A new study concludes that increasing the minimum wage will lead to fewer jobs rather than less poverty.
“The disconnect between the empirical evidence and the claims of wage hike advocates continues to grow,” said Michael Saltsman, research director at the Employment Policies Institute, which conducted the study..
With the poverty level in the U.S. reaching record highs, some have called for a higher minimum wage as an anti-poverty measure.
But the EPI study found “no statistically significant evidence that a higher minimum wage helped reduce hardship” with things like housing, health, financial and food insecurity.
“The reality is that fewer than 20% of people who earn the minimum wage are poor, and most poor people already earn more than the minimum wage,” Jason Riley notes in the Wall Street Journal.
“[Minimum wage] not a cure-all to poverty,” Bob Pollin of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst told Marketplace.org. “In fact, the biggest source of low-income poverty is that people don’t have jobs at all.”
A separate EPI study suggests the minimum wage is disproportionately harmful to minorities.
“Among white males in this group [age 16-24], the authors find that each 10 percent increase in a federal or state minimum wage decreased employment by 2.5 percent…But among black males in this group, each 10 percent increase in the minimum wage decreased employment by 6.5 percent,” the study finds.
“This new study demonstrates the faulty empirical methods used in defense of minimum wage increases, and thoroughly debunks the irresponsible rhetoric pushed by wage hike advocacy groups,” Saltsman said in a statement.