What would Martin Luther King, Jr. make of the Yale students and similar?

by philg

A year ago I posted “What would Martin Luther King, Jr. do for us today?”

That posting reflected the national discourse of the time, which was mostly about the extent to which government should redistribute income among residents and the portion of the economy to which Soviet-style central planning should be applied. In the intervening 12 months, the national discourse seems to have shifted back to the 1950s and 1960s concerns of Dr. King, i.e., rights for black Americans.

I’m wondering what he would make of our current situation in which young black Americans are preferentially admitted to our most elite universities but, once there, say that they feel “unsafe” (see Yale) while, on the other hand, crazy high crime rates in mostly-black cities, such as Baltimore and Detroit, are seldom newsworthy.

Readers: What do you think Martin Luther King, Jr. would be saying to us right now? I’m going to guess that he would have been opposed to the $15/hour minimum wage (since it will greatly exacerbate unemployment among black Americans, roughly double that for whites) and argue instead for an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit.

4 thoughts on “What would Martin Luther King, Jr. make of the Yale students and similar?”

  1. I’m going to guess that he would have been opposed to the $15/hour minimum wage (since it will greatly exacerbate unemployment among black Americans…

    Since no democrats or black leaders understand that an overly high minimum wage exacerbates unemployment for blacks, and since they mostly think alike, I say MLK would NOT be opposed to a $15/hour minimum wage.

    Nor, like all democrats and nearly all republican politicians, would MLK be opposed to more immigration and non-enforcement of immigration laws (which exacerbate unemployment among black Americans more so than an overly high minimum wage).

  2. I think MLK, Jr. would have some pretty harsh words for the safe-spacers and possibly even for some of the BLM protesters. I’m certain he would be ashamed of the riot in Ferguson and similar lawless behavior. I’m also sure he would be condemned and dismissed as an “Uncle Tom” for bothering to come back to life and speak his mind. (Yes, much like that great episode of The Boondocks.)

    And I agree with the Smartest Woman on the Internet. (And just how smart must that make me, huh?) They’re no reason to think any Democrat would have a problem with minimum wage laws. Even given the extra perspective a resurrected MLK, Jr. would have on how poorly those laws have worked since his time to bring poor American blacks out of poverty, I suspect he would support them.

  4. miska: EITC does bring more people into the workforce and thus shifts the supply curve of labor. So I think you are right that the market-clearing wage after EITC would end up somewhat lower. But the same can be said for a lot of the things that the government does: (1) immigration (more workers now), (2) paying Americans to have babies (more workers eventually), (3) subsidizing college education (more college-educated workers, thus lowering wages for college-educated workers).

    Let’s take the flip side of what you said. If you really want high wages, make welfare pay at least $14.99/hour, contingent on the recipient not doing any paid work. Then employers would have to pay at least $15/hour to get someone to put down the Xbox controller, get off the couch, and come to work. Instant $15/hour minimum wage without having to impose a minimum wage at all!

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