printThe Bill to raise the minimum wage has three Democratic lawmakers — Reps. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), and Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.) — swelling with pride.
The “Catching Up to 1968 Act of 2012” … would spike the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10 while mandating that future increases be tied to inflation. Jackson and his Democratic colleagues proclaimed that the legislation would model the 1968 minimum wage rate for inflation in today’s dollars. “This legislation is long-overdue and sorely needed,” Conyers affirmed. “More than 30 million Americans would see their wages increased, which would provide an immediate boost to the economy.”
Today’s youth don’t have the economic smarts with which to understand why they are less likely to be hired under legislation that fixes the price of their labor above its productivity.
Those who claim to represent unemployed youngsters—whose labor-participation rate has been in decline—don’t much care that such legislation circumvents voluntary exchanges in the market. Because government has fixed the price of labor, economic actors are prevented from engaging in mutually beneficial, voluntary exchange.
Still less is the hike justified because it impoverishes. For government can bid wages above market value, but it cannot compel business to hire, the outcome of which is unemployment among the young and the poor.
The economic illiterates also forget that the $ 7.25 often comes with extra mandated costs such as employer payroll taxes, OSHA compliance, health care compliance compared with 1968. 1968 was also when many less women were in the workplace (tradition and baby boom kids to raise) and when 500,000 men were wasting their lives turning Vietnam into Paradise.
But the illiterates are certainly right that $ 7.25 is not a lot of money if you wish to raise a family including buying a car, a house in a good neighborhood, sending a few kids to private school (plus piano lessons, etc.), owning a vacation house, membership in decent country club, …. – did these economic titans realize that many of these $ 7.25 people are just students trying to get a work resume or exceedingly marginal unskilled laborers who can be replaced by robots (or the work farmed out to Bangladesh??).
The increase in wages will “boost the economy”. This is certainly true if Martians start buying cheeseburgers at $40 each – did these geniuses realize that “the economy” has to PAY those wages!?? Oh golly gee, the $ 10 minimum wage can no longer buy $10 worth of goods anymore!!
Conyers, Kucinich and Jesse Jr. As I ‘ve said before, in politics the scum certainly rises to the bottom. As far as today’s unemployed youth are concerned most of aint worth $10.00 an hour. Th vacant eyed, slack jawed, crack head thugs slouching around with their hats on sideways and their pants hanging below their butts would be hard pressed to get hired by me for 15 cents an hour, let alone $10.00. But that’s all right, most of them don’t want to work anyway. For those that do want to work $10.00 an hour prices them out of the market for their worth. Small businesses hire most of the workers in the economy and this latest piece of government ignorance is just one more mill stone around the necks of American business.
Concise and understandable, Ilana.
Why don’t they just make the minimum wage a Bazillion dollars?
I support a rise in the minimum wage to price out illegal labor. Given employers pretending to not know the legal status of potential employees, a higher minimum wage might be a better way to crack down on those who put out the welcome mats for illegals.