Minimum Wage & The Jobless Summer

Perhaps you've already noticed around the neighborhood, but this is a rotten summer for young Americans to find a job. The Department of Labor reported last week that a smaller share of 16-19 year-olds are working than at anytime since records began to be kept in 1948.

Only 24% of teens, one in four, have jobs, compared to 42% as recently as the summer of 2001

One of the first acts of the gone-but-not-forgotten Nancy Pelosi ascendancy was to raise the minimum wage in stages to $7.25 an hour in 2009 from $5.15 in 2007. Even liberals ought to understand that raising the cost of hiring the young and unskilled while employers are slashing payrolls is loopy economics.

Government Logic...

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/07/01/how-has-that-minimum-wage-hike-worked-for-teens/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304447804576411903821123330.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

I tell my young daughter that she is VERY lucky to have such a great job/s at her young age. She does pretty well all year, but EXTREMELY well in the summer considering her age. She made over $500 in just one week. She is saving to buy her first car next year. She has learned how to balance school life, work, and still make time for friends. I am very proud of her and her employers love her and she loves them. Can't beat that I guess. Most importantly she appreciates and values what she has.

Yes she is one of the lucky ones- with 76% of all teens out of work. Sounds like she is a hard worker.

I think this is a perfect example of how bad government policy and a bad economy combined have real affects on society- they have consequences.

I agree!

She is a hard worker and she will value the car even more when she has to pay for it (I'm sure we will help her out too) and pay for the insurance and gas.

They really should of superimposed the minimum wage on that graph so we could see if there is a correlation. I'll agree a high minimum wage doesn't help employment, but I really don't see much correlation between the two.

Looking at the graphs below, minimum wage (blue dots) had a steady increase from 1974 to 1981, but teenage employment generally went up too. Employment did take a drop about 1980, but that's also when we had a big recession.

Minimum wage went up from 1990 to 1997 and so did teenage employment. And those were good economic times.

Minimum wage was flat from 1997 to 2006 but teenage employment started its huge drop about 1999. Guess what, another recession.

Employment started to improve in the mid 2000's, but then took a big dip again around 2007. Yes, they started to increase minimum wage in incremental amounts, but we also got hit with a massive recession.

And adjusting to 2010 dollars, the highest effective minimum wage was $10/hr in 1968 (red dots). Teenage employment looked pretty solid then.

So I'd guess the economy has more to do with teenage employment than the minimum wage does. But there are many factors as well.




http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth484/minwage.html

FWIW

............."1. In American Samoa, employment fell 19 percent from 2008 to 2009 and 14 percent from 2006 to 2009. Data for 2010 total employment are not available.


2. GAO questionnaire responses show that tuna canning employment fell 55 percent from 2009 to 2010, reflecting the closure of one cannery and layoffs in the remaining cannery. Private sector officials said the minimum wage was one of a number of factors making business difficult. "..............

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/07/ama ... rican.html

link to GAO report. PDF

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11427.pdf

My daughter who just turned 17, has been looking for a job since Jan. non stop while still in school. She found a job a couple weeks ago at a shoe store for $7.85 an hour and was thrilled. Most of her friends could not comprehend why she wanted to work so bad since most of them have gotten cars, gas, insurance, and entertainment paid by parents. We couldn't afford to do that for her but I did find her a cheap car that she can use to go to work. Needless to say I'm proud of her for doing this on her own and I think it's a great start to becoming independant. This is one time I'm happy to not be in the mountains since there is more opportunity down here for young people. (Although there is always opportunity for cash jobs through neighbors)

Always a better kid that can appreciate what and where ther money goes instead of POS parents buying them stuff.
And then they wonder why they come back home.

CriticalBill wrote: My daughter who just turned 17, has been looking for a job since Jan. non stop while still in school. She found a job a couple weeks ago at a shoe store for $7.85 an hour and was thrilled. Most of her friends could not comprehend why she wanted to work so bad since most of them have gotten cars, gas, insurance, and entertainment paid by parents. We couldn't afford to do that for her but I did find her a cheap car that she can use to go to work. Needless to say I'm proud of her for doing this on her own and I think it's a great start to becoming independant. This is one time I'm happy to not be in the mountains since there is more opportunity down here for young people. (Although there is always opportunity for cash jobs through neighbors)

Martin Ent Inc wrote: Always a better kid that can appreciate what and where ther money goes instead of POS parents buying them stuff.
And then they wonder why they come back home.

Amen!