Edwards was a guest blogger at this e-joint this summer, and if you check it out you’ll have to skip a little light protectionist/globalization worrying before getting to Mr. Poverty Solution By 2008’s thoughts on the federal minimum wage: “It’s just plain wrong to have millions of Americans who are working full time, earning minimum wage, and living in poverty. We can do something about it, and we should.”
Yes, what we should have is a much higher minimum wage, kick a lot of those people out of work because it’s too expensive to keep them employed, and then highlight how thanks to you all those hard-working families on minimum wage are no longer in poverty.
Devil’s in the details, of course ? the focus will not be on those unable to find work because they get priced out of the labor market and are therefore more likely to live in real destitution than they were before, but also, the “poverty” Edwards speaks of is not what people generally think of when they think of poverty (as stated in the link, “Most of America’s ‘poor’ live in material conditions that would be judged as comfortable or well-off just a few generations ago”).
