Oppose -  Raising the Minimum Wage
 
I oppose an increase in the minimum wage.  I would prefer to see it abolished.
 
1) What a hair-brained idea!  The more you raise the MWL the more you raise the poverty line.  When it was $1 ph, (in 1960), the poverty line was not even discussed in the media.  I wonder what the argument was in favor of the minimum wage law in 1937 when it passed @ 25 cents per hour?  The whole concept of a minimum wage law is bogus.  Cradle to grave government?  You create a dependency on the government in every new generation with the MWL.  It destroys independent thinking!  What will you you do when government fails you?
 
 
2) The MWL is already the most inflationary set of laws ever passed by congress.  Do you remember the 20% inflation under Jimmy Carter?  A direct link to the MWL increase of 1960 and the following years.  Do you remember the question posed by candidate Ronald Reagan in the presidential debates of 1980, "Are you better off than you were four years ago? " Did you notice who got elected?  Did you notice the riots in France when they proposed an adjustment in the 'job for life' employment concept.  There will come a time in our future when we will realize the stupidity of this kind of interference in the economic lives of our citizens.  Just remember how hard it is to un-ring a bell.
 
3) The only group to benefit from the MWL are property owners who can raise the rents when they think the market has any extra cash available.  Think of the barber shop owner, he wants to make a living and pay his rent.  He will need to raise the price he charges to meet his own needs.  Back in the fifties, you could get a haircut for about 50 cents, now it starts at $10.  That is inflation!  Don't forget to look at congress and their $500 annual increase, year after year.  What a 'MWL' they have!  They are so smart(and the public is so stupid) that they don't even have to vote on it, its automatic!
 
4) How do you teach children to be responsible individuals, if they cannot get a job?  I guess everyone will work for the government pretty soon.  Look at the low paid workers in the military.  And on TV, they sell it by saying they will pay for higher education.  Risk your life and we might pay for college.  No wonder minorities makeup most of the military population.

 

5) Up until 1960 at $1 ph, the MWL had no great economic impact on our society.  In the Summer of 61, after we got a 35% increase in the 'MWL', we got the 'flower children' and 'drugs' and a drop-out generation.  This was a large part of the 'baby boomer' generation.  What I do not see is a sociological study on the impact of the MWL on our society.  Congress wants a study on everything else! 

 

There are a lot of papers on the economics associated with the 'MWL', and none on the social impact derived from the inflation and the loss of jobs of young people.  Cato institute has several.  Where are the sociologists on this subject?

 

One thing that always bothers me is that whenever I try to have a rational discussion on the subject of the 'MWL', I almost always get the comment that it doesn't buy much in today's terms.  That is not the relevant concept.  The 'MWL' is an 'entry level position', and learning is the issue.  You hear everyday how the schools are failing to educate.  The education then falls to the small business community to try to make a profit while training these 'new hires' in the ways of business.  BTW, most children get their first job with small business in this country.  Children live at home with their parents, and do not pay rent.  With entry level employees it is about being 'productive', not about how much money they make.  When they are productive, they are worth more.  And, if they don't get it, they are free to sell their skills elsewhere. 

 

The 'MWL' has created more problems than it has solved.  The poor are still poor!  More of our population works for the minimum wage than ever before.  The concept of helping the poor cannot be solved by inflecting all of society with the 'MWL'.  Educating them is the only way.  Burdening small business with the costs of the 'MWL' is only a method for more failure.  Just look at the difference in economic terms of the big cities and rural America.  A small business might be able to survive in the city with some commercial activity, but how does one create enough commercial activity to support a number of employees out in the hinder-land?  A few have done that, but very few!  In the meantime, since there are few(if any) jobs in small town America, all the children head off to the big city.

 

Take immigration, the poor farmer working the fields South of the border, and probably has a large family, sends his sons to 'Del Norte', where the 'MWL' will give him much more income than he can earn in the fields with his family.  The U.S. has very porous borders and a lot get through.  No other country in the world allows their borders to be breached, as is the case in this country.  It becomes a political question.

 

R.H.Smith
P.O.Box 7010
Van Nuys, CA 91409-7010

 

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