[As an aside: most states raise the minimum wage when times are good. Not Michigan.]
Note carefully that Jack did not say that most estimates of the short-run elasticity of youth employment with respect to the minimum wage are low, which would be defensible though perhaps not completely relevant to policy, which should also be concerned with the long run effects such as those that operate via capital-labor substitution. He is plainly and simply economically illiterate.
Odd, too, that the Michigan Daily did not bother to actually talk to an economist about this, but only to a bureaucrat and a student. Here is the relevant excerpt from the Daily:
Though less opportunity for new employment after a wage increase was a concern for some Michigan lawmakers, Jack Finn, director of the Wage & Hour division for the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth, said a change in the minimum wage won't decrease the number of available jobs.
"It's almost like an urban legend that a minimum-wage increase leads to a loss of jobs," Finn said. "It's just not factual."
