Those Pesky Minimum Wage Increases.

If you want a healthy chuckle, just try bringing up the idea of raising the minimum wage to a room full of 14-year olds in the exurbs. Kids are generally a direct reflection of their parents' values, and you'll see no exception in this case. Upper middle class people are, by majority, against the idea of a minimum wage... let alone any increases. The same people that whine about tax revenues being directed toward social programs like welfare are quick to speak against any type of "living wage" standard. To me this reeks of contradiction.

I've actually read position papers that argued that minimum wage increases hurt the poor because welfare recipients are consequently attracted by better-paid work... and with the resultant rise in labor supply, there is more competition for jobs. Of course that argument is quickly discarded when they communicate their opposition to welfare programs. The people who offer such "considered concern" for the poor, whenever it suits their political agenda, never seem to get around to offering pragmatic alternatives for addressing poverty. They trot out their purely symbolic support for education. Yet they are always in the vanguard of opposition to public school funding. This sentiment is echoed by their children, when they assert that if the poor just went to college then they could make something of themselves... and not rely on a low wage job. These positions are effortlessly inherited with assurances that their parents will subsidize their higher education.

Finally we get to the real reason these folks oppose any type of wage increase (excepting their own "justified" demands for higher pay)... Prices are going to increase. These exurbanites benefit from cheap labor. They'd quite like to continue enjoying a consumer system built upon the sacred right of cheap labor. Yes, they'll continue to testify to their belief in the "free market"... while they feed at the trough of a system that exports jobs to foreign workers that will toil for pennies an hour. Of course Third World labor costs are an "artificial benefit", just as Western labor costs are an "artificial cost"... but that fact is never acknowledged. Neither is the aggressive foreign policy of their chosen leaders seen as an affront to the "free market trade" of oil. And the military costs that make it all possible? Well... never mind that. Maybe I'm getting a bit off the subject.


The next time someone tells you that they are against the minimum wage, ask him/her to sit down with you and work out a budget for a low wage worker. Here's a sample...

Here is a healthy twenty-something single male with no dependents, and no prior debt. He works 40 hours a week (whenever the company gives him that many hours.)

Makes 40 X $5.15/HR (current PA/federal hourly minimum)= $206/week= $824/month
Less 15% taxes = $700.
-$125 health insurance (catastrophic only) = $575
-$75 heat (budget monthly... very cheap) = $500
-$35 electric (budget monthly... cheap) = $465
-$140 food (peanut butter and ramen noodles) = $325
-$60 bus pass (month) = $265
-$25 (thrift store clothing) = $240
-$240 (rent -a - room) = $0

All these costs were deliberately set low. Notice what is missing... No phone. No cable. No internet. No car. No contraceptives. No beer. No movies. No videogames. No eating out. No gifts for friends and family. No emergency fund. Nothing for education. No savings account.

And what happens if you have a kid?
Good Luck, and welcome to America!