If the case of raising the minimum wage even might destroy jobs for some of the workers that it's meant to help, what right have we to embark upon this policy? I think none. Remember, the people whose livelihoods are here being experimented with are low skilled workers. They aren't doctors, lawyers, machinests, welders or college professors. They're motel maids, fast food workers, teens just entering the workforce. If minimum wage proponents are correct that no jobs are destroyed, then these workers are indeed benefitted without cost to them. Although here there's a question of who pays the costs of these workers' gains and what is the moral reason for imposing that cost on those persons. For example, if we all agree that all low skilled workers should be given raises, what's the moral justification for requiring only current employers of low skilled workers to pay these costs? Why not pay these raises out of general revenues collected in taxes from the taxpaying population? It's a question that I think should be asked, but it is seldom asked.
But what if basic economics and the bulk of empirical studies are correct and minimum wage proponents are incorrect? We then have a policy that not only prices some willing workers out of jobs - and again, also out of opportunities to get job experience, which helps these people to get even higher wages in the future - but a policy that also distributes its benefits to those who need those benefits the least, while it inflicts the bulk of its costs on those who can least afford such burdens.
~ Donald Boudreaux, "
Against a $15 Minimum Wage," 10:05 mark, USD Center for Ethics, Economics and Public Policy, September 16, 2016
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