Leftist commentators have been crowing lately
about a letter signed by 650 economists supporting an increase in the
minimum wage. The 650 includes 5 Nobel prize winners in economics.
Allegedly this is significant. The signatures were gathered and the letter was distributed by The Economic Policy Institute,
a famously left wing think tank whose board is dominated by labor union officials. But here is the real story, EPI
apparently tried very hard and, out of the entire universe of
economists, could only come up with 650 who would sign a letter
endorsing an increase in the minimum wage. Many of these were employees
of EPI or other left wing think tanks or are professors at famously
Marxist and left wing universities such as the University of
Massachusetts, UC Berkeley and UC San Diego, among others.
Here are some facts. The American economic Association boasts about
20,000 members and there are countless thousands of other professional
economists teaching at universities, and working for government,
industry and think tanks who are not members of the AEA. There are
probably several thousand of these economists who would label
themselves as socialist or even Marxist. In spite of this, the best EPI
could come up with was 650. My guess is that it wouldn’t be that
difficult to find 650 economists in the country who would sign a
statement endorsing Cuba’s economic system as a role model for the
world.
And what about those 5 Nobel Laureates that signed the letter? What
wasn’t noted was that there are 42 living recipients of the Nobel Prize
in economics. The views of these 42 cover the entire left-right
spectrum. The real story is that only 5 of the 42 living Nobel prize
winners were willing to sign EPI’s letter and these are clearly the 5
most left wing of the 42. Wow! I am impressed.
Now I can add to my list of cruel hoaxes the idea that EPI’s list of economists represents something significant.
