I love Walter Williams, but this article sounds as if it was written by a high school sophomore.
To me it sounds as if it was written by someone who is able to discuss complex economics in laymen's terms so it's easy to understand.
The minimum wage is a horrible thing on so many levels. It contributes to the illegal alien problem. It contributes to teen unemployment, and there's no telling how much it has done to weaken strong commerce and American ingenuity. A bright young teen or a person not suited for college but pretty smart who gets paid a fair market wage rather than having no job at all, discovers that as he works harder, he becomes more valuable to his employer, who is willing to pay him more for his value.
It's WORK ETHIC and self-determination in action. Minimum wage stifles it in its infancy. If entrepreneurs were able to pay their employees a market value instead of a false floor "minimum," they'd be a gazillion times more productive. If kids or unskilled folks who were driven, smart, and productive could find jobs worthy of their skills and learning curve where their employers would benefit as well as themselves, we would all thrive and prosper. The minimum wage stifles it harshly by stealing the reward.
The minimum wage is a stellar example of a road to hell paved with good intentions.
I’m bored by many of Williams’ articles because I know this stuff. An unspeakable percentage of the voting population doesn’t know, and has to be told it in words of one syllable, with plenty of repeats and “Did you understand that, honeys.”
Oh, I love Williams and Sowell because they
not only “think beyond stage one”,
they think beyond stage 2,3,4, and 5,
and then make that those later stage consequences
easy for everyone to see as well.
Who read it out loud to you? Maybe they are the problem.