The minimum wage is the perfect Democratic issue. It will screw the very people it claims to help, while making Democrats look like saviors of the working class, either by getting them a higher wage or providing them with generous government benefits when they lose their jobs because of the mandatory wage hike.
Of course, the reason American workers’ wages are so low in the first place is because of the Democrats’ policies on immigration. Republicans might want to point that out.
Since the late 1960s, the Democrats have been dumping about a million low-skilled immigrants on the country every year, driving down wages, especially at the lower end of the spectrum.
According to Harvard economist George Borjas, our immigration policies have reduced American wages by $402 billion a year — while increasing profits for employers by $437 billion a year. (That’s minus what they have to pay to the government in taxes to support their out-of-work former employees. Of course, we’re all forced to share that tax burden.)
Or, as the White House puts it on its website promoting an increase in the minimum wage, “Today, the real value of the minimum wage has fallen by nearly one-third since its peak in 1968.”
Why were wages so high until 1968? Because that’s when Teddy Kennedy’s 1965 Immigration Act kicked in, bringing in about a million immigrants a year, almost 90 percent of them unskilled workers from the Third World.
Our immigration policies massively redistribute wealth from the poorest Americans to the richest. It’s a basic law of economics that when the supply goes up, the price goes down. More workers means the price of their labor plummets.
Unfortunately, politicians spend a lot more time talking to rich employers than to working-class Americans. And the rich apparently have an insatiable appetite for cheap labor.
Having artificially created a glut of low-wage workers, now Democrats want to artificially raise their wages.
It’s win-win-win-win-win for Democrats.
— Employees who get a higher minimum wage are grateful to the Democrats.
— Employees who lose their jobs because of the minimum wage hike are grateful to the Democrats for generous government handouts.
— Poor immigrants who need government benefits are grateful to the Democrats.
— American businesses enjoying the deluge of cheap labor are grateful to the Democrats.
— Democratic politicians guaranteed re-election by virtue of ethnic bloc voting are grateful to the Democrats.
Do Republicans have any principles at all? Why isn’t the GOP demanding an end to this dump of unskilled workers/Democratic voters on the country?
Democrats show how much they love the poor by importing a million more of them to America each year. But then they prevent the last batch of poor immigrants from getting decent, well-paying jobs by bringing in another million poor people the next year.
You want a higher minimum wage? Turn off the spigot of low-wage workers pouring in to the U.S. and it will rise on its own through the iron law of supply and demand.
In response to the Democrats’ minimum wage proposal, Republicans should introduce a bill ending both legal and illegal immigration until the minimum wage rises naturally to $14 an hour.
Australia has a $15 minimum wage for adults — more than twice the U.S. minimum wage. Meanwhile, their official unemployment rate is lower than ours: 6 percent compared to 6.6 percent in the U.S. — and that’s with a lousy $7.25 minimum wage.
Sound good? Try immigrating there. Australia has some of the most restrictive immigration policies in the world. Their approach to immigration is to admit only people who will be good for Australia. (Weird!) Applicants are evaluated on a point system that gives preference to youth, English proficiency, education and skill level.
Similarly, New Zealand will soon have an official minimum wage of $14.25 for adults. Even our Democrats aren’t proposing that! New Zealand’s minimum wage hit $10.10 — the Democrats’ current proposal for us — back in 2006. Their unemployment rate is also 6 percent — up from several years of 4 percent unemployment a few years ago.
Like Australia, New Zealand’s immigration laws are based on helping New Zealand, not on helping other countries get rid of their poor people, which is our policy.
Instead of training the citizenry to look at the government as our paternal benefactor, distributing minimum wage laws and unemployment benefits in important election years, why don’t Republicans put an end to the artificial glut of low-wage, low-skilled workers being imposed on the country by our immigration laws?
Republicans could guarantee a $14 minimum wage simply by closing the pipeline of more than 1 million poor immigrants coming in every year.
Businessmen will gripe, but maybe the GOP could explain to their Chamber of Commerce friends that they will help them by slashing oppressive regulations, reining in government bureaucracies, passing tort reform, etc. They’ll also be able to cut taxes because the welfare state will shrink, a result of Americans going back to work.
But if the plutocrats insist on admitting another 30 million Democratic voters in order to get ever-cheaper labor, then, soon, Republicans won’t be in a position to help them at all.
Just to be fair, why not bump ALL wages about 40%.
I spoke to a large business executive about a week ago. They do manufacturing. He said, “If they pass the minimum wage hike, we’ll be able to afford to automate several parts of our production.”
What? Afford to automate? What he meant was, since the cost of business would go up? They would have the financial excuse to invest in machines and software to replace workers. After explaining this he added, “...especially if they ever get around to enforcing Obamacare.” They think their ROI would be 3 years against the potential cost of doing business if minimum wage is increased and Obamacare is enforced. He wouldn’t say how many workers would be replaced. But he did say it would be transitional over 18 months.
This is how minimum wage and Obamacare work in concert to destroy our economy. His biggest concern is the penalties that are being written up for employers who cut the work force to save costs under the Obamacare law. (I’m not sure what exactly that meant).
It was pretty revealing.
Why is it that these ‘increase minimum wage’ stories never point out the obvious?
The reason the current minimum wage doesn’t buy enough in the real world is that there are too many dollars chasing too few goods. The main reason for that is the huge increase in salaries for government workers. Instead of raising the minimum wage, cut government workers pay in half. It would not take long for the price of goods and services to fall and people making $7 an hour could afford things again.
Any law about a minimum wage is invalid. The government does not have the right to set a minimum wage, or a maximum wage, as it is trying to do.
The minimum wage is a sneaky way to crank up inflation. As wages rise, all other prices rise too.
Also, companies export labor to other countries which pay much less.
What’s the deal with the “one weird trick” phrase that seems to be popping up in ads and articles these days? I refuse to click the ads because they look stupid. What, if anything, am I missing?