How Minimum Wage Laws Promote Racial Discrimination

It was over 40 years ago that I first heard Walter Williams speak at a conference. Anyway, I think it was over 40 years ago. It could not have been less.

He and I were on what speakers call the rubber-chicken circuit as early as 1974. We spoke to high school teachers in a program sponsored by the intercollegiate Studies Institute, “The Role of Business in Society,” or ROBIS. As I recall, I had heard him speak before we were on the summer lecture circuit.

I remember very clearly his main point at one of his lectures. He said that minimum-wage legislation discriminates against teenage black males. This has been known by economists since at least the mid-1950′s. The statistical evidence on this was overwhelming. But high school teachers had not heard this.

What made Williams’ speech memorable was the fact that he clarified the reason why the minimum-wage legislation was detrimental to teenage black males. He made the observation, which nobody challenged: the teenage black males are considered undesirables by the general population. In other words, they are discriminated against. They suffer from the stereotypes attached to their particular group.

He asked the obvious question: “How does someone who is part of a group that is discriminated against find a way to prove to somebody doing the discriminating that his assessment is incorrect?” It was really this question: “How do undesirables break through the discrimination against them?”

More