Tyrone writes,

Minimum wages probably lower the net amount of government intervention in an economy. Lower minimum wages would mean higher welfare payments to make up the difference. Ever heard of EITC? In reality, minimum wages and EITC work together to keep the poor at decent standards of living. More importantly, they keep poor workers in the private sector rather than letting them become wards of the state.

I think that policies like the minimum wage or the laws to force Wal-Mart to pay more in health care benefits are issues where the economic impact is small relative to the emotional activation. People on the left get really mad at what they perceive as injustice, and those of us on the right get really mad at what we perceive as economic ignorance, but in the end there probably is not much impact one way or the other from these policies.

Now if Tyrone ever started arguing in favor of “Medicare for all,” that would be frightening.

Alex Tabarrok writes,

Please do not encourage Tyrone. He is a bad, bad, man.