Authors may use statistics in a biased way with the intention of making their points plausible. This paper cross-examines three articles; one by Los Angeles Times, The Forbes Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal on rising minimum wages in the USA examining their approaches and possible biases.
Kitroeff (2016) quoting the UC Berkeley’s Centre for Labor Research and Education noted that those who stand to gain from higher minimum wages in California are the low-income adults comprising of a majority of the housed breadwinners. In the article, Kitroeff argues the about 5.6 million low earners stand to earn $20 billion more as of 2013 with a presumption that no loss of jobs as investors try to trim costs. The latter proposition is wrong in real-life. Market forces show that as the cost of labor increases, businesses tend to reduce workers to keep their profit margins high and, this includes reducing the number of employees. In this respect, the total earning would not be as projected. Further, Kitroeff showed the distribution of the wage income by age, ethnicity, and education levels. From the data, the Latinos would get up to 54.8% of earning, followed by whites at 25.1%, 12.7%, and blacks at 4.8%. One can infer from the data that the Latinos form the majority of the least paid workers in the USA. The Bureau of Statics Report of 2015 does not reflect this trend for the larger USA indicating a possible bias in the reporting or research. In this article, there is no information on how raising the minimum wages would affect the economy. Assertions without empirical data are not believable.
McTeer (2015) argued that a $15 minimum wage would be a self-inflicted wound. In his arguments, McTeer opined that those advocating for higher minimum wage knew its adverse implications to the economy. He further noted that an increase in wages leads to a decrease in demand that would slow the hiring and increase the incentives for using technology. However, other claims that higher wages would increase spending something that McTeer dismisses. There is evidence that as people earn more, they tend to spend more. From this point of view, McTeer was not objective to acknowledge the possibility of positive gains of the economy. McTeer omitted most of the fact associated with rising minimum wage. He did not give a details cross-examination of the impacts by age, race, and education as was the Case with Kitroeff. Moreover, McTeer did not state the consequences of maintaining the minimum wages at the present levels especially in the face of increasing income inequality in the USA. Besides, he did not use authorities to make his work believable as was the case with Kitroeff’s article. I believe that the omission of these data was due to the complexity of the data that require a critical analysis to make meaning from it.
Morath, Orden, and Lazo (2016) noted that the debate on increasing minimum wages was heated up with California passing a law putting the minimum wages at $15 by 2022. The authors used authorities like the University of Californian, Berkeley. The Republican argued that this would lead to job cuts or increase the prices of commodities. Although this seems a plausible idea, the time limits given for implementation is long enough for the economy to adjust. The Proponents of the increase argue that the cost of living has increased significantly over the years for grew in the New York City metro areas, the living cost rose to 22.3% since 2013 and; therefore, a wage increase would seek to cover this gap. Similar trends are evident in San Francisco, and Los Angeles at 20.3% and 17.7% respectively. However, the authors noted that a high wage would lead to job cuts. There were no details on the distribution of the salaries across the age, race, and education levels as was the case with Kitroeff’s work. The data showing the distribution of the wages explain the disparities in the income inequalities.
I find Kitroeff’s work more convincing because he quoted authorities and attempted to compare the influence of the minimum wage rise to different races, ages, and decision level. Besides, he was more objective in his assertions than the others.
References
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2015). Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers, 2014. Retrieved on May 4, 2016 from http://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum- wage/archive/characteristics-of-minimum-wage-workers-2014.pdf
McTeer, B. (2015, September 11). A $15 Minimum Wage In New York State Would Be A Self- Inflicted Wound. Retrieved May 04, 2016, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobmcteer/2015/09/11/a-15-minimum-wage-in-new-york- state-would-be-a-self-inflicted-wound/#26af8bd4747c
Kitroeff, N. (2016, March 30). Who wins with a $15 minimum wage? Retrieved May 04, 2016, from http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-minimum-wage-raise-20160330-story.html
Morath, E., Orden, E., & Lazo, A. (2016, March 31). Push for $15 Minimum Wage Heats Up. Retrieved May 04, 2016, from http://www.wsj.com/articles/race-for-15-minimum-wage- heats-up-1459451862#:tLisJLTBBr5iJA
