Ken Berwitz
In our society, the least skilled people are youths, who lackthe skills, maturity and experience of adults. Black youths not only sharethese handicaps but have attended grossly inferior schools and live in unstablehousehold environments. That means higher minimum wages will have the greatestunemployment effect on youths, particularly black youths.
A minimum wage not only discriminates against low-skilledworkers but also is one of the most effective tools in the arsenal of racists.Our nation\’s first minimum wage came in the form of the Davis-Bacon Act of1931, which sets minimum wages on federally financed or assisted constructionprojects. During the legislative debates, racist intents were obvious. Rep.John Cochran, D-Mo., said he had “received numerous complaints in recentmonths about Southern contractors employing low-paid colored mechanics gettingwork and bringing the employees from the South.” Rep. Miles Allgood,D-Ala., complained: “That contractor has cheap colored labor that hetransports, and he puts them in cabins, and it is labor of that sort that is incompetition with white labor throughout the country.” Rep. William Upshaw,D-Ga., complained of the “superabundance or large aggregation of Negrolabor.”
During South Africa\’s apartheid era, the secretary of itsavowedly racist Building Workers\’ Union, Gert Beetge, said, “There is nojob reservation left in the building industry, and in the circumstances, Isupport the rate for the job (minimum wage) as the second-best way ofprotecting our white artisans.” The South African Economic and WageCommission of 1925 reported that “while definite exclusion of the Nativesfrom the more remunerative fields of employment by law has not been urged uponus, the same result would follow a certain use of the powers of the Wage Boardunder the Wage Act of 1925, or of other wage-fixing legislation. The methodwould be to fix a minimum rate for an occupation or craft so high that noNative would be likely to be employed.”
It is incompetence or dishonesty for my fellow economists todeny these two effects of minimum wages: discrimination against employment oflow-skilled labor and the lowering of the cost of racial discrimination.
-raising prices, which possibly will make the company non-competitive and put it out of business,-cutting corners/lowering quality to save money, which would result in an inferior product and might put the company out of business,-letting some people go and hiring as few others as possible,-or hiring illegals who will work under the table for low wages and no benefits – which shuts legal workers out (and gives the geniuses who foisted this on us another opportunity to claim it is work that no one else will do).
