From Catholic Exchange comes an editorial by one Father Gerald Zandstra, entitled Minimum Wage and Common Sense. And that’s exactly what you’ll find in the article. Common Sense. While so many lay and clergy have trumpeted the need for an increase in the minimum wage because the “working poor” need more money, the good Father first of all dismantles the term “working poor” and then broaches the subject so few are willing to, the concept of “elastic effect.”

…when the government puts in place a certain public policy, there is always some response that comes from the marketplace. In public policy circles, this is called the elastic effect. For instance, increasing the entrance fee to a public park by 5 percent would lead us to conclude, on the basis of logic, that the park would take in 5 percent more income than it did last year. But, in fact, this is not necessarily the case because increasing the cost may cause 10 percent fewer people to visit the park, resulting instead in a net reduction in revenue.