Is it asking too much of Aunty’s journos to research both sides of an argument?
ABC1’s Lateline, Monday:
EMMA Alberici: In what way does reducing the minimum wage help repair the budget?
Tony Shepherd: One of the big problems in the budget ... is ... the ... cost of the unemployed … and ... almost endemic youth unemployment ... about 12.5 per cent ...
Alberici: But what’s the minimum wage got to do with it?
Merrill Matthews, Institute for Policy Innovation, March 4:
MINIMUM wage-increase critics assert that arbitrarily hiking the cost of labour has its largest negative impact on the least skilled workers, which tend to be younger people just entering the workforce. If that’s true, we should be able to see some correlation between US minimum wage increases and a rise in youth unemployment — and we do ... there is an identifiable correlation between minimum wage increases and rising youth unemployment.
ABC1’s Lateline, Monday:
ALBERICI: Well … how (do) you explain, then, that all low-wage countries have higher unemployment rates than ours ...
Shepherd: Yes, but ... in some regions we have 25 per cent unemployment.
Alberici: ... but, in Australia, we’re at about $33,000 on the minimum wage and unemployment is at 12.5 per cent for youth unemployment … in Spain, youth unemployment is above 50 per cent ...
Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, December 1, 2011:
SPAIN suffers from 23 per cent overall unemployment, the highest in the developed world ... nearly half of its workers under 25 years old don’t have a job ... how ... are these numbers so astronomically high? … It boils down to too much construction, too much regulation, and not enough growth. First, Spain suffered from the mother of all housing bubbles ... then it all came apart … and construction, which had served as a reliable pipeline for young jobs, dried up. Second, Spain’s labour laws make it cumbersome to fire employees, which scares companies from hiring workers ... as a result, Spain relies on temporary workers … who don’t count as officially employed ... the third factor is ... growth.
ABC1’s Lateline, Monday:
ALBERICI: In the UK, (youth unemployment is) 19 per cent.
Tim Worstall, Forbes, February 3:
THE youth unemployment rate (in the UK) starts to rise precipitately just as …“a £3 minimum wage for 16 and 17 year olds (was) introduced from October 2004”.
ABC1’s Lateline, Monday:
ALBERICI: You’re saying (the minimum wage) should be 44 per cent of (average weekly earnings) ... at the moment it’s 56 per cent.
Worstall, Forbes, March 10, 2011:
“THE impact that the minimum wage has on employment in North America ... leads to the conclusion that a minimum wage that is greater than 50 per cent of the average wage is harmful to small wage earners and (one) that is less than 45 per cent has very little risk for this group of workers. Between ... the area of 45 per cent to 50 per cent would represent an increasing danger to employment.
Hasn’t cost a thing! ABC online’s The Drum, yesterday:
THE Grattan Institute has given us a much more sensible list of budget proposals than the commission of audit and, best of all, it hasn’t cost taxpayers a thing, writes Greg Jericho.
The Grattan Institute website:
THE Grattan Institute ... was formed in 2008 ... with a $15 million endowment from each of the federal and Victorian governments.