Posted on 06/18/2016 12:18:17 PM PDT by Kaslin
Following the lead of a several trodden upon, yet Democrat-controlled municipalities, Washington D.C. recently approved a bill raising the minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour by 2025. This move has been hailed by leftists as a triumph for equality and the little guys. Except minimum wage laws were first proposed by racists to keep minorities down, and current minimum wage laws further disenfranchise those in our society who are already disenfranchised.
To help understand, a brief history lesson is in order. At the risk of wandering off topic, this brief history lesson will also serve to demonstrate why many leftists don’t want the universities under their progressively oppressive thumbs teaching history. Their entire program would have its rotten, totalitarian heart exposed if students were allowed to see how unkindly history looks upon the leftist agenda.
If, for example, burgeoning leftists learned that the minimum wage was first instituted in British Columbia in 1925 in order to price immigrants from Japan out of the lumber industry’s job market, would they begin to question the validity of their leftist ideology? And that inconvenient truth only foreshadows the racism inherent in the origins of minimum wage laws in the United States.
The migration of African-Americans to the industrial centers of the North brought a host of competent, hardworking laborers to bustling factories. Those laborers, of course, were black. This didn’t sit well with either the white factory workers or many of their white bosses. With the backing of business owners as well as the labor unions controlled by whites, a racist Congress passed the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931. The Act’s sole purpose was to force African-Americans out of the job market.
Over the course of the first few decades of the twentieth century, country after country enacted minimum wage laws as a means to price minorities, including women, out of the workforce. Some of the biggest and most vocal supporters of minimum wage laws were eugenists, especially the racist and classist Sidney Webb. Minimum wage laws are racist in origin and have a racist objective.
Unfortunately, the agenda of early twentieth century leftists has proven effective; minimum wage laws are still bearing racist fruit today. Specifically, low-skilled minorities are being priced out of the job market. As small business owners are forced to pay a higher wage than their employees produce, employers are often forced to cut staff. A story published by BET in 2011, highlighted the negative effect that minimum wage hikes have on black teens.
Another report, published by the American Legislative Exchange Council, unpacks several studies on the impact of minimum wage hikes. ALEC reports that, “The bottom line is that someone must pay for the costs associated with an increased minimum wage. Often, because a business cannot pay these costs, they are paid for by the individuals the minimum wage is intended to help — low-skilled, undereducated individuals – as they lose out on job opportunities.” Later, the report breaks it down even further and delivers the sobering news that, “A 10 percent increase in the minimum wage decreases minority employment by 3.9 percent, with the majority of the burden falling on minority youth whose employment levels will decrease by 6.6 percent.”
History is not kind to minimum wage laws as it uncovers racist supporters with racist objectives. Recent economic studies reveal the negative impact that minimum wage increases have on minorities. During an era when leftists are calling for any and all symbols of racism, real and imagined, to be denounced and torn down, leftists are still proudly advocating for racist minimum wage increases. This seeming contradiction within leftist ideology speaks far more loudly than leftists are willing to admit. They can deny the obvious for only so long before broader society is going to begin to wonder: “If minimum wage laws are known to have racist origins and have been proven to have a negative impact on minorities, doesn’t that make the supporters of a minimum wage increase racists?” The answer to that question is obvious.
By 2025?
Why not pass a law to make minimum wage $100/hr by 2050, or maybe that’s in there already.
Take a 1,000 kids looking for work. Their first job. Middle class and upper class kids will get most of what’s available. The minority kid, with zero job skills, will lose out time and time again. Without a first job, there is no second job and a chance to climb the economic ladder.
Civil rights laws condemn “disparate impact” which has a disproportionate “adverse impact” on persons in a protected class. Tobad they don’t apply that same “logic” to minimum wage laws.
It’sgonna be a hot summer.
Minimum Skills = Minimum Wage
Minimum wage cannot support a family, this is what they expect! They never finished school, they are unskilled yet they demand higher pay. They already have affirmative action where you do not need to have any skills but be the right color
It's easy to raise the minimum wage to whatever the libtards want. Just create enough new money out of thin air. But the inflation will be destructive to the economy, and the higher average money wage rates will not result in higher average real wage rates.
