovery since June of 2009, many economic indicators are the same or worse than when President Obama gave his first address to a Joint Session of Congress in February 2009.

“We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before,” Obama said in that speech.

However, employment for African-Americans and women has not recovered and, in fact, is worse today than it was when Obama said those words.

At the end of January 2009, 12.7 percent of African-Americans were unemployed. Four years later, January 2013, the situation was worse, with unemployment higher at 13.8 percent.

Further, an additional 1.2 million African-Americans had left the workforce entirely during the same time period, with the number of those reported as not in the workforce rising from 10.3 million in January 2009 to 11.5 million in January 2013.

People not in the labor force are those who are younger than the retirement age who are unemployed and no longer looking for work, indicating they have either given up looking for work or gone into early retirement.

For women, the story is not much better. In January 2009, 6.9 percent of women in America were unemployed. By January 2013, 7.8 percent of women were unemployed.

He’s had four years, and his new plan to raise the minimum wage is not going to help younger workers, unskilled workers or minority workers.

News

Gunman says he was acting on anti-white views that he learned in college

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The Daily Caller reports.

Excerpt:

The man who murdered one woman and paralyzed another during a 2011 Atlanta shooting spree testified at his trial last week that he was motivated by beliefs he had acquired about white people when he was an anthropology major at the University of West Georgia.

Nkosi Thandiwe, 23, argued that the bizarre political views he encountered — and accepted — in college led to a mental state that should have been grounds for a defense of temporary insanity, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

“I was trying to prove a point that Europeans had colonized the world, and as a result of that, we see a lot of evil today,” Thandiwe testified. “In terms of slavery, it was something that needed to be answered for. I was trying to spread the message of making white people mend.”

Thandiwe explained in court that he had attended an event designed to address concerns about racial inequality the night before the shooting spree. He became furious when he saw two white people there.

“I was upset,” Thandiwe said. “I was still upset Friday. I took the gun to work because I was still upset from Thursday night.”

Maybe we should have a ban on guns – a ban applicable only to Democrats. Guns don’t kill people, Democrats kill people.

Dennis Prager’s latest column looks at a college student was brainwashed to have obviously false views on war and foreign policy. Be careful what you study in college – it’s better to stick with math, science, technology and engineering – especially during a socialism-induced recession. Stick with things that can be measured and tested to insulate yourself from leftist speculations. You want to get a degree in something useful, not in leftist dogma.

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Tea Party conservative Tim Scott headed to U.S. Senate to replace Jim Demint

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Republican Senator Tim Scott
Republican Senator Tim Scott

Those darn Republicans and their racist racisty racism!

The leftist New York Times moans about it:

Ms. Haley seriously considered a number of potential contenders, particularly Jenny Sanford, the ex-wife of former Gov. Mark Sanford, who supported Ms. Haley in her race two years ago. But in choosing Mr. Scott, she selected a lawmaker with a strong conservative voting record during his two years in Congress.

Mr. Scott, 47, also offers a unique story and background, one that is in scant supply in the Republican Party right now. Raised by a single mother, he was, by his account, a lost child who struggled with school and with life until a Chick-fil-A franchise owner took him on as a protégé and schooled him in conservative principles.

“Coming from a single-parent household and almost flunking out of high school,” Mr. Scott said in 2010, during his bid for the House, “my hope is I will take that experience and help people bring out the best that they can be.”

[…]Mr. Scott will become South Carolina’s first black senator, and the first black Republican in the Senate since Edward Brooke of Massachusetts left in 1979. Over all, he will be the seventh black senator, and the chamber’s fourth black Republican.

He is the only black Senator in the Senate, from either party. Racism!

The leftist Washington Post is not happy:

 Since 2010, Republicans have either elected or appointed a black Senator, two Hispanic Senators (Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas) as well as two Hispanic governors (Susana Martinez of New Mexico and Brian Sandoval of Nevada) and an Indian-American governor (Nikki Haley of South Carolina). That group joins Gov. Bobby Jindal, an Indian-American, who was elected in 2007.

“As the country changes, our party is walking the walk in reflecting the role of all Americans in our politics today,” said Eric Ueland, a Republican lobbyist and one-tim chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.).

