Miltie

"At the end of World War 2 the minimum wage was 40 cents an hour. Wartime inflation had made that so low in real terms as to be unimportant. The minimum wage was then raised sharply to 75 cents in 1950, to $1.00 in 1956. In the early fifties the unemployment rate for all teenagers averaged 10 percent compared with about 4 percent for all workers -- moderately higher, as one would expect for a group just entering the labor force. The unemployment rates for white and black teenagers were roughly equal. After minimum wage rates were raised sharply, the unemployment rate shot up for both white and black teenagers. Even more significant, an unemployment gap opened between the rates for white and black teenagers. Currently, the unemployment rate runs around 15 to 20 percent for white teenagers ; 35 to 45 percent for black teenagers. We regard the minimum wage rate as one of the most, if not the most, antiblack law on the statute books"
From Free To Choose, via RWN.