Don’t Raise the Minimum Wage to $15

National Review ^ | 1/15/2021 | Rammesh Ponnuru

[Onthebrink]

The economists found that this led to a 9% reduction in low-wage jobs. The pay increase it generated didn’t make up for the reduction in employment, and earnings fell for low-wage workers overall.

[stremba]

Gee, increase minimum wage. Relax border restrictions and allow an increasing influx of illegal immigrants. What could possibly go wrong?!

Nah, there won’t be a massive increase in unemployment and a massive decline in real wages for lower class Americans. /s

[newzjunkey]

Without an underclass of citizens, Democrats do not get votes.

I wasn't even a legal adult when I realized that why they were so keen on illegal immigration. They require a permanent underclass to maintain power. They'll never solve anything because it's in their interests to keep problems around and blame the opposition.

[Fightin Whitey]

Without an underclass of citizens, Democrats do not get votes.

The non-working underclass are now the overlords.

[Vaduz]

Minimum wage is called so for a reason you don’t know very much about anything yet.
Got to give some thought to why it’s called climbing the ladder .

[poconopundit]

The life cycle of plants is the most demonstrative example there is of capitalism in action...

* * * *

Great, alloysteel. I love analogies to nature. And I think this could be a touchpoint for younger folk who talk about "organic" and "sustainable".

The trouble is they have a hard time noticing that organic and sustainable processes are just as crucial in building a society or running a business.

Here's an Emerson with a Nature and Business analogy:

The men of the mine, telegraph, mill, map, and survey,-- the monomaniacs, who talk up their project in marts, and offices, and entreat men to subscribe: -- how did our factories get built? how did North America get netted with iron rails, except by the importunity of these orators, who dragged all the prudent men in?

This speculative genius is the madness of few for the gain of the world. The projectors are sacrificed, but the public is the gainer. Each of these idealists, working after his thought, would make it tyrannical, if he could. He is met and antagonized by other speculators, as hot as he.

The equilibrium is preserved by these counteractions, as one tree keeps down another in the forest, that it may not absorb all the sap in the ground.

And the supply in nature of railroad presidents, copper-miners, grand-junctioners, smoke-burners, fire-annihilators, etc., is limited by the same law which keeps the proportion in the supply of carbon, of alum, and of hydrogen.

Wealth from The Conduct of Life (1860, rev. 1876)

The time was a bit too early for Emerson to anticipate an Amazon, Apple, Standard Oil, or globalist interlocking monopolies.

What I fear most right now is the crushing of small business. The well-heeled "speculators" are in cahoots with the Media, High Tech, and governments to use Covid19 to drive a stake in the heart of the little guy.

And most definitely, a rise in minimum wages hurts small business.