The Nation : Brock Backs Teen Wages

In his first speech as labor secretary, William E. Brock III said that the country should experiment with a sub-minimum summer wage for teen-agers, a program strongly opposed by organized labor. The Reagan Administration’s proposal to try to spur employment by paying teen-agers $2.50 an hour instead of the $3.35-an-hour minimum wage is an idea that “I know we should try,” Brock said. Noting that unemployment among black teen-agers chronically runs at more than 40%, Brock told the National Press Club in Washington that “everybody digs in their heels while the kids cool their heels on the street corners, unemployed.”