Inhumanity of the Minimum Wage - Paul Poirot - Mises Institute

Inhumanity of the Minimum Wage - Paul Poirot - Mises Institute: "If a minimum wage is set high enough to have any effect, that effect must be a closing of the market to those persons least capable of earning a living. For the minimum wage denies such persons the right to offer their services for what they are worth. The law says in effect, 'If you are not worth the legal minimum wage, you are not worth anything.'

This, of course, is arbitrariness of the very worst kind. It is difficult to visualize a greater injustice than this among supposedly civilized human beings — the strong ganging up to deprive the weak of their limited means of helping themselves.

Setting a minimum wage, below which no man may sell his services, is like setting a floor price for potatoes. The higher the floor price, the less demand there will be for potatoes. Those growers of potatoes who are least skilled in the arts of production will have been forced out of the market arbitrarily. And so will those buyers who can least afford to pay the price for potatoes."