According to this report:

For teenagers, the summer job market has not been so bleak in generations. During what should be the start of the bustling summer job season, the unemployment rate for 16- to 19-year-olds who want work is 24%–the worst since 1965.

One of the explanations given:

But Lopez Eastlick says there is another major factor: rising minimum wage requirements. Minimum wage increases raise the bar for entry-level employment. From 1997 until 2007, the minimum wage stood at $5.15. Congress raised it to $5.85 in 2007, to $6.55 last year, and in July it is scheduled to increase again to $7.25.

In June 2006, 7 million teens were working. Since the wage hikes and recession kicked in, 1.4 million of those jobs have disappeared. For African-American teens, the job market is even worse–their unemployment rate is 38%.

The irony of course being that a large justification for increasing minimum wage was to help minorities, and now we find that such policy is in part driving up unemployment for African American teens. Those who could do basic math knew this was the inevitable outcome to raising the minimum wage, but those on the left incapable of math were oblivious to this outcome and supported a policy that hurts those they are trying to help.

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