American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture
Prof. Steve Hanke explains Minimum Wage Laws Kill Jobs
In the 21 countries with a minimum wage, the average country has an unemployment rate of 11.8%; whereas, the average unemployment rate in the seven nations without a minimum wage is about one third lower – at 7.9%.
Read the whole article.
ARGENTINA
Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner rips British rule of the Falklands in Twitter tirade
A Bit of 1984: Biometriics Used in #Argentina Today (h/t McNorman).
Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon up 26 pct, via Gates of Vienna
CHILE
Chile ex-president Bachelet to run for re-election
COLOMBIA
Colombia Kills Leader of ELN Guerrilla Group During Military Operation, Omar,
The deceased ELN leader was a member of the guerrilla group for 17 years and was purportedly heavily involved in the group’s extortion racket and cocaine production.
Eating a cable: Internet access still elusive in the island – by Yoani Sánchez
FALKLAND ISLANDS
Barack Obama called ‘a hypocrite and a coward’ over Falklands betrayal – BBC audience applauds
IMMIGRATION
A Bleak Picture
Employment among U.S. Citizens in States Represented by Gang of Eight
“Imagine a country where not only are the borders secured by armed guards, but once you entered the country, if you even spoke about politics — at all — if you even mentioned anything politically, you would be deported. Imagine a country where everyone is required to be tracked all the time. Where all of these immigrants are constantly monitored. Imagine where the idea of immigrants even having a word on the internal politics of a country would be enough to get them deported.”
“I can imagine a country like that. That country is Mexico.”
LATIN AMERICA
HACER’s News Highlights of the week
Latins Rally to Restore Human Rights Panel
MEXICO
Growing Population Of Muslims Calling Tijuana Home, via Gates of Vienna
Enrique Peña Nieto’s reforms
One hundred days of solidarity (VIDEO STARTS RIGHT AWAY)
PERU
Peru intensifies currency fight
PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rico Creates Tax Shelters in Appeal to the Rich
Rest in Peace Hugo Chávez, Says a Mural in Paris Filled with Portraits of Venezuela’s Caudillo
MARK FALCOFF: VENEZUELA’S FORTHCOMING ELECTIONS
Is SICAD A Radical Change In How The Economy Is Managed??
The week’s posts:
Peru’s definitely not Cyprus
BBC’s Book of the Week: Comandante
Obama heading to Mexico and Costa Rica
Meanwhile, over in the country with the strictest gun control laws in our hemisphere,
The fighting cholitas hit the mainstream
Hezbollah agent issued Venezuelan diplomatic passport
Argentina: Feed a regime, starve a media
Record 89,304,000 Americans ‘Not in Labor Force’ — 296,000 Fewer Employed Since January
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) labels people who are unemployed and no longer looking for work as “not in the labor force,” including people who have retired on schedule, taken early retirement, or simply given up looking for work.
The increase marks the second month in a row, after rising in January from 88.8 million in December. Those not in the labor force had declined in December from 88.9 million in November.
The number of Americans not in the labor force increased by 296,000 between January and February, which means that the labor force participation rate, which measures workers and those looking for jobs, also fell, to a 32-year low of 63.5 percent.
Mr. Bingley has more.
This is what teen unemployment has been for the last six years:
With that dismal number, the President proposes a 25% increase in minimum salary to $9/hr. The result? The least educated, experienced and skilled will be priced out of the market.
In today’s WSJ:
The Minority Youth Unemployment Act
A higher minimum wage will hurt Obama’s most loyal supporters.
The damage from a minimum wage hike depends on the overall labor market. If the job market is buoyant, as it is in the fracking boomtown of Williston, N.D., fast-food workers may already make more than $9 an hour. But when the jobless rate is high, as it still is in California and New York, the increase punishes minority youth in particular.
That is what happened during the last series of wage hikes to $7.25 from $5.15 that started in July 2007 as the economy was headed toward recession. The last increase hit in July 2009 just after the recession ended, and as the nearby chart shows, the jobless rate jumped for teens and black teens especially. For black teens, the rate has remained close to 40% and was still 37.8% in January.
A study by economists William Even of Miami University and David Macpherson of Trinity University concludes that in the 21 states where the full 40% wage increase took effect, “the consequences of the minimum wage for black young adults without a diploma were actually worse than the consequences of the Great Recession.”
