welfare vs wages

[Danzig]

Meer says Obama in his speech completely ignored the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) “which provides as much as a 45 percent subsidy for low-income earners,” he notes, ”not to mention the slew of other income-support and transfer programs at both the federal and state level. A single parent with two children earning $14,500 would receive $5,236 in the EITC alone, before any other transfer programs.

“People who support increasing the minimum wage are often well-intentioned, but it’s quite likely that the minimum wage does more harm than good for low-income people. There are other policies, like the EITC, that do a much better job of alleviating poverty."


so, we keep having taxpayers pick up the slack? that's what eitc and other 'transfer' programs do. it leaves the tab off the companies, and keeps it on the taxpayers. so, they don't get paid more for their work, but keep getting paid by taxpayers for having a low-paying job....yeah, that's great.

but i did like the part in the article that re-iterated that minimum wage increases don't cause people to lose their jobs, which is a commonly held myth. so, even if it didn't produce more jobs (and i have to wonder if they went far enough in their study to extrapolate more money in pockets to more money spent, hence more purchasing, more demand, thus needing more supply, which would mean more work) it would certainly get many currently at minimum wage into a higher bracket-and off eitc, off 'transfer' programs, and off the taxpayers backs.
then again...it's not as tho my taxes would go down, they'd probably just spend the money saved on another aircraft carrier.