Doing the Minimum | No Mercy / No Malice

At least eighty countries with minimum wage standards mandate that officials revisit them every year or so, but not us. The United States should require periodic (and humane) reviews of the minimum wage.

The chronic stress that accompanies poverty can be detected at the cellular level. One study found that up to 5,500 premature deaths that occurred in New York City from 2008 to 2012 could have been prevented if the city’s minimum wage had been $15 an hour during that time, instead of just over $7. A higher minimum wage is an antidepressant. It is a

George Stigler, a thirty-five-year-old economist at the University of Minnesota. Inflation had diluted the 40-cent minimum wage, and people were calling for an increase to 60 or even 75 cents an hour, which translates to $9.51 and $11.88 in June 2022 dollars. “Economists have not been very outspoken on this type of legislation,” Stigler wrote. “It

providing a guaranteed basic income