Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Acton Line podcast: The reality of a $15 minimum wage; Should big tech be regulated?
Acton Line podcast: The reality of a $15 minimum wage; Should big tech be regulated?
Oct 28, 2026 4:47 AM

On July 18, the Raise the Wage Act passed the U.S House of Representatives, a bill that would double federal minimum wage by 2025. Members of Congress who support the bill believe it will increase pay for 27 million workers and lift over one million people out of poverty, but those opposed to the bill say it would cause millions more to lose their jobs. Dave Hebert, professor of economics at Aquinas College, joins the podcast to dispel some of the biggest misconceptions of raising federal minimum wage and what real effects the bill would have.

On the second segment, Glenn Harlan Reynolds, professor of law at the University of Tennessee and author of the new book, “The Social Media Upheaval,” joins the show to examine the benefits and drawbacks of social media. Glenn argues that social media and especially Twitter is increasingly “poisoning” journalism and politics. How can we reduce big tech censorship and the toll of social media while also respecting free speech?

Check out additional resources for this episode:

CBO projects $15 minimum wage would cost 1.3 million jobs

Raise the Wage Act will only raise more barriers for American workers

Here Are 6 Ways a New Report Devastates the $15 Minimum Wage

How the minimum wage affected workers during (and after) the Great Recession

Economists agree: Don’t raise the minimum wage to $15

I deleted my Twitter account. It’s a breeding ground for thoughtlessness and contempt.

Buy: The Social Media Upheaval

Glenn Harlan Reynolds Makes The Case For Trust-Busting Big Tech Companies

New to the Acton Line podcast? Subscribe here! We also mend starting with these episodes:

Mourning the Notre-Dame cathedral inferno; Rev. Robert Sirico on education

F.A. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom; The media vs. ‘Unplanned’

Rev. Robert A. Sirico on the reality of socialism; Interview with a Venezuelan dissident

Do you have feedback for the Acton Line podcast team? We want to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]. If you like Acton Line, don’t forget to leave a rating and review on iTunes!

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
A New Poverty Poll from Barna
There’s lots to digest and consider in a new Barna report on poverty: A new national survey by The Barna Group regarding people’s perspectives on poverty shows that Americans are quite concerned about what they perceive to be a significant and growing challenge facing the nation. The survey also showed that most people are actively involved in trying to alleviate poverty, although they typically believe it is primarily the government’s job to do so. The religious faith of adults appears...
The Abject Failure of the U.N.
The idealism and the goals of the United Nations are laudable. The results, at least in recent years, have often been nothing short of a disaster. One example will suffice—the recently created U.N.’s Human Rights Council, begun a year ago this past week. This council is sadly typical of the modern collapse of the U.N. The Human Rights Council consists of 47 members, almost half of which are "unfree" or "partly free" nations, at least as ranked by Freedom House....
More Audio from Acton University
This post will be updated and bumped as more audio es available. Newer audio appears at the bottom of the list. Economic Liberty in Catholic Social Teaching: Kishore JayabalanCompeting Visions of Business: Michael MillerSixteenth-Century Protestant Moral Theologians: Stephen GrabillCatholic Social Teaching: Basic Principles: Stephen Haessler NOTE: This is a re-post; the audio link from a previous post has been corrected.Poverty in the Developing World: Michael Miller NOTE: Due to a recording error, the end of this lecture is slightly truncated.Africa:...
Praying at the Pump
Do you consider gasoline to be a gift from God? You should. Andy Crouch, editorial director of the Christian Vision Project at Christianity Today, writes in a recent Books & Culture piece, “As our family sits together, eyes closed, we say grace. Today it’s Timothy’s turn. ‘God, thank you so much for all we have,’ he begins in what turns into a typically prolix nine-year-old’s prayer. Eventually he is done—’in Jesus’ name, Amen’—and I turn the key. We have just...
Green Consulting, Dogbert-style
Today’s Dilbert is a good one: “green” consulting, Dogbert-style. ...
Goodbye, World Bank?
As developing countries turn increasingly to private capital markets, the World Bank is facing not only a steep decline in demand for its loans but a crisis of relevancy. Sam Gregg looks at the changing market and how the rules of private lending might also provide a better check on corruption in the developing world. Adieu, World Bank? Read mentary here. ...
Immigration and Xenophobia
I’m reading David Schmidtz’s Elements of Justice, which is very ably reviewed (although not by me) in the ing issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality (10.1). I just read a striking passage, which discusses the merits of a principle of property rights that respects first possession rather than equal shares. An overlooked virtue of first possession: It lets us live together without having to view ers as a threat. If we were to regard ers as having a...
Medical Malpractice and Abortion
I thought this was an interesting bit at the intersection of morality and economics. An insurance brokerage firm, K&B Underwriters, is sponsoring a physicians’ survey designed to determine whether doctors who work within a “culture of life” framework (e.g., eschewing abortion) are less prone to malpractice suits than those who don’t. pany’s hypothesis is that pro-life physicians are indeed “safer” in this way, with the implication that pro-life medical practices could be one criterion taken into account when calculating malpractice...
Subsidies at Home, Suffering Abroad
In today’s NYT: “Oxfam Suggests Benefit in Africa if U.S. Cuts Cotton Subsidies.” “Eliminating billions of dollars in federal subsidies to American cotton growers each year would reduce American cotton production and exports, raise world prices by about 10 percent and modestly improve the es of millions of poor cotton farmers in Africa, according to a new study by Oxfam, the aid group.” About how many other industries could a similar thing be said? It’s also good to see that...
National Security and Global Warming
On today’s Diane Rehm Show, a panel of experts discussed the pending energy policy legislation in the US Congress. Karen Wayland, legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense Counsel talked about the need to join the concepts of national security and climate change when discussing energy policy (RealAudio). From her perspective, these two concerns are tied up together and shouldn’t be separated, in part because if you take energy independence and national security alone, you might think that reliance on...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved