Quote:You're not supposed to live on minimum wage.  You're supposed to get your foot on the bottom rung of the ladder and learn something about working and about life in general.   People who advocate raising the minimum wage don't seem to realize, they are just raising up the bottom rung of the ladder to the point where fewer people will be able to get on it.   If you raise the cost of basic labor, you give a powerful incentive for business owners to find alternatives that are cheaper.  And that means fewer people will be able to reach the bottom rung of the ladder. 

 

You think minimum wage earners are voting in their own interest when they vote to raise the minimum wage?   They're not.   They're voting to eliminate their own jobs.  

 

At $7.25 per hour, I might hire a young guy to sweep out my warehouse, and while he's there, he might watch how we do the shipping and receiving, and work his way up if he's sharp enough.  Or he might decide warehouse work sucks and decide to enroll in community college and get a better set of skills.   But at $15.00 an hour, no way I hire someone to do that.  I figure out some other way to keep the warehouse clean.   And that young guy sits on his  behind at home or hangs out with his friends who are also unemployed.  

 

It's an absolute fact that if you raise the cost of something, you decrease demand for it.   That's why raising the minimum wage eliminates jobs.  

 

At $7.25 an hour you might hire a young guy to sweep out your warehouse.  Sure you, might.  And you might not.   The fact is the solution you'd think of at $15.00/hour or $10.75/hour is likely the one you're going to think of at $7.25/hour.  You'll just make it someone else's job, and not pay someone extra.  Because most businesses aren't in the business of giving jobs to people because they feel charitable.  They have jobs because they need people working.  They don't pay people to sit around and do nothing.  That's not smart business.  


Sure, a minimum wage increase eliminates some jobs.  But a minimum wage increase is necessary to at the bare minimum keep up with inflation.  It doesn't matter if you aren't "supposed" to live on it.  A lot of people are.  People who have degrees, because they can't find jobs and have to make a living somehow.  And these aren't people with "puppetering" degrees as some would have you believe.  Many of them have useful degrees, and graduated with good marks.  

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