California poised to raise minimum wage to $10

California poised to raise minimum wage to $10
money.cnn.com

http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/america.htm

http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-re...

Here's a real survey of actual economists, who largely agree, weighted by confidence, that "The distortionary costs of raising the federal minimum wage to $9 per hour and indexing it to inflation are sufficiently small compared with the benefits to low-skilled workers who can find employment that this would be a desirable policy."

And, economists are reasonably mixed (split between schools, I believe) on the belief that raising the minimum wage to $9 per hour would make it noticeably harder for low-skill workers to find employment, and no one strongly agreed or disagreed. The evidence, the science, of economics, is mixed, as has been demonstrated by a comprehensive meta-analysis by Doucouliagos and Stanley. You can find a graph and other analysis here:

http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02....

So, in summary, economists mostly believe the benefits of raising the minimum wage outweigh the distortionary economic effects, and none were willing to make strong assertions on the effect it might have on unemployment. Everyone, put down your pitchforks and take off your party insignias, let's just raise the minimum wage a bit and see what happens, because it benefits a lot of people and there is scant evidence of a downside for a marginal increase in the wage floor.

QED.

* Perhaps three, if my sarcasm detector is off?