Who was it who coined the immortal observation that “It ain’t what we don’t know that hurts us–it’s what we know that just ain’t so”?
I thought about that when I read a recent report about job creation experience in states that had recently raised their minimum wage.
Economists at Goldman Sachs conducted a simple evaluation of the impact of these state minimum-wage increases. The researchers compared employment changes between December and January in the 13 states where the minimum wage increased with the changes in the remainder of the states, and found that the states where the minimum wage went up had faster employment growth than the states where the minimum wage remained at its 2013 level.
When we updated the GS analysis using additional employment data from the BLS, we saw the same pattern: employment growth was higher in states where the minimum wage went up. While this kind of simple exercise can’t establish causality, it does provide evidence against theoretical negative employment effects of minimum-wage increases.
It has always seemed reasonable to assume that higher wages would depress job creation. What that simple logic missed, however, were the many factors other than wage rates that influence the decision whether to add employees. The cited study joins an overwhelming body of evidence that the simple equation is wrong.
It’s another one of those things we know that just ain’t so.
How many times have discussions on this blog–as well as others–focused on stupid laws? The drug war (especially marijuana prohibition) is one of the biggest offenders, having ruined countless lives, but everyone has his or her favorite example.
The litany is familiar: who thinks up these rules? Who thought X was a good idea? Why didn’t anyone consider the adverse consequences?
Well, if we want to know what prompts lawmakers to suggest and pass costly measures ranging from irrelevant to unworkable, we have a perfect case study unfolding right before our eyes in Indianapolis.
Our City is experiencing a serious crime wave. There are a number of explanations–and a lot of excuses–for our public safety problem, ranging from insufficient police presence to poverty to administrative incompetence, and it’s likely that all are implicated, along with social pathologies that resist easy answers.
So what are our intrepid lawmakers suggesting? Longer prison sentences for the people we manage to arrest! A quick fix. Easy to understand measures that will allow said lawmakers to boast that they “did something.”
Of course, the “something” they propose to do flies in the face of years of criminal justice research.
Here’s the thing: when we are trying to deter intentional crime (i.e., not a “crime of passion” committed by someone who acted out of a lack of self-control or often, lack of cognitive capacity), research confirms that what is effective is not the severity of the potential punishment–it is the certainty of that punishment. If an individual is considering engaging in a criminal act for which the punishment is 30 years in prison but the chances of getting caught are less than 5%, he’s very likely to go for it. If, on the other hand, the punishment is only 5 years but the likelihood of being caught is 95%, he’s much more likely to rethink it.
As the odds of being punished grow, so does the deterrence.
If we respond to the current crime wave by increasing the severity of punishment, our prison system will just cost taxpayers even more than it does now.
As H.L. Mencken memorably noted, for every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
Some truck enthusiasts are intentionally producing copious amounts of diesel exhaust, spewing black smoke into the air as a form of political protest. It’s called “rolling coal.” Vocativ covered the subculture in an article last month, reporting “coal rollers” can spend thousands of dollars altering their rides to produce ever greater amounts of smoke.
This costly display of political spleen is evidently intended to display the driver’s disdain for “elitist pinko” concerns about clean air and climate change. Of course, what it really displays is the intellectual age of the vehicle’s owner.
It reminds me of an old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. It’s a beautiful day, and Calvin’s father insists that he go out and play. In the last frame, Calvin is telling his stuffed tiger, Hobbes, “I’ll show him! I won’t have fun!”
What was the old adage about cutting off your nose to spite your face?
Breathe deeply of that air you are fouling, protestors……
According to a report I read–naturally, I don’t remember where–a 16 year-old whiz kid has created a plug-in for browsers that allows you to hover over the name of a member of congress and get a pop-up that lists all the donations made to that congressperson-and who made them. Which lobbyists, corporations, etc.
Think about that for a minute.
The Internet has enabled so much crap–conspiracy theories, mind-numbing games, disinformation, celebrity worship…we sometimes forget what a marvelous tool it can be. The same technology that keeps Sarah Palin’s latest moronic utterances in circulation can also be used to enhance transparency and accountability.
The kid’s motto is “Some are red, some are blue, ALL are green”!
Maybe it takes sixteen-year-olds to show us the way.
The introductory essay by former Supreme Court Justice David Souter really laid out the reason for both the Journal and the Center for Civic Literacy. Souter shared his concern that– without an understanding of the fundamentals–constitutional values will make no sense to people, because they have no context for them, no framework within which to understand them. And after listing the numerous influences that divide and polarize Americans, he wrote:
“These are conditions, historical and contemporary, that drive us apart and tend to disunite us. What have we got pulling on the other side? By and large, what we have pulling on the other side is an adherence to an American Constitutional system… The American Constitution is not simply a blueprint for structure, though it is that. It is not merely a Bill of Rights, though it is that, too. It is in essence, a value system… We need to teach that we have a value system, and the one common value system that we can claim to have in the United States is the constitutional value system: a value system that identifies the legitimate objects of power, the importance ofdistributing power, and the need to limit power by a shared and enforceable conception of human worth.
That value system is the counterpoise to the divisive tendencies that are so strong today, and civic ignorance is its enemy. It is beyond me how anyone can assume that our system of constitutional values is going to survive in the current divisive atmosphere while being unknown to the majority of the people of the United States. It is only in the common acceptance of that value system that at the end of the day, nomatter what we are fighting about, no matter what the vote is in Congress or the State House or the townmeeting, we will still understand that something holds us together.”
That danger–that Americans will increasingly fracture into interest groups and contending constituencies, that we will increasingly lose the “unum” in the maelstrom of our “pluribus”– will be the focus of the Center for Civic Literacy’s upcoming National Conference on August 22-24 in downtown Indianapolis. The (somewhat ungainly) title of the conference is “Connecting the Dots: The Impact of Civic Literacy Gaps on Democracy, the Economy and Society, and Charting a Path Forward.”
We want to move the conversation about how to address our civic deficit away from a single-minded focus on classroom and curriculum—important as those are—to a consideration of the multiple other ways in which public ignorance of basic history, government, economics and science are impeding America’s ability to achieve even our most widely-held political, economic and social goals.
We also hope to go beyond the usual hand-wringing, and consider our options for improving the situation.
The program will open with a welcome from former Indiana Supreme Court Justice Ted Boehm, who chairs the Center’s National Advisory Committee, and will feature presentations from such nationally-known figures as Ted McConnell, Executive Director of the Civic Mission of the Schools Campaign, David Schultz, election law expert and Professor at Hamline University, Dallas Dishman, Executive Director of the Geffen Foundation, and Kim McLauren, Director of the Brennan Constitutional Literacy Foundation, among many others. (Even yours truly.)
Attendance at last year’s conference was limited to members of our National Advisory Committee. This year, we have opened it to members of the general public who may be interested, although space considerations limit the number of people we can accommodate. (Registration information is here.)
I hope at least some of you who follow this blog will deliberate with us, and join the ranks of the civic deficit hawks. We need all the help we can get.
