"There is no inherent reason why low-skilled or high-risk employees are any less employable than high-skilled, low-risk employees. Someone who is five times as valuable to an employer is no more or less employable than someone who is one-fifth as valuable, WHEN THE PAY DIFFERENCES REFLECT THEIR DIFFERENCES IN BENEFITS TO THE EMPLOYER.
This is MORE THAN A THEORETICAL POINT. Historically, lower skill levels did not prevent black males from having labor force participation rates higher than that of white males for every US Census from 1890 through 1930. Since then, the general growth of wage-fixing arrangements: minimum wage laws, labor unions, civil service pay scales, etc. has reversed that and made more and more blacks unemployable despite their rising levels of education and skills: absolutely and relative to whites."
"In short, no one is employable or unemployable absolutely, BUT ONLY RELATIVE TO A GIVEN PAY SCALE."
"Workers compete against other workers (not employers) to find jobs and get the highest wages. Employers compete against other employers to find the best workers. In other words, low-skilled workers compete against high-skilled workers in the labor market. LOW-SKILLED WORKERS WHO WOULD BE EMPLOYABLE AT A LOW WAGE BECOME UNEMPLOYABLE AT AN ARTIFICIALLY HIGHER WAGE. And that explains the perverse cruelty of minimum wage laws: it inflicts the greatest harm on the very workers it is allegedly designed to help."
https://www.aei.org/economics/thomas-sowell-on-the-cruelty-of-minimum-wage-laws/
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