"this paper finds that the 1966 FLSA increased wages dramatically but reduced
aggregate employment only modestly. However, the disemployment effects were significantly
larger among African-American men, forty percent of whom earned below the new minimum
wage in 1966."
Obviously I added the emphasis here.
Do you see those words?
Those words that directly confirm what I have been saying, and Sunhawk's point about it disproportionately affecting blacks?
Yes, the people who wrote this paper clearly do it with the attitude that 'the gain was worth the cost,' as shown by how they attach the subjective modifiers 'drastically' to 'increased wages' and 'modestly' to 'reduced aggregate employment.'
That does not change that they directly say that their findings support my point.
To draw another chunk out, this time from the 'conclusion' rather than the 'abstract' section:
"For instance, substantial decreases in employment and annual hours for African-American men suggest that large changes in the minimum wage could shift the composition of employment and harm certain groups of workers. "
Because you continue to leave out the context, which is what I've repeatedly said; just constantly re-citing the same paragraph over and over again does not change that. Indeed, the last paragraph you cite below even notes this,
in that you are ignoring the demand elasticities; the effects overall, were low, which is why you didn't highlight that portion of it above, while highlighting everything. Further, if you look further into it:
In 1966, for instance, 38 percent of black men and 15 percent of white men earned below the 1966 FLSA minimum wage (see Online Appendix). And, while both groups experienced large wage increases after 1966, the estimate for African-American men was almost three times as large as that for white men, owing to the fact that black men lived in lower earning regions (e.g., the South) and worked in lower earning industries previously uncovered by the FLSA. Similarly, the wages of men with less than a 12th grade education (approximately the median in 1966) increased by 33 percent more than men with at least a 12th grade education. Teenagers experienced a larger wage increase than men ages 20 to 35, who in turn experienced a larger wage increase than those age 36 to 64. However, large wage growth among teenagers comes with the caveat that the event-study estimates in Figure 7C show that their wages were trending upward in more affected states before the 1966 FLSA took effect, which limits the strength of conclusions about causal effects of the legislation. The broad conclusion, however, is that the 1966 Amendments to the FLSA substantially increased wages for a large group of workers across the country.
Another chunk from the last paragraph before the conclusion:
"In summary, we find that the employment of African-American men and, perhaps, younger men
fell with implementation of the 1966 FLSA. Broadly speaking, the magnitude of the demand elasticities
and disemployment effects suggest that—although the aggregate effects are not large—the 1966 FLSA may
have had adverse consequences for some workers. "
It's not just the abstract that supports my point.
No, because you're ignoring the "although the aggregate effects are not large", which is related to the demand elasticities. Even if we ignore that, total employment according to the reference week fell by about 1.1% (Overall was 0.7% for all groups combined), but overall Black wealth increased substantially. Even if you ignore all context, justify a 1.1% unemployment rate (which could be tied into other causes) in terms of wages overall going up?
Beyond that though, have you ever stopped to consider the foundations of your arguments in terms of wider discussions on race?
