The Dem's Disastrously Timed Minimum Wage Hikes Hit Teens & Black Youth the Hardest
Posted by Jim Hoft on Saturday, March 6, 2010, 2:19 PM
Teenagers who looked for work last summer were out of luck. The teen unemployment rate rose to a record high of 25.5 percent in August of 2009, up from 23.8 percent in July. This was more than ten points higher than the record 9.7 percent national unemployment rate announced in September of 2009. The teenage unemployment rate last year was at its highest level since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began keeping track of such data in 1948.
This chart comes from The Wall Street Journal via Carpe Diem
There was another factor that may be hurting teens, the disastrously timed minimum wage increases. Economist David Neumark wrote in The Wall Street Journal last fall that the minimum wage increase in July 2009 would destroy an additional 300,000 jobs nationwide, concentrated among the most vulnerable and least skilled employee populations. Neumark added that with the aggregate unemployment rate at 9.4 percent in May 2008, the teen unemployment rate exceeding 22 percent, and the unemployment rate for black teens nearing 40 percent, July’s minimum wage increase seemed like the worst thing possible. He was right. The teen unemployment rate jumped 3.5 percentage points in one month.
Since last summer after the minimum wage was increased the job situation for teens has became even worse.
The Wall Street Journal reported:
There’s plenty of competition, but our vote for the recent act of Congress that has caused the most economic hardship goes to the May 2007 law raising the minimum wage in three stages to $7.25 an hour from $5.15. Rarely has a law hurt more vulnerable people more quickly.
A higher minimum wage has the biggest impact on those with the least experience or the fewest skills. That means in particular those looking for entry-level jobs, especially teenagers. And sure enough, as nearly all economic models predict, the higher minimum has wreaked havoc with teenage job seekers, well beyond what you would expect even in a recession…
…But as the minimum wage increased even as the overall job market began to worsen, the damage to teen job seekers became more severe. By the time the third increase to $7.25 from $6.55 took effect in July 2009, the teen jobless rate was 24.3%, and by October it peaked at 27.6% before dropping to 26.4% in January.
The story is even worse for black teens, who often have lower than average education levels or live in areas with fewer job prospects. Their jobless rate climbed from 38.5% before the third wage hike to 49.8% in November 2009, before falling back to 43.8% in January. For black male teens, the rate climbed to 52.2% in December from 39.2% in July. The difference between the jobless rates for black teens and the entire population widened by six percentage points from June 2007 to January 2010. Even assuming those rates fall as the job market improves this year, they will remain destructively high.
Previously:
Disastrously Timed Minimum Wage Hikes Hit Teens the Hardest
Related… Obama Rewards Young Voters With More Leisure Time as Youth Unemployment Soars
ADVERTISEMENT
-
Featured Story:
Republican Military Hero & First Female to Command Fighter Squadron Will Announce Run For Congress Today
Published February 8, 2012 at 8:42 pm - 95 Comments
Melvin Winter commented:
Obama Rewards Young Voters With More Leisure Time as Youth Unemployment Soars http://optoons.blogspot.com/2009/09/obama-rewards-young-voters-with-more.html
Ladue Pundit commented:
My third child is now mowing all the yards his older two siblings once mowed. $25 a lawn x eight lawns a week = $200. Spending an hour on a lawn > minimum wage.
The second child balked at the mowing but my husband firmly reminded her that “we’re keeping these jobs in the family.”
Now the fourth is old enough to run the blower and gets a cut. Teach your kids to start their own “businesses.” They learn so much.
DocScience commented:
Perhaps unionization of McDonald’s cashiers will do the trick and bring prosperity back to America.
That and higher taxes of course.
aro5o75 commented:
The left wants them unemployed. It makes it all the easier to induct(indoctrinate) them into Obamao’s obot army.
ADVERTISEMENT
red commented:
Since we progressives run all three branches of government, now is the time to bring a living wage to all Americans. We should raise the minimum wage to $ 15.
/sarcasm
CHRI$ DODD DUMPED commented:
Does anyone see a correlation? http://www.BorderInvasionPics.com
Chris Vehr commented:
BIG SURPRISE!
