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"Living wage" kills jobs, by Thomas Sowell, 5 Nov 2003
"The latest verbal coup of the left is the phrase 'a living wage.' Who is so hard-hearted or mean-spirited that they do not want people to be able to make enough money to live on? Unfortunately, the effort and talent that the left puts into coining great phrases is seldom put into facts or analysis." |
Diversity, Yes; Force, No, by Christopher Westley, Mises.org Daily Article, 18 Dec 2006
"Prior to the first federal minimum wage bill passed on the 1930s, there was virtually no difference between black and white teenage (i.e., unskilled) unemployment ... After the minimum age bill is passed, however, we see an increase in black teenage unemployment relative to whites, since ... employers ... no longer incur a market penalty for allowing racism to dictate their market decisions." |
Does Business Need Washington To Manage Wages?, by Robert P. Murphy, Mises.org Daily Article, 15 Jan 2006
"Remember that the consumer can always choose to forgo a product or service altogether, or to produce it outside of the market. If the government hiked the minimum wage to, say, $50 per hour, this would annihilate the child care industry, as plenty of working parents would elect to stay home with the kids." |
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Minimum Wage Rates, by Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, 1949
Chapter 30, Section 3 |
Minimum Wage, Maximum Folly, by Walter E. Williams, 18 May 1999
"The fact of business is that no Congressman or Senator owes his seat to the teenage vote, but many do owe their seats to the union vote and other interests who benefit from higher minimum wages. ... If unions can make part of the labor market less competitive through minimum wages, they can demand higher wages for their members." |
Minimum Wage, Maximum Intervention, Part 1, by Laurence M. Vance, Freedom Daily, Nov 2005
"There was no federal minimum wage in the United States until 1938. ... in Adkins v. Children's Hospital (1923), the Supreme Court ruled that a minimum-wage law ... was 'an unconstitutional interference with the freedom of contract included within the guaranties of the Due Process clause of the Fifth Amendment.'" |
Minimum Wage, Maximum Intervention, Part 2, by Laurence M. Vance, Freedom Daily, Dec 2005
"... raising the minimum wage has everything to do with politics and nothing to do with economics. ... those who are looking for an entry-level job ... are happy to see any increase ... And so are the politicians in Congress, who are trying to pick up votes while they pander to the numerous 'anti-poverty' special-interest groups." |
Minimum wage, Maximum folly, by Walter E. Williams, 23 Mar 2005
"The idea that minimum wage legislation is an anti-poverty tool is simply sheer nonsense. Were it an anti-poverty weapon, we might save loads of foreign aid expenditures simply by advising legislators in the world's poorest countries, such as Haiti, Bangladesh and Ethiopia, to legislate higher minimum wages." |
Mythology of the Minimum Wage, by DW MacKenzie, Mises.org Daily Article, 3 May 2006
"The economic case against minimum wage laws is simple. Employers pay a wage no higher than the value of an additional hour's work. Raising minimum wages forces employers to dismiss low productivity workers. This policy has the largest affect on those with the least education, job experience, and maturity." |
Professor Stiglitz and the Minimum Wage, by Vedran Vuk, Mises.org Daily Article, 4 Sep 2006
"... Stiglitz's original comment stands. Unemployment is the problem, not wages. If unemployment is the real problem why would he lend is his support to a policy that will only increase it? Minimum wage is a great political tool for politicians. The minimum wage promises that wages will go up without any negative effects. To the common person, this seems like a great idea." |
Sense and Nonsense on the Minimum Wage, by Donald Deere, Kevin M. Murphy, and Finis Welch, Regulation, 1995
"The reduction in employment that results from increases in the minimum wage, which is concentrated among those workers with the fewest skills, is the cruel 'dark side' of such legislation. ... It is not that there are too many low-wage jobs, but that there are not enough jobs for low-wage workers; and minimum wages make things worse." |
The Bridge of Asses, by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., Mises.org Daily Article, 2 Oct 2003
"... the minimum wage is a violent imposition on the freedom of association that harms all of society in the long run. ... If we care about reducing unemployment and retaining the conditions for future prosperity, we had better not make the mistake of increasing it. If Congress had any economic sense, it would repeal all these laws forthwith." |
The Living Wage Folly, by Charles W. Baird, The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, Jun 2002
"... researchers have pointed out a unique harm done by LWOs. ... High school dropouts learn that in wage determination, politics trumps education and training, and the more productive learn that their training and education provide fewer advantages ... younger people still in school will have less of an incentive to stay there. " |
The Minimum Wage: Washingtons Perennial Myth, by Matthew B. Kibbe, 23 May 1988
"... if the government coercively raises the price of some good (such as labor) above its market value, the demand for that good will fall, and some of the supply will become 'disemployed.' Unfortunately, in the case of minimum wages, the disemployed goods are human beings." |
The Miraculous Minimum Wage, by James Ostrowski, 1 Sep 2000
"... let's raise the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour ... We deal with that by passing a maximum price law ... pass a law making it illegal to fire anyone because of a minimum wage law increase ... put some words on legislative paper to the effect that any employer who goes out of business because of the minimum wage law is guilty of a felony ..." |
Unemployment by Legal Decree, by Bettina Bien, The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, Aug 1956
"If a minimum wage rate is set higher than the market rate, it hurts the very persons it is designed to help—the lowest producers, and hence the lowest earners. The first to be fired, when a new minimum wage rate is set, are those who cannot contribute enough to the market to cover the cost of their wage. " |
When More Is Less, by Alan Reynolds, 25 Jul 2004
"Cutting off the lowest rung on the ladder of opportunity may please some members of labor organizations who are much higher on the ladder, because it reduces future competition for better jobs. But to attributing compassion to an increased minimum wage is the opposite of its most obvious effect." |
Milton Friedman RIP, by Walter Block, Mises.org Daily Article, 16 Nov 2006
Related Topics: Milton Friedman, War on Drugs
"... with the Democrats recently seizing more power, and promising to impose wage levels on those who can least afford them, the unskilled poor, and with hundreds of economists signing a petition in support of this truly vicious and pernicious legislation, Milton's valiant, witty, wise, eloquent and ... inspirational analysis on this issue must stand out as an example to us all." |
The Political Hoax Exposed, by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., Mises.org Daily Article, 10 Sep 2006
Related Topics: Politics, Alabama
"Once you strip away the rhetoric, a minimum wage law simply outlaws work below some state-mandated wage floor. Furthermore, a business that hires a person who is less productive than the minimum can be fined and shut down, and a worker who dares price his services too low will be forced to stop. ... Now, ask yourself: how can poor working people be made better off by laws that restrict their options?" |
| Cartoons |
| Compassionate Politicians Helping the Poor, by Chuck Asay, Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, 13 Nov 2006 |
| The Cost of Gov't. "Compassion", by Chuck Asay, Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, 4 Jan 2007 |
| Books |
Minimum Wage, Maximum Damage: How the Minimum Wage Law Destroys Jobs, Perpetuates Poverty, and Erodes Freedom, by Jim Cox, May 2004
Offered by the Advocates for Self-Government |
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