Posted by
The Voice of Truth on Saturday, December 16, 2006 5:03:10 PM
Nancy Pelosi has vowed that on the agenda within the first 100 hours of the democratic party take over of the House of Representatives will be to increase the current federal minimum wage of $5.15/hr to $7.15/hr. Hiking the minimum wage, on the surface, sounds like the compassionate thing to do doesn't it? i mean who can live on $5.15/hr.? Or even $6.00? Can you? I know i can't!
But now let's take a look at some facts about minimum wage. Who actually works that cheap? My 17 year old daughter recently obtained her first job at McDonalds starting at $6.00/hr (not $5.15). My son, having just obtained his first job about a year ago at age 20, is making that much as well. Both are living at home. Translation: I am flipping the bill. They have no cost of living. that is unless you count the big macs or movies they take in with their friends.
Here are some statistics that my children fall right in the middle of things. Economist Dr. Walter E. Williams states in Capitalism Magazine, workers earning the minimum wage or less tend to be young, single workers between the ages of 16 and 25; only about 2 percent of workers over the age of 25 earn minimum wages. Moreover, 63% of minimum wage workers receive raises within one year of employment, and only 15% still earn the minimum wage after three years. Furthermore, only 5.3 of minimum wage earners are from households below the official poverty line; 40% live in households with incomes $60,000 and higher.
The U.S. Department of Labor reports "According to Current Population Survey estimates for 2004, some 73.9 million American workers were paid at hourly rates, representing 59.8 percent of all wage and salary workers. Of those paid by the hour, 520,000 were reported as earning exactly $5.15."
That is the dirty little secret the liberals will not tell you. The liberals would like us all to think that the average American is struggling by, not able to put food on the table and having to decide between feeding his kids or paying the light bill all because he is making minimum wage when in reality, no one or very few are actually getting paid at that rate. And the ones that are getting paid that, I have a solution to pull you out of the poverty you put yourself in. Learn a trade and quit relying on the government to help you out. They will never get you where you can get on your own..
Now, for arguments sake, let's assume for an instant that many Americans are only getting paid $5.15/hr and the facts I stated earlier are all bogus. Just for the record, I am going to "steal" an argument from Rush Limbaugh (Ok I just lost half of the readers). Why stop at $7.15? What is so magical about that amount? why not just go to $10.00/hr? Or $20.00? Better yet, let's just raise it to $50,000/yr. If $7.15/hr will do the trick, just think how well $50,000 will do?
I want to raise two well established facts about minimum wage increases that again, the liberals don't want to tell us.
1. Employers will be forced to raise their prices or cut jobs to compensate for the sudden overhead they have been slapped with. When i first informed my son and daughter that their pay would go up over a dollar an hour if congress does pass this, they were ecstatic. On the surface, once again, it looks great. And then I started to explain to them what they would have to start paying for a big mac, or a movie ticket when the merchant raises the price. They lost their enthusiasm real quick. And that is the good side. The bad side is my daughter or son might be one of the ones the employer will have to let go to cover his expenses which would, obviously, have a diverse effect on our record breaking low unemployment rate of 4.4%.
Are liberals gullible enough to think the employer will just suck it up and eat $90.00 a week per employee extra without passing it on down to the consumer? And then what about the person that is already making $7.15/hr? Now, all of a sudden he or she is only making minimum wage when they worked so hard to get those pay raises for the last couple years. The employer is now faced with a dilemma. They will be forced to raise that employees pay or risk the possibility of losing a good employee.
2. And then there are the Unions. If the Unions can get legislation passed, it will do two things for them. 1.) they can gain bargaining position for higher wage contracts, and 2.) raise their monthly dues. Council of Trade Unions' President Ross Wilson has indicated he would like to see a minimum wage increase of $12.00/hr. Bottom line: More money in his pocket!
My solution is that we completely do away with the minimum wage which would make pay more competitive. The majority of employers want good help and will pay to get it. They don't need the government to regulate how much they should have to pay. Anytime the government sticks their hands into it, whether it is minimum wage, education, or even airport security, the system becomes broken