Minimum Wage Outcomes

While it seems like raising the minimum wage is the right thing to do, it is probably a woefully inadequate intervention for improving the living standards of the population many believe it will benefit.  A recent CBO analysis projects the effects for two levels of a minimum wage hike to either $9.00 or $10.10 (it's $7.25 now).  Here are some bullets from the $10.10 scenario:  

• Many low-wage workers would see an increase in their earnings.
• Some of the people earning slightly more than $10.10 would also have higher earnings.
• Increased earnings for low-wage workers would not go only to low-income families, because many low-wage workers are not members of low-income families. Just 19 percent would accrue to families with earnings below the poverty threshold, whereas 29 percent would accrue to families earning more than three times the poverty threshold.
• Some people will became jobless because of the minimum-wage increase.
• Business owners and consumers will face higher prices.

Analyzing policies based on economic realities complicates simple realities.  And it may be one explanation for the prevailing prejudice liberals have about economists -- that they're all Republicans.  At $10.10 per hour, assuming that the number of hours in a typical work year is 2080, a minimum wage worker could expect to earn an annual income of $21,008, that's before taxes and don't forget health insurance premiums.   I can't see how anyone could manage a decent standard of living on such a salary without subsidies from somewhere and forget it if they're responsible for any dependents.

Nicholas Kristof Insults Academics

What is he saying?  It seems as if Mr. Kristof is speaking out of both sides of his mouth in his recent article Professors We Need You!  In Sunday's New York Times, his title suggests a sympathetic stance about the value those in ivory towers might offer in solving our world's ills, if only they weren't repeatedly marginalized by "American life."  But he provides overwhelming evidence that there are bona fide reasons for marginalizing professors and he even goes so far as to blame them for marginalizing themselves.  They've neglected the qualitative in favor of the quantitative.  Most political science professors can't formulate a policy prescription.  Professors submit meaningless gibberish to scholarly journals.  Kristof repeats insult after insult, sort of like gossip, to prove the point that professors have nothing valuable to provide in formulating useful public policy.

He begins by discussing professors although soon changes the target population to academics.  Is he referring to all academics?  Is that everyone who does research or just professors?  Categorizing people who differ in many ways into a singe group and comprehending them as being all the same is a dreadfully dangerous practice for anyone who presents him or herself as a humanist.  An epidemiologist would understand that there are sub-populations of academics and that they function differently, for different target audiences, therefore with differing influence.  A sociologist would likely explain that ascribing a group of people to a single category based on one obvious, easily observed trait is a fundamental requisite for creating and perpetuating inequality and prejudice.  An econometrician would understand that there are varying magnitudes of ineptitude (or value, depending on your perspective) expressed by academics according to multiple factors that vary in the effects each one has on each individual.  Lumping everyone into one group and saying they're marginalized illustrates fundamental thinking.  And what was he thinking when he categorized economists (except for Paul Krugman) as Republicans? 

Reframing the problem might be more productive than arguing about whether or not academics are marginalized.  The real issue may be that the research produced by academics or professors is often ignored, never has a voice, and may not even be conducted in the first place, in the context of our current government structure and political system.  Conscientious, well constructed, quantitative research studies can provide valuable insight into the effects public policy has on health, education, and general well-being of various individuals in a general population.  And ideally, research produced by multiple disciplines might be used to diminish factors that harm people, and create both public and private incentives for more humanistic policy outcomes.  But without the political will to manifest the American ideal of equality, it's not just academicians who are marginalized.

US Poverty Rates 1990 through 2010

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Poverty is a risk factor for low infant birth weight.  We expect birth weight and poverty status to exhibit covariance to the extent that poverty affects the health status of childbearing women.  Poverty and its associated living conditions are well-documented risk factors for poor health status generally and in particular poor infant health at birth.  Poverty related social determinants of health include limited social support, low income, marginal food and housing, high unemployment, and less than a high school education.

The U.S. government measures poverty according to the Federal Poverty Guidelines (FPG).  Each year, the Department of Health and Human Services publishes the official federal statistical definition of poverty according to income thresholds.  In 2012, the income threshold for defining poverty was $11,170 for one person and $23,050 for a family of four.  Each year the federal government updates the income thresholds using the consumer price index (CPI) to account for price increases due to inflation.  However it is important to note that these increases maintain purchasing power in current dollars only, while constant dollar value has remained unchanged since 1963 when the FPG were first established.       

Estimates for US poverty rates from 1990 through 2010 show that they have increased for females, males, and the total population.  In 1990 13.5 percent of the U.S. population was uninsured compared with 15.1 percent in 2010, a 1.6 percentage point increase or 12 percent over 21 years.  Referring to the chart below you can see that the rate for all groups dropped to their lowest points in 2000  but since then have shown a steady increase.  For all years shown below the poverty rate is consistently higher for females compared with males and the total population.  You can see that in 2010 compared with 1990 the gap between rates for males and females is converging.   Although the rates below are for the composite U.S. population, it is important to note that they vary across states.  For example, in 2010, 20% of adult women living in the U.S. reported having an income at or below the federal poverty level (FPL) and state-level rates ranged from 10% in New Hampshire to 27% in Louisiana.

Data source:  The U.S. Census Bureau, Poverty Statistics Branch