The Minimum Wage, Discrimination, and Inequality

Ludwig Von Mises Institute ^ | January 19, 2009 | Art Carden

[dbz77]

One of the things that first attracted me to economics is that its logic leads us sometimes to counterintuitive conclusions. A perfect example of this is the regulated workplace. The minimum wage raises incomes for some workers and lowers incomes for others. Workplace safety regulations advantage those who are very risk averse at the expense of those who are willing to accept higher risks in exchange for higher incomes. Laws against "child labor" benefit the relatively well off at the expense of the needy.

The tragic irony of the regulated workplace is that it most adversely affects those on the margins of society. Beyond their disemployment effects on those whose labor is rendered submarginal by regulations on wages and working conditions, regulations in the workplace also exacerbate and perpetuate inequities that would otherwise be mitigated by the market process.

[trebb]

Just about any “fix” that “liberals” propose tends to do more damage to those they claim to champion, with minimal deleterious effect to those they claim to hate. The cure for most of the world’s ills is conservatism. The cure for liberalism is conservatism. All liberalism ever offered was a toxic placebo.

[org.whodat]

When prices are fixed, and labor conditions are set by law, an employer can indulge his racist preferences without receiving his capitalist comeuppance.

Makes no difference, when there is an unlimited supply of illegals labor. Market forces cannot apply.