Sunday, April 23, 2017

The Racist History of Minimum Wage Laws | Mises Wire

The Racist History of Minimum Wage Laws | Mises Wire:
"In 1966, Milton Friedman wrote an op-ed for Newsweek entitled "Minimum Wage Rates."
In it, he argued "that the minimum-wage law is the most anti-Negro law on our statute books."
He was, of course, referring to the then-present era, after the far more explicitly racist laws from the slavery and segregation eras of United States history had already been done away with.
Image result for Minimum Wage Black UnemploymentBut his observation about the racist effects of minimum wage laws can be traced back to the nineteenth century, and they continue to have a disproportionately deleterious effect on African-Americans into the present day.
The earliest of such laws were regulations passed in regards to the railroad industry.
At the end of the nineteenth century, as Dr. Walter Williams points out, "On some railroads — most notably in the South — blacks were 85–90 percent of the firemen, 27 percent of the brakemen, and 12 percent of the switchmen."1
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, unable to block railroad companies from hiring the non-unionized black workers, called for regulations preventing the employment of blacks.
In 1909, a compromise was offered: a minimum wage, which was to be imposed equally on all races.
To the pro-minimum wage advocate, this may superficially seem like an anti-racist policy.
...One white union member at the time celebrated the new rule for removing "the incentive for employing the Negro."2
This early minimum wage rule was explicitly put in place to prevent African-Americans from finding employment, and it was successful in this goal..."
Read on!

1 comment:

Curiosus Atheos said...

Is there a similar curve for a case when it was raised that doesn't also coincide with one of the largest economic corrections the US has experienced? It just so happens that the overall unemployment was also spiking during those same years.