From the Washington Post:

I know, I know: the actual impact of minimum wage laws on employment is a hotly debated subject. But the overall sweep of economic research supports the prediction of economic theory -- and common sense -- which is that raising the price of labor will, at the margin, reduce hiring. In a 2008 survey of decades of minimum-wage literature, economists David Neumark of the University of California, Irvine and William L. Wascher of the Federal Reserve Board confirmed that minimum wage laws do indeed reduce job opportunities for less-skilled workers and even tend to reduce their earnings.

For the full story, please visit http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/12/why_not_lower_the_....