Paul Krugman Quotes

Literally, if we took away the minimum wage - if conceivably it was gone - we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.

A minimum wage leads to higher levels of unemployment.

So what are the effects of increasing minimum wages? Any Econ 101 student can tell you the answer: The higher wage reduces the quantity of labor demanded, and hence leads to unemployment.

Statistical studies are all over the lot about the pluses and minuses of raising the minimum wage.

Raising the minimum wage isn't just pro-worker; it's pro-economic growth.

The minimum wage in Denmark is about twice that of the United States, and people who are totally out of the labor market or unable to care for themselves have a basic income guarantee of about $100 per day.

Raising the minimum wage seems to all economists to, at the very least, fail to 'raise' employment, and we'd all like to see better inclusion of low-skilled workers into good-paying jobs.

The minimum wage is something that F.D.R. put in place a long time ago during the Great Depression. I don't think it worked then. It didn't solve any problems then and it hasn't solved any problems in 50 years.

The minimum wage is the black teenage unemployment act. It is the guaranteed way of holding the poor, the minorities and the disenfranchised out of the mainstream is if you price their original services too high.

Raising the minimum wage means we have workers paying more in to support the Social Security system.

We continue the policy of not permitting any needy American who can and is willing to work to starve because the Federal Government does not provide work.

We need to see the FLSA and the minimum wage as part of a larger struggle to cut poverty and to address the challenge of income inequality.

Incremental increases in the minimum wage won't address the underlying skills and investment gaps in Illinois.

Minimum wage laws have never worked in terms of having the middle class attain more prosperity.

I'm not sure there's another way to help move more people out of poverty than to raise the minimum wage.

The concept of minimum wage is crazy, if you really stop to think about it. If $8 an hour seems right, why not $20 an hour? If it's coming by order of the government, why stop at any level? Why not just say everyone should get what Gates gets?

The most important social welfare program in America is a job.

The real minimum wage is zero.

We have to raise the minimum wage.

Everybody feels better about himself, his community, and his country if employers are paying workers well. Economics, though, teaches that if every employer is pressured to raise wages, some labor will be priced out of the market.

The minimum wage was enacted in 1937 during the Great Depression and it has been increased 16 times. It's a well-established economic policy to help families.

Those of us in the Congress must confront and overcome Republican intransigence to increasing the minimum wage, extending unemployment insurance and protecting food stamps.

There are very few people at the decision-making table to argue for minimum-wage workers. Very few people.

We believe that the federal government is responsible to give every man employment or a guaranteed income.

To reduce inequality, employment must be sustained by appropriate macroeconomic policy.