Raising wage lowers boom on teens

One simple explanation for lawmakers’ lack of concern about the negative effects of minimum wage increases: The people most harmed by such wage hikes can’t vote.

Senate Bill 193, which passed the Nevada Senate and was heard by the Assembly Commerce and Labor Committee on Wednesday, would create more business-friendly overtime rules but also boost the state’s minimum wage to $9 per hour. The state’s current minimum wage is $7.25 for workers who are offered health insurance and $8.25 for those who aren’t offered coverage.

Minimum wage increases eliminate low-skill jobs, and the first people to be squeezed out of the labor force when those positions disappear are teens — especially 16- and 17-year-olds. Lacking work experience, they’re simply not worth the higher wage. The more teens disappear from the workforce, the more adults fill minimum-wage jobs. And the more adults fill minimum-wage jobs, the more pressure is created for additional minimum wage increases.

The minimum wage isn’t supposed to support families. Until now, it has been considered a training wage for jobs that teach inexperienced workers basic job skills. But the higher the minimum wage goes, the longer workers can expect to remain at that wage.

Nationally, the unemployment rate is 5.5 percent. But among teens the rate is 17.5 percent — and 18.1 percent for 16- and 17-year-olds. For Hispanic teens, the jobless rate approaches 30 percent, and for black teens, it’s near 40 percent. Nevada’s jobless numbers are worse — worst among the 50 states.

The progressives who champion a huge hike in the minimum wage, to $15 an hour, claim to want to reduce the country’s wealth gap. But a higher minimum wage delays workforce entry for millions of teens and limits their economic and social mobility. Their earnings suffer well into adulthood. A higher minimum wage actually worsens the wealth gap.

A Brookings Institution report found that in 2000, when the federal minimum wage was $5.15 per hour, 45 percent of teens had jobs. That standard was increased to $7.25 per hour in 2009 amid economic collapse, and by 2011 just 26 percent of teens had jobs.

Greg Mankiw, chairman of the Harvard economics department, says there is 79 percent agreement among economists that the minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers.

The most obvious solution is to create a separate, reduced minimum wage for 16- and 17-year-olds. But federal lawmakers, like state lawmakers, have no interest in creating opportunity for Americans who can’t vote.

SB193 hasn’t passed the Assembly — yet. The left is winning the minimum wage debate. Polls show wide public support for a minimum wage hike. The national momentum for an increase is so strong that when critics ask, “If boosting the minimum wage doesn’t hurt the unskilled and doesn’t kill jobs, why not just raise it to $50 an hour?” they run the risk of making a national crisis even worse.

Our elected officials are hyperfocused on K-12 education out of concern for the future of our economy and country. They say they want high school graduates who are prepared for the workforce. They say they don’t want today’s students left behind. They raise taxes to try to make schools better.

Then they vote for labor policies that make it impossible for most of those kids to get their first jobs.

Way to look out for our children, lawmakers.

Glenn Cook (gcook@reviewjournal.com) is the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s senior editorial writer. Follow him on Twitter: @Glenn_CookNV.