The Democrats' war on black teen employment

Mark J. Perry:

Perhaps one of the more interesting data points from last week's Employment Report is displayed in the graph above, which shows that the jobless rate for black male teens (aged 16-19 years) increased to 40.1% in June from 28.1% in May. Except for a slightly higher increase of 12.2 percentage points during the aftermath of the Great Recession, the 12 percentage point increase in June was the highest monthly increase in history going back to 1972 when the BLS starting keeping records for this series. One possible explanation for this spike would be the “midyear burst of minimum-wage increases on July 1” outlined in a recent WSJ article:

On July 1, 14 U.S. cities, states and counties, plus the District of Columbia, will raise their minimum wage in a mid-year burst that reflects the legislative momentum to boost pay floors across the country while federal legislation stalls. In total, the minimum wage will rise in 15 places: two states – Maryland and Oregon, plus Washington, D.C., Los Angeles County, Calif., and 11 cities. That includes Chicago, eight cities in California and two in Kentucky, according to a new analysis by the right-leaning Employment Policies Institute.

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It happens just about everytime they raise the minimum wage, yet they keep doing it.  Perhaps they want to free up their time to protest other issues.   Before the minimum wage was firs introduced in the 1930's the black teen unemployment rate was in the low single digits.  The last time the black unemployment rate was lower than the white unemployment rate was in 1930 before the minimum wage was established.