Trump cheats at golf - the ONE and ONLY politics thread

1) With all respect Jared Bernstein is just wrong and dishonest (not that article in particular, but many other things I know about). As wrong as he was even before the law was passed in that state, and he was writing that article everywhere with every rationalization he could deceive with to get it enacted. It's funny about how he has advocated for the thing for decades with every misleading, hackish academic-sounding rationalization possible and then he is there with data (that most people don't understand) proving that what he wanted made more with less.

2) As it so happens, I am a little familiar with that U of W study from this summer. Bernstein paraded it out. ... KNOWING he is painting a dishonest picture. I read that study when it came out this summer. What it really said was that the majority of wage gains in the aggregate were due to the region's economy booming at the time. Amazingly, non minimum wage workers were earning more, too. The study then went on to point out that the lowest-wage workers in Seattle had suffered from reduced hours (largely) and lower rates of employment (less so). The net effect was a shifting of the deck chairs. Mind you, that was in an economy doing better than most of the country. It's a whole different story in a slowdown. On top of it (and I vaguely remember the study not covering restaurant workers -- the people most affected -- but I can't look right now), that same study showed that prices in the restaurant and fast food industries had jumped since the law was enacted -- something like 10 percent, if I remember correctly. Also, that study just covered the first phase. Wages go up more to create an even bigger price floor, the negative effects hurt even more people. I remember the study sort of making the point that at $11 per hour it was doing "X much damage." At $15 per hour, we predict it will be "Y much damage." Of course, that wouldn't have been Jared Bernstein's reading of it.

3) Then there is just the fact that, he is cherry picking to try to create a false reality. I can dig through the BLS data site and give you something updated, but here is something AEI came up with using their numbers that is every bit as empirical as whatever Jared Bernstein wants to cherry pick. It's kind of delicious because it uses their own BS numbers, to make the point the AEI wanted (as opposed to the point that Jared Bernstein wants):



Regardless, I can play a game of "mislead you by googling furiously for things a hack I like came up with" all day long on this. At the end of the day, it's just a common-sense reality. A pizza has 8 slices. Pretending it has 16 slices doesn't feed twice as many people. At best, you feed 16 people half as much. At worst, you feed 6 well, and leave 2 people who used to have something to eat, hungry.