A minimum wage is a law that makes it illegal for two people to agree on a labor contract the government disapproves of. It violates the rights of the worker and the employer. Both would voluntarily sign a mutually beneficial contract but the government gets in the way.
President of Americans For Tax Reform, Grover Norquist
Minimum wages were used in South Africa to keep less well trained black workers from competing with white labor in the mines. It plays the same role in keeping young and untrained teenagers out of the workplace in the United States.
A minimum wage requirement always impacts an economy horrifically. A minimum wage doesn’t work and always increases unemployment. It's just basic common sense that the minute you tell people that they have to pay more for labor, they're going to buy fewer units. If the price is raised on gasoline, people tend to buy less gasoline, if the price is raised on cereal, less cereal will be sold and if the price of labor is raised, people tend to buy less labor.
Syndicated columnist and author, Ben Shapiro
a minimum wage, in some ways helps the guys who are already employed, but hurts the guys who are looking for a job.
Author, Commentator and President of The King's College, Dinesh D'Souza
A minimum wage requirement increases unemployment because it simply means that people whose employment value isn’t worth the minimum wage won’t be employed. If a certain job isn’t worth the going minimum wage rate, then an established business simply won’t hire somebody to work. Unfortunately, those who most need low paying, low skilled jobs and are able and willing to work for less than the minimum wage - the young, uneducated and poor - are those who suffer the most.
President of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, Star Parker
A minimum wage law hurts the poorest and least skilled the most because its deprives them of employment opportunities.
Economist, investment advisor, author and commentator, Peter Schiff
A minimum wage law ... hurts a society because it results in capable, able-bodied people sitting idle rather than working.
[It's] just Economics 101. If you raise the cost of labor [through a minimum wage requirement], you've raised the cost of doing business, so businesses are going to hire fewer employees. Let's say you have a business which would be willing to hire an additional person at $6 per hour and there's somebody out there who's unemployed who would be happy to have that $6, because of the price control, that guy isn't getting a job and that job is not being offered.
Writer and Cato Institute Budget Analyst, Tad DeHaven
if there is a tendency for minimum wages to cause unemployment amongst the unskilled, then this provides a powerful incentive for them to seek to raise their skills through education ... It has also been argued that minimum wages call forth more individuals to join the workforce and thus result in higher levels of national output.
Professor & Head of QUT's School of Economics and Finance, Tim Robinson
Minimum wage laws are good politics, but lousy economics. Forcing companies to raise the wages for workers at the bottom rung of the economic ladder only encourages them to cut the number of jobs for those workers.
Communications Director, Club For Growth, Mike Connolly
Minimum wage laws make hiring workers more expensive and price some workers out of employment ... overwhelmingly, those working for minimum wage are teenagers and those just entering the workforce. These first jobs may be low-paying, but they are critical for skill building. Raising the minimum wage makes it less likely that companies are going to hire those who really need that critical first job -- which is one of the reasons our teen unemployment rate is so high today. It's far worse to have no job than to have one that pays relatively little.
Independent Women's Forum director and Goldwater Institute senior fellow, Carrie Lukas
If ... [the minimum wage rate is] fair and equitable, that's fine ... [but in] the long run if I can't hire anybody at that price, then the minimum wage doesn't mean much.
Entrepreneur and Chairman of The Frederick Douglass Foundation, Timothy Johnson
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.
Cato Institute Chairman Emeritus and Senior Economist, William Niskanen
It costs jobs. Particularly for part time workers, or interns, the minimum wage reduces flexibility for businesses to hire.
Vice President of the National Taxpayers Union, Pete Sepp
in general, while a minimum wage requirement might raise the wages of certain unskilled workers, because these requirements don’t come with any additional revenues for the businesses paying them, they also tend to destroy some jobs at the lower end of the economic spectrum.
Contributing editor of City Journal and Manhattan Institute senior fellow, Steven Malanga
a number of economists argue that the impact on wages is more important than the impact on jobs. So the debate is really over the trade off - whether it’s better to have fewer people employed at a higher rate or more people employed at a lower rate.
As an undergraduate taking economics I learned that raising the minimum wage led to increased unemployment. However, David Card and Alan Krueger have done work showing that the minimum wage increase in the 1990s had no disemployment effects.
Editor of FutureOfCapitalism.com and author of "Samuel Adams: A Life", Ira Stoll
The minimum wage is a useful way of assuring that prosperity is more widely shared. There are no reputable studies proving that the minimum wage harms either employment or economic growth.
Author, commentator and lead Bloomberg View columnist, Jonathan Alter
