RSSLawmakers must halt runaway minimum wage
Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board
Your complaints about agri-business entitlements are reasonable, but your understanding of the economics dealing with the minimum wage are lacking.
Liberals love to complain about how conservatives don't listen enough to scientists, and there is some basis for this complaint. However, they never think that maybe they should actually listen to economists. Our minimum wage law will decrease the number of entry level jobs available. This increases unemployment and removes opportunities to learn on the job. Minimum wage jobs are stepping stones. There is no way to go from no skill to skilled without training.
If people need to get an education to earn more, how are they supposed to get by in the mean time? By relying on financial aid? By taking out huge loans? And how are they supposed to qualify for loans when they earn minimum wage?
Lets face it. Some people have to get by on the minimum wage. If we lower it, then these people will have to start taking on two and three jobs at a time. Leaving less employment for other minimum wage earners. Next you will be complaining that their teenage children are out spraying paint on your garage- where are their parents? Yeah, they at one of their three jobs because you decided to cut their paycheck at the one that allowed them to spend time with their kids.
OK, so why isn't the minimum wage $15/hour or $20/hour or even $30/hour? If you see that these might not be realistic, can you accept that policies have consequences? What would be the consequences of a $15/hour minimum wage?The same consequences happen when you take the minimum wage from $8.07 to $8.55, just at a smaller scale.
It is noble to want to help people who could use it, but we should target that help directly. Playing with markets can have unintended and undesirable consequences. Why make it harder for teens to get a job, when the goal is to help families? Why make a business owner bear the entire cost when the goal is meant to be beneficial to all?
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So, the costs of living increases, which our society and economy efficiently pass off to America's basic consumers, is supposed to be eaten by the entry level workers!? That's a mistake. This opinion accepts an unjust way to subsidize/socialize profit margins for those citizens holding the options/power to make the necessary,rational market adjustments. AMERICA CAN DO A BETTER JOB at generating sustainable economic development by not selling out to the agri-business ENTITLEMENTS, etc., inherited over the past centuries.
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