Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Minnesota House passes an increase in the minimum wage to $9.50 per hour.
Sure, it’s the highest in the nation; but if they made it $100 per hour, we could ALL be rich.
Cheap bastards.
Joe Doakes
Where’s the ambition to do Big Things, Joe?
Make it $500 an hour. In a 2000 hour year, that makes everyone a millionaire!
And then think of how well off our state would be, because then everyone will be paying their “fair share” of taxes.
So we can all make $500/hour, and pay $497 of that in taxes. That will make us all millionaires and paupers at once.
An economist will tell you that the increase will lead to greater automation, and will result in greater unemployment of marginal employees. A worker who is worth $6.50/hr does not magically become worth $9.50/hr because of some silly law; they simply won’t be hired or their job will be eliminated.
So why not a minimum wage of $100/hr?
It will hurt the people who vote DFL. Someone in the DFL caucus determined that raising the minimum wage to $9.50/hr won’t make anyone vote against them, and may make people vote against the people who oppose the increase.
Under-reach, or reach-around?
If it goes through, all we need to do is to look at how things go across the St. Croix and Mississippi, and see the difference where adults are running the legislature.
That said, the Burger King in town here is advertising $10/hour, so hopefuly for kids, this turns out to be irrelevant.
With the gay marriage issue pretty much a done deal, you have to admit that the DFL came through, and no one is claiming over-reach, only victory. No one will care about a special session on the tiny chance it happens although I am curious about all the secret closed-door meetings that are deciding all taxing and spending for the next biennium.
This subject of the minimum wage comes up again and again just like gun control.
Every economist knows that it’s a job-killer and hits the low-end laborer the hardest.
Still, if we’re stuck with these annual rituals, I have a suggestion for determining a just and living wage: tie the rate to the per-hour cost of the golf pro currently teaching the sitting president. In our case, that would mean a federal minimum wage of $1000 per hour.
That seems just, fair and living, and besides, it would be great for the children.
Given that the golf pro I’ve heard of teaching Mr. Obama is “Tiger Woods,” I’m guessing your numbers are a bit low, Tony. :^)