The Free Market's Cost Is The True Cost

The free market's cost of the product or service is the true cost. Products and services are offered at low cost because people are willing to provide them. No one is forced to work as a manicurist, and many people come to America from overseas in order to work as manicurists. A $25 manicure-pedicure is above minimum wage in America, and far above what many people could earn if they stayed in their home countries.

Of course, America has minimum wage laws, and these should be enforced. If employers are not paying minimum wage then they get in trouble with the New York State Department of Labor. But those employees who want to work for minimum wage should be allowed to, and consumers who want to avail themselves of low-cost services should not feel guilty.

As my colleague Jared Meyer and I write in our new book, "Disinherited: How Washington Is Betraying America's Young," raising the minimum wage deprives teenagers and low-skill individuals of the only job opportunities they can get. As their skills improve, they move on. Manicurists could move to Rafael's Beauty Salon on 35 West 43rd ($42 for mani-pedis), and then to the Marilyn Monroe Spa on 135 West 45th ($105 for mani-pedis).

As immigrants settle here, many become better off. In the 1980s most manicurists came from Latin America. You don't have to speak English well to do a manicure or a pedicure. But you can still get a start in a new country.

The Vietnamese owners of a spa in Bethesda, Md., had two or three nail salons. Their two children were getting graduate degrees in business and dentistry at George Washington University. Their English wasn't very good but they gave excellent mani-pedis for about $30. Now retired, the spa owners are an American success story, not a social problem.

This piece originally appeared in The New York Times

This piece originally appeared in The New York Times