Dr. Richard Vedder, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics at Ohio University, was referenced in an op-ed by Stephen Moore in the Washington Examiner on “Why not boost teen employment with a training wage?”
This is the time of year when teenagers scramble to land a summer job, but many states and cities make that search far more difficult….
While there is lively debate about how minimum wages affect lower-skilled adults, the negative impact on young workers and teens is nearly incontrovertible….
As the nearby charts show, the impact was immediate and devastating for young workers. The national teen unemployment rate nearly doubled.
At one point during the recession in 2009, the black teen unemployment rate approached 50 percent — a rate common in many Third World nations.
Also, the teenage work-participation rate plummeted to about 35 percent. This was a 10-percentage-point decline in three years….
And — as labor economist Richard Vedder of Ohio University has shown — when jobs are scarce, the solution to reducing unemployment is to allow employers to offer lower wages temporarily, not to raise the wage requirement, which only exacerbates the jobless problem.
Comments