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I was pleased by the news that this year’s Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to David Card of the University of California, Berkeley for pioneering research that, among other things, debunks corporate rationale for keeping wages unrealistically low.
For many years workers have struggled to increase the minimum wage to realistic levels, only to be countered by corporate arguments that raising wages would mean fewer jobs and less hiring.
Card’s work has shown that increasing the minimum wage has no discernible effect on the number of employees and immigrants do not lower pay for native-born workers. What labor advocates have long known has now been substantiated by Card’s empirical research.
Maine voters who approved minimum wage increases and activists who rallied outside fast food outlets and big box stores in support of paying workers a living wage have reason to honor Card and to take pride in his award.
John Curtis
Surry
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