Why not the highest?

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (here behind the Journal’s dreaded subscription paywall) and today’s New York Times (here) bring glad tidings from the left’s war on income inequality. The Journal gets right to the nub of the story:

ZURICH–On May 18, the Alpine nation will vote on an initiative to introduce a minimum wage of 22 Swiss francs ($25) an hour, a level that would be the highest in the world. If passed, the Swiss initiative would cover full- and part-time employees, including young people working at restaurants and fast-food chains.

What an inspiration! Let’s challenge leading Democrats to keep up and target this great remedy to the cities where they rule the roost.

The proposition that the minimum wage kills entry level jobs for low-skilled workers is nothing more than a rumor spread by economists of the green-eyeshade persuasion and by Daddy Warbucks conservatives exploiting the downtrodden. The rumor was disproved long ago by the famous cold-call telephone survey of New Jersey area fast-food outlets touted by Alan Blinder in the Clinton era.

The science is settled, sort of; the debate is over. Why let the Swiss lead the way?

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