“The minimum-wage law has imposed incalculable harm on the most disadvantaged members of our society. The absence of work opportunities for many black youngsters does not only mean an absence of pocket money.”
Related: Kroger Tests 100% Self-Check Out Store Ahead of Threatened Minimum Wage Hike
Early work opportunities provide much more than that: important insights on how to find a job and to adopt proper attitudes toward both, punctuality, and respect for supervision in the workplace. Lessons of that sort learned on any job help make a young person a more valuable and successful worker in the future.
In addition, early work experiences give youngsters the pride and self-respect that come from being financially semi-independent. That is even more important for black youngsters, a disproportionate number of whom grow up in female-headed households and to the nation’s worst schools. If they are to learn job-related lessons, many of them will be learned through a job.
-Prof Walter Williams (Race & Economics)
(H/T: Cafe Hayek)
