[IbJensen]

Dr. Williams has a way with words that leaves no doubt as to where he stands!

[ontap]

This does not just happen in Samoa....where did all the textile jobs go!!

[exit82]

Well, the island now has Samoa welfare clients.

[CIB-173RDABN]

When I was young and you drove into a gas station it was full service. The attendant filled my tank, checked my oil, checked air in my tires and washed my windshield all for around 25 cents a gallon or $2.50 for a fill up. Why when gas is so expensive today it is all self service.

When I was young, you could still find elevators with operators, businesses had receptionist that greeted people and took messages and the a lot of secretaries, where did all those jobs go?

If I gave it some thoughts I could think of dozens of jobs that required little skill but did provide work and a wage that are now history.

When I was young minimum wage was $2 an hour. I am not sure I was even worth that, but I only stayed with minimum wage until I learned enough to become more valuable. Within a year I was earning $6 an hour.

Minimum wages remove a lot of entry level jobs from our economy. It also encourages the development of automatic systems and self service.

Wages should be a matter between the employer and employee not the government.

Of course the welfare system distorts the labor market as well, why work when the government will take care of you?

It is a viscious circle, sort of like water going down a drain. It is not substainable and in the end will collaspe.

[econjack]

Dr. Williams is absolutely correct. Minimum wage laws were supposed to help unskilled workers earn a living wage...at least that's the liberal sales talk fluff. Actually, the unemployment effects more seriously impacts exactly the group it's supposed to help...young, unskilled, often minority workers. If raising the minimum wage to $7.25/hr is good, according to their logic, then raising it to $500/hr would be fantastic! After all, all those low-wage people would now be millionaires. Of course, there's a minor hiccup in that logic...unskilled workers don't have a marginal revenue product that can support that wage.

The fact is, when the gov’t raises the minimum wage, it forces the employer into a true dilemma: he has two choices, both bad. He has to raise prices to cover the increased costs, or he has to reduce his labor costs. The second choice is the usual option since minimum wage jobs tend to be in highly-competitive industries and raising prices is very difficult. And it is the young, unskilled, often minority worker who gets laid off.

Liberals never learn...

[JimRed]

Unintended consequences, or fully intended to make more folks government dependents? < /rhetorical >

Look fo this in a city near you!

[olezip]

Tragically, minimum wages have the unquestioned support of good-hearted, well-meaning people with little understanding who become the useful idiots of charlatans, quacks and racists.

So true. When you try to point this out to socialist Democrats they give you a dumb stare or some kind of psycho-babble. The Democrats do not understand Economics 101, or they choose not to, so they can stay with the leaders of their evil party.