Jared Bernstein, who sits on the president's council on economic advisors, brushed off the concerns of job losses in the face of an increase of the federally mandated minimum wage to $15 by 2025.
"The other numbers that you mention," Bernstein said, "there's no doubt that they come out of the study, you are correct about that, but we have a tendency to focus on some of the big negatives or y'know in this case the deficit impact."
As regards the proposed $15 minimum wage, Bernstein was asked about the study that came out in The Wall Street Journal stating that this plan would actually increase unemployment, as it would cut jobs back by 1.4 million by 2025, the proposed implementation date. It would also reduce the number of Americans who are living below the poverty line by about 900,000.
In response, Bernstein said "With respect, the part you just read, leaves out, by far, the most important number in that study. Which is that 27 million people get a wage increase by raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2025."
He addressed the president's reasons for advocating for a federally mandated minimum wage increase, saying "One of the reasons that the president has consistently pushed this policy is because it is one of the fastest, most reliable, quickest ways to get reliable help to low income workers, many of whom have been essential workers in this economy."
He then listed off categories of essential workers, such as grocery clerks and delivery drivers. "And yes, as you mentioned, there are job loss effects in the study, but in fact if you look at some of the more contemporary minimum wage research, and I've contributed some of that myself, it looks, it takes a very careful look at this impact of the problem, and find much smaller effects in that regard."
Bernstein began the interview speaking about the child tax credits, and help from the federal government for children and families at or below the poverty line, and spoke also about Mitt Romney's (R-UT) plan for a $4,200 influx of cash to American families.
"I think that the idea here is to work on the American Rescue Plan with the urgency that the president is bringing to the issue," Bernstein said.
"He was elected, for among many other reasons, to to address the dual crises of COVID-19 and the terrible damage it's wrecked in not just people's lives but in the overall economy and to address the economic damage," Bernstein said.
"We know that that damage has been disproportionately to the bottom leg of the K in this K-shaped recovery, with folks clipping stock coupons are doing fine, many of the folks on the bottom half, including the very poor families that we're talking about, struggling to get ahead." It was in light of this that he touted the American Rescue Plan, saying that is has very deep Democratic support, and that he is "optimistic about its passage."
Bernstein said "that doesn't mean that we're finished," and said that the administration wants to listen to people "on both sides of the aisle who have ideas on how they want to build on this."
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