How to hurt the poor.(Correction, Please!)(minimum wage)

ITEM: In its post-election coverage, the Washington Post for November 9 reported." "Democrats wasted no time yesterday proclaiming a new era in Washington, pledging to put middle-class economic issues at the top of their agenda." For example, continued the newspaper, "Analysts say that Democrats may find chastened Republicans receptive to some ideas, such as raising the minimum wage."

ITEM: CNN's Lou Dobbs, during his television show Lou Dobbs Tonight on November 8, scolded opponents of a minimum-wage increase by pointing to initiatives that passed in several states: "When the voters go to the trouble of an initiative ... and say business is just pushing way too hard against the interests, the common good (of) working men and women," that shows how important the issue is "to middle-class Americans."

CORRECTION: The Democrat leaders in the Congress vowed, if they took control of the legislative branch, immediately to introduce legislation to increase the mandatory federal minimum wage by 40 percent. Unfortunately, decades of propaganda have led many Americans to believe the government has a magic wand that can dispense benefits at little or no cost.

Nevertheless, lawmakers cannot make us all wealthier by decree. What legislators can do, however, is to fool some people into thinking that has happened. They raise the minimum wage, which may help some of those who get raises, but at the same time, they reduce the overall rate of employment, especially among less skilled and minority workers: this is what does happen when the mandatory minimum wage is increased. Yet, this is hardly promoting the common good.

The laws of supply and demand cannot be repealed any more than can the law of gravity. As economist Walter Williams of George Mason University puts it: "If higher minimum wages could cure poverty, we could easily end worldwide poverty simply by telling poor nations to legislate higher minimum wages."

If the government, whether state or federal, causes certain goods or services to cost more, businesses or consumers will buy fewer of those goods or services; that applies when government adds to the cost of labor as much as, say, when it piles on more taxes or regulations. Among the results will be that businesses will tend not to hire, or become more likely to fire, the least-productive members of the work force, or reduce the benefits of those who do keep their jobs at the new higher mandatory wage.

It is usually illuminating to ask the question, cui bono? Or, who benefits? In this case, the demand that the federal (or state) government should require an increase in the mandatory minimum wage is being pushed largely by organized labor and its left-wing allies. This should be no surprise since it is in their political interest to do so. They win by knocking off the lowest rungs of the employment ladder for the supposed beneficiaries, who don't comprehend what is happening.