Lies, Damned Lies, and Lies that Keep Americans Impoverished

They say that there are Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics. 

This week, under intense questioning from Independent Congressman and Senatorial Candidate Bernie Sanders (I-VT), newly minted Republican Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke proved that there are also lies that keep millions of Americans living in poverty.

Conservatives have long claimed that the Minimum Wage, costs jobs and derails economic development.  This complete pile of hokum was debunked over a decade ago, but Conservatives, ever unwilling to deviate from their deviance no matter who has to eat dogfood, continue to foist the "myth of the destructive minimum wage hike".

Here's the discussion between Senator Sanders and Chairman Bernanke from the congressional record:

SANDERS: Chairman Bernanke, should the Congress raise the minimum wage so that every worker in America who works 40 hours a week escapes from poverty? A very simple question, sir.

BERNANKE: I'm going to be an economist and give you the one hand, the other hand. On the minimum wage, it's actually a very controversial issue among economists. Clearly, if you raise the minimum wage, then those workers who retain their jobs will get higher income and therefore it helps them. The concerns that some economists have raised about the minimum wage are first, is it as well targeted as it could be? That is, how much of the increase is going to the teenage children of suburban families, for example? And secondly, does it have any employment effects? That is, do higher wages lower employment of low-wage workers?

SANDERS: And your response is?

BERNANKE: My response is that I think it doesn't lower employment.

It's beneath contempt.

One last thought.  If this exchange had taken place in a Virginia State Legislature Committee, rather than the US Senate, there would be no record of it.  The Virginia Legislature's new "least possible disclosure" rules make it nearly impossible to find out what's going on in Richmond.  If it weren't for guys like Waldo, there'd be no way to find out except being there.

[Update:  From David Sirota:

FYI - per the last note I sent out, there is now some controversy as to whether Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the minimum wage "doesn't" or "does" lower employment. The transcript from Congressional Quarterly on Lexis-Nexis - widely relied on as the official transcript of such hearings - says, as I reported, that Bernanke said the minimum wage "doesn't lower employment." However, Reuters has reported it differently, saying he said he believes the minimum wage "does lower employment." From the context of the quote, it's seems possible that the official transcript is wrong, as Bernanke goes on to say "However" and then cite experts who have, in fact, argued that the minimum wage does not hurt employment. Still, though, that alone does not validate whether the transcript has an error or not.

In the interest of accuracy (which I pride myself on) - I wanted to flag this for readers. If you have access to Lexis-Nexis, you can validate this yourself. The transcript is from CQ Transcriptions from the House Financial Services Committee hearing on February 15th, 2006.

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