William Dunkelberg, chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Business, says that after the July 2009 increase 600,000 teen jobs disappeared in the next six months even as GDP expanded. In the previous six months, when the economy was still shrinking, half as many teen jobs were lost. The overall teen jobless rate was still 23.4% last month, which means demand for unskilled workers is low even at $7.25 an hour. Demand will be lower at $9.
As for that family Obama referred to,
But today, a full-time worker making the minimum wage earns $14,500 a year. Even with the tax relief we’ve put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong.
He left out that most minimum-wage earners are not the primary bread winner. Nearly 40% live with a parent or relative. The average family income of a household with a minimum-wage worker is about $47,023—which is far above the poverty line of $23,550 for a family of four.
Mr. Obama didn’t even tell the whole story about parents raising a family on a minimum-wage income. A full-time minimum-wage worker earns roughly $15,000 a year. But that worker also receives a cash supplement from the earned income tax credit of roughly $5,000, and many states provide benefits on top of that to reward working. That doesn’t count government benefits like food stamps, Medicaid, child care and more. According to data from the Employment Policies Institute, about two of every three minimum-wage workers also get a raise within one year.
There’s also the erroneous premise that people are forever stuck at minimum wage, when, in fact, minimum wage jobs are entry-level jobs where workers gain the experience they need to advance. More on that in the video:
A New Push for Entrepreneur Visas
The Startup Act 3.0, a bipartisan Senate bill expected to be introduced this week, aims to get 75,000 new “entrepreneur visas” every year to founders who raise $100,000 for new ventures that hire at least two employees within a year and at least five in the following three years.
The measure also would create 50,000 visas per year for foreign students who graduate from U.S. universities with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics, and spend at least five years pursuing careers in those fields.
But those are not the kind of immigrants the Dems want:
Last November, the House passed a stand-alone bill that would have given visas to immigrants in high-tech fields. Mr. Obama opposed the bill, and the White House said at the time it “does not support narrowly tailored proposals that do not meet the president’s long-term objectives with respect to comprehensive immigration reform.”
Obama’s SOTU’S call for “comprehensive immigration reform” is not going to add any jobs to the economy, and it won’t create opportunity for Americans, nor would it provide incentives for integration and assimilation.
Bringing in highly-skilled entrepreneurs who will hire Americans (born or naturalized) will.
Drudge has the juxtaposition,
Comes to show that when the Fed’s printing money like there’s no tomorrow, the stock market goes up.
And, while you’re at it, IRS: Cheapest Obamacare Plan Will Be $20,000 Per Family
UPDATE:
ObamaCare’s $20,000 Per Family Ticket Price will Wreck the Private Insurance Industry
That figure represents almost half the US median income in 2011, of $50,054. And median income is trending downward, as the laughably dishonestly named Affordable Care Act aka ObamaCare pushes prices up to $20,000 per year.
It’s not difficult to envision how this will play out. The upward pressure of insurance costs — some families can expect 85% increases — and the downward pressure of income will drive many Americans out of insurance altogether. Whey they need care, they can face a fine as high as $2,400. So many will opt out of insurance, knowing that they cannot be denied coverage for any pre-existing conditions under ObamaCare. They’ll pay the fine and get insurance if they have to, otherwise they will end up having their health care picked up by the government.
Before long, government will be the only payer, as private insurance companies go bankrupt.
It’s all part of the plan.
Latino Poverty Rate Climbs to 28%
The numbers released Wednesday
a week after the election
by the Census Bureau are part of a newly developed supplemental poverty measure. Devised a year ago, this measure provides a fuller picture of poverty that the government believes can be used to assess safety-net programs by factoring in living expenses and taxpayer-provided benefits that the official formula leaves out.
Based on the revised formula, the number of poor people exceeded the 49 million, or 16 percent of the population, who were living below the poverty line in 2010. That came as more people in the slowly improving economy picked up low-wage jobs last year but still struggled to pay living expenses. The revised poverty rate of 16.1 percent also is higher than the record 46.2 million, or 15 percent, that the government’s official estimate reported in September.
Again, after the election, we’re told that
Hispanics and Asians also saw much higher rates of poverty, 28 percent and 16.9 percent, respectively, compared with rates of 25.4 percent and 12.3 percent under the official formula.
Related,
Hispanic Straw Men
Cross-posted at Liberty Unyielding.
