The Minimum Wage Is Supported By People With Minimum Brains

What is the purpose of the minimum wage law?

Is the minimum wage supposed to be a “living wage”?

Is the minimum wage supposed to be “enough to support a family of four…forever”?

Is the minimum wage something we should have our kids set their sights on?

Classic example of how humans take things too far.

It’s why we went from no income tax to 90% taxes in the top bracket between 1913 and 1960.

It’s why unions were once a good thing and now they membership is declining.

Maybe you should take this anger out a politician who takes 100% of unemployment away if you find any job.

Let’s use your “cry me a river / the sky is falling” analogy and say we can pay 10 cents per hour and there is an able-bodied person at home drawing $300/week unemployment and I can hire him for 10 cents an hour.

If the government would adjust his unemployment to $296/week everyone wins.

The employer gets to train someone and see how they do for $4 per week.

The government saves $4 per week.

The worker spends 40 hours learning and doing vs sitting home watching Jerry Springer.

“But Wes, he’ll work like that forever and the CEOs will get richer and the greedy capitalists will win on the backs of the working class.”

Wrong.

First of all, unemployment benefits don’t last forever so whether this dude is binging on Jerry Springer or earning 10 cents, that “safety net” is finite.

Second, it’s easier to find a job when you have a job.

“Yo, Joe, know anybody that can drive a dolly / has warehouse experience / is good with a shovel / has ever done roofing, etc?”

“Yeah, Wes, I know this dude, Mark, he’s been working for three weeks at ABC company and he’s only earning 10 cents per hour.”

“Tell him I’ll hire him for 20 cents an hour.”

NPR has a podcast and this quote from the 1930’s while FDR was pushing for a minimum wage sums up the problem nicely: “I wouldn’t plow nobody’s field from sunrise to sunset for $.50 a day when I could get $1.30 for pretending to work in a ditch for the federal government” reported David Kestenbaum and Robert Smith on an episode of NPRs “Planet Money” podcast.

There will always be greedy CEOs and there will always be greedy workers and both harm our economy and our nation.

I’m just a big believer that the pigs within your company will kill you far sooner than the sharks outside your company.