On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 23:11:05 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:
snip
You can find anecdotal examples to support one side or the other. But
correlating it with inflation or employment generally doesn't work. The
numbers just don't provide clear support.

--
Ed Huntress
=============
for aggrigate (un)employment rate correlation with inflation
adjusted minimum wage for Jan 54 - Oct 2006 see
http://mcduffee-associates.us/PE/minwage&unemp.xls

in summary

N R R-Square Std.Error

normal 633 0.23 0.05 1.24
corrected 0.23 0.05== no statistically significant
.. correlation


Equation
95%
Coefficient Conf. (±) Std.Error T P

Constant 4.75 0.15 0.08 62.47 0
Prez 0.6 0.2 0.1 6.04 0
{control of White House binary coded, 1 = republicans, 0 =
democrat}

I'll gen-up the same analysis for percent inflation v
inflation adjusted minimum wage, and offset the data to
discover any lag/lead effects. Remember no correlation
means there is nothing to explain and any attempt to do so
is simply more hot air and baffle gas.


Unka George (George McDuffee)
...............................
The past is a foreign country;
they do things differently there.
L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author.
The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).