Another thought before elections next week- many of the candidates aligned with the Tea Party, the "peoples' party", want to abolish the minimum wage. (Never mind that most of them couldn't tell you what the minimum wage is). Minimum wage is $290 a week, before taxes. I feel sorry for the working poor who buy into the bullshit message of the Tea Party, not realizing this would be a gift to the corporations who own their candidates and fund this "Grass Roots" movement.
They will argue that this will create more jobs, and it might. But, are you really okay with the people working around you- the maids, cooks, janitors, servers, retail workers, the people who harvest the food you feed to your children- living in poverty? Hard working folks, people there to help your life function more smoothly- you're really okay with their employers paying them less than $7.25 an hour!?
This is the America that voting Republican will bring you. An ever expanding chasm between the rich and the poor. That's a society that has been proven not to work time and again over the past centuries.
One of the problems is that many of these poor folks in the Tea Party believe they'll be rich someday. The overwhelming vast majority will not. They will be lucky to stay at their current earning levels. In fact, for years now, the U.S. has lagged behind such countries as Canada, Denmark, Norway, Australia, and Germany in income mobility. A little socialism goes a long way, it seems.
A rising tide may raise all boats, but the Republicans don't think people have a right to earn a living wage to buy that boat. So, when the tides rise, they drown.
Point well made. I wish I had seen this before the election so I could have helped push the message out. It's so hard for people to look beyond their own circumstances at the greater good...a cause larger than there own. I'm glad that you do. You might want to consider a twitter account to point people to your posts so you'd get a larger readership. You seem to have something worth sharing.
ReplyDeleteThe federal minimum wage results in the substitution of unemployment for low wages.
ReplyDeleteLet's say you want to work for $6.50/hour and a company is willing to hire you for $6.50/hour. Guess what? They can't. It is illegal. You stay unemployed, and the company that was willing to hire you loses out on the possibility of increased productivity they could have realized by hiring you.
Please read this chapter of Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson" for a more detailed explanation of the fallacy of the minimum wage.
http://fee.org/library/books/economics-in-one-lesson/#0.1_L19
Thanks for your comment on my blog. My view is that though one might be willing to work for $6.50/hr., you and I both know that's not a living wage. If your business model is such that you cannot afford to pay your workers a living wage, then perhaps you shouldn't be in business. And really, how much productivity are you getting out of someone who's worth to you is only $6.50 an hour? Just like everything else, you get what you pay for with employees.
ReplyDeleteJobs in that wage range are not meant to support a family of four. They are meant to be for people of limited experience (think teenagers, college students, etc) and limited skill. They should be a temporary, stepping stone to quality living wages. A small business could get quite a bit of production out of somebody at that wage level, and they could learn skills that could make them worthy of higher wages. This is exactly what happened to me by the way...I started as a porter at a car dealer at about $5/hour, moved up to oil change guy at probably $6 something/hr, and then apprentice mechanic and finally line mechanic, where I earned a wage suitable for supporting myself and even a family.
ReplyDeleteYou can't make somebody worth more than they are actually worth by legislating false high wages. Why don't we just make the minimum wage $20/hr and see what happens?
Glad to see you blogging again, by the way.