I have written before about how conservatives make rookie “mistakes” in economics when it serves their purposes. They claim that Reagan doubled revenues but “neglected” to take inflation into account; they claim Obama drove unemployment up to 10% but “forget” that unemployment is a lagging indicator; they claim minimum wage hikes caused job losses in 2008, but “overlook” the subprime mortgage crisis.

With the current minimum wage debate, conservatives are at it again. With willful ignorance, they make two glaring “mistakes” in their claims.

“Mistake” #1:

In 2013, Boehner said, “When you raise the price of employment, guess what happens? You get less of it.” This quote exhibits the exact same knowing ignorance behind the whole minimum wage issue: that increasing wages is an cost, and when cost goes up, consumption goes down.

The rookie “mistake”? That employees are a commodity. They’re not. They’re an investment. Saying that raising wages will make businesses hire less is like saying that when stock prices go up, people don’t buy as many.

When you raise wages, people leave the job less; turnover is reduced. Employees stay on longer, acquire more experience, have greater job satisfaction, and they become more skilled, more efficient, and more effective at their jobs. In short, their value rises. Employers recognize this, and give the employee greater responsibilities. End result: by investing, the employee becomes more valuable, thus returning on the investment and making it worthwhile to the employer.

“Mistake” #2:

Conservatives often claim that businesses will not be able to afford higher wages; a common retort they have is, “Where do you think that money comes from?” The answer is easy: where do you think the money goes?

If all minimum wage earners get a higher wage, that is a massive amount of money going into the economy. Minimum wage workers do not stash their money overseas like a rich person would; they buy goods and services here and now, because they need them. Where do they shop? They shop at the exact kind of business that pays their workers the minimum wage. So the money that pays minimum wage workers goes right back to the businesses paying minimum wage.

That’s where the money comes from.