…One of the most tragic regulations ever imposed on black people in the United States in the 20th century was the federal minimum wage, which Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration introduced in 1938. Why tragic? Because a requirement that an employer pay a minimum wage makes it less likely that he will hire an unskilled or low-skilled worker in the first place. Remember that a minimum wage law does not guarantee a job. All it does is guarantee that if the employer offers a job, he is legally required to pay the minimum wage. To get the job, therefore, a potential employee must have enough skill to produce an output worth at least what the employer pays in wages, payroll taxes, and benefits.
…Economists often discuss the harmful effects of the minimum wage as an “unintended consequence.” In fact the effects were intended. Even as late as 1957, when U.S. Senators could get away with being openly racist, Senator John F. Kennedy (D-MA), at a hearing on the minimum wage, argued for increasing the minimum wage to protect white workers in the North from competition with black workers in the South.
-David Henderson (Black Livelihoods Matter)
(H/T: Cafe Hayek)
