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Milton Friedman on Wages, unions, and the minimum wage

The true minimum-wage rate is zero—the amount that an unemployed person receives from his nonexistent employer. This minimum-wage rate will not be affected by the new law. Rather, the law will increase the number of persons who receive a wage rate of zero.
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. Congress is at it again. Once more it is in the process of legislating an increase in unemployment. Of course, the legislation is not labeled “A Bill to Create Unemployment.” After all, Congress can teach big business a thing or two about deceptive labeling. No, the bill is labeled “A Bill to Increase the Minimum-Wage Rate.”
    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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  2. I am convinced that the minimum-wage law is the most anti-Negro law on our statute books—in its effect, not its intent.
    Newsweek column of September 26, 1966
    Column, 1966, Newsweek (September 26, 1966), his first Newsweek column; quoted by Friedman himself in “Legislating Unemployment” (Newsweek, 1972), reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, June 28, 1972, p. 23100. Later collected in An Economist’s Protest (1972)., Congressional Record, June 28, 1972, p. 23100
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  3. The minimum wage is a legislated price above the price that would otherwise prevail for the labor of many teen-agers. Like every minimum price, it enhances the amount supplied and reduces the amount demanded, and so produces a surplus, in this case of unemployed teen-agers.
    Blaming the Obstetrician
    Column, 1979, Newsweek (June 4, 1979); reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, June 7, 1979, pp. 14007 to 14008, introduced by Representative G. William Whitehurst of Virginia, who describes it as “an article by Milton Friedman, which appeared in the June 4, 1979, issue of Newsweek”, Congressional Record, June 7, 1979, pp. 14007 to 14008
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