As a student of economics, the subject in which I earned my PhD, I came to dislike the minimum wage for its economic impact. But, as I learned more, I came to hate the minimum wage for its discriminatory impact along socio-economic lines. I hate it even more for what it does to us societally, as it infantilizes whole generations by trapping many in economic dependence.

The current federal minimum wage is nearly ineffective due to the inflation that has occurred since its last increase, much like the minimum wage was when Ronald Reagan’s presidency ended in January of 1989. Prior to his presidency, the minimum wage had last increased under Jimmy Carter, but even then, it didn’t keep up with the high inflation at the time. Over the course of Reagan’s presidency, black teenage employment (not unemployment) rose by double-digit percentages, with the biggest increase in employment occurring for black females. White teenage females benefited, too. The only teens who didn’t benefit were white males.

In other words, as the minimum wage fell due to inflation, its discriminatory effects against the low-skilled, especially teens in lower socio-economic conditions, were reversed. During that time, I recall a car wash opening where my parents lived that saw teenagers pile into a car with rags and spray bottles, cleaning the interior as the car was pulled through an automated system that washed the exterior. Almost to the day that President George H.W. Bush signed a minimum wage increase into law, that car wash closed, and the teens it had employed were rendered jobless.

The tragedy of Bush’s action wasn’t that my mom’s car didn’t stay as clean as before. It was those teenagers who were getting early lessons in dealing with coworkers and bosses, learning to show up on time for work, and learning the importance of consistency in performing well on the job no longer had the opportunity to learn such lessons. They no longer had that income, however modest, so they lost the opportunity to take responsibility for their own spending and financial choices. In other words, many teens were rendered wholly dependent on their parents at just the time they should be moving toward independence.

I personally believe the infantilizing effect of the minimum wage has had a cumulative effect. Those teens from the early 1990s are the parents of the millennials and Gen Z’ers that so many employers complain about today. Think about it. The lack of employment opportunities for teenagers feeds into helicopter parenting and school teachers who have literally spent their entire lives in school, first as students, then as teachers, and might well have had their first work experience when they became teachers. When have the generations everybody complains about had a chance to grow up? In some ways, their parents have had their own opportunities to grow up impaired.

It might just be that the minimum wage is partly, if not greatly, responsible for the college debt so many find themselves in. The minimum wage also likely has a part to play in the decision by a soon-to-graduate high school student, expressed to my then-teacher wife, that she (the student) intended to make a career of having babies and depending on government largesse.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not so shallow or conspiratorial to think all our society’s problems can be traced to the minimum wage. I am saying it contributes to our problems. I can point to many popular government programs and policies that have negative impacts and contribute to or outright cause commonly recognized economic and societal ills. However, those policies aren’t on the ballot this June.

SQ 832, creating an ever-increasing minimum wage, is on the ballot. It’s being sold almost as a panacea and as a way to achieve some level of justice. Clearly, when it so obviously discriminates and leads to more economic inequality in the long run rather than less, it’s being falsely sold by advocates even on their own terms. 

Despite advocates’ well-intentioned arguments, SQ 832 would cause more harm to those it seeks to help.