- D.C. District Court Judge J.A. Van Orsdel, 1923
"The Fair Labor Standards Act constitutes a step in the direction of communism, bolshevism, fascism, and Nazism"
- National Association of Manufacturers, 1937
"The proposed jump from an hourly minimum of 40 to 65 cents...is a reckless jolt to the economic system. Living standards instead of being improved, would fall- probably to record lows."
- National Association of Manufacturers, 1945
"Any temporary advantage to our 2 million employees would be more than offset by immediate unemployment within our industry. A national minimum wage within our industry is impractical and dangerous."
- George R. LeSauvage, National Restaurant Association, 1949
-If we were compelled to pay a minimum wage of $1 an hour or more we would have to raise our rates to a level where a very large segment of the population could not afford to eat or sleep in a hotel."
- Arthur J. Packard, American Hotel Association, 1955
"The entire motion-picture industry, even in our largest centers, is balanced so delicately on the knife-edge of survival or destruction that the smallest expense could throw the balance the wrong way."
-A. Julian Brylawski, Theatre Owners of America, 1955
"I think the people who are proposing these things don't know what they are talking about. It means economic chaos for the very people they are trying to help."
- Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ), 1956
"Theres is not enough mechanization or automation yet developed to save my business from the minimum wage horror."
- Ernest Kuhn, Kuhn Hotel Corporation, 1961
"Frankly, no company our size can live under such circumstances. Undoubtedly we would have to liquidate."
- Joseph E. Chastain, Lintz Department Stores, 1966
"I've often said that the minimum wage is the most anti-Negro law on the books."
- Milton Friedman, 1973
"Many of the industries and small businesses employing marginally trained or unskilled workers will be forced to cut back on the number of those employees or go out of business. The very worker that the Federal minimum wage was intended to aid will find himself out of work."
-Rep. Mickey Edwards (R-OK), 1977
"This should be called the Unemployment Act of 1977. Some economists have contended that it will cost more than 1.8 million jobs."
- Rep. John Rousselot (R-CA), 1977
-"I am vitally concerned about the thousands of teenagers and young adults who will either lose their jobs or be rendered unemployable in the unskilled labor markets as the result of increasing the minimum wage to $2.50 or more per hour."
- Eldon Rudd (R-AZ) 1977
"If the minimum wage were increased to anywhere between the low of $2.50 and the high of $3.00, between 2 and 3.1 million jobs would be lost."
- Bob Thompson, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 1977
"What we are accomplishing by setting a minimum wage is restricting the ability of persons to freely contract for their services and, in doing so, effectively limiting their opportunities to achieve economic well-being."
- Rep. Tom Hagedorn (R-MN), 1977
"The increased minimum wage is a disaster to thousands of small husband-wife businesses whose owners are literally working themselves to death because they cannot afford the higher wage scale."
- U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 1979
"The minimum wage has caused more misery and unemployment than anything since the Great Depression.
- Gov. Ronald Reagan (R-CA), 1980
"A total of 1.9 million jobs would be lost nationwide over the next eight years."
- U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 1987.
"Youth unemployment and black unemployment will drastically rise. It's amazing to me that some black leaders want an increase in the minimum wage"
- Rep. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), 1988
"When we pass minimum wage legislation it says one thing, Mr. Speaker. It says to the young black in the inner city, it says to the handicapped individual, it says to the young person looking for a first job, unless you can meet a minimum standard, we will pass a law that says it is a violation of the Federal statute to hire such a person."
- Rep. Bob McEwem (R-OH), 1989
"Minimum wage laws create unemployment. That is a mean, vicious thing to do."
- Rep. Bob McEwem (R-OH), 1989
"When the minimum wage goes up, the very people we say we want to help- the young, the unskilled, the disadvantaged- are the first people to get laid off."
- Rep. William Goodling (R-PA), 1989
"An increase in the minimum wage will harm the poor."
-Rep. Nick Smith (R-MI), 1996
"Raising the minimum wage is a misguided passion. All the valid research shows that raising the minimum wage destroys jobs. It hurts exactly those workers it intends to help- the poor, the unskilled, and the young."
- Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ), 1996
"Minimum wage laws may very well be the most anti-poor laws envisioned by modern government policymakers."
- Michael D. LaFaive, Mackinac Center for Public Policy, 1997
"The problem is raising the minimum wage actually hurts, not helps, low-income workers."
-Catherine Martin, Mackinac Center for Public Policy, 1999
"Studies have found that increases in he minimum wage encourage some teenagers to drop out of school earlier than they otherwise would."
- N. Gregory Mankiw, 2001
"Mr. Speaker, in America, we can either have maximum opportunity or we can have minimum wages. We cannot have both. In the land of the free, in a Nation as great as ours, how can we deny people their maximum opportunity, their opportunity to secure the American Dream?
-Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), 1977
"Economic freedom, not minimum-wage socialism, is the key to reducing poverty."
- James A. Dorn, Cato Institute
"Under-employment among young black males and low earnings among older black males are perennial problems explained in part by the minimum wage."
- Art Carden, Forbes Magazine, 2009
"The NAACP supports minimum wage laws that study after study show harm black workers, particularly younger black workers."
- Wall Street Journal Editorial Board , 2012
"I wish we could just pass a law saying everybody should make more money without any adverse consequences. The problem is you're costing jobs from those who are just trying to get an entry level job. "
-Rep. Paul Ryan, 2013
Source : Cry Wolf Project