Some people have fixated upon the near doubling of the minimum wage after WW II (one person misidentifies the date as 1948, but it's actually 1950) as a cause of disemployment in certain groups. This may have happened; however, the increase in the minimum wage from $0.40 to $0.75 was not associated with a decrease in general employment, nor of youth unemployment.

Figure 1: Log nonfarm payroll employment, s.a. (blue, left scale), and log ratio of Federal minimum wage to average hourly earnings in manufacturing (red, right scale). NBER defined recession dates shaded gray. Source: BLS via FRED, and NBER Macrohistory database, NBER, and author's calculations.

The civilian employment series exhibits the same upward trend, post-minimum wage increase.

Some might argue that youth unemployment rose tremendously as a consequence of the minimum wage increase. At first glance, this does not appear to be the case, according to BLS data (data broken down by race does not go back to 1950).

Figure 2: Ratio of unemployment rate, age 16-19, to overall unemployment rate, both seasonally adjusted (blue, left scale), and log ratio of Federal minimum wage to average hourly earnings in manufacturing (red, right scale). NBER defined recession dates shaded gray. Age 16-19 unemployment seasonally adjusted using ARIMA X-12 over 1948M01-2014M11. Source: BLS via FRED, and NBER Macrohistory database, NBER, and author's calculations.

Time to end analysis by anecdote. We have the data to answer many questions, if only we have the will… and the expertise.