Mininum Wage Hikes Cause Layoffs

Mininum wage hikes are sold to the public as businesses being mean and unfair to the poor working guy. Let's all feel better about ourselves, because we voted in a raise for someone else. Socialist politicans claim that a man can't support a family of four on mininum wage. However, mininum wage applies to everyone, including teenagers. So when the cost of labor for a certain job gets too high, there are layoffs. Instead of giving teenagers jobs where they can learn to hold a job and make some spending money, now can't because of our rhetoric about evil corporations.

Oh, for the days when Arizona's high school students could roll pizza dough, sweep up sticky floors in theaters or scoop ice cream without worrying about ballot initiatives affecting their earning power.

That's certainly not the case under the state's new minimum-wage law that went into effect last month.

Some Valley employers, especially those in the food industry, say payroll budgets have risen so much that they're cutting hours, instituting hiring freezes and laying off employees. And teens are among the first workers to go.


The Employment Policies Institute in Washington, which opposed the recent increases, cited 2003 data by Federal Reserve economists showing a 10 percent increase caused a 2 percent to 3 percent decrease in employment.

It also cited comments by notedeconomist Milton Friedman, who maintained that high teen unemployment rates were largely the result of minimum-wage laws...AZ Central