Earlier this year, Governor Jerry Brown signed into a law a bill that will raise California’s minimum wage to $15/hr by 2022. I wrote here at the time expressing my concerns about the effectiveness of the policy as a poverty-fighting measure. But despite the considerable skepticism of many economists, minimum wage laws are still seen by many as a powerful tool for achieving greater social justice.

To explore these issues further, my newly created center at the University of San Diego – the Center for Ethics, Economics, and Public Policy – hosted a debate on California’s minimum wage law earlier this month. The debaters were Don Boudreaux of George Mason University Economics (and Cafe Hayek!) and Mike Konczal, Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can watch a video of the debate below.