Enter federally-mandated minimum wages. Back in January 2019, noted economist Thomas Sowell republished a previous article of his from back in 2015, entitled, A minimum wage hike? It’s ‘ruinous’ compassion.
His point was that politicians never seem to learn from history. In this case, minimum wage hikes proposed by politicians in 2019 were unlikely to achieve better results than those first proposed and passed in 1931. Sowell notes:
The last year when the black unemployment rate was lower than the white unemployment rate was 1930, the last year before there was a federal minimum wage law.
In this article and in other writings, Sowell makes (please forgive him) The common senseargument that labor, like any other product (service) you purchase, is price sensitive. The higher the price, the less of it people buy. Labor is especially price-sensitive for unskilled/inexperienced labor—you know those get-your-foot-in-the-door jobs?
Sowell notes in this article and others
Incidentally, the black-white gap in unemployment rates for 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds was virtually non-existent back in 1948. But the black teenage unemployment rate has been more than double that for white teenagers for every year since 1971.
A fair assessment at that point in history could hardly blame the proponents of a minimum wage for any intentional malice towards Blacks in instituting those policies. A reasonable conclusion (absent what we now know) could possibly be an “unintentionally disparate impact.” Not so fast.
In 1931, Congress passed and President Hoover signed the Davis Bacon Act. Dr. Sowell notes:
The following year, the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 was passed, requiring minimum wages in the construction industry. This was in response to complaints that construction companies with non-union black construction workers were able to underbid construction companies with unionized white workers (whose unions would not admit blacks).
The act requires wages on federal or federally-assisted projects to pay local “prevailing wages.” The way that ends up being read is, “union wages.” This, as Sowell notes above, immediately had the effect of precluding Black workers from the competition. Although Davis-Bacon was a product of a “Republican” President and two Republican legislators, what followed was pure Democrat…pure leftist. Under President Franklin Roosevelt’s goading, the National Industrial Act was passed in June 1933, the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
All of the above just exacerbated the effects of Davis-Bacon by making Black labor even more uncompetitive. I would remind you, all of these laws had solid union support — go figure. So like many “good ideas” from the left, the folks least able were forced to bear the brunt of Democrat vote-buying chicanery.
The effects of these policies are still around today. Recall that Dr. Sowell stated that Black and White unemployment (emphasis mine) for 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds was virtually non-existent back in 1948. Virtually. Non. Existent. Dr. Sowell notes again
But it was only a matter of time before liberal compassion led to repeated increases in the minimum wage, to keep up with inflation. The annual unemployment rate for black teenagers has never been less than 20 percent in the past 50 years, and has ranged as high as over 50 percent.
Incidentally, the black-white gap in unemployment rates for 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds was virtually non-existent back in 1948. But the black teenage unemployment rate has been more than double that for white teenagers for every year since 1971.
It’s easy to see that over time, even in this one regard, the effect of leftist policies are harmful to Blacks. The very kindest view of them is that the results are the unintended consequences of good intentions. At the other end of the spectrum, we could easily conclude that minimum wage policies and labor laws are a craven attempt to purchase union support at the expense of young Black men.
Absent slavery, this isn’t the worst. Stay tuned for Part III.
Links below become active as each segment is published.
Black Lives Matter, Just Not to Democrat Politicians (Part I)
Black Lives Matter, Just Not to Democrat Politicians (Part II, Minimum Wage and Union Vote Buying)
Black Lives Matter, Just Not to Democrat Politicians (Part III, War on Poverty and Welfare State)
Black Lives Matter, Just Not To Democrat Politicians: (Part IV, Fatherlessness, Poverty and Crime)
Black Lives Matter, Just Not to Democrat Politicians: Part VI, (Militant Feminism)
Black Lives Matter, Just Not to Democrat Politicians: Part VII, (Conclusion, Life Is What Matters)
If you enjoyed this article, then please REPOST or SHARE with others; encourage them to follow AFNN. If you’d like to become a citizen contributor for AFNN, contact us at managingeditor@afnn.us Help keep us ad-free by donating here.
Substack: American Free News Network Substack
Truth Social: @AFNN_USA
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/AFNN_USA
CloutHub: @AFNN_USA
Thomas Sowell is a Black life that matters. The organization, being deeply rooted in communism never has mattered except to Democrats who love to pander. I’m sure Democrats would just as soon he go away, aren’t you?
“At the other end of the spectrum, we could easily conclude that minimum wage policies and labor laws are a craven attempt to purchase union support at the expense of young Black men.”
It seems to me that, while these policies and acts have been bad for blacks… really any lower wage person… the real cause of the problems for blacks lies with the increase in the size and scope of the federal government that started when these laws were passed.
Before the general or federal government encroached on the powers of the states with these laws and then continued to expand on the breaches in that wall of separation there was, at best, a poor and, more likely no, mechanism for the current governing mess we’re living through to exist for the 80 or so years that we are living through.
The insanity might have… maybe would have… come into existence in one or more states, or even groups of states, but like a disease needing a vector with which to spread, without these programs at the national level they would have died out in one or two decades… maybe generations… in the states that adopted them.
Louis Brandeis in described how our form of government allowed… “a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country” but today, in epidemiology, we know more about how diseases (even those of the mind or body politic) require no disease vector to keep any outbreak of idiocy contained.
We can not long survive if the body of federal social laws that was started back in the 1930s by FDR remains in effect for we can not prevent states like New York or California from infecting the rest of the national discourse once they’ve become infected with ideas like minimum wage laws.
Tony,
That’s a GREAT comment. This series runs through Friday and then finishes on Monday & Tuesday. I’d really like it if you’d do a piece expanding on your comment…3-500 words. You can send it to managingeditor@afnn.us This isn’t the Mike Ford show…..this is the American Citizen Writers’ show,
Regards,
Mike
hi
Black Lives Matter unless it is a black baby in it’s mother’s womb then it deserves to be killed.
BLML = Burn, Loot, Murder.