The Immorality of a $15 Minimum

Robert Reich, a sometime contributor to this magazine and one of the smartest thinkers on the economic left, has an interesting piece on his blog entitled “The Morality of a $15 Minimum Wage.” While most defenses of a national $15 minimum wage assert that such a radical policy change would have essentially no downsides—that the federal government could suspend the laws of economics and double the cost of labor without reducing employment—Reich makes the concession that the policy could destroy jobs, but argues that it should be implemented anyway. “Maybe some jobs are worth risking if a strong moral case can be made for a $15 minimum”, Reich writes.