https://RationalAmerica.com/tags/labor-economics/Recent content in Labor-Economics on Rational AmericaHugoen-usSat, 05 Sep 2026 09:00:00 -0400https://RationalAmerica.com/posts/stop-panicking-about-automation--start-building-a/Sat, 05 Sep 2026 09:00:00 -0400https://RationalAmerica.com/posts/stop-panicking-about-automation--start-building-a/<p>You haven’t finished your first coffee. The Slack chime rings and your manager drops another link into #company-updates. The title this time? <em>“AI Just Ate Another White‑Collar Career.”</em></p> <p>It isn’t that the piece is completely wrong. Not entirely. Still, the daily flood of robot‑doom columns creates something most people mistake for insight: a constant, low‑grade panic that freezes your ability to think clearly.</p> <p>Let’s unpack that panic for a second. Because if automation is genuinely reshaping the labor market — and it is — then panic is the one response you cannot afford.</p>https://RationalAmerica.com/posts/the-brutal-truth-about-minimum-wage-hikes/Wed, 02 Sep 2026 09:00:00 -0400https://RationalAmerica.com/posts/the-brutal-truth-about-minimum-wage-hikes/<p>Does raising the minimum wage destroy jobs? And if not, why have we spent forty years being told it does?</p> <p>Walk into any intro economics class and you&rsquo;ll see the same clean, whiteboard diagram. Draw a supply curve. Draw a demand curve. Slap a price floor on top and watch the surplus pile up like unclaimed luggage. In that textbook world, a minimum wage increase is basically a machine gun aimed at low-wage employment. Small businesses shutter. Teenagers lose their first gigs. Fast-food restaurants quietly replace cashiers with kiosks.</p>