Clown of the Weekend: The Post-Dispatch's David Nicklaus

So it's come to this. A long-overdue raise in the state's minimum wage is on the November ballot and enjoys overwhelming support, so conservative pundits turn to ridiculous arguments and partisan front-groups for a last-ditch defense against the encroach of common sense and good policy

Take David Nicklaus for example, who thinks that Missouri voters should vote against raising the minimum wage --which hasn't been raised in nine years-- because of what he calls the danger of "temptation."

A bright kid who doesn't like school can probably drop out and find a
minimum-wage job. The higher you make that wage, the more tempting it
will be. But if the kid drops out of school, he does severe damage to
his lifetime earnings potential.

Nicklaus apparently wants us to believe that a bunch of high-schoolers are watching closely the results of November 7th balloting, waiting on the fate of $1.35 hourly wage boost to determine whether they show up for school the next day. This is outrageous on its face. Nicklaus's own logic would seem to dictate that a drop in the minimum wage to, say, $3.00 hourly would cause marked reductions in dropout rates.

Surely Nicklaus understands that minor changes in compensation levels are not the only determinant of career choice, as he almost certainly could make more money in another job than he does working for the Post-Dispatch, but nevertheless continues to make his living writing trite, derivative columns.

What little empirical "evidence" Nicklaus does rely on in his column is close to valueless, since it comes from an organization with complete idelogical opposition to wage raises of any kind.

To claim that a rising minimum wage will hurt the economy, Nicklaus cites information from the Show-Me Institute, which he describes only as a "Clayton-based think tank." He neglects to mention that the Show-Me Institute is a ultra-conservative front group for wealthy Republicans like former GOP senate candidate and banker R. Crosby Kemper, and Rex Sinquefield, who just two months ago gave $100,000 to rightwing powerhouse Club for Growth. These are folks for whom low wages and increasing income inequality are policy targets.

Nicklaus could just have easily relied upon the Economic Policy Institute's analysis of Missouri's proposed minimum wage increase, which says in part:

Most telling, however, are the experiences of the states that have
raised their minimum wages over the last nine years, since they have
given researchers a rare opportunity in empirical economics. In essence, researchers have been able to compare states with minimum
wage increases to similar states with no increase. These studies
typically find that the job losses predicted by opponents have never
materialized, and job growth has not been dampened in the 22 states
with minimum wages higher than the federal level.

Of course, the EPI was created by economists and academics rather than supply-side ideologues, so that study doesn't fit neatly into Nicklaus's story.

The fact is that an increased minimum wage will provide a much-needed boost in quality of life for more than a quarter-million Missouri workers. Regardless of what David Nicklaus writes, most Missourians understand --in their hearts and their heads-- that hard work deserves fair pay. And no amount of tainted scholarship from regressive "think-tanks" or half-baked business section columns can change that simple fact.

Congrats to David Nicklaus, Clown of the Weekend.