To the editor:

I was disappointed to see the Journal-World questioned a proposal to raise the minimum wage as “anti-growth” in a recent editorial (Dec. 13). Twenty-nine states have already raised their minimum wages above the low federal level of $5.15 an hour, and none of those states can be accused of being anti-growth.

During a recent visit to St. Joseph, I was struck by the different way in which the press there presented raising the minimum wage. In Sunday’s News-Press (Dec. 17), in an article entitled “Minimum wage hike works, conservatives can embrace Missouri’s new minimum wage law,” a Missouri Western economist, Reza Hamzaee, carefully considered each of the six most common objections to raising the minimum wage.

Economists, Hamzaee says, including conservative economists, recognize “that some markets (seemingly competitive) may fail to be efficient,” and that, when this happens, it is wise to favor “an active role for government’s correction of the corresponding market inefficiency.” That makes special sense, he says, in the wage market.

“Raising minimum wages” in particular, Hamzaee concludes, in a passage printed in large type, “would be just, ethical, fair and preventive policy action targeting reduction of the number of people trapped in poverty.” That also was the conclusion reached by Missouri voters, who passed a November statewide ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage. Over 1.5 million more people voted for this initiative than voted against it. I’m pretty sure they weren’t voting against growth.

Bob Bechtel,

Lawrence