If you want young people to be unemployed then you have a minimum wage and you increase it. This is why youth jobless rates in the Western world are so high, including in the United States, which is 14 percent (government figures). The minimum wage is compulsory unemployment, and even more so for young people.
Think this is just libertarian rhetoric? According to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the minimum wage is partially to blame for one in six young men.
The non-partisan budgetary arm of the federal government cited minimum wage as well as education, laws and mass incarceration as reasons for high youth unemployment rates.
“Higher minimum wages may also have increased joblessness among young men,” the report stated. “The federal minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, has not consistently risen since 1980, but there has been an increase in the number of state and local minimum-wage laws in recent years.”
More states are adopting a $15 minimum wage after unions (who are working to be exempt from the $15 minimum wage), activists, students and politicians rallied in favor of raising it. Even though many public officials have admitted that it doesn’t make economic sense, state governments have decided to adopt a $15 wage.
Jurisdictions that have passed legislation to gradually install a $15 minimum wage have already seen negative results. One of these jurisdictions is Seattle (SEE: Seattle’s minimum wage hike leads to job losses).
Last week, President Obama urged Congress to increase the federal minimum wage after an abysmal jobs report that was the weakest in seven months.
The minimum wage hurts the poor, the uneducated, the unskilled, the inexperienced and youth.
Here is Milton Friedman on the minimum wage:
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