When politicians vote to impose or raise minimum wages, they put poor people out of work and INCREASE poverty. No one has ever calculated how many economic studies establish the correlation between minimum-wage laws and unemployment rates. But the number is in the many dozens and probably in the hundreds.
Minimum wage laws have done nothing to limit poverty in any sector and have actually increased poverty in many areas, especially in the poorest communities. The unemployment generated by such laws is linked with increased rates of mental illness, suicide, homicide, divorce, and deaths from heart disease, stroke, and cirrhosis of the liver.
Source: Roger Roots, “When Laws Backfire,” American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 47 No. 11, July 2004, pages 1376, 1378.
