The George Mason University Mercatus Center has some bad news for those who want the minimum wage increased, in graphic form:

The X axis shows the unemployment rate, and the Y axis shows the minimum wage as a percentage of the average hourly wage. The chart shows unemployment rates by age and educational level since 1985. You’ll notice that as the relative minimum wage goes up, so does unemployment among those with a high school diploma, or less education than that.

The data reflects logic. If an employer is going to be mandated to increase wages of his employees with no guarantee of increased profitability or even worker output, the employer is going to be more picky about who gets hired. Tough luck for someone who didn’t get a college degree, and even more tough luck for someone who didn’t get a high school diploma.

The last thing we need is more government policies that create more unemployment, given that the correctly measured unemployment rate is at least 12 percent.

Louis Efron explains:

Despite the significant decrease in the official U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) unemployment rate, the real unemployment rate is over double that at 12.6%. This number reflects the government’s “U-6” report, which accounts for the full unemployment picture including those “marginally attached to the labor force,” plus those “employed part time for economic reasons.”

“Marginally attached” describes individuals not currently in the labor force who wanted and were available for work. The official unemployment numbers exclude them, because they did not look for work in the 4 weeks preceding the unemployment survey. In July, this marginally attached group accounted for 2.2 million people. To put that in perspective, there are currently 16 states in the U.S. with populations smaller than 2.2 million.

741,000 discouraged workers – workers not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them – are included within the list of marginally attached people. Another 7.5 million were not considered unemployed because they were employed part-time for economic reasons. Those people are also called involuntary part-time workers – working part-time because their hours were cut back or because they were unable to secure a full-time job.

When you look at state populations – using the 7.5 million – the number represents more than the population of Washington, Massachusetts, or Arizona.

These numbers mean the U.S. has nearly 10 million workers only marginally engaged in their work situation. They don’t contribute their full potential to their households, the economy or society in general. While reporting a low, declining unemployment number may comfort people, we can’t ignore the millions of workers feeling the pain of the real unemployment number rising from 12.4% to 12.6% last month.

Dan Diamond’s Forbes article, Why The ‘Real’ Unemployment Rate Is Higher Than You Think highlights another disturbing fact that compounds the challenge: The longer you’re without a job, the less likely you’ll get called back for an interview. By the eighth month of unemployment the callback rate falls by about 45%. The article concludes “many employers see these would-be workers as damaged goods.” These same people could be contributing greatly to the economy. Instead, they are spending their days trying to secure employment or working in unfulfilling and part-time jobs while depleting their savings and 401K’s to supplement their income. Or worse yet, living off their credit cards just to survive.