One Minimum Wage Increase with a Side of Fries, Please
This is brilliant: increasing the minimum wage lowers the obesity in the USA. How? Because it puts more low-wage workers out of work, thus allowing fast-food customers to eat less fatty food.
And this is a good thing?
Casey B. Mulligan is an economics professor at the University of Chicago. He writes the following in the New York Times:
Economists have debated the employment effects of the minimum wage. A recent study of obesity now weighs in on this debate.
Many economists expect the minimum wage, if it has any effect, to (among other things) raise employer costs and therefore reduce employment, especially among people who are likely to work in minimum wage jobs, like teenagers and restaurant workers.
That’s the classic (and correct) understanding of what happens when the market supply price is fixed above the market demand price.
Now comes the “good” news.
A recent study by the researchers David Meltzer from the University of Chicago and Zhuo Chen from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now finds that low inflation-adjusted minimum wages are partly to blame for increased obesity.
If their study is correct, it suggests that a higher minimum wage indeed reduces employment and output at fast-food restaurants, and makes it a bit easier for Americans to adopt healthier eating habits.
Yes! We should raise that minimum wage to $50/hr, putting all of those teenagers out of work; pricing fast food out of the market; and lowing the obesity rate. What a deal! <tongue firmly implanted in cheek>.