Posted on 07/28/2014 6:26:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
Kristen Bell. You were so great as sassy, wisecracking teen detective in Veronica Mars. And I teared up right along with you about sloths on the Ellen Show. But while your Mary Poppins spoof to pump up support for raising the minimum wage was definitely cute and well-produced, it was a little fact-challenged.
Bell’s argument, made in rhyme, boils down to: raise the minimum wage three bucks to bump all workers over the poverty line. Seems simple, doesn’t it? And appealing. Who doesn’t want fewer people living in poverty? Who could object to a “living wage?” But in politics, the simplest answer isn’t always the best one. (Which is a good enough reason on its own to hate politics.)
Raising the minimum wage only works to alleviate poverty if two things are true. First, it must be true that low wages, and not unemployment, is the biggest factor in poverty. Second, it must be true that raising the minimum wage does not, in fact, lead to decreased employment.
Unfortunately for Bell, and us, neither is true. Wouldn’t it be nice if the Democratic narrative on the minimum wage were even closely aligned with reality. All we’d have to do is fight those greedy CEOs who don’t want to have to pay their workers more and pass a law to raise the federal minimum wage $3 and *poof* millions of people are boosted above the poverty line and are finally able to enjoy a living wage.
The reality is quite different. CEOs actually love to raise the minimum wage, and actively lobby for it. Walmart, that liberal boogeyman, supports raising the minimum wage. As does Starbucks. Costco too. Samefor McDonald’s. Muh narrative! Why? "McDonald's will be fine," CEO Don Thompson reportedly told Northwestern. "We'll manage through whatever the additional cost implications are."
Small businesses, on the other hand, won’t. In fact, Wal-Mart and Costco already pay significantly higher hourly wages than the current federal minimum, on average. It’s far more difficult for a small business which hasn’t yet turned a profit to pay its part-time workers high amounts, and executives know this.
But Bell, and Democrats, aren’t just wrong about the narrative. Their facts are also mixed up. Again, raising the minimum wage only decreases poverty if low hourly wages contribute more to poverty than unemployment and underemployment. They don’t.
In the video, Bell tells a cute little story, in rhyme, about a penguin who needs a second job after his full-time one to pay the bills. But the vast majority of people who work multiple jobs do so not because their first one doesn’t pay well enough, but because they don’t have a full-time job.
Looking at who’s living in poverty, only 1 in 10 have full-time, year-round work. Two-thirds of people in poverty don’t work at all, according to the U.S. Census. The problem isn’t that Mr. Penguin isn’t making enough money at his job. It’s that he’s not working enough because there isn’t enough full-time work for all the people who want it. The unemployment rate is 12.2 percent once you include people who are employed part-time but who want full-time work and workers who are discouraged.
How does raising the minimum wage help him, especially when it may make it even harder to find work? Again, a lack of employment, not low wages, is the heart of the matter.
Complicating factors make it impossible to tease out the actual impact of minimum wage hikes on employment. However, simple math would tell you two things. First, if the minimum wage can be increased by law with no adverse impact on employment, why not raise it to $50 per hour? Or $100? I’d much rather be making that than $10. The most likely truth is that employment doesn’t take a nosedive when government hikes the minimum wage because the increases are moderate, employment depends on many factors, and most big businesses are already paying that much.
What we don’t see in the data is how many new, innovative startups have to shut their doors because they can’t affordably employ anyone anymore. The failure rate for startups in the US is astronomical, no doubt in part due to how expensive it is to employ workers. This robs the US economy of new businesses, new jobs, and transformative new technologies.
I love you Kristen Bell. I really do. I love you, and sloths, and satirical send ups of cultural memes. But I love disruptive innovation and the prosperity and great jobs it brings even better. The narrative you’re selling around the minimum wage is simple. It’s cheeky, and it’s fun. But it’s wrong. To end poverty we need jobs. And to get jobs we need fewer rules around employment, fewer tariffs, fewer regulations, fewer corporate taxes, and less cronyism like minimum wage hikes.
entertainers......what don’t they know.
