The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today blaming the 2007 minimum wage hike for higher teen unemployment. It features this nifty chart:
Hmm, is there anything else that might have contributed to higher teen unemployment starting in 2008? Anything at all? Oh yes... that economic implosion thing you might have read about in the newspaper. Come to think of it, unemployment has also risen for people who are non-teens and non-minimum wage earners, hasn't it? The invaluable Brendan Nyhan has created his own chart of unemployment comparing teens to the general population:
Lo and behold, unemployment has risen at a lower rate for teens than for the general population.
The sheer crudeness of the Journal's propaganda continues to astound. This is a very wealthy newspaper. Even if they do want to devote the editorial page to propagandizing for the maximal right-wing economic agenda, can't they find some more sophisticated methods of persuasion than ignoring the largest economic crisis since the Great Depression?