Tim Scott with Nikki Haley and Michele Bachmann:

Tim Scott with fellow Tea Party members Nikki Haley and Michele Bachmann
Tim Scott with fellow Tea Party members Nikki Haley and Michele Bachmann

They also had some interesting facts about Tim Scott:

  • Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) grew up in Charleston, S.C., where he was raised by his mother after his parents divorced when he was 7.
  • In 1997, he found himself at the center of controversy when he hung the Ten Commandments outside the Charleston County Council’s chambers to remind the members of the morals they must follow. The Commandments were later removed after the council was sued by Charleston residents and the American Civil Liberties Union. “I’ve always said and remain in this position: Whatever it costs in the pursuit of this goal (of displaying the Commandments) is worth it,” Scott said at the time.
  • He was first elected to the House of Representatives with strong support from tea party groups during the Republican wave election in 2010.
  • He was one of two freshmen selected in 2010 to join the House Republican leadership.
  • After graduating from college, Scott sold insurance and co-owned a real estate agency.
  • Scott crashed the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte with South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Rep. Michele Bachmann (see picture above)
  • After his mentor died when Scott was 17, the future congressman wrote a “mission statement” setting the goal of having a positive impact on the lives of 1 billion people before he dies.

Life News is happy:

Republican Congressman Tim Scott, a black pro-life advocate, will replace pro-life Sen. Jim DeMint in the U.S. Senate, after DeMint stepped down to take over as the head of the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina announced today that she chose Representative Tim Scott to replace Jim DeMint in the United States Senate, a move which makes him the first black senator from the South in decades. Scott will serve until a special election is held in 2014.

Like DeMint, Scott is a staunch pro-life advocate who has a 100 percent pro-life voting record with the National Right to Life Committee. This year, Scott voted to stop abortion funding in Obamacare, de-Fund the Planned Parenthood abortion business, and stop taxpayer funding of abortion in various instances. He voted for a ban on sex-selection abortions, for enforcing parental notification laws, to repeal Obamacare, and to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy in the District of Columbia.

[…]In 2010, then candidate Tim Scott outlined the development of his political positions and party allegiance to The Weekly Standard, which wrote: “As he tells it, Scott became a Republican in three stages. First, there was the military influence… Second, there was his becoming a Christian in college. That turned him into a social conservative and strong foe of legalized abortion. This, too, turned him toward Republicans, he says.”

And so is the pro-America Tea Party:

Conservatives online cheered the news on Monday that Rep. Tim Scott has been picked for Sen. Jim DeMint’s South Carolina Senate seat, citing both his conservative credentials and the diversity he brings to the table.

Guy Benson of Townhall.com noted on Twitter, “@townhallcom readership reaction is pretty much unanimous: Enthusiastic virtual applause for Gov. Haley’s pick of Tim Scott for US Senate.”

Katie Pavlich, also of Townhall.com, added, “Super happy about Tim Scott, great job Nikki Haley.”

[…]“So happy it’s Tim Scott that will replace Sen. DeMint!,” offered Kathleen McKinley, a conservative blogger.

[…]“Tim Scott has taken our core values seriously in the House and we have every reason to expect similar, principled behavior in the Senate,” said Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots group, in a statement.

[…]“Tim Scott is among perhaps the rarest kind of Washington official: One who knows how to articulate the moral case for conservatism and explain our fiscal challenges to the average American,” said Ned Ryun, the president and CEO of the conservative group American Majority Action, in a statement. “This form of leadership outweighs identity politics.”

[…]The conservative commentator Dana Loesch tweeted, “great news about Rep. Tim Scott.”

Colin Hanna, the president of the conservative group Let Freedom Ring, also heaped praise on Scott.

“Gov. Nikki Haley made a wise and courageous choice by nominating Rep. Tim Scott,” Hanna said in a statement. “Sen. DeMint was a voice for limited government, fiscal responsibility and the advance of liberty. We have the same hopes for Tim Scott.”

This makes up for losing Allen West in Florida – a Congressman I deeply admired and respected. Maybe he will win again in 2016.

Even though I am visible minority myself, I really only care if people are conservative or not, not what color they are. But when stories like this come out, I must mock the racist Democrats who are obsessed with things that don’t matter, like race. What matters is this – promoting policies that defend the rights and freedoms of all the people equally. And Tim Scott is going to do about as well doing that as anyone in the Senate can do. That’s why we like him.