Inclusion?

(Don Boudreaux)

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How many are the people who earnestly call for modern society to encourage greater “inclusion,” yet who also support minimum-wage legislation? I suspect that the number of such people is large.

These people obviously miss what should be, but apparently isn’t, obvious – namely, by criminalizing the ability of low-skilled workers to compete for employment by offering to work at wages below the legislated minimum, minimum-wage legislation is the opposite of “inclusive.” Such legislation excludes from the above-ground job market workers with the lowest skills.

Progressives – who today (unlike in the past) are blinded by economic ignorance to the victims of Progressive legislation – applaud themselves for their imagined magnanimity in supporting minimum wages. Unfortunately, though, the victims are real; these victims are excluded from the economy.