[camle]

two things are wrong with this article:

if the poor are getting poorer, then why did the government have to RAISE the poverty level to show more poor people?

And, the whole minimum wage debate assumes that people making minumum wage will always make minimum wage. this is a false assumption. minimum wage jobs are entry level low skill occupations desgiend for people to get in the job force and establish a work record before moving on to more profitable jobs. And most people do just that. very few people who were making minimum wage ten years ago are still doing so.

OK, three things. what do you do with a chap who's labor is only worth five bucks an hour? aren't you pricing him out of a job by raising the minimum wage? And what does that do to low skill jobs as a whole? Will raising the minimum wage continue to erode entry level job availability?

[bankwalker]

Will raising the minimum wage continue to erode entry level job availability?

No, it will cause the entire pay scale to increase with it over time. which will increase employer's expenses, which will force them to raise prices, which will cause inflation, which will bring up the topic of raising the minimum wage, which will....

[brianl703]

Alternatively, the government can just import more poor people to show more poor people. What exactly did you think Ted Kennedy had in mind back in 1965?

[B4Ranch]

"if the poor are getting poorer, then why did the government have to RAISE the poverty level to show more poor people? "

Simple asnswer is inflation. When gas, food and rent goes up you sink lower into the basket of poverty unless your wages rise to stay even or above the scale.

[FITZ]

And most people do just that. very few people who were making minimum wage ten years ago are still doing so.

That depends on where you live. Here more people actually are making minimum wage than they were ten years ago, many of the garment workers were making $8 to $10 an hour back before NAFTA --- that wiped out 14,000 jobs, very few jobs moved in --- and now if those people are working --- and many never will again, they make minimum wage. Here one out of three jobs pays minimum wage, only one out of three pays over $10 an hour.