New Study Reveals Minimum Wage Hikes Lead to Job Loss for Minorities and High School Drop-Outs

Speaking of room for improvement in the state of Washington, how about our nation-high minimum wage. Take a look at this new minimum wage study by the Employment Policies Institute.

The author of the study, David Neumark (a former Wal-Mart Watch "Person of the Week" so let's dispense with the "conservative hack" labels in advance), concludes that :

For every 10% increase in the minimum wage:
• Minority unemployment increased by 3.9%
• Hispanic unemployment increased by 4.9%
• Minority teen unemployment increased 6.6%
• African American teen unemployment increased by 8.4%
• Low-skilled unemployment (i.e., those lacking a high school diploma) increased by 8%

An EPI press release states:

Minimum wage hikes jeopardize entry-level jobs: Separate studies from economists at Duke, Michigan State, and Boston University all conclude that minimum wage hikes attract teenagers from wealthy families into the workforce, displacing low-skilled adults in the process.

Economists at Cornell University and the University of Connecticut found that a 10% increase in the minimum wage results in an 8.5% increase in unemployment for young African Americans and adults lacking a high school diploma.

That's bad news for a college town like Pullman, especially if we hope to increase the diversity at WSU. That's the irony of liberalism and statism. It always hurts the ones it supposedly means to protect the most.

HT: Dale Courtney