He was 81. When Blackman ran the football program at Cornell's summer sports institute, I was his coach of kickers. My older son was playing as a split end. His is a tantalizing strategy, sparing everyone except the taxpayers, and may be sound economics, but it can't be reconciled with basic American values. This plan lets the wage floor remain so low that families will need tax subsidies even though everyone works and some hold several part-time jobs.
Business hires people because it needs the services they perform.
Their wages, such as they are, are rolled into price and eventually paid by consumers. It gives low wage workers the satisfaction of bringing home a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. And unlike a remedy relying on tax credits, it avoids the dispiriting impact of the welfare system. When I was last in Seoul it was a bombed-out, flattened war zone. The city had changed sides at least three times and there was little left.