The Economic Impact of the Increased Minimum Wage?

From Reuters:

Teenagers have found it significantly harder to get a job since the recession began in late 2007, with black youths and young people from low-income families faring the worst, wrote Andrew Sum of Northeastern University in Boston, a employment researcher commissioned by the Chicago Urban League and the Alternative Schools Network.

"Low-income and minority youth, who depended on part-time jobs as a significant stepping stone to future employment, have been forced out of the job market and economically marginalized," Herman Brewer of the Chicago Urban League said in a statement.

...Among the proposals the report supported were government-funded jobs programs directed at the young, additional funding to help re-enroll school dropouts, and government-funded expansions of work internships.

I've got a more radical proposal - one that decreases the scope of government and one that doesn't increase it's size:  lower or eliminate the minimum wage.  Even if someone is willing and able to accept a job for, say, $5.00 an hour, the law says that he can't.  Why should that be illegal?

HT Glenn Reynolds

Update:  Keep in mind that this has been going since before the recession hit.

Comments

[Online Consultation]

Increase in minimum wage can help those low income earners an opportunity to be motivated and prove what they can do

[Phil]

1. Low skill = low income
2. Low income earners can show what they can do at any wage, provided they have a job.
3. A minimum wage creates unemployment of low-skilled workers, making them less likely to have a job.
Summary: the minimum wage gives low income people less of a chance to "show what they can do."