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Minimum Wage Hypocrisy
Creators Syndicate ^ | January 23, 2013 | Liberty Belle/Betsy McCaughey

Posted on 01/22/2013 2:06:08 PM PST by jazusamo

Battles are brewing in New York, California, Minnesota and the nation's capitol over hiking minimum wages. In all three state legislatures and in Congress, Democrats have the votes to ram the hikes through.

These politicians are claiming the moral high ground, saying it will help the poorest in our communities. Don't be fooled. Hiking the minimum wage hurts — not helps — the lowest paid workers, especially young black men. A 10 percent hike in the minimum wage causes a 2.5 percent drop in employment among young white men without a high school diploma and a staggering 6.5 percent drop among young black men without that degree. Young black males get clobbered three times as hard because they tend to work in the fast food and restaurant industries, where any increase in labor costs produces layoffs.

The first federal minimum wage was enacted in 1938 and set at 25 cents an hour.

It has gradually increased to $7.25 an hour. What has also increased steadily is the evidence that raising minimum wages benefits some workers but harms the least employable jobseekers. Sadly, politicians ignore that evidence and bamboozle the public with oversimplified claims that raising the wage minimum is doing good.

In his Jan. 9 State of the State address, New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo climbed atop his moral pedestal to announce that raising the state's minimum wage was the right thing to do. You can't take care of a family on $14,600 a year (the yearly income equivalent of minimum wage) in a state where childcare costs $10,000 a year, he lectured. But Cuomo's pitch was misleading. He left out that the typical minimum wage employee is young, with few skills and little or no job experience. Half are under age 25, and a quarter haven't completed high school...

(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: betsymccaughey; minimumwage
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Betsy McCaughey and Thomas Sowell are firmly on the same page regarding minimum wage.
1 posted on 01/22/2013 2:06:10 PM PST by jazusamo
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To: jazusamo

The federal minimum wage is illegitimate. Where in the Constitution does it give the federal government the authority to tell me how much I have to pay someone?


2 posted on 01/22/2013 2:10:25 PM PST by wny
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To: wny

Minimum Wage is so passe. Now it’s a “Living” wage they want. You can’t support a wife and 2.6 children on Minimum Wage. $25 an hour to work at McDonald’s is the wave of the future.


3 posted on 01/22/2013 2:12:40 PM PST by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)
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To: jazusamo

They’re aiming too low.
Make it $25 an hour and everybody will be really well off.
Stroke of the pen / law of the land.


4 posted on 01/22/2013 2:12:51 PM PST by nascarnation (Baraq's economic policy: trickle up poverty)
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To: wny

You may be missing the point. Raising the minimum wage is also a backhanded way to increase taxes. Income taxes, FICA will go up if people earn more money.


5 posted on 01/22/2013 2:14:39 PM PST by lafroste
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To: wny

You’re correct...Leftists, Communists and Democrats (I repeat myself) don’t give a whit.


6 posted on 01/22/2013 2:15:02 PM PST by jazusamo ("Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent." -- Adam Smith)
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To: jazusamo
Raising the minimum wage, with the corresponding reduction in jobs and rise in unemployment, doesn't really help the unskilled workers.

It does help union workers whose contracts are often tied to the minimum wage rate by giving them an increase.

So, the union members get an increase and the unskilled workers have a harder time finding any job at all thanks to these democrats.

7 posted on 01/22/2013 2:17:49 PM PST by Teotwawki (For a person to get a thing without paying for it, another must pay for it without getting it.)
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To: Teotwawki
It does help union workers whose contracts are often tied to the minimum wage

Exactly!

8 posted on 01/22/2013 2:19:47 PM PST by jazusamo ("Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent." -- Adam Smith)
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To: jazusamo

The people these Democrats represent are not intelligent enough to understand that at a higher minimum wage they will not get hired.
A higher wage just sounds good.

Most of them don’t want to work at any wage.So it really doesn’t effect them anyway.


9 posted on 01/22/2013 2:20:09 PM PST by Venturer
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Please bump the Freepathon or click above and donate or become a monthly donor!

