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William Niskanen

For people who keep their jobs, they have higher wages, but they typically end up with lower benefits because the employers try to economize on having been required to pay higher wages by cutting the non-wage compensation of the people who stay employed. For the people who either can't stay employed or are not employed with a higher minimum wage - those are usually lower-level workers or new workers, new people in the labor force - in their case the unemployment rate is up. I can't find anything good to say about the higher minimum wage. It's an illusion to believe that we can significantly raise average wages by putting a minimum on them. But that's been the rational behind the minimum wage raise for a long period of time and it's just wrong.

Cato Institute Chairman Emeritus and Senior Economist, William Niskanen