Minimum Wage Hazards

Crusaders for a “living wage” or to end “sweatshop labor” in the Third World, for example, may invest great amounts of time and energy promoting those goals but virtually none in scrutinizing the many studies done in countries around the world to discover the actual consequences of minimum wage laws in general or of “living wage” laws in particular.  These consequences have included periods of unemployment, especially for the least skilled and least experienced segments of the population.  Whether one agrees with or disputes these studies, the crucial question here is whether one bothers to read them at all.

Thomas Sowell, Intellectuals and Society, p.181