Dr. Benjamin Powell From Texas Tech Free Market Instiutute Shares Thoughts On Topics From State Of The Union Address [AUDIO]

On the Wednesday edition of The Chad Hasty Shoe, Dr. Benjamin Powell from the Texas Tech Free Market Institute talked with Chad Hasty about some of the topics President Obama brought up in last night's State of the Union address.

A few of the topics brought up during Tuesday's address was upward mobility, income inequality and the minimum wage. Powell pointed out that people move through income groups all the time throughout their lives, and that in order to really see the income inequality issue, you have to look at the big picture and not just upward mobility. He added that the real problem with poverty have more to do with bad policies and poor education as opposed to a low minimum wage.

Powell also stated that a minimum wage increase would definitely not help the mobility problem and that the government cannot legislate people into being wealthy.

"We can't legislate prosperity. So all you can do with the minimum wage is outlaw potential gains and trades for people. There are some people who, unfortunately, their productivity is less that $10.10 an hour, particularly young people and minority youths. Those are actually the heard est hit by this, which is no accident why we see youth unemployment rates higher than everybody else. And when we legislate this, it just means that nobody is willing to hire them. Instead, they replace them with more expensive, more productive workers or machinery and they don't renew people as jobs turn over."

Powell also shared his thoughts on "MyRA," a retirement savings account Obama introduced during the address that would be backed by the government and promised "high reward and low risk." Powell seemed very skeptical about the idea and joked that he'd sooner "take his money and run" before trusting his savings to the government.

For more information on the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech, visit their website at depts.ttu.edu/freemarketinstitute or visit them on Facebook.

Listen to the full interview with Dr. Benjamin Powell here: