Minimum Wage Hikes In 2019 Will Hurt Minority Youth By Killing Jobs — Crappy New Year! 

Minimum Wage Hikes In 2019 Will Hurt Minority Youth By Killing Jobs — Crappy New Year!

• 1/10/2019

Minimum Wage: New York City is one of a number of locales that increased its minimum wage to $15 an hour in the New Year. Already, early reports say, small businesses are struggling. Expect this to become a common refrain across the country.

With the celebratory ringing in of the New Year, some 21 states, the nation's capital and a growing number of cities across the country will impose a distinctly non-celebratory cost on their small businesses: A mandatory increase in the minimum wage.
Of course, some of the minimum wage hikes won't be much. But some will. Both New York State and California will go to $15 an hour, for example. None of the rest of the states raising rates plan that much of a hike.
But don't worry. The newly-elected Democratic Congress has plans to force everyone to raise their minimum wages to $15 an hour, a sop to the Democrats' union paymasters and their far-left base voters.
Minimum raise hikes are not good for workers. It's not even clear they're actually raises.

Minimum Wage Pain For Small Biz

Indeed, study after study show that big hikes in the minimum wage hurt small businesses, causing many to shut down or move. Just as importantly, they destroy jobs for those with little education and little or no training or skills. That means young people. More specifically, that typically means minority youths.
A study last year by the American Action Forum predicted that the minimum wage hikes slated to go into effect this year would kill 261,000 jobs right away. Those jobs will mostly be young minority males who lack schooling and education. Overtime, the AAF study said, 1.7 million low-end mostly minority jobs would be eliminated.
This is devastating, and makes minimum wage hikes one of the most racist, economically backward policies a government can pursue.
For instance, a study by the Mercatus Center, a think tank at George Mason University, noted that from 1994 to 2014 labor force participation among those aged 16 to 19 fell sharply from 53% to just 34%.
What could account for this decline? During that same period, the federal government raised the minimum wage five times, from $4.25 an hour to $7.25 an hour, a 71% increase. So many low-skilled youths lost or couldn't get jobs, largely because their low productivity and higher wages made it unprofitable to employ them.

Minority Teens Lose Out

Worst of all, higher minimum wages likely have a negative long-term impact on teen workers, by reducing the amount of skills and training they get. It damages their lives now and later on in life.
In the near-term, even those who get the minimum wage hike might not take home a bigger paycheck. A study of Seattle's minimum wage hike a few years back found that worker pay actually declined. Why? Employers, hit with even higher labor costs, cut back on the hours their employees worked.
These aren't the only studies, just the most recent we're aware of. The truth is, as any economist will tell you, if you raise the cost of anything, the demand for it will decline. That's true with labor, just as it is with cars, houses, washers, dryers, anything.
The federal government, in all its wisdom, thinks it knows the perfect wage for workers at all companies, in all cities, in all states. And it means to impose it on them.
We started this piece by citing New York City, where socialist Mayor Bill De Blasio raised the minimum wage in the New Year. It won't turn out as well as he thinks.

New York State Of Mindlessness

As the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Angela Logomasini recently wrote, "The minimum wage hike is harming lots of businesses — closing down historic mom and pop neighborhood eateries and forcing other businesses to flee to other states."
Many will lose their jobs. De Blasio plays he hero now. But how will he be viewed when small businesses start leaving he city and taking their jobs with them? Or when they simply automate, and get rid of many workers entirely? If he's like other so-called "progressive" leaders, he won't care.
Right now, thanks to Donald Trump's low-tax, deregulatory policies, the job market is booming. Even minority unemployment rates are at or near their all-time lows. So you might not see the deleterious impact of minimum wage hikes right off. But it will come.
And when it does, the politicians who imposed minimum wage increases, took credit for giving workers a raise and then harvested their votes, will be gone, out of politics. Or, if not, they will blame Republican tax cuts or racism for the plight of minority youth.
Anything but the truth: That minimum wage hikes aren't compassionate economics of the highest order, a leg up for the downtrodden. They are in fact racist, regressive and destructive of minority communities.