And should we index the minimum wage to inflation? Of course. But I’ll renew an even better idea I proposed a year ago: index it to congressional salaries. Assuming a normal 2000-hour work year, congressmen make about $75/hour right now. How about simply making the minimum wage equal to 10% of that? Congress can then increase their own salaries anytime they want, but only if they’re willing to help out the working poor at the same time. Seems fair to me.
Hmm, I never saw Kevin’s idea, but it’s interesting how similar — identical? — they are in the details. Looks like I came up with mine after his but never saw it.
The comments to Kevin’s post are interesting.