Anyone with any experience running a business knew that this would happen.
The people running our country are just plain STUPID…starting with Obama.
VIVA LA RAZA!! commented:
Can’t we all just get along? Why the hate?
Please…I beg of you, take 3 minutes and watch – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45Fy3MVivLs
Bill Mitchell commented:
I can’t think of a better example of failed liberal ideology than this.
Liberalism:
1) Sounds good.
2) Doesn’t work.
That about sums it up.
It also reflects the liberal’s “static pie” view of the economy.
Since they believe that the pie always remains the same size, it would follow that dramatically raising the minimum wage would be GOOD for minimum wage earners.
But the pie does NOT remain the same. By raising the minimum wage, you shrink the pie and those you are claiming to help suffer badly.
OUTRAGED PATRIOT commented:
How does your Senator/Rep. vote on Immigration?
What’s his/her grade? See http://www.BetterImmigration.com
Every vote cast for 20+ years. It matters not what they, but what THEY DO.
BarbaraS commented:
Not hiring because of the raise in minimum wage is not the whole story. What about the workers who made less than $7.25 before this raise? The law mandated that their wages be raised to at least minimum wage but they will resent making the same wage as new hires when they have been working in the same workplace for years. Therefore, to be fair, those workers will have to be raised a comparable amount over and above minimum wage. Small businesses cannot afford this extra expense. They, unlike the government, must keep within their budgets and upping their prices (which they will have to do) will inevitably lose business. This raise has gone a long way in destroying our economy. While the dims are patting themselves on the back for standing up for the little p;eople, the reality is they have screwed them royally. Liberals do not understand economics. If they did they wouldn’t mess up so much. Or…maybe that is the plan.
Valerie commented:
This administration, together with what passes as the current leadership of the Democratic Party, is anti-intellectual.
These are the people that actually thought other people would be impressed with the argument that “the science is settled.”
These are the people who do not recognize that those range bars on those temperature charts prove that the hysteria-mongers are twiddling with experimental noise.
These are the people that screeched at the Republicans over GWB’s spending on war, and then decided it was ok to REALLY run up the deficit.
These are the people who wouldn’t recognize the implication of a time line to save their lives, or anyone else’s. BO promised to get out of Iraq faster than was humanly possible. He didn’t have the wherewithall to even ask the question how long it would take.
We have an attorney general who doesn’t even recognize a decision that requires consultation– after being spanked by Congress and sitting through lots and lots of meetings whose purpose was to work out consultation procedure.
We have a President who dares not allow anybody to see any of his prior work, including his transcripts.
We have a whole mess of talking heads who are baffled and enraged that a woman from the hinterlands could be an original thinker and an effective politician.
Valerie commented:
This bad result for teen workers was predictable, and predicted. Economics is know as the dismal science because it predicts perverse results just like this.
Our anti-intellectual administration and Democratic party leadership need to be replaced by better educated, more intellectually honest and rigorous people. The Bush administrations and the Clinton administrations had them.
Palinfan commented:
YOU GUYS see the highest teen unemployment rate since record keeping started in 1948.
The Alphabet Media sees Sarah Palin getting some swag at an awards party.
Maybe YOU GUYS need to get on the ball with what’s important around here!
jim commented:
When I was majoring in economics over 30 years ago, there were already studies showing that raising the minimum wage promotes unemployment. But liberals are slow learners or, more often, ineducable. Raising the minimum wage is good for collective bargaining. If the union can show that the lowliest slug is making $8 an hour, then certainly a dues-paying slug deserves ten times that much.
jainphx commented:
Lets look back in history, has any idea of the left worked? The great society was to eliminate the poor! Have we done that? Minimum wage was to help the poor make a living! Has that happened? Welfare and child care did nothing but destroy the Black family. Social security will be broke VERY soon. We could go on and on, but whats the use they don’t listen or care. We need change alright, from the Dems to caring people that work for the betterment of America and not their back pockets.
Espresso Logic - The 6th Sense commented:
VIVA LA RAZA!!
