Fire and Knowledge

Among two million Americans earning at or near the minimum wage in the early twenty-first century, just over half were from 16 to 24 years of age. Just over half worked part time. Yet political campaigns to increase the minimum wage often talk in terms of providing “a living wage” sufficient to support a family of four—such families as most minimum workers do not have and would be ill-advised to have before they reach the point where they can feed and clothe their children. Nevertheless, a number of American cities have passed “living wage” laws, which are essentially local minimum wage laws specifying a higher minimum than the national minimum wage law. Their effects have been similar to the effects of national minimum wage laws in the United States and other countries—that is, the poorest people have been the ones who have most often lost jobs.

—Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics (3rd Edition, Basic Books, 2007), p. 213.