Low Skill Workers and the Supply Side of Employment

Tyler Cowen points to  a study that looks at low skill workers in rich vs poor societies look at the propensity to work. The finding was that low skilled people are more likely to work in poorer societies.

He writes:

An alternative view, not mutually exclusive, is that in poor societies low-education workers simply have to take jobs, due to extreme need.

Recently, I was listening to The Glen Show, and the guest said that unemployment in some majority black parts of Chicago was over 30%!

Also according to Feakonomics illegal drug industry workers make less than minimum wage

Considering the above, is it plausible that the old conservative idea that welfare and minimum wage laws have had harmful effects on black Americans? That would be by blacks not working and gaining skills and by pushing them into the illegal sector.

This would be true for low skilled whites also but might be more damaging to blacks because of people propensity to use statistical discrimination.