Hans Bader: How a Minimum Wage Hike Wiped Out 40% of Venezuela's Stores

A large minimum wage increase in Venezuela has dealt a “fatal blow to 40% of Venezuelan stores,” reports the Miami Herald. The increase has closed many stores and left employees jobless. Venezuela’s government ignored the most basic law of economics in raising the minimum wage: the law of supply and demand. But laws don’t go away just because you ignore them.

The job losses will rise in the coming weeks because even “some of the stores that did [remain] open are simply liquidating their merchandise and plan to close definitively when that’s done.”