A lot of the minimum wage talk is the same thing over and over again. While BW makes very valid points, we are missing a huge portion of the discussion. Bill sticks really tight to the truth he talks about with this, but is either pulling his punches, or this part of the discussion is to complicated to push in a short time.
Lets look at a few major factors of federal minimum wage of 15 dollars. I’m going to try and keep this from bunching together, but writing in a hurry and I’m a procedure writer, so my more … ranty style talking points get bunched up.
A pushed minimum wage such as a federal one is a push for socialism. This pushes class warfare and also impoverishes a great number of the population. We’ll push into that part further. Look towards communist style countries where something we might spend 10 dollars for they are spending 100,000 of their money. The inflation rate from programs like this impoverish people quickly as you’re changing the class structure based on something so simple such as a minimum wage.
The lack of understanding of cost of living by the basic person is due to our school systems, but lets ignore that, purposefully cause it’s not relevant, or maybe it is. Minimum wage is a silly idea, but because there are people out there who will take advantage of workers, we have one. The old anecdote of “Minimum wage, if I could pay you less, I would.” (Chris Rock) While this can be true in a job starved market, we have abundances of jobs, people just don’t want to work. They get free money from the Tax payers. Yes, we, as conservatives, need to stop pulling this punch and saying “Government funded.” Programs such as welfare and food stamps are TAX PAYER FUNDED. The government spends OUR money.
We all understand, at least us here on BW.com, that cost of living differs from state to state. If you’re really into the constitution, you understand that federal minimum wage is outside of the scope of the federal government as well. This leads us to what minimum wage really is. It’s poverty level basics. These jobs are for people starting out and if you don’t suck, you’ll not stay there very long. But those making minimum wage are essentially at the poverty level. This is a key point, jot this down in your copy books for further reference.
Were going to use a made up number now, 8, to represent poverty. After hard work, study, schooling and just not sucking at your job, you can move your wage up to 10, 12, 13, 14 or 15 dollars an hour. In a lot of states these are great wages. You are not going to buy a home with them, but you will live comfortable if you’re not in a high cost of living area. It can take years to get a skilled job at 15 an hour sometimes. Do you see where this is going?
If we move the minimum wage to 15 dollars an hour, we just took a TON of educated and skilled workers to poverty. 10 years of advancements are down the drain. I don’t see why people ignore this fact or do not get it at all. If we move minimum wage up 7 dollars, the people making 12 dollars an hour don’t get a 8 dollar wage increase, they get a 3 dollar wage increase to poverty wages.
On to the next point. Now that we have moved everyones wages to 15 an hour, the cost of living will skyrocket for everything from cotton balls to cellular phones and everything else you can imagine. The 2 dollar cheeseburger you enjoy at fast food will now triple in price to 6 dollars. These are the things that nobody talks about. Why are we not talking about the overall logistics of costs associated with minimum wage as our defense against this idiotic idea?
Lets break down a burger and were going to keep it simple. So don’t take this as 100% factual because we are going to simplify it.
Lets assume the burger has a bun, patty, lettuce and tomato. At McCheepos here we sell that burger for 2 dollars to the customer, and our overhead cost of those goods in total is 50 cents. With a minimum wage increase we are going to raise that good cost astronomically because everyone in the chain before it gets to the seller who sells it to the store now has to raise their price.
That patty might have started at a really low cost with current wages, but now starting from the producer who now has to pay his workers who raise those cows higher wages. The person transporting the animals to the packing plant is charging more because fuel prices are higher to pay for the workers at the fuel plants and stations. The packing plant wages are now higher because of minimum wage again raising the final product price. That processed meat from the packer goes to a processor, we have a transport charge there increasing the price. The processor finally gets the meat and has to mark up their costs despite most of their systems being automated already because the people there still have to move stuff and they are paid more. Then those products are transported again by multiple people and stored by warehouse workers who are all paid more per hour now increasing the cost of that patty over and over and over again until it finally gets to McCheapos and they have to pay far more just to pay for the patty, his workers now cost more per hour to make you that burger and were just talking about the burger patty, not the lettuce, tomato or bun which will all be more expensive.
This is essentially legislative inflation devaluing the money without actually printing more money due to the artificial rise in the cost of living based on emotions of a minimum wage. So now half our lower middle class or even more possibly are now impoverished and barely able to afford their utilities at 15 an hour and skilled workers will quit their skilled jobs to go to unskilled jobs because why work harder for minimum wage.
Hopefully these arguments can help everyone explain the perils of where this leads.