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Saturday, September 28, 2013

Minimum Wage, Maximum Nonsense

In his 2013 State of the Union message, President Obama suggested that Congress increase the federal hourly minimum wage from its current rate of $7.25 to at least $9.00. Several states are also debating an increase; indeed, the California legislature recently approved and Governor Jerry Brown just signed a bill that would boost their hourly state minimum from $8 to $10 in three years. In Florida where I reside, the legal minimum (with some important exceptions) is $7.79 and is inflation-adjusted annually.

Is the current national hoopla to “do something” about minimum wages another governmental mistake? Absolutely. Minimum wage laws lessen employment opportunities for workers (especially teens and low-skilled workers) and hurt some of the very individuals that they are allegedly designed to help…the working poor. Boosting the minimum wage substantially at the state or federal level would be a public policy mistake.

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9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bull. Raising the wages would do nothing but help. everything has gone up but the paychecks. and I don't want to hear any of these people say I own a business and it's going to affect me blase blah because everything is going up in need your prices going up you're making more money what you want to continue to pay people low rates. Plus now companies are working people under 30 hours to avoid Obama care. minimum wage definitely need to be lifted especially around in this area

Anonymous said...

352, read what you wrote, and think. 30 hours is an incredible impact at a $60k/ year job, and has nothing to do with minimum wage. Minimum wagers never had health coverage anyway. So, one has nothing to do with the other.

Try again.

Anonymous said...

Killing obamacare is what needs to be done.

Anonymous said...

7:25-You are incorrect. Actually quite a few minimum wage (and part time) jobs do or at least did offer benefits. These include employees of Whole Foods, Starbucks, Lowes, JC Penney just to name a few.

Try again-LOL!

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure about raising the minimum wage across the board because there are quite a few locally owned businesses that couldn't afford it. I personally know of a retired federal government employee who opened a small business approximately 10 years ago. He makes no money but he does employ several local kids and some from the college. It's a true "stepping stone" type of job.

On the other hand large companies like the chicken processors and Walmart can well afford to pay more. As it stands we the tax payers are supplementing an overwhelming number of their employees because they are all on one or more type of welfare entitlement.

Anonymous said...

Raise the minimum wage to $50.00 per hour. That will get everybody off welfare, won't it??

Anonymous said...

Well one thing is for certain, both the federal and state and county governments would save billions in welfare benefits including Medicaid, renters assistance, food supplement, free lunch programs, etc if a lot of employees of larger corporations were paid more. The reality is these corporations and companies are sponging off the taxpayers, raking in billions in profits and in return the governments by way of tax payers money are paying for their employees to make ends meet. Listen to Rand Paul. He calls it a form of corporate welfare.

Anonymous said...

I have thought about what I said there buddy and trust me you're the one thats mixed up your response talking about the fact of salary were talking about by the hour. anybody that may 6 grand a year by the hour is making well more than minimum wage think about that one. its like I said everything has gone up but the paychecks it's ridiculous. nobody can afford to live off of minimum wage or 9 or 10 dollars an hour nobody except for the illegal immigrants that shack up with multiple families in one house and they're rent is only like $100 a month.

Anonymous said...

3:52-This isn't as black amd white as you claim.
First of all believe it or not it is the large corporations who are always behind raising the minimum wage. In MD recently it's been the large big box store Costco, who has been extensively lobbying for an increase.
Since the advent of anti trust laws this is a way for them to rid competition. Big stores can pass the cost on to consumers in ways that they barely notice if at all.
This is where the American public is fooled especially democratic voters. The democrat politicians are completely enslaved by big business and do exactly as they are told to do by them.
Another example is obamacare. As stated in a post on here: Obama is a salesman for insurance companies who now will reap in the benefits of millions of people being forced to buy insurance. The difference is now the companies won't be the bad guys, it will be the federal gov't who will be making the decisions whether insurance will pay for treatments. The insurance executives are laughing all the way to the banks at the foolish American people.