GOP Fictions on Minimum Wage said with Straight Face...Believable?

I've always said, "It's tough to run against an opponent who flat out lies about everything." Democrats could spend all their waking hours correcting them, but that just loses elections.

The same is true of the lies spread about the minimum wage. Rep. Paul Ryan is spreading that lie to make the case that it's just another Democratic giveaway. But really, voters should come away thinking maybe Ryan isn't telling the truth about a lot of things, which would be true. Business Week:

Does raising the minimum wage cause job loss?

I had to chuckle...is this the Onion?

No. The best economic research, and real world experiences with minimum wage increases, confirms that raising the minimum wage does not cause job loss. The decade following the federal minimum wage increase in 1996-1997 ushered in one of the strongest periods of job growth in decades. Analyses  of states with minimum wages higher than the federal floor between 1998 and 2003 showed that their job growth was actually stronger overall than in states that kept the lower federal level. The most sophisticated minimum wage study  to date, published in November 2010 by economists at the University of Massachusetts, University of North Carolina, and University of California, compared employment data among every pair of neighboring U.S. counties that straddle a state border and had differing minimum wage levels at any time between 1990 and 2006, and found that minimum wage increases did not cost jobs. A companion study  published in April 2011 found that these results hold true even during periods of recession and high unemployment. For more research on the effect of the minimum wage on employment, click here . 

Does raising the minimum wage hurt teenage workers?

No. A recent rigorous study by economists at the University of California examining the impact of minimum wage increases on teen unemployment found that even minimum wage increases implemented during times of high unemployment – such as the recessions of 1990-1991, 2001 and 2007-2009 – did not result in job losses for teens or slow employment growth.

Critics like to suggest that the last increase in the federal minimum wage in 2009 caused a spike in teen unemployment.  But as a NELP report  demonstrated in 2011, teen unemployment rises faster than adult joblessness during every recession – whether or not the minimum wage goes up. This is because teens are the last hired, and so are always the first fired when the economy shrinks and adults compete with them for scarce jobs.