The Cruelty of the $15 Minimum Wage

The $15 minimum wage just went from "laughable" to "viable"—as a New York Times headline put it—to the law of the land for millions of New York and California residents.

In April 2016, the Empire and Golden states almost simultaneously passed laws that will boost the state-mandated wage floor to $15 over the next few years for all workers—a high-stakes bet that the law of supply and demand doesn't apply to human labor.

To discuss the potential impact of the $15 minimum wage, Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with Don Boudreaux, an economist at George Mason University, who writes frequently about the minimum wage at his blog, Cafe Hayek.

About 9:30 minutes.

Produced and edited by Jim Epstein. Camera by Joshua Swain and Todd Krainin.

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