Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 exptools 1/6/84; site ihuxq.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!mgnetp!ihnp4!ihuxq!ken From: ken@ihuxq.UUCP (ken perlow) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Unemployment & the minimum wage Message-ID: <1116@ihuxq.UUCP> Date: Mon, 6-Aug-84 21:28:39 EDT Article-I.D.: ihuxq.1116 Posted: Mon Aug 6 21:28:39 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 8-Aug-84 08:24:37 EDT References: <1665@inmet.UUCP>, <229@idi.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL Lines: 30 -- >> ...In other words, what the minimum wage law says is that >> it's better to be unemployed than to have a job that pays "too >> little". It's better for black teenagers to hang out at the >> local park than to have them be able to work. >> An interesting statistic from Dr. Williams: before the >> days of the minimum wage, black teenage unmployment was about 9.5%. >> Today, after the law which was supposed to protect them from >> poverty and exploitation, the unemployment rate has climbed to 50%. >> -- >> Rick Kiessig That statistic, of course, ignores the drastic changes in most every important socio-economic variable this country has come up with, and is therefore silly. After all, Black teenage "unemployment" in the Antebellum South was pretty low, too. Not much crime, either. But that's capitalism, Rick. An industrializing country that succeeds soon prices itself out of the market. It happened to the US, and it's happening now to Japan. But go ahead, try offering a ghetto kid $1 an hour--he'll spit in your face. You may blame an insidious dependency on the welfare state; I call it the fair price of civilization. -- *** *** JE MAINTIENDRAI ***** ***** ****** ****** 06 Aug 84 [19 Thermidor An CXCII] ken perlow ***** ***** (312)979-7261 ** ** ** ** ..ihnp4!ihuxq!ken *** ***