Progressives continue to advocate for a hike in the federal minimum wage — and progressives continue to ignore the impact on hundreds of thousands of people who will LOSE their jobs. Not to mention, all those who will fail to get an opportunity at all. From the CBO:

Effects of the $10.10 Option on Employment and Income
Once fully implemented in the second half of 2016, the $10.10 option would reduce total employment by about 500,000 workers, or 0.3 percent, CBO projects (see the table below). As with any such estimates, however, the actual losses could be smaller or larger; in CBO’s assessment, there is about a two-thirds chance that the effect would be in the range between a very slight reduction in employment and a reduction in employment of 1.0 million workers.

 

So what is the answer to help lift people out of poverty and create jobs so people can prove their value and earn more money? I recently wrote about it.

We ultimately hurt the poor when the cost of delivering a product or service goes up with no corresponding increase in worker productivity or value. Nor do we help the poor by ignoring research that shows which economic policies positively influence economic growth and which don’t. If we expect businesses to create opportunities for entry-level workers to step up to more responsibility and higher pay, we must foster economic growth.

Last fall, John Locke Foundation President John Hood presented the results of his survey into two decades of scholarly work on state-level economic growth. As he explained, the results are extremely unfriendly to the Left’s view, but “the results were very friendly to the Right’s theory of economic growth — negative effects of overall taxes in 63 percent of studies, 67 percent for corporate or business taxes, 69 percent for marginal income tax rates, 62 percent for sales taxes, 68 percent for regulation in some form or the other.”

We know the correct course. Now we just have to help others understand that what sounds good — forcing industry to pay workers more money — hurts many of the people minimum wage proponents say they support.