Minimum Wage

Due to Mitt Romney's recent confirmation of support for raising the minimum wage with inflation I thought it important to point out what I think about the minimum wage.

The minimum wage is a job killer and an economic killer. It hurts the poor possibly more than anyone else. Any politician that would argue otherwise isn't being honest, hasn't thought about it, or just isn't very bright.

Let me give some examples of why I believe it is a job killer.

The first obvious reason is that if Wal-Mart is forced to pay $9.00 an employee and they have only $9.00 a hour to hire on in their work force they will be forced to pick only 1 employee. If the market could choose the wages it may be $4.50 for a cart attendant and $4.50 for a store greeter.

This would mean that 2 jobs were created not 1. Not only do two seperate people have jobs, but 2 seperate people are now able to boost their resume with a job. There would seem to be no harder way to get a job than having been out of work for almost 2 years on unemployment.

Apart from the simple division of the $9.00 I woud argue that if Wal-Mart has the option to take the risk on only one employee than they will be far pickier with their candidates and may even exclude all unskilled workers for someone with a college degree who is down on their luck. Maybe Wal-Mart is so worried they won't get their money's worth out of their new employee that they choose not to hire, but instead put it into marketing.

If their was no minimum wage teenagers would also get more jobs. They would start to learn skills that you can only learn through a real job in the real world such as, how to deal with bosses, being on time without a school bus, customer service, the prices of products, floorpans, cleaning, stocking, cashier duties, etc.

With a minimum wage I believe Wal-Mart or other employers will choose to take less risk therefore hurting the poor and unskilled the most.

With our current system of cradle to grave welfare I guess it wouldn't make sense for the poor to get a job at $5.00 a hour, but that in it of itself is a whole book.

Also the minimum wage encourages those who are looking for cheap labor incentive to hire illegal immigrants or to pay for jobs under the table. This in turn decreases tax revenue. These laws are one of a million that help encourage people to become criminals versus protecting people.

So when you hear Mitt Romney say that he is for raising the minimum wage think twice about it, do we really believe that is the answer to getting more jobs for more Americans?


The Bantam Voice
"Freed people, Free people"