Kevin Duffy on minimum wage laws

Wages, like any price, are determined by supply and demand. Not happy with what you're making? Develop skills where they're needed and difficult to develop (or even unpleasant). E.g., most younger people want cushy desk jobs so there is a shortage of trade skills. Really want to make a ton of money without getting a 4-year degree? Try underwater welding. Here's another skill that pays A LOT: simultaneous translation (very few people can do this).

Of course, you have to start somewhere and typically that begins with a low wage job. Heck, I remember working in an art gallery hanging paintings and sweeping the parking lot in high school. My brother flipped burgers at the local Burger King. Then we built a deck for our parents, developed some carpentry and design skills, and realized there was plenty of demand. Just like that, we were our own bosses, making decent money, and having all the work we could handle during the summers.

What happens when you impose a minimum wage? Does it give everyone below that wage a raise? Unless you can repeal the law of supply and demand, "no." You will instead make that employment agreement illegal, hurting the very people you purport to help, the relatively unskilled starting at the bottom and trying to gain skills so they can move up the economic ladder.

~ Kevin Duffy, Facebook response, February 18, 2020