Minimum Wage Haters - Get Over It!

Back to Townhall.com, a truly great resource for getting the Raving Moderate P.O.'ed enough to write something. Brian Lambro cites some studies which he says indicate that raising the minimum wage, as has just been done by the new Congress, may cause some additional unemployment, particularly among minorities. One of the sources is the Hoover Institution, which has some impressive neoconservative ties. Another is Dr. David Neumark, who has been funded by Walmart at times, but who is also applauded by the anti-Walmart Watch for standing up to them in reporting some of his findings about their company. Nevertheless, I take the use of statistics with a grain of salt, as far as Lambro's interpretation and the inference of cause and effect. I would ask, for example whether the influence of NAFTA and other influences on employment have been factored in, and what techniques have been used. I'm not fully qualified, nor do I have the time, to fully analyze all of the stats (since I have to make a living, too, and this ain't it. Gotta magazine/blog/think tank with a paying position for a Raving Moderate? Call me!). But I think I have some salient points to make within my current confines, so here goes my response.

(Original article is entitled $7.25? A Truly Bad Idea. Stop by there, my post created an interesting argument with a fellow named Fergus, so I had more to say...)

There has to be a balance. Given that we have a minimum wage, it ought to go up enough to at least keep pace with inflation and be adjusted annually; otherwise its original goals are constantly being eroded. I don't think this first raise in ten years even keeps up with the cost of living. And an annual adjustment would not be as much of a jolt, much as we adjust each year to a small increase in the price of stamps.

We could apply Mr. Lambro's logic in reverse. If raising the minimum wage, costs some jobs, we could reduce the minimum wage to a penny, and thereby have enough jobs for everybody.

But of course, that would be absurd. Human beings need a certain baseline to get by. While our standard of living is a little higher in this country than most others, it's often easier to fall through the cracks, too. Unless you live at home with your parents, even the new minimum is not going to get you far, nor help you to educate yourself to move up to a higher level.

Of course, if you operate a small business and are currently paying minimum, this hurts, and may result in some layoffs, too. I'm not saying it's an easy problem; it's just that there is a balancing act to be done, which is glossed over by Mr. Lambro's offhand point of view. Employers, keep in mind that paying someone to help with your business is your ticket to greater wealth than if you operated completely solo. You ought to be grateful to these folks, as well as them to you, and keep their welfare in mind, too (pardon the expression), as you would hope that they care about doing a good job for you. It's only fair business. It's for sure that if you paid your employees a penny or two an hour, you would be exploiting them, but of course the line has to be drawn somewhere. So it's not easy to say how long you could keep paying them $5.25 or $7.25 and not have it turn into exploitation, given what it costs to live and better yourself these days. We could "let the market sort it out", but we all know that on the whole those with money, power, and experience have a huge advantage in negotiations. Labor laws, including the minimum wage and rights for unions, which have been considerably weakened and subverted over the past two and a half decades, came into being precisely because of the gross exploitation of the early Industrial Revolution.

So find a way to give your employees their extra money. Try to find a way to raise profits and cut non-employee expenses to keep them all on the payroll. Maybe put your own swimming pool on hold for a little while (invite your workers over when you do get the pool, if you're really such a regular person). If you want to protest the government taking your money, consider how much pork President Bush and other politicians sling around, and that half of your federal income taxes, probably more now, go to pay for wars, past and present.

The price of everything is going up. Isn't it fair the price for laborers, who also have to pay for the commodities of survival, should go up as well?