New School Economist and Professor David Howell was featured in Lydia DePillis' Washington Post WonkBlog post, “The $15 Minimum Wage Sweeping the Nation Might Kill Jobs - and that’s Okay.”
While liberal economists agree the minimum wage should be raised, they differ over how high it should go. Mark Levinson, chief economist at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), is a vocal proponent of a national $15 per hour minimum wage. Alan Krueger, a former Obama Administration official, supports a $12 per hour minimum, but worries that $15 would lead to job loss in some parts of the country.
Howell offers a different perspective. “Why shouldn’t we in fact accept job loss? What’s so bad about getting rid of crappy jobs, forcing employers to upgrade, and having a serious program to compensate anyone who is in the slightest way harmed by that?” he told DePillis. Howell is a proponent of a program similar to Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), which helps workers who lose their jobs to foreign trade.
