by John Watts
Senator Elizabeth Warren, (D-MA), recently suggested in committee that if the federal minimum wage kept pace with production increases over the last 30-plus years, it would today be around $22 instead of the current $7.25.
What is the economic law that supports her inference?
There is none, but Sen. Warren had a seemingly sophisticated expert present to help make her case - a Stanford and University of Chicago-trained economist.
Senator Warren is like most politicians in that she has no use for economics until she wants to justify one of her political positions. Then she can bring in a like-minded academic specialist to provide the scientific veneer for her policy ideas.
It is imperative that every liberty-loving citizen educate themselves on economic matters. Otherwise, the political dialogue will be dominated by politicians and their supposedly disinterested “experts” who argue for expanded governmental control.
Ludwig von Mises summarized how vitally important this is:
“Whether we like it or not, it is a fact that economics cannot remain an esoteric branch of knowledge accessible only to small groups of scholars and specialists. Economics deals with society’s fundamental problems; it concerns everyone and belongs to all. It is the main and proper study of every citizen.”
Here is a video exploding the myth of the minimum wage:
Learning economics does not have to be boring, and not everybody needs to become an expert. Here are some free resources you can utilize and share with others:
- Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
- An Introduction to Economic Reasoning by David Gordon
- The Concise Guide to Economics by Jim Cox
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