Hollywood morons....their agents, managers and accountants must rip them off constantly! :)
If you want to find out the “real” level of poverty in this country, let’s give the German Workfare System a try. Under this system, if you can fog a mirror and are collecting any type of gov’t transfer payments, you show up at 7AM for work M-F at a gov’t job. That might be cleaning toilets, washing the street...something that makes you work 8 hours each day. Evidently, people would rather find a “real” job than put up with the kind of jobs the gov’t offers under this system. Sounds like a plan to me.
I never take seriously anything people who dress up and play pretend for a living say.
Who?
Stupid attempt. “Mary Poppins” shows how taxes have drained her take home pay and then goes on demand a higher wage as if taxes won’t drain that as well. Just pure intellectual disconnect directed at morons who are incapable of rational thought.
Btw, the author missed that point as well as others that have tried to put down Bell’s asinine skit.
Here’s the simplest way to put the minimum wage argument:
If an apple has a actual value of 25 cents,
and the gov’t demands that apples be priced at 50 cents,
there will be (at first) a lot of people providing apples at 50 cents,
and very few buyers of apples at 50 cents.
If a worker’s output is worth $5 per hour,
and the gov’t requires employers to pay $10 per hour,
there will be a lot more people willing to work for $10 per hour,
and much fewer “buyers” at $10 per hour.
This is called “unemployment”.
Missing from this article, as with so many, is that Union wages are indexed to the minimum wage. So, all the useful idiots go out and commit employment suicide so that already-overpaid union shills can suck even more productivity out of the economy.
I never take seriously anything people who dress up and play pretend for a living say.
***************
They are nothing but clueless script readers who live in an artificial and emotional world, not the world of objectivity and hard facts.
The reality is that minimum wage jobs are either entry level jobs for young workers, part time jobs for people looking for extra cash or jobs fir very low skilled workers.
As soon as the minimum wage is raised, the wage hike rolls through the economy as many Union Wage scales are tied to the minimum wage.
Higher wage costs fuel inflation of goods and services which raise prices to the point that they offset and purchase power increase from the wage hike.
So the minimum wage makes not only it harder for young or low skilled workers to obtain entry level jobs , it does not raise the living standards of the low wage workers , it just sets a higher priced bottom floor of the economy for them to live in and a steeper set of stairs to climb the job ladder
The local government where I live tried to implement something along these lines. Anyone living in public housing who was not disabled and not employed was to be required to put in 20 hours a MONTH doing routine maintenance type work around the community, such a planting flowers, mowing lawns, cleaning up trash, etc. The plan was defeated by local liberals. Their “logic”? It was discriminatory to force people to work in order to have housing. Now, I don’t know what anyone’s housing situation is on here, but I guess I have been discriminated against without even realizing it! If I quit working, I won’t be able to pay my mortgage and I’ll lose my house. I am being forced to work in order to maintain my housing — that’s discrimination!
If you elect me President I will make the minimum wage $1000/hour. There will be no more poverty. Everyone will only have to work one hour per day to make $5000/week. That’s over a quarter million a year. We all can drive fancy cars, fly airplanes and vacation in Colorado, chilling.
Hollweird has it's own set of accounting rules. Even the most successful movies NEVER becomes "profitable", sparing the Producers from paying bonuses, residuals, etc.
Just goes to show you how far out of whack this country is now.
Pretty, but stupid. Actually just pretty stupid.
She let Dax Shepard but a baby in her, obviously she’s not too bright.
They named the kid Lincoln. It’s a girl.
How about Jeffery, Roderick, Lawrence, Bleu Chesse, Space Cadet, Waffle Iron, or Barack? All fine names for their next daughter.
I liked her on Veronica Mars, but she pretty rapidly became unlikeable. Didn’t like her on Heroes, don’t like her on politics. She was another numbskull who said she wouldn’t marry until every Sodomite could as well.
She didn’t call them Sodomites, naturally.
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