Saturday, October 03, 2009

Minimum Wage Increase Leads to Higher Teen Unemployment Rate


Minimum Wage Increase Leads to Higher Teen Unemployment Rate
"Earlier this year, economist David Neumark of the University of California, Irvine, wrote on these pages that the 70-cent-an-hour increase in the minimum wage would cost some 300,000 jobs.
Sure enough, the mandated increase to $7.25 took effect in July, and right on cue the August and September jobless numbers confirm the rapid disappearance of jobs for teenagers.
The September teen unemployment rate hit 25.9%, the highest rate since World War II and up from 23.8% in July. Some 330,000 teen jobs have vanished in two months.
Hardest hit of all: black male teens, whose unemployment rate shot up to a catastrophic 50.4%"

If things don't get better fast (and they won't) it will be a long hot summer in the cities.

1 comment:

pete said...

The Muskegon, MI Unemployment Situation Visualized in Heat Map form:
A map of Muskegon Unemployment in August 2009 (BLS data)
http://www.localetrends.com/metro/muskegon_michigan_home.php?MAP_TYPE=curr_ue

versus Muskegon Unemployment Levels 1 year ago
http://www.localetrends.com/metro/muskegon_michigan_home.php?MAP_TYPE=m12_ue