Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation
For Immediate Release
Monday, June 14, 2010
202-285-0244
www.freedomandprosperity.org
New CF&P “Economics 101” Video Explains
Job-Killing Impact of Minimum Wage Laws
(Washington, D.C., Monday, June 14, 2010) In the latest “Economics 101” video released today by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation (CF&P), Orphe Divounguy, a graduate student from the University of Southampton in England, explains that minimum wage laws hinder the ability of low-skilled workers to get jobs. Entitled “The Job-Killing Impact of Minimum Wage Laws,” this video examines how the minimum wage hurts young workers and others with low skill levels.
Links to the video: YouTube | Yahoo | Capitol Hub
“Minimum wage requirements play a key role in youth unemployment,” said CF&P Foundation President Andrew Quinlan. “These laws effectively cut off the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.”
“Unemployment rates are very high, especially for young people and minorities, in large part because of a 40 percent-plus increase in the minimum wage in recent years,” added Dan Mitchell, Cato Institute Senior Fellow and Chairman of CF&P. “While in the Senate, Obama voted for that job-killing policy, and it is poetic justice that he is now dealing with the consequences.”
Executive Summary
- Minimum wage laws seem like a good idea, but arbitrarily mandating a certain wage can have terrible consequences. Business are not charities, so if the minimum wage is set above the market level, this eliminates job opportunities – particularly for the less fortunate members of society. Since employees and employers should have freedom of contract, the right minimum wage is zero.
This new video is part of CF&P’s Economics 101 video series, which is designed to explain free market concepts, with particular emphasis on reaching students and young people. This is the seventh video in the Economics 101 series.
The other Econ 101 videos: Deficits, Debts and Unfunded Liabilities; Cost of the Internal Revenue Code; Lessons Learned From Sweden; Government Monopolies; Moral Hazard; and Don’t Copy Europe’s Mistakes.
Web Page for Economics 101 Videos:
http://www.freedomandprosperity.org/econ101/econ101.shtml
CF&P Foundation has also released more than three-dozen mini-documentaries since 2007. These videos include Tax Competition Primer, Capital Gains Tax, Bloated Bureaucracy, VAT-Hidden Tax, Global Flat Tax Revolution, Cutting the U.S. Corporate Income Tax, Promoting Prosperity, Obama’s So-Called Stimulus, Obama’s Deferral Proposal, Case Against Class-Warfare Tax Policy, President Obama’s Dishonest Demagoguery on Tax Havens, a three-part series on the Benefits of Tax Havens and another three-part series on the Laffer Curve.
Link: http://www.freedomandprosperity.org/videos/videos.shtml
Web Links:
YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMMN3UIQmEk
Yahoo
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/7648686/20318875
Capitol Hub
http://capitolhub.com/video/9256/job-killing-impact-minimum-wage-laws
For additional comments:
Andrew Quinlan can be reached at 202-285-0244, andy@freedomandprosperity.org
Dan Mitchell can be reached at 202-218-4615, dmitchell@cato.org
###
