Policies that Disproportionately Hurt Blacks Are Bad, even if They Are Unintentionally Racist

Professor Walter Williams comments on new research showing how the minimum wage is hurting African-American employment.

Last week, two labor economists, Professors William Even (Miami University of Ohio) and David Macpherson (Trinity University), released a study for the Washington, D.C.-based Employment Policies Institute titled “Unequal Harm: Racial Disparities in the Employment Consequences of Minimum Wage Increases.” During the peak of what has been dubbed the Great Recession, the unemployment rate for young adults (16 to 24 years of age) as a whole rose to above 27 percent. The unemployment rate for black young adults was almost 50 percent, but for young black males, it was 55 percent. Even and Macpherson say that it would be easy to say this tragedy is an unfortunate byproduct of the recession, but if you said so, you’d be wrong. Their study demonstrates that increases in the minimum wage at both the state and federal level are partially to blame for the crisis in employment for minority young adults. …Among the white males, the authors find that “each 10 percent increase in a state or federal minimum wage has decreased employment by 2.5 percent; for Hispanic males, the figure is 1.2 percent. “But among black males in this group, each 10 percent increase in the minimum wage decreased employment by 6.5 percent.” The authors go on to say, “The effect is similar for hours worked: each 10 percent increase reduces hours worked by 3 percent among white males, 1.7 percent for Hispanic males, and 6.6 percent for black males.”

I don’t think that supporters of the minimum wage are racist, but there’s no doubt that they support a policy that has a disproportionately negative impact on blacks. Indeed, the same is true for the school choice issue. African-Americans are especially victimized by crummy government-run schools. Yet the same leftists who generally support higher minimum wages that lead to black unemployment are almost always against school choice, thus condemning minorities to worse life outcomes.

At some point, they should be held morally accountable for the impact of their policies. On both minimum wage laws and school choice, they’re on the wrong side because of the power of union bosses (and all the campaign cash the unions disburse). They’re not motivated by racism, but the result is racist policies.

For more information about the minimum wage, here’s some of what Orphe Divougny had to say in his Center for Freedom and Prosperity video from last year.