Raising the minimum wage is not a good idea. The point of increasing the minimum wage is to make poor workers better off. However, it will not do a good job for two reasons.

First, it is poorly targeted.  A minimum wage increase does not increase the pay of only poor workers. It also increases the pay of many teenagers who are supported by well-off parents, and some whose spouses make tons of money.

Secondly, a minimum wage increase will result in a rebound effect of firms laying off workers. There is only so much money that can be spent on payroll, and if firms must pay all of their workers more per hour, they will have to cut back on the total number of workers employed. In addition, many small businesses may go under because they were dependent upon paying their workers the current minimum wage.

Why not just increase the Earned Income Tax Credit rates for the poor? EITC changes will target only the poor, and will not result in businesses laying off worker to keep pace with the increased required pay rate. Congress - if you want to help the poor, change the EITC, not the minimum wage!

Happy Earth Day, gimme-five readers! Why not do something “green” today? I recommend that you replace an incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent and save energy. You can get one for free today only - April 22 - at Home Depots across the US. Compact fluorescent bulbs are great, and if you haven’t tried them yet, now is your chance!

In other news, check out Google’s logo for Earth Day 2007.

Update: I went to Home Depot and got my free bulb.  It’s a 60W Soft White Compact Fluorescent.  Sweet!

Supreme Court decision today in Gonzalez v. Carhart says Congress’s 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Ban is constitutional and does not impose an undue burden.  Among many reasons, the Supreme Court noted that other procedures for abortion exist at that stage (2nd trimester) in pregnancy.

You can read the decisions here.  I might comment more later, although lots of people will be doing that all over the internet today.

Some scientific evidence has emerged that shows that the radiation emitted by cell phones causes bees to have navigational issues and fail to return to their hives.  It is theorized that this is the main reason beehind (pun intended) the massive disappearance of pollinating bees in recent years.  In the US, apparently 60% of the West Coast’s and 70% of the East Coast’s bee populations have died.

Bees are important.  They are very important in pollinating essential crops that we eat.  If bees disappear, there will be a serious food shortage problem.  According to the World Health Organization, as of 2000, one out of every three people is malnourished.  This malnourishment problem would be exacerbated without bees.

I read in The New Economy of Nature that part of the reason pollinating bees were disappearing was because Africanized bees that were transported to South America had migrated northward and were cross breeding with honeybees, making them too mean to be social pollinators.

The world had better hope that this scientific evidence is wrong.   First-world society is addicted to cell phone usage.  I know I am.  I use my cell phone all the time… and if I didn’t have it I would bee less productive (pun intended).  We’ll have to see how the evidence pans out…

[Ed Note: Pictures to come soon, hopefully.]

I volunteered at Step It Up 2007 at William and Mary today.  For those of you who don’t know, Step It Up is a nationwide climate change rally held on April 14th, 2007.  On this “National Day of Climate Action,” people all over the country held rallies (there are over 1,400 total rallies, at least one in each of the 50 states) calling for Congress to take action now on mitigating climate change, and asking them specifically to reduce CO2 emissions 80% by 2050.

The day began at 8am.  I helped lug some tables and chairs from William and Mary’s campus center over to the Wren Courtyard, the area the event was being held.  Next, I helped carry some tall bamboo from the small bamboo forest we have at William and Mary over so we could hold up signs promoting the event high enough so the farmer’s market across the street could see.

After the bamboo was acquired, I walked over to the farmer’s market across the street with a few members of William and Mary’s Student Environmental Action Coalition to pass out fliers informing people that our climate change rally was just across the street and we would have speakers, free food, and free compact fluorescent lightbulbs.