We don’t think the government ought to be in the business of setting wages.
Minimum wage increases that even approach an average livable wage would result in significantly fewer jobs for low-wage workers. A substantial increase in the relative cost of labor will result in a reduction in the amount of labor used…
The problem is raising the minimum wage actually hurts, not helps, low-income workers. Minimum wage laws make it illegal to have a job that pays below the government mandated limit. If that wage is more than a job provider will pay for a certain job, then no worker can get—or keep—that job.
Minimum wage laws may very well be the most anti-poor laws envisioned by modern government policymakers.
Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour are hard to resist. Fortunately, such families don't really exist.
This is an unemployment act that hurts minority youth, and that is a shame.
I understand it is called a minimum wage bill, but in fact it is a layoff bill….Kids will lose their jobs, minorities will lose their jobs, senior citizens will lose their jobs. In small towns, in center cities, marginal businesses will be devastated.
When we pass minimum wage legislation it says one thing, Mr. Speaker: It says to the young black in the inner city, it says to the handicapped individual, it says to the young person looking for a first time job, unless you can meet a minimum standard, we will pass a law that says it is a violation of the Federal statute to hire such a person. Mr. Speaker, we can calculate to a certainty the number of people that we will unemploy by raising the minimum wage to various levels. At $4.50, at $5, at $6, hundreds of thousands of people are denied access to the job market. Minimum wage laws create unemployment. That is a mean, vicious thing to do.
Youth unemployment is three times the overall unemployment rate, and for minority youth it is much, much higher. Let us not make the problem worse by enacting a minimum wage which denies young people jobs.
We say we're trying to help the working poor while we actually will be helping young part-time workers. There is one thing, however, upon which there is agreement. Economists from all persuasions agree that increasing the minimum wage will mean lost jobs and it will mean inflation.