10 posted on 01/22/2013 2:21:11 PM PST by jazusamo ("Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent." -- Adam Smith)
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To: Teotwawki

marx dayton is owned by the unions.

this will pass in MN.


11 posted on 01/22/2013 2:33:06 PM PST by TurboZamboni (Looting the future to bribe the present)
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To: wny
The federal minimum wage is illegitimate. Where in the Constitution does it give the federal government the authority to tell me how much I have to pay someone?

I agree 100% with your well-chosen words. The minimum wage is nothing more than a modern form of slavery since it prohibits a worker and employer from setting an agreeable rate of pay. The false bottom of the minimum wage was another of Franklin Diablo Roosevelt's attack on freedom and liberty. And don't get me started on tri-corn hat wearing Frances Perkins who headed the Department of Labor during that corrupt administration. I'll just say that she's enjoying an eternal marshmallow roast with the equally evil Ted Kennedy.

So much of what's wrong with America can be traced to the trio of American-hating leftists: Perkins, Henry Wallace and Harry Hopkins, both shown below seated adjacent to Satan's disciple:


12 posted on 01/22/2013 2:35:38 PM PST by re_nortex (DP...that's what I like about Texas.)
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To: massgopguy
$25 an hour to work at McDonald’s is the wave of the future.

Only if they can coerce the public into paying $15 for a burger and a Coke. Or have I given away phase two?

13 posted on 01/22/2013 2:48:11 PM PST by TruthShallSetYouFree (July 4, 1776: Declaration of Independence. Nov 6, 2012: Declaration of Dependence. R.I.P. America.)
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To: wny
Where in the Constitution does it give the federal government the authority to tell me how much I have to pay someone?

It's on the same page that makes abortion legal, and just after the page that makes owning guns illegal.

14 posted on 01/22/2013 2:51:24 PM PST by TruthShallSetYouFree (July 4, 1776: Declaration of Independence. Nov 6, 2012: Declaration of Dependence. R.I.P. America.)
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To: jazusamo

We’re going to be stacking our own burgers and wrapping our own burritos pretty soon. That’s cool ‘cause I’ll sneak in extra cheese.


15 posted on 01/22/2013 2:56:30 PM PST by PatriotCause (California Sucks)
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To: Venturer

When employers cut people who currently work 40 hours a week at minimum wage ($290 a week) back to 29 hours, the only fair thing to do is to raise minimum wage to $10 an hour to make up for their loss. /s

Or perhaps that was the plan all along


16 posted on 01/22/2013 3:01:47 PM PST by BSehon
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To: PatriotCause

It would be feasible, with current technology, to completely automate fast food assembly.

Grocery stores already have cashierless checkout lines.

It wouldn’t be a huge jump for McDonalds to completely eliminate nearly the entire staff of a retail location and replace them with machines.

There’d probably be fewer order mistakes too...


17 posted on 01/22/2013 3:07:08 PM PST by chrisser (Senseless legislation does nothing to solve senseless violence.)
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To: jazusamo

What battle? If democrats have the votes, they WILL force it down the throats of the residents. Then, when their voter “base” squeal like little piggies that they have lost their jobs, the democrats can raise taxes to pay for all the little piggies to get government checks.


18 posted on 01/22/2013 3:18:33 PM PST by freeangel ( (free speech is only good until someone else doesn't like it)
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To: chrisser
Grocery stores already have cashierless checkout lines.

I use the one in our local store all the time. They offer a scanner to use on your shopping trip so you can scan stuff as you buy it. I LOVE it because I bring several bags with me, scan the items, and load them as I go through the store. When I get to the checkout, I 'scan' the scanner, scan my Shopper's card, run my credit card through to pay, and wait for the receipt to print. Then I just walk out and load my groceries in the car, because they're ready to go!

19 posted on 01/22/2013 5:38:22 PM PST by SuziQ
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To: lafroste
Raising the minimum wage is also a backhanded way to increase taxes.

Many Union Contracts are tied to minimum wages, raise the minimum wage, and union workers automatically get a pay raise.

20 posted on 01/22/2013 5:46:14 PM PST by dfwgator
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