Milton Friedman on the minimum wage

27 passages for “the minimum wage”, 15 checked against the source. Page 3 of 3.

Full topic page: Wages, unions, and the minimum wage

1. “The average income of blacks here is far higher than the average income of all the people in the Soviet Union. The official government definition of the poverty line in the U.S. is higher than the average income in the Soviet Union; it’s higher than the income received by 90 percent of the people on the world’s surface. Now, that doesn’t mean blacks aren’t subject to injustice; of course they are.”

2. “The supporters of tariffs treat it as self-evident that the creation of jobs is a desirable end, in and of itself, regardless of what the persons employed do. That is clearly wrong. If all we want are jobs, we can create any number—for example, have people dig holes and then fill them up again, or perform other useless tasks. Work is sometimes its own reward. Mostly, however, it is the price we pay to get the things we want. Our real objective is not just jobs but productive jobs—jobs that will mean more goods and services to consume.”

3. “I think it is only because capitalism has proved so enormously more efficient than alternative methods that it has survived at all. ( … ) I'm not sure capitalism is the right word. There is a sense in which every society is capitalist. The Soviet Union was capitalist, but it was state capitalism. Latin American societies in the past have been capitalist, but it has been oligarchic capitalism. So what we really need to talk about is not capitalism but free market or competitive capitalism which is the system that we would like to have adopted, not just capitalism.”

4. “What country in the world today engages in the most extreme anti-Semitic persecution? The Soviet Union. It’s not an accident, because if you have a society with concentrated power, if you have a collectivist society, it’s going to be in a position to exercise the preferences and prejudices of its rulers. Moreover, it’s going to have an incentive to do so, because it’s going to need a scapegoat and it will choose some group like the Jews or the blacks to be the scapegoat. New York and London, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980”

5. “The threat to public schools arises from their defects, not their accomplishments. In small, closely knit communities where public schools, particularly elementary schools, are now reasonably satisfactory, not even the most comprehensive voucher plan would have much effect. The public schools would remain dominant, perhaps somewhat improved by the threat of potential competition. But elsewhere, and particularly in the urban slums where the public schools are doing such a poor job, most parents would undoubtedly try to send their children to nonpublic schools.”

6. “That is a widespread myth, that it is possible to spend money with nobody paying for it. You have everybody screaming that we ought to have new, bigger, more generous government programs. Where are we going to raise the money? Tax business. But business corporations can’t pay any taxes. A corporate executive may sign the check, but where does he get the money? From his stockholders or from his customers or from his employees. Unlike the federal government, he doesn’t have a printing press in his basement. So the only way he can pay money to the government is imposing a burden on somebody. Government cannot spend money at nobody’s expense.”

7. “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.”