Remember that the real minimum wage is always zero, because that’s the wage that hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of workers will receive following an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour, because they will either lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force. (See Congressional Budget Office report for data.) That’s a very cruel public policy, and I and many economists reject that form of cruelty as a progressive “scam” — and it’s a “scam” that would inflict the most harm on the most vulnerable among us.
The most disadvantaged Americans don’t need the alleged compassion of minimum wage advocates as much as they need entry-level jobs. And to maximize entry-level jobs, economic science tells us that we should allow market forces, not government bureaucrats and politicians, to determine wages in the labor market.
-Prof. Mark Perry (economist, writer, blogger)
(H/T: Cafe Hayek)
