As Democrats try to rebuild after 2016, leaders like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren continue to drag the party to left on policy, appeasing their base of rabid activists with unrealistic and costly proposals.
June 5, 2017
Liberal Economist Outlines Flawed Left-Wing Policy Approach
As Democrats try to rebuild after 2016, leaders like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren continue to drag the party to left on policy, appeasing their base of rabid activists with unrealistic and costly proposals.
Joe Biden’s former chief economist, Jared Bernstein, echoed these sentiments in a New York Times column this morning that sought to outline how Democrats can go on offense on economic issues.
The problem? Bernstein’s plan calls for hiking the minimum wage to $15 and comes straight out of the Sanders-Warren playbook. Even liberal economists have acknowledged the danger in increasing the minimum wage this dramatically, indicating that it would eliminate jobs, which is something Bernstein notes in his piece:
Some job displacement is possible given an ambitious increase like this, but a new proposal from congressional Democrats doesn’t get to $15 until 2024, giving employers time to adjust.
Even if a $15 minimum wage was phased in, employers would still be subject to tremendous cost increases, forcing them to both lay off workers and increase their own prices according to two separate studies conducted by the Heritage Foundation.
Heritage: “How $15-per-Hour Minimum Starting Wages Would Affect Each State”
Heritage: “$15 Minimum Wages Will Substantially Raise Prices”
If folks on the left like Bernstein are going to follow the lead of Sanders and Warren in proposing costly ideas that will eliminate millions of jobs, they can’t expect to earn much support for their economic plans moving forward.
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