July 24, 2007 11:46AM # The Media’s Snapshot View By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) --- SHARE [An AP story on the minimum wage](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/23/AR2007072301427.html) begins, all too typically: > The nation’s lowest-paid workers will soon find extra money in their pockets as the minimum wage rises 70 cents to $5.85 an hour today, the first increase in a decade. Some versions of the AP story, though not the ones that ran in the Washington Post and the New York Times, did acknowledge the possibility that some low-paid jobs might disappear. But most of the news stories this week focus more on criticism of the increase for being too low than on the[ consensus of economists](http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2006/11/on_raising_the.html) that minimum wage laws [reduce employment for low-skilled workers](http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Enc/MinimumWages.html). It’s enough to make you think Bryan Caplan’s right [about the irrationality of the political process.](http://timworstall.typepad.com/timworstall/2007/05/the_myth_of_the.html) But it’s really just an example of the tendency to look at market processes with a “[snapshot view](https://www.cato.org/dailys/07-17-99.html)” rather than a dynamic understanding of costs and consequences. On an unrelated note, [unions are outsourcing the arduous job of picket lines](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/23/AR2007072302011.html) to non-union workers. Apparently the carpenters and construction workers are too busy *working* in our booming economy to have time to picket non-union contractors. The picketers aren’t paid union wages, but they are paid above the minimum wage. ##### Related Tags [General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy), [Trade Policy](https://www.cato.org/trade-policy), [Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies](https://www.cato.org/herbert-stiefel-center-trade-policy-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).