• Because many low-wage workers are found in higher income households, 57 percent of the last minimum wage increase (from $3.35 to $4.25) went to families with incomes at least twice the poverty level. Only 17 percent went to families below the poverty line. 36 percent of the benefits went to families whose income was at least three times the poverty level, or close to $45,000 for a family of four.

• A study released in December 1994 by the Employment Policies Institute shows that of the 4.7 million minimum wage earners, only 1 percent are heads of households and representative of the people Clinton claims to be helping.

• The overwhelming majority of minimum wage earners are teenagers holding their first job which allows them the opportunity to 1) develop good work habits early in life; 2) gain experience in order to move on to better paying jobs; and 3) develop self-reliance.

• In 1981, the Congressionally-mandated Minimum Wage Study Commission concluded that a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage reduces teenage employment by 1 percent to 3 percent.

• The President is planning to raise the minimum wage by 90 cents over two years to $5.15 per hour. That's a 21 percent increase.

• Based on the Commission's work, we can anticipate that between 130,000 and 400,000 jobs will be lost if Clinton has his way.

• To paraphrase Milton Friedman: It has always been a mystery to me why a youngster is better off unemployed at $5.15 an hour than employed at $4.25 an hour.

• Given the perversities of the tax code and welfare programs, an increase in the minimum wage will frequently hurt even those people who manage to retain their jobs.

• For example, economist Carlos Bonilla (Employment Policies Institute) found that after the minimum wage in California rose from $3.35 to $4.25, a single parent earning the minimum wage was actually worse off to the tune of $1,800 per year due to welfare phase-outs and federal, state and local taxes.

• Even liberal Democrats quickly learn the true effects of the federal mandates they impose when they have to meet a payroll. For example, former Democrat Presidential candidate George McGovern learned this lesson first hand when he became an inn-keeper and restaurateur. A few years ago, in a Wall Street Journal, Senator McGovern lamented on how he too had to struggle with regulations, mandates and taxes imposed by the federal government on his small business.
  The minimum wage was not raised at all from 1981 to 1990 and overall teenage unemployment fell from about 25% to about 15%. Since the minimum wage was raised in 1990, teen unemployment has risen to above 20%. The impact of this increase is most pronounced among minority teens.

  A favorite statistic of higher minimum wage advocates shows that a family of four will suffer under the current regime. Reality shows that most minimum wage earners are the second or third earners in a "household." In other words, it is more often the spouses and children of primary earners who earn the minimum wage, often in part-time positions which augment the primary earner's income.

  Higher minimum wage advocates always imply that there is a class of minimum wage workers who are permanently stuck at the minimum wage. But as minimum wage workers improve their work skills, they typically experience robust and fairly rapid wage growth.

• In 1977, when the minimum wage was at it's inflation-adjusted maximum, a white youth was 27 percentage points more likely to find a job than a black youth. Between 1981 and 1989, with a frozen minimum wage, this gap began to disappear: White male teenage employment rose 18.2 percent while black male teenage employment increased 23.7 percent and black female teenage employment rose by 38 percent."

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