Six years after the beginning of the Fight for $15 movement, conventional wisdom is finally waking up to economic reality. How do we know? Because the New York Times recently published an editorial titled ‘Let’s Talk About Higher Wages’ calling on the incoming Biden administration to focus on higher wages for everyone. They couldn’t be more right on. Binyamin Appelbaum, the lead writer on business and economics for the Editorial Board, helps us understand the change in consensus on wages.

Binyamin Appelbaum is the lead writer on business and economics for the Editorial Board of The New York Times. From 2010 to 2019, he was a Washington correspondent for the Times, covering economic policy. His book, ‘The Economists’ Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society’ is a Wall Street Journal Business Bestseller. 

Twitter: @BCAppelbaum

Nick on Marketplace: https://www.marketplace.org/2020/12/08/new-rand-study-quantifies-cost-of-rising-us-inequality/

Binyamin has been a guest on our show before! Here’s our episode with him and George Monbiot, ‘How neoliberalism happened’, from October 2019: https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/how-neoliberalism-happened-with-george-monbiot-and-binyamin-appelbaum/

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Further reading/listening: 

Let’s talk about higher wages: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/28/opinion/wages-economic-growth.html 

Do higher wages kill jobs? (with Mayor Eric Garcetti and Alan Krueger): https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/do-higher-wages-kill-jobs/ 

The top 1% of Americans have taken $50 trillion from the bottom 90% - and that’s made the U.S. less secure: https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/ 

And as promised by Annie and Ashley, you can find the last 100+ years of New York Times Editorial Board pieces on the minimum wage here: https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/why-conventional-wisdom-is-finally-pushing-for-higher-wages-with-binyamin-appelbaum

Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/

Twitter: @PitchforkEcon

Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics

Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer