Steve Chapman on the Phony Promise of Minimum Wage Hikes

If you offer people something that is too good to
be true, you will always find takers. Ask Bernie Madoff. Or ask
Barack Obama, who recently proposed an increase in the minimum
wage. That’s an idea that suits the natural predilections of many
people enough to distract them from the unsentimental and unwelcome
logic of economics, writes Steve Chapman. The proposal rests on the
assumption that the government can decree the price of a
commodity—in this case, labor—in defiance of the dictates of the
market, without ill effects. But that view requires a heroic
suspension of disbelief.

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