Irrationality and the Minimum Wage

I have found that the hardest point to get across to students is the many adverse consequences of price controls, primarily because of their attachment to the idea of the minimum wage. Bryan Caplan has the best rejoinder I have ever read for this criticism from students:

What happens when my outraged students reach the "Salary Requirements" line on job applications? They could ask for a million dollars a year, but they don't. When their future rides on it, students honor the economic truism that labor demand slopes down.

The rest of the book is excellent, but would have been worth the read for that statement alone. Raising the wage, ceteris paribus, lowers employment.