Do you believe that a minority teenager, maybe a high school drop out, with very few job skills, has a right to work? Or do you believe that being low skilled, maybe so low-skilled that you can only command $8 or $9 an hour in the job market, means you should have this right taken away? Oddly enough, for the progressive left, those who claim to be the most compassionate in our society, have adopted the latter position.
In fact, the position that was adopted by the Democratic Party platform this summer argues that anyone whose skills are so low that they can’t command $15 and hour has no right to gainful employment. They argue that any employer who attempts to hire such a person at a rate that is commensurate with his or her skills will be breaking the law and subject to severe penalties.
This is the reality of raising the minimum wage. If you are in favor of a legal hourly minimum wage of $15 you are arguing that a person loses his right to be employed if his skills are not at a level where he can generate at least an equal amount in production for an employer. (It should be noted that you are actually saying more than this since to hire someone for $15 an hour it probably costs an employer about $17 or $18 given Social Security taxes and mandated benefits like, in some cases, health insurance.)
Of course, this is not how the minimum wage is typically described. When raising the minimum wage is discussed we typically hear moralistic platitudes like “no one should be forced to work for less than $15 per hour” or people “deserve to receive a living wage.”
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And those denied the right to work must be fed, must be housed, must have health care, etc., so they must become wards of the state as all of those things are provided for them. If the thinking is that the welfare state is huge now, it will be immense.
ReplyDeleteDump welfare to an individual case-by-case basis! Test for drugs, alcohol, tobacco, iPhones, and 22" rims on their Blingallac and take them off the program when they fail!
ReplyDeleteIf they can work, send them to Melwood - or to the farmers that need crops picked!
Sounds like social engineering to me. Margaret Sanger would be proud.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't fair that the government has recruited all of these foreigners to come here and work, but then, not pay them a decent wage.
ReplyDeleteMinimum wage increase is for the illegals. It is only fair.
How do you "test" someone for having rims on their truck? LOL
ReplyDelete12:00 with your eyes - but they have to be open!
ReplyDeleteYou could also use a camera to document as proof!
Just how is it determined what the work is worth?
ReplyDeleteThe minimum wage is so low it amounts to slavery.
Fact is if there is work to be done a higher wage will be paid.
This is pure garbage about what the work is worth. Cheapskate employers who care nothing about others.
Employers aren't in business to "care about others", nor should they be.
DeleteBut work will only be worth what it costs for someone to find it profitable to accept it. When there are so many excess immigrants, illegals or refugees, oversupply of labor means devaluation of the worth of a defined unit of work.
Deport them, and labor prices...wages...increase.