The Minimum Wage: The True Root of Youth Unemployment in Canada
The Minimum Wage: The Real Root of Youth Unemployment Lately, much blame has been heaped on Indian immigrants for the unemployment crisis facing Canadians aged 15–26. This analysis misses the mark. While high levels of immigration have exacerbated Canada’s youth unemployment problem, the real culprit is the minimum wage and recent country-wide hikes of it. The connection between youth unemployment and the minimum wage is well-established in the economic literature. Milton Friedman famously criticized these mandates, and Murray Rothbard articulated the issue clearly in Making Economic Sense : "In truth, there is only one way to regard a minimum wage law: it is compulsory unemployment, period. The law says: it is illegal... for anyone to hire anyone else below the level of X dollars an hour. This means, plainly and simply, that a large number of free and voluntary wage contracts are now outlawed... Remember that the minimum wage law provides no jobs; it only outlaws them." The...