'Heard a blabber say that the miniumum wage in U.S. was created by racists to

[Peregrine Took]

keep blacks out of good jobs by raising the local wage rate thereby eliminating people who would work for low pay.

I googled the history of this and can't find anything to substantiate what she said.

I imagine this is some sort of crazy wing nut myth that they love passing around as I can't find any basis in reality for it.

[JoePhilly]

1. Send them this ...

Here is a link to the actual data for 2010 (with a excerpt here)

The percentage of workers earning the minimum wage did not vary much across the major race and ethnicity groups. About 6 percent of White hourly-paid workers earned the Federal minimum wage or less, compared with about 7 percent of Blacks and about 5 percent of Asians. Among hourly-paid workers with Hispanic ethnicity, about 6 percent earned the minimum wage or less.

http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2010.htm

This table (also from the article) provides the raw numbers.

http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2010tbls.htm#1

[zbdent]

2. they'll throw anything at the wall

to see if it will stick ...

[sinkingfeeling]

3. I think that 'story' has been around since the 50's and 60's.

It's a favorite thing to say among the GOP that by increasing the minimum wage, more blacks are unemployed. Of course, they think it's great if people have to work 2 or 3 jobs to survive.

Walter Williams wrote a whole book on the subject.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_E._Williams

[EFerrari]

4. Yeah, because before the minimum wage, there was no discrimination against black people at all. lol

[Nikia]

5. Thomas Sowell, black conservative/liberatarian has said this

He suggested that the key to the economic advancement of minority people was that they be willing to work for less. His theory was that the business owners and hiring managers may be racist but that they would be willing to hire in their economic interests. I don't know how this would eventually lead to equal pay for equal work though.