The 4% Non-Solution: WaPo‘s Greg Sargent tweets
Lib economists think raising overtime threshold is single biggest exec action O can do for middle class: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/01/06/the-next-big-fight-among-democrats/ … [Emphasis added]
Isn’t that kind of pathetic? Obama’s increase (in the upper salary threshold covered by the overtime rule) may boost the pay of “nearly” 5 million workers. There are about 122 million workers in the U.S. economy — so according to my calculator the change will affect 4% of them. If that’s the biggest action Obama can take to help the middle class, it shows the severe limitations of his vaunted “pen and phone” strategy, no? …
Gee the minimum wage increase only helps out about 1% of the population (it actually hurts more than it helps as businesses will reduce workers)
[…] liberal blogger Mickey Kaus throws a bit of cold water on the Administration’s lousy […]
For the record, if a company’s payroll today comes to, say, $40,000 per year per employee, companies will simply reduce salaries so that straight pay plus overtime comes to $40,000 per year per employee.
See? Problem solved.
And don’t forget that thanks to the lowest labor force participation rate ever recorded, that 122M workers is even smaller than it would be if we had a president who didn’t have job killing policies.