Democrats Eat the Young: Minimum Wage Case in Point

One of the popular political idiocies of our day is the idea that minimum wage laws accomplish something good.  Apparently, many people think that if the minimum wage is raised, then workers with minimal skills or unproven skills will simply be paid more money.  The idea is that employers, who are imagined to have more money than the low skilled workers they might hire, will be happy to transfer some of their wealth to such a low skilled worker because of a government mandate on minimal pay.  Actually, it is apparent if you put yourself in the shoes of the struggling small business owner who hires most people that this will mean that riskier bets that someone is productive enough to justify the higher wage will never be given a job offer.  It is also apparent that if someone is given a chance, they will be fired very quickly if they prove unable to quickly become sufficiently productive. 

The sad thing is that most people making minimum wages are essentially in training so that they can become more productive and justify being paid a higher wage.  When the minimum wage is increased by law, fewer workers are accepted for training.  This is not rocket science.  This is really easy to figure out.  You pretty much have to be a Democrat and a Progressive to be so dense that you cannot figure this out.  Hmm... or is it that even they can figure it out, but they shut their eyes to the evil they do because they are so beholden to the labor union leaders?

The primary unskilled or risky group seeking jobs is teenagers.  So it is reasonable to expect that there will be a strong relationship between teenage unemployment and the minimum wage.  There is:

This plot comes from an article in the Wall Street Journal of 5 March 2010.  The blog CARPE DIEM presents the WSJ comments and discusses the issue further in an intelligent evaluation.

One of the interesting things this plots shows is that while the while each increase in the minimum wage results in an increase in teenage unemployment, that increase does not always shoot up instantaneously with the increase.  The rate of rise in the teenage unemployment rate does go up faster as the wage increase becomes greater relative to the average teenager's productivity.  The first wage increase was followed a bit slowly by the teenage unemployment rate.  Why would this be?  I expect it is because the teenagers already being paid the prior minimum wage amount in your employ have already acquired much of the skill or proven themselves sufficiently that they have already acquired most or all of the skills needed to be productive enough at the new wage level.  Rather than let them go, you will simply be more reluctant to hire the next trainee.  This means that the unemployment rate does not necessarily shoot up immediately.  But, our most recent minimum wage increase to $7.25 per hour does appear to have an immediate response in teenage unemployment.  This many be due the fact that very few teenage workers are productive enough to justify the $7.25/hour wage.  More actual firings took place at this compensation level.  This third increase in only a few years was to a level far too high for many teenage working neophytes to match with their productivity.

Minimum Wage Increase Killed Teenagers Jobs

Over and over, I have railed against the unending game that the Democrats play of being the champion of those with little power and then brutally crushing them.  One of the sacrosanct assertions of the Democrat party is that minimum wage laws raise the standard of living of the poor.  This is nonsense and good economists have long understood this.  What is understood is this:  The minimum wage causes jobs to be taken off the market which would otherwise be held by the very young, the least intelligent adults, and some of the handicapped.  Nonetheless, the Democrats continually fight for increases in the minimum wage while pretending to be the champions of the underdog.  This is disgraceful and disgusting.  All of their many underdog constituents are being played for fools.


A new article in the Wall Street Journal discusses the fate of American teenagers since the last minimum wage increase in July.  The minimum wage was increased by $0.75 to $7.25, this being the last of three increases the Democrats passed into law.  The first increase occurred in July 2007 and there are 691,000 fewer teens working now than prior to that increase. The immediate result of the most recent increase in July was an increase in teenage unemployment from 23.8% to 25.9% in September.  In these two months, 330,000 teenager jobs disappeared.  Black male teen unemployment went up from 39.2% in July to 50.4% in September.  Of course, American blacks especially love the Democrat party.  Go figure.


Ten states have enacted minimum wages higher than those of the federal government.  California, Massachusetts, Michigan, and New York have among the highest state minimum wages.  Studies in each showed that the increased minimum wage decreased jobs for teenagers.  There were one-third fewer teenage workers in Massachusetts in 2008 than in 1995 as a result of that state's minimum wage laws.

In 2008, only 1.1% of Americans working 40 hours a week or more were paid the minimum wage.  Teenagers are 5 times more likely to earn the minimum wage than adults.  Minimum wage jobs are usually part-time or first-time jobs.  About 2 of every 3 minimum wage earners gets a pay increase within the first year in the job.  A Stanford study found that teenagers who had jobs earned more and were more likely to be working 10 years later.  It is important for teenagers to acquire on-the-job skills and to develop an effective work ethic.   The minimum wage laws that prevent this are brutally harsh and should be repealed.  A second best idea would be to create a special lower minimum wage for teenagers.