Quote:
Originally Posted by adios
On the CBO, they model what they are tasked to model. Congress gives them their tasks. People that lose their jobs are of course going to look for ways to make up for lost income. So my take on this post is that you are fine with moving more people to working in the "underground economy" because they won't endure that much hardship?
It's a complicated issue and a lot depends on where and how it's implemented.
The point is that measuring job losses purely in terms of legal, wage driven jobs is disingenuous if your objective is to figure out the impact it has on low income people.
People who talk about the consensus positions of economist on the issue of min wage are completely talking out of their asses. You can also find a quasi consensus in support of wage subsidies to address the same issue, except they can be easily gamed so it's not practical and you have to turn to second best solutions to address poverty.
The point of contention in most cases has nothing to do with the efficiency of the solution though - it's whether the government should be improving the quality of life of people at the bottom or leaving them to rot.