Bret Devereaux

But awkward for those who get nothing instead. Like I said, at this point, raising the minimum wage is probably better than nothing. But it's not the best intervention here.

It's not a forgone conclusion that jobs will be lost to this intervention in meaningful numbers. It's an assumption. One reason progressives aren't inclined to follow it is that even if this worked perfectly conservatives would still make the same argument against the *next* hike

Sure and again - I am not arguing for 'do nothing' - I want us to do the same thing (raise incomes at the bottom of the distribution) through different means (EITC expansion). I have no brief for the 'do nothing' crowd, I think they are silly.

I don't have a strong opinion about whether this would be equally or more effective, and no prima facie problem with doing it. But I think the idea that wage hikes are on the table for mostly nefarious reasons is frankly offensive, and begs multiple questions.

For one thing, if this were actually an easy sell to the professional base of the Democratic party, it would have been on the table years ago.

For another, "your members will be paid a lot more but you'll have half as many" has never been a viable deal for a union to make, and service workers' unions have huge organizing challenges as it is. You can argue they're wrong about job losses but not that they don't care.

...and so I worry that cost-pass-through will primarily go to *low* income consumers.