Labor Day 2015 in Wisconsin

From the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, October 2014, in re: the $7.25/hour minimum wage.

The Department [of Workforce Development] has determined there is no reasonable cause to believe the wages paid to the complainants are not a living wage.

Refer to the letter for an explanation of the analytical basis for DWD’s conclusion. More discussion of this issue in this post.

Figure 1: Minimum wage in $/hour (blue) and in 2009$ (red). Deflation uses CPI-All.

Update: As Rick Stryker points out that the Wisconsin government, in its wisdom, relegated to oblivion after determining that $7.25 was a living wage. So that was the Wisconsin government’s last statement on the issue.

In any case, it’s straight out of the playbook — if you don’t like it, define it away so you don’t have to worry about it.