About a fortnight ago, Mrs. Williams alerted me to an episode of Oprah Winfrey?s show titled “Inside the Lives of People Living on Minimum Wage.” After a few minutes of watching, I turned it off, not because of the heartrending tales but because most of what was being said was dead wrong. Let?s look at it.

The show claims that 30 million Americans earn the minimum wage of $5 an hour. Actually, the federal minimum wage is $5.15 an hour, and 17 states mandate a higher minimum wage that approaches $7 an hour. At one point, Oprah did manage to clear up this aspect of the show?s errors.