People in minimum wage jobs do not stay at the minimum wage permanently. Their pay increases as they accumulate experience and develop skills. It increases an average of 30 percent in just their first year of employment, according to the Cato Institute study. Other studies show that low-income people become average-income people in a few years and high-income people later in life. All of this depends on their having a job in the first place, however. But the living wage kills jobs.
— Thomas Sowell, Ever Wonder Why? And Other Controversial Essays (2006)
Verified — Primary Source
Wear the words

"Read Sowell" Tee
$24.95USD
View →Related Quotes
“As imposed wage rates rise, so do job qualifications, so that less skilled or less experienced workers become 'unemployable.' Think about it. Every one of us would be 'unemployab...”
Ever Wonder Why? And Other Controversial Essays (2006)
Read →“Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws, and that is the wage that many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a governmen...”
Basic Economics (2000)
Read →“The politically correct party line on minimum wages is that people cannot afford to raise their families on low pay, so the government has to force employers to provide "a living w...”
Controversial Essays (2002)
Read →Join thousands of Sowell fans. New quotes, new gear, and the stuff I don’t post on Facebook.
Wear the words.
Browse the collection →