Guess the newspaper. Right, the New York Times. The date, Jan 14, 1987. Here’s an excerpt from the NYT editorial…
“The Right Minimum Wage: $0.00.” So read an editorial headline in one of the most respected newspapers in America. The editorial stated: “There’s a virtual consensus among economists that the minimum wage is an idea whose time has passed. Raising the minimum wage by a substantial amount would price working poor people out of the job market.”
Here’s one of many points in the Aug 1st WSJ commentary (registration/subscription required) by David Henderson a research fellow at the Hoover Institution…
The reason goes back to the second sentence quoted in the above Times editorial. In raising the minimum wage, the government doesn’t guarantee jobs. It guarantees only that those who get jobs will be paid at least that minimum. But precisely by requiring this, the government destroys jobs. Someone to whom an employer was willing to pay only the current minimum wage of $5.15 might not produce enough to be worth paying, say, $7.25.
Repeat after me, “the government doesn’t guarantee jobs”. Perhaps when the USA becomes the US of France we might guarantee jobs. Oh wait, what’s the unemployment rate in France… maybe double the US rate?
