GOP presidential front-runners Ben Carson and Donald Trump both said during Tuesday's debate that they would not raise the minimum wage if elected.
"People need to be educated on the minimum wage. Every time we raise the minimum wage, the number of jobless people increases," Carson said.
The problem is worst in the black community, he said, where only 19.8 percent of black teenagers have a job or are looking for one.
"If you lower those wages, that comes down," he said.
Low-wage jobs gave him the opportunity to learn skills and ascend the ladder of success, he said.
Trump said high taxes and high wages are making America unable to compete on the world stage.
"I hate to say it, but we have to leave it the way it is," he said. "People have to go out, they have to work really hard and have to get into that upper stratum.
"If you raise the minimum wage you make people more expensive than machines," Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said when it was his turn.
"Automation replacing people will be accelerated."