Alan Krueger, the Princeton economist appointed by Barack Obama to head the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, made something of a splash in a 1994 paper he co-authored arguing that an increase in the minimum wage in New Jersey didn’t result in job losses among fast-food workers. This of course goes against the common sense conclusion of most economists.
Democratic advocates of minimum wage increases seized on this slender bit of evidence in support of a policy change that has always polled well with the general public. But as James Pethokoukis points out, Krueger’s paper was pretty well demolished by a paper co-authored by David Neumark and William Wascher.
Greg Mankiw, chairman of the CEA during the George W. Bush administration, cited on his blog back in 2006 additional studies refuting Krueger’s argument. None of this prevented Democrats from raising the minimum wage after they won majorities in Congress in 2006, with resulting job losses among low-wage workers.
