House Democrats introduced a $25 an hour minimum wage bill earlier this month.  Maybe they should read this famous New York Times editorial which ran on January 14, 1987. It’s just as correct now as it was nearly 40 years ago.

Here’s the editorial’s key insight:

Edward Kennedy, the new chairman of the Senate Labor Committee, is being pressed by organized labor to battle for an increase… But there’s a virtual consensus among economists that the minimum wage is an idea whose time has passed. Raising the minimum wage by a substantial amount would price working poor people out of the job market.

The Times has since disassociated itself from that editorial. They say their economic thinking on the issue has since then “evolved.” We’d say it has devolved. The inviolable rules of economics aren’t changed over time.