Posted on 09/16/2013 4:56:49 PM PDT by jazusamo
A survey of American economists found that 90 percent of them regarded minimum wage laws as increasing the rate of unemployment among low-skilled workers. Inexperience is often the problem. Only about 2 percent of Americans over the age of 24 earned the minimum wage.
Advocates of minimum wage laws usually base their support of such laws on their estimate of how much a worker "needs" in order to have "a living wage" — or on some other criterion that pays little or no attention to the worker's skill level, experience or general productivity. So it is hardly surprising that minimum wage laws set wages that price many a young worker out of a job.
What is surprising is that, despite an accumulation of evidence over the years of the devastating effects of minimum wage laws on black teenage unemployment rates, members of the Congressional Black Caucus continue to vote for such laws.
Once, years ago, during a confidential discussion with a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, I asked how they could possibly vote for minimum wage laws.
The answer I got was that members of the Black Caucus were part of a political coalition and, as such, they were expected to vote for things that other members of that coalition wanted, such as minimum wage laws, in order that other members of the coalition would vote for things that the Black Caucus wanted.
When I asked what could the black members of Congress possibly get in return for supporting minimum wage laws that would be worth sacrificing whole generations of young blacks to huge rates of unemployment, the discussion quickly ended. I may have been vehement when I asked that question.
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
Thomas Sowell is being way too generous. The effects of minimum-wage policies and welfare policies have been largely in line with what reasonable economically-literate people should have expected. To refer to them as "well-meaning" would require that one accept either that all of the people who put them forth were economically illiterate, or that the effects they have had are desirable. I'm sure many Democratic politicians regard the effects as desirable, but I wouldn't expect Thomas Sowell to do so, nor do I accept that the Democratic leadership isn't aware of exactly what the effects of such programs are or how they will benefit from them.
Not sure but I believe there may be some sarcasm on Dr. Sowell’s part there.
Ahhh, that is why I love Dr. Sowell!
Bump:)
Union campaign cash, of course, since so many union contracts have built-in raises tied to the minimum wage.
For the CBC, it's always: "I got mine - let them get their own." :)
Then the person wants you to double their wages so he or she can live off the job. What do you do? Well, for one thing, you probably let the person go. Liberals are too stupid to understand elementary economics.
Bump.....
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Dr. Sowell applied the icing very well to that cake.
Why not raise the minimum wage to a hundred million dollars an hour. Then we would all be rich!
/sarc
We went through the 1980s, and this massive creation of food service and regular service type jobs. I can remember going through my home town (20,000 residents) in 1980, and there were barely fifteen restaurants in existence. Today, there’s a minimum of forty places to eat in town. All with minimum wage labor.
No one ever discussed the long-term implications of this growth of food service jobs or where’d it lead to. There was a general understanding that you ought to start there, and eventually leave....getting an education or better jobs down the road. What I generally see....people making the food service low-income jobs a permanent fixture. It doesn’t make sense, unless you are the shift-manager or franchise-manager.
On the whole....the economy improved because of these jobs being created. But now? I think you have a long-term Frankenstein-monster sitting there. The gradual trend will be increased pay...and society will sit and question the idea of a $12 McDonalds meal. Thats reality in 2013.
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