Walter Williams‘ latest column at Human Events details the harmful impacts of common government economic regulations.

A general economic principle is that any law or regulation that restricts market entry tends to impose the greatest burden on those who can be described as poor, latecomers, discriminated-against and politically weak.

The president of the NAACP’s St. Louis chapter, Adolphus Pruitt, has petitioned a circuit court judge to reject the St. Louis Metropolitan Taxicab Commission’s conspiratorial call to issue a temporary restraining order that would force Uber to shut down. He says the order would negatively impact nearly 2,000 African-Americans who work as Uber partners in black neighborhoods that have long been ignored by taxis and other transportation providers. In a statement, Pruitt said, “The immediate harm of a (temporary restraining order) would strand thousands of African American riders who depend on Uber to travel around a city that has measurable gaps in its transportation system and has failed to serve our neighborhoods for decades.” …

… The most devastating and difficult-to-change economic conspiracy is the minimum wage law. The conspiratorial aspect of the law is that it prices all people out of the job market whose skills do not provide the value of the minimum wage. Put yourself in the place of an employer and ask yourself whether you would hire a person whom the minimum wage law mandates you pay $7.25 an hour if that person were so unfortunate that he could add only $5 worth of value an hour. Most employers would view hiring such a low-skilled person as a losing economic proposition, but they might hire him if he could be paid $5 an hour. Unfortunately, the minimum wage law is seen as sacrosanct, and that conspiracy will continue in perpetuity — robbing youngsters, particularly black youngsters, of a chance to get their feet on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder.