A $15 Minimum Wage Is Not the Best Way to Help Poor Workers

[Warpy]

38. I call right wing BULLSHIT

"But there a few problems with this logic. For one, most minimum wage earners are not poor adults. They are, instead, young people (ages 16 to 24) or second earners in families where a spouse has a higher-wage job. So minimum wage increases help some poor heads of households, but is not well-targeted on them."

This BULLSHIT has been trotted out by cheap labor conservatives at least ten times a year. They keep throwing it at the wall to see if it will stick to halfwits who just read Ayn Rand for the first time.

Here's the bad news from the BLS. https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/archive/characteristics-of-minimum-wage-workers-2014.pdf Scroll down a few pages for the table to get to the tl;dr.

You will then notice that the younger workers are a minority. Nearly four times as many minimum wage workers are over 25 years old. In fact, other sources have estimated the median age of a minimum wage worker to be 37. Most are white. Most have children to support.

A $15/hour would definitely help all workers, as increases in the minimum wage are also felt by those earning above it. It will help businesses by increasing demand for goods and services. It will help the government by providing tax revenue where previously there was little to none.

So peddle that right wing BULLSHIT somewhere else. People here at DU recognize it for what it is, justification to keep paying people who work their asses off less than it takes to house and feed them and this is the height of immorality and proof that corporations can never be expected to pay workers what they're worth.