Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Minimum Wage Increase, Minimal Benefit

State Sen. Martin Looney, D-New Haven, is criticizing Republican Gov. Jodi M. Rell because she may veto a proposed increase to the minimum wage.

I've written about this before, but, obviously, Looney and his simple-minded ilk aren't paying too much attention.

If you raise the minimum wage, everything else increases proportionally, making the increase moot.

Is that too hard to understand, Marty?

Let me make it as clear as possible: An increase to the minimum wage will help no one, and will actually hurt middle-income residents!

If a guy who used to make $7.65 an hour starts getting $8 an hour, his boss is going to raise prices to make up for the extra money he has to pay his employees.

If the McDonald's where that guy works used to sell Big Macs for $2, that Big Mac is now going to cost $2.25. If the cable company has to pay their telemarketers more money, then the company simply charges more for the service to make up for it.

So the guy who just got the increase in his minimum-wage rate sees no real increase, because it's already been eaten up by increased costs everywhere else.

However, people whose incomes do not increase simply have to pay more for things, even though they're making the same amount of money as before.

The proposal to raise the minimum wage is a parlor trick. It is designed to appeal to the poor and the ignorant in order to gain their political support.

If Looney and his pals want to help the poor, then they should be honest and tell those people that minimum wage jobs are not supposed to be able support a family. That's why people are supposed to go to school and work hard, so that they can get a job with pay that can support a family.

If Looney and his peers really wanted to help the poor, they would be honest and show those people how to better themselves, instead of constantly trying to reinforce the behavior that keeps them poor.

3 comments:

Richard Jennings said...

Minimum wage? llook at these high paying jobs posted-

http://www.realmatch.com
http://www.simplyhired.com
http://www.monster.com

Its like I hear one thing and see another.

Karen Olson said...

So prices go up all over but those at the bottom of the pay scale should work for peanuts and not be able to afford food, gas, heating oil, just because you think minimum wage enables people and they should continually be earning $5 or less an hour? On that salary they can't afford to go to school, even community college. Are you against student loans, too?

Al said...

You entirely miss the point, Karen. Once everything goes up to cover the cost of the increased minimum wage, the people at the bottom of the pay scale still aren't going to be able to afford anything.
Minimum wage is never going to be enough to live on, it's that simple. The people at the bottom will be at the bottom no matter how much that minimum wage increases.
I'll tell you who's really screwed, and that's average people, like me, whose pay won't go up no matter how high the minimum wage goes -- so as the prices increase, the poor are still poor but I become poorer as well.
And your last question is just silly, a typical liberal arguing tactic -- bring up something that has nothing to do with the debate but make the big, bad conservative sound mean. Of course I'm not against student loans, I had to take them out myself because I couldn't get financial aid.