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Milton Friedman on Wages, unions, and the minimum wage

The situation today is different. Scattered studies have been brought together, additional studies made and some earlier studies re-evaluated. The evidence is now overwhelming that the unemployment predicted by economic analysis is confirmed by economic experience.
Legislating Unemployment
Column, 1972, Newsweek (1972; the issue current on June 28, 1972); reprinted in full in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, June 28, 1972, p. 23100, Congressional Record, June 28, 1972, p. 23100
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  1. The answer to “Why now?” is straightforward—yet I know from bitter experience how hard it is to persuade anyone other than an economist that so simple an answer can be correct. Nineteen seventy-three is different from other peacetime years because, for the first time since World War II, the U.S. has had extensive price and wage controls. The key to today’s shortages is the price freeze ordered by President Nixon on Aug. 15, 1971.
    Why Now?
    Column, 1973, Newsweek (December 31, 1973); reprinted in full in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, January 24, 1974, p. 801, introduced by Representative John M. Ashbrook, who gives the issue as “the December 31, 1973 issue of Newsweek”, and reprinted again the same day at pp. 807 to 808 by Representative Earl F. Landgrebe, Congressional Record, January 24, 1974, p. 801
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  2. I’ve had this experience many times. Get a dozen people in a room together, some of them economists and some non-economists, political scientists, sociologists, journalists, whatever they may be. Start any subject going. Within 15 minutes, all the economists will be on the same side, whatever their political persuasion is.
    The Open Mind
    Interview, 1977, The Open Mind, hosted by Richard Heffner, Episode “A Nobel Laureate on the American Economy” (May 3, 1977)
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  3. Of the many attempts to explain this state of affairs that I have seen in the media, not one faces up to the crucial question: Why now? Why did shortages not emerge in 1968 at the height of the Vietnam war, or in 1958, or for that matter in 1938 or 1928? What is different about 1973?
    Why Now?
    Column, 1973, Newsweek (December 31, 1973); reprinted in full in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, January 24, 1974, p. 801, introduced by Representative John M. Ashbrook, who gives the issue as “the December 31, 1973 issue of Newsweek”, and reprinted again the same day at pp. 807 to 808 by Representative Earl F. Landgrebe, Congressional Record, January 24, 1974, p. 801
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