"Throughout the Keynesian and post-Keynesian era, the inexorable laws of economics have not changed. Unemployment still is, and always has been, a cost phenomenon. A worker whose employ ment adds valuable output and is profitable to his employer can always find a job. A worker whose employment inflicts losses is destined to be unemployed. As long as the earth is no paradise, there is an infinite amount of work to be done. But if a worker produces only $2 per hour, while the government decrees a minimum wage of $2.30 an hour plus sizable fringe costs, he cannot be employed. For a businessman to hire him would mean capital loss and waste. In other words, any compulsion, be it by government or union, to raise labor costs above those determined by the marginal productivity of labor, creates institutional unemployment."
Unknown

January 1, 1970