March 6th, 2010 | 3:36 pm | #9
Can’t we all just get along? Why the hate?
Please…I beg of you, take 3 minutes and watch – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45Fy3MVivLs
Go away wetback troll.
Corporal Vere commented:
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The liberals will never. Their destructive and pathological programs have failed every time they tried them. They can blame Bush all they want. Thier failed (every time, every place they tried) policies are based on emotions and hysteria not on economic fact or principles.
KR commented:
I highly recommend “Economics In One Lesson, by Hazlitt. Written in 1946 and shows the error in many government “good intentions”.
Easy to read, this basic economics title should be required reading from high schools students to elected officials.
bg commented:
++
they said rthis would happen for years, they did it, it happened..
more recruits available for Michelle’s boot camp..
==
KR commented:
Why would anyone join a group called “The Race” (La Raza) if you just want to get along?
These people are misguided and have rallies where they speak of taking over CA for Mexico.
Like ACORN, just a different nut.
CHRI$ DODD DUMPED commented:
To Expresso Logic-
SI SE PUEDE! SI SE PUEDE! And we will…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIW-BZ8oLrk&feature=related
AZTLAN!
bg commented:
++
re: bg #21
and Obama’s Civilian Security National Force..
==
bg commented:
++
CHRI$ DODD DUMPED @ 5:59 pm #23
“we are millions.. we just have to survive.. we have an aging White America.. they are not making babies.. they’re dieing.. it’s a matter
of time.. the explosion is in our population..”
now where have i heard words of a similar vein before??
oh yeah..
“The fifty million Muslims in Europe will turn it into a Muslim
continent within a few decades. [..] Europe is in a predicament,
and so is America. They should agree to become Islamic in the
course of time [..]“
==
bg commented:
++
Espresso Logic – The 6th Sense @ 5:19 pm #18
Leo Alexander.. “i would respect you and your like a lot more.. if you would follow them back to their countries & lead a revolution there”
AMEN to that!!
==
Andreas K. commented:
Bill Mitchell
March 6th, 2010 | 3:39 pm | #10
Actually, real liberalism works. The problem is, these folks aren’t actual “liberals”. They call themselves liberals and call actual liberals “libertarians”. True liberalism doesn’t ride around “minimum wage” and all the crap these people stand for.
These folks are communists, nothing else. Communism looks great on paper, but it’s a totally and 100% failed idea.
JTaylor commented:
The minimum wage is one thing, but who is even talking about all the illegal aliens out there doing all the entry level work? I like what Ladue pundit said at #2 they said, “kids can mow lawns”, … can they? Everybody I see mowing a lawn around here is either the homeowner or an Illegal Alien. How is it they are getting all the practice at running a business? People want to pay as little as possible for everything, they don’t care about the costs of being a legitimate business, if illegal aliens can do it cheaper because they are being subsidized with welfare and don’t need health insurance because they use the ER, who can we blame but ourselves? An illegal alien can change their name so no lawsuit can touch them, therefore they don’t need liability insurance. They have it all figured out and our Government is paying for it with our kids futures. It is wonderful to live in California in the 21st century. We have so little time to fix this mess!
I am paying for someone to run me out of business, what a concept!!
JPL17 commented:
It’s not that liberals hate black teenagers.
They really don’t hate them.
It’s just that they hate capitalism, and don’t really care that much about black teenagers.
Sure, they’ll be a little sad that black teenagers have to go to h*ll when the minimum wage is increased beyond sustainable levels.
But as long as capitalism dies, too, it’s OK to them.
Acceptable collateral damage, I guess.
Espresso Logic - The 6th Sense commented:
CHRI$ DODD DUMPED
March 6th, 2010 | 5:59 pm | #23
To Expresso Logic-
SI SE PUEDE! SI SE PUEDE! And we will…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIW-BZ8oLrk&feature=related
AZTLAN!
You stupid wetbacks couldn’t take over a wet bag. Beaners go home!
Blackice commented:
Now that’s a hockey stick graph!
LytnUp commented:
Another hockey stick? A few more and I think we can get a game going.