24
Apr
2018
Maybe Piketty Will Fix His Basic Facts in the Third Edition
For the context here, Piketty’s bestseller totally botched the history of the US minimum wage in the post-1980 era, in a way that conveniently praised Democrats and excoriated Republicans. (Phil Magness and I documented it in our paper, but Veronique de Rugy–I think?–was the first person who flagged this one.)
Anyway, someone sent me screenshots of the new edition, and…he fixed some of the mistakes but not all, just in this one section.
I agree, Piketty’s text is deceptive, gives the impression that dose wascally wepublicans won’t waise da wage.
There’s a much better graph on Wikipedia. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:History_of_US_federal_minimum_wage_increases.svg
But remember, people mostly just buy this book to confirm their existing prejudice. Your typical Piketty reader isn’t going to freak out over details.