"Why stop at $10 an hour? Why not raise it to $50 or $100 or $1,000 dollars an hour??" [View all]

[HughBeaumont]

Of all the ridiculous strawmen the Republicans come up with, regarding the much, MUCH needed raise to the federal minimum wage, this has to be one of the most idiotic.

It's not only being tossed by every Homer, Jabez and Bertha Sue chiming in on the wingnut-laden internets, it's the go-to of right-wing pundits (Kevin O'Leary) and even supposedly educated economists (like Lindsey Piegza, for instance).

But hey, as long as we're playing this card, you know, why not LOWER the minimum wage to 4 bucks an hour?

How about TWO an hour (while I'm being facetious, jerks like Peter Schiff are for real with that figure)? Hey, why hold back and just simply demand workers PAY their businesses for the privilege of working there???

It's re-branded Feudalism, regressive and immoral, that's why.

More buying power in the hands of people who need to spend every dime is simply a smarter long game for economic health, and pretending tax cuts are a viable substitute for an increase in a sustained income is the folly of the Von Mises set.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-zombeck/the-ridiculous-minimum-wage-argument_b_5565074.html

I'm not sure when we became a nation of greedy, hateful pigs, but I do remember a time when a business took pride in not only their workmanship, but in the fact that they were creating jobs in their community. They gave people a purpose and a living wage. It allowed a person the dignity of being self-sufficient and the security of taking care of themselves and their family. In return the company got dedication, loyalty and a product or service that others wanted to buy. Henry Ford, one of the country's biggest manufacturing icons made a point of making sure that his employees earned enough to buy a car. Today, we have Walmart workers, who despite working full time are so poorly paid that they have to rely on taxpayer subsidized food stamps, welfare and Medicare totaling more than $1 million per store.


So, it's interesting that the recent news of job market 'improvement' doesn't mention that of the ten occupation categories projecting the greatest growth in the next eight years, only one pays a middle-class wage. Four pay barely above poverty level and five pay beneath it, including fast-food workers, retail sales staff, health aids and janitors. The job expected to have the highest number of openings is 'personal care aide'--taking care of aging baby boomers in their houses or in nursing homes. The median salary of an aid is under $20,000. They enjoy no benefits and about 40 percent of them must rely on food stamps and Medicaid to make ends meet, plus many are in the 'shadow economy,' vulnerable to being cheated on the already miserly wages.



That means the father or mother with a couple of kids, now looking at the degree they have from some university they probably still owe money to, is going to take whatever they can get to pay for the roof over their head and to put food on the table. They may even need to take two. It also means that the boomer couple who lost their pension, 401k, savings, and home value as a result of the felonious acts of the same corporations who are now opposing a living wage, isn't going to retire when they thought they would and will be looking into landing one of those jobs. That's who members of Congress are giving the finger to. People do what they need to do to survive. It's been that way since the beginning of time and this country has proven time and time again that when the going gets tough, the tough get going, but the argument and the opposition to allowing people a living wage for full time work is frankly embarrassing.