Hello Pitch Fork listeners, Goldie here on a really exciting day at the virtual offices of Civic

Ventures because as I am recording this, Democrats and Congress are introducing the Raise the Wage Act that would raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 and then index it to the median wage, which is something that we all have been advocating for for

Six seven years and so to help you sort through all the news you'll be getting about the minimum wage, including the inevitable arguments that it is a job killer.

We are rebroadcasting a conversation we had with the late Alan Kroger, the economist who first studied the question of whether the minimum wage kills jobs and discovered no it does. of the same conclusion, which of course does not stop naysayers from emphasizing

Orthodox economic theory over economic fact. This is one of our earliest episodes from February of 2019 and we're really proud of it because of course we always like to be proven right.

So we hope you listen to this episode, enjoy it, arm yourself with the facts,

debunk the critics, and join us in the fight for a $15 minimum wage.

If you can get people to believe the claim

that raising wages always kills jobs.

Taxes too high, wages too high, we're not going to be able to compete against the world.

Then you have explained the economy to them in a way that makes them fear raising wages.

If you raise the minimum wage, you're going to make people more expensive than a machine.

And that means all this automation that's replacing jobs and people right now is only going to be accelerated.

There are some people I think who just have difficulty not fitting the world into a particular structure.

But we cannot do this if we are going to compete with the rest of the world.

We just can't do it.

So do not raise the minimum.

I would not raise the minimum. I would not raise the minimum.

From the offices of Civic Ventures in downtown Seattle, this is Pitch Fork Economics with Nick Han Hour, where we explore everything

you wished you'd learn in Econ 101. I'm Nick Henhauer, founder of Civic Ventures. I'm Stephanie Urban. I run a lot of our advocacy and campaign work here at Civic Ventures. I'm Stephanie Ervin. I run a lot of our advocacy and campaign work here at Civic Ventures.

In our last episode we've been focusing on the three legs of the trickle down stool and

today we're gonna cover that last leg this one we're expert in so get ready to

...