Last July I finished a post on the minimum wage with the following summary:
So in two years (i.e., since 2007), the federal minimum wage has been increased by nearly 41 percent. Such a massive increase in the price of low-skilled labor will lead to much fewer jobs for low-skill workers, the poorest among us. Demand curves slope downwards.
So it’s no surprise to me to read the following today:
Teenagers have found it significantly harder to get a job since the recession began in late 2007, with black youths and young people from low-income families faring the worst, wrote Andrew Sum of Northeastern University in Boston, a employment researcher commissioned by the Chicago Urban League and the Alternative Schools Network.
“Low-income and minority youth, who depended on part-time jobs as a significant stepping stone to future employment, have been forced out of the job market and economically marginalized,” Herman Brewer of the Chicago Urban League said in a statement.
Overall, 26 percent of American teenagers aged 16 to 19 had jobs in late 2009, said the report, which was based on U.S. Census Bureau data. That figure is a record low since statistics began to be kept in 1948, the researchers said.