Go ahead and tell me that the minimum wage has not changed since '97. Tell me that a family can not live on a minimum wage salary.
My reply is so what? These two points are completely irrelevant.
The minimum wage is classical leftist (Democrat) demagoguery. It is designed to project a sense of compassion. In fact, it does more harm than good.
The Democrats will push their minimum wage nonsense over the next "100 hours". After that, it will go to the Senate where the Republicans will bring the issue back to reality.
What are House Democrats doing? They are buying votes. They are creating a dependency. (Vote for me and I will tell you what you want to hear.)
Take a look at The Right Minimum Wage By George Will:
"Democrats consider the minimum wage increase a signature issue. So, consider what it says about them:
Most of the working poor earn more than the minimum wage, and most of the 0.6 percent (479,000 in 2005) of America's wage workers earning the minimum wage are not poor.
Only one in five workers earning the federal minimum live in families with household earnings below the poverty line.
Sixty percent work part-time and their average household income is well over $40,000. (The average and median household incomes are $63,344 and $46,326 respectively.)
Forty percent of American workers are salaried. Of the 75.6 million paid by the hour, 1.9 million earn the federal minimum or less, and of these, more than half are under 25 and more than a quarter are between 16 and 19.
Many are students or other part-time workers.
My reply is so what? These two points are completely irrelevant.
The minimum wage is classical leftist (Democrat) demagoguery. It is designed to project a sense of compassion. In fact, it does more harm than good.
The Democrats will push their minimum wage nonsense over the next "100 hours". After that, it will go to the Senate where the Republicans will bring the issue back to reality.
What are House Democrats doing? They are buying votes. They are creating a dependency. (Vote for me and I will tell you what you want to hear.)
Take a look at The Right Minimum Wage By George Will:
"Democrats consider the minimum wage increase a signature issue. So, consider what it says about them:
Most of the working poor earn more than the minimum wage, and most of the 0.6 percent (479,000 in 2005) of America's wage workers earning the minimum wage are not poor.
Only one in five workers earning the federal minimum live in families with household earnings below the poverty line.
Sixty percent work part-time and their average household income is well over $40,000. (The average and median household incomes are $63,344 and $46,326 respectively.)
Forty percent of American workers are salaried. Of the 75.6 million paid by the hour, 1.9 million earn the federal minimum or less, and of these, more than half are under 25 and more than a quarter are between 16 and 19.
Many are students or other part-time workers.
Sixty percent of those earning the federal minimum or less work in restaurants and bars and are earning tips -- often untaxed, perhaps -- in addition to their wages.
Two-thirds of those earning the federal minimum today will, a year from now, have been promoted and be earning 10 percent more.
Raising the minimum wage predictably makes work more attractive relative to school for some teenagers, and raises the dropout rate.
Two scholars report that in states that allow persons to leave school before 18, a 10 percent increase in the state minimum wage caused teenage school enrollment to drop 2 percent.
The federal minimum wage has not been raised since 1997, so 29 states with 70 percent of the nation's work force have set minimum wages of between $6.15 and $7.93 an hour."
Does any of these facts matter? The answer is no. The minimum wage is about politics (i.e. votes) and no economics.
Do you want to help poor people? I have 3 ideas:
1) Get a high school degree. (In the US, it is free to go to school)
2) Get married before you have babies. (Single mothers are the largest component of poverty)
3) Obey the law. Do not take drugs or engage in reckless behavior.
Follow my advice and you will enjoy the American dream.
How do I know this? My parents arrived in the US without a penny to their name and look at them now. What they did do? They went to work and did not sit around dwelling in victimization or expecting the federal government to take care of them.
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