“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas


Monday, September 28, 2009

The federal minimum wage causes umemployment

Liberals like to call it a "living wage" but, all it does is cost young, entry-level workers to lose their jobs and perpetuate relative poverty among those who toil under it....

(NY Post) - The unemployment rate for young Americans has exploded to 52.2 percent -- a post-World War II high, according to the Labor Dept. -- meaning millions of Americans are staring at the likelihood that their lifetime earning potential will be diminished and, combined with the predicted slow economic recovery, their transition into productive members of society could be put on hold for an extended period of time.

And worse, without a clear economic recovery plan aimed at creating entry-level jobs, the odds of many of these young adults -- aged 16 to 24, excluding students -- getting a job and moving out of their parents' houses are long. Young workers have been among the hardest hit during the current recession -- in which a total of 9.5 million jobs have been lost.


There is a direct correlation between the level of unemployment of young people and the increasing of the federal minimum wage, as this graph clearly shows. Forcing employers to pay more for labor than that labor is worth means that some workers have to get laid off in order to keep the business profitable. And it deprives young people of skills and experience needed to move up the wage ladder.

Democrats love to rationalize increasing the minimum wage by pointing out that a family of four cannot live on that low of an income but, only a small percentage of people remain at the minimum wage 6 months after landing that job. Unless you are an addict or a moron, you learn new skills, demonstrate to your employer that you are worth more, and your wages go up from there.

Don't expect the MSM to link the unemployment rate among young people with the increasing of the federal minimum wage, they way they should.

3 comments:

Bill Lockhart said...

Yes and in addition the ever rising minimum wage is costing Americans jobs and shifting them to illegals who will work for far less than that. And I don't know if anyone else noticed, but it seems that there was a price jump at mass merchandisers (Walmart) about a month after the wage increased. So now the new "living wage" isn't so "living" is it?

Angie Lee said...

Bill's got a point there. Not only does it not help those who were supposedly being helped by that "living wage," it hurts the rest of us who don't get a corresponding increase in wages and reducing our buying power.

Seems I also read somewhere that that the wage controls FDR implemented during the Great Depression (forcing employers to pay more than the market would bear) led to the increased and prolonged unemployment of the period.

These morons just never learn. But they're all students of history, aren't they? Oh, wait.... they're all lawyers. My bad.

Ed said...

See, this is why I love my readers....you're observers of culture, students of history, and logical debaters. Good points all.