Minimum Wage Maximizes Teen Jobless Rate

The Washington Post has a story today about the difficulty young people are having finding summer jobs. Their unemployment rate is over 18%, compared with only 5.5% for the general population.

Nowhere in the article’s 825 words is the most likely culprit mentioned — the recent minimum wage increase, which affects young people more than any other age group.

When something costs more, people buy less of it. Raising the minimum wage makes it more expensive to hire workers. Ergo, fewer of them are hired.