The Minimum Wage: A Barrier to Employment

It is the consensus of economists that the minimum wage law creates unemployment for all would be workers with productivity levels below that mandated by this enactment.There is some controversy amongst dismal science practitioners, however.As for the general public, the very opposite is an article of faith; otherwise, we would hardly have this law passed, initially, and its level continuously raised.The present paper makes the case that this legislation boomerangs.The goal of most of its supporters is to alleviate poverty by raising compensation, particularly for those at the bottom of the economic pyramid.And this law can do so, but only for the immediate run, until the market incorporates these changes.Then, all those with productivity levels below that amount mandated by law will be consigned to unemployment.