Myths/raising the minimum wage hurts jobs/Boehner

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Myth: Raising the cost of employment will result in less employment.

Myth

"When you raise the price of employment, guess what happens? You get less of it. Why would we want to make it harder for small employers to hire people?" — John Boehner[1]

Reality

This argument attempts to reduce unemployment to a matter of supply-and-demand – and then only looks at one side of the equation. While it's true that a higher-priced commodity may have fewer buyers, it's also true that it will have more sellers.

The Right often claims that people are only out of work because they're lazy. If this were true (which it isn't), then raising the minimum wage would result in higher employment rates by inducing more lazy people to go out and work.

You can have one claim or the other, not both. They're mutually inconsistent.

Footnotes

  1. 2013-02-24 What if there were no minimum wage? by Bob Greene