Read Between Lines of Minimum-Wage Issue

In “A Federal Pay Hike the Public Supports� (May 7), the graph included inaccurately shows the rise in the minimum wage from 1938-91. The chart is misleading for several reasons.

First of all, it fails to adjust for inflation. If you take into consideration the decreased buying power of the dollar over time, the minimum wage is now tied with 1989 for the lowest value since 1955.

Secondly, the last year charted is 1991. Even without adjusting for inflation, the minimum wage has remained the same for the last five years.

Furthermore, the chart deletes the years when the minimum wage declined or stayed constant. This “sleight of hand� creates the illusion of a steady climb when in fact one did not exist. This omission makes your title for the chart “Steady Climb� even more inaccurate.

JOHN SLADKUS

Policy analyst

California Budget Project

Sacramento

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At first glance, there appears to be a slow growth of the minimum wage through the mid-’40s followed by a very steady climb until the early ‘80s; then there is a marked increase in the slope of the curve until the last data point at 1991. The immediate message is one of a recent excess in rise of the minimum wage.

It was not until closer inspection that I saw the radical departure from linearity of the time axis. While for some grid points the time difference is one year (such as between 1974 and 1975), for others it is as much as nine years (between 1981 and 1990).

A cursory glance gives exactly the wrong impression.

During the 10 years from 1981 to 1991, the minimum wage has changed very little compared to past increases (29% versus 63% for the period between 1968 and 1978). Furthermore, since we are now in 1996, the graph should have shown an absence of increase over the last five years. As the time axis in this graph varies in its meaning, the only information a short glance provides is that the minimum wage has increased in the past, something we already knew.

Another difficulty with this data presentation is that it provides no simple insight. We naively expect exponential increases in economic trends shown in dollars over time. This is the simple result of compound growth at a fixed rate. By re-plotting your data and also the 1996 wage on semi-logarithmic axes, I can immediately tell that the minimum wage has increased at an effective rate of about 5% since its inception, a very respectable allowance for cost of living. But, contrary to the message of the original plot, it is clear that there has been very little increase in the minimum wage over the last 15 years relative to previous trends.

DANIEL L. RUDERMAN

Pasadena