These days a minimum wage job is an entry level employment. What is weird is all these 40 and 50 year olds who refuse to acquire additional skills to move up on the employment ladder. And instead these dullards want 15.00$ an hour for teenage simpleton efforts. For a civilization to prosper there needs to be incentives to acquire useful knowledge to earn better living standards.
I’m thinking that many already have started a “family” or at least have children to support.
That was why they were started. They are left over from Jim Crow days and prior to that protected unions from “colored” cheap labor. All democrat policies by the way.
I have no idea what the “history” of the minimum wage may - or may not - have been.
But I know why we need one today.
We have a completely artificial, massive, oversupply of unskilled labor.
That oversupply has been caused by massive LEGAL immigration, which is a completely insane political policy that is enthusiastically supported by both Republicans and Democrats.
Supply and Demand.
If we stop importing millions of unskilled LEGAL immigrants, the minimum wage will go to $15 all by itself.
Hand outs, over time become toxic.
Here, I'll fix it.
To make things fair, make minimum wage $1 for middle class kids. None of them will apply for the jobs, which will leave a lot for minorities.
Then, make it $25 for minorities. They can get the jobs middle class kids didn't want.
Since most upper class kids don't do this kind of work, make them PAY $25 an hour and call it volunteering. Give them a certificate they can show people.
I’m surprised the dems aren’t pushing a maximum wage.
Does anybody really deserve to make more than $150 an hour? /sarc
When I started as a Deputy Sheriff is a small city in West Texas, I started at $11/hour (this county was ranked as the lowest paying LE job in the country :/)... but, I didn’t complain.. I was happy with the job (except the “red tape” politics involved) and was able to support myself at the time.
That they are wanting to pay higher wages to uneducated people (that are in no way protecting the populace) is very infuriating. I suppose, with the current homofag/muslim in office, he is doing exactly what he wanted to do do destroy USA. The next step to fracture what is left of USA is get Hitlery in office to finish the job (I pray that never happens)...
NOW... How long will it take to correct this situation and is it even possible anymore? (Can/will a future president walk back the stupid and insane laws to put us back where we were before to get sanity back?)
Working is TOO “whitey” just like getting good grades in school.....the Democrats have destroyed an entire RACE! And that same race LOVES THEM FOR IT!!! sad.....very sad.
Proof that slackers refuse to grow up and always have a hand out the useless to all.
Interesting..... Seattle employees ask for REDUCED work hours
Seattle employees ask for REDUCED hours so that “jacked-up” minimum wage won’t cost them subsidized housing: Gee, who could have seen this coming . . .
Now this is downright funny!!! They scream for a higher minimum wage . . when they get it they complain because they make too much money to qualify for the free stuff, go figure!!!
JULY 8, 2015 . . By jacking up minimum wage, Seattle has provided a valuable lesson in liberal economics. The plan has now backfired. Nora Gibson, executive director of Full Life Care, told KIRO 7 she saw a sudden reaction from workers when Seattle’s phased minimum-wage ordinance took effect in April, bringing minimum wage to $11 an hour.
She said anecdotaly, some people feared they would lose their subsidized housing so they have asked that their work hours be reduced to remain eligible for all government subsidies. It doesn’t stop at $11/hour. The law puts it up to $15 starting in January, 2017. They will have to reduce their work hours even more to remain eligible for HANDOUTS!!!!
Good thing the minimum wage wasn’t raised even higher - most would not work at all - they prefer to be spoon fed and remain on the government gravy train!!!
Remember free market capitalism? Under that system, the harder and smarter you worked, the higher your standard of living. But that was found to result in income inequality, so now we have a system where wealth is bestowed by bureaucrats, and working harder doesn’t always make sense!!!
ISN’T AMERICA A GREAT COUNTRY?
A large majority of Americans, even in “conservative” states, favor higher minimum wages. They lack